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BRITAIN’S LEADING HISTORICAL RAILWAY JOURNAL

Vol. 29

•

No. 12

DECEMBER 2015

£4.40

IN THIS ISSUE

WILTSHIRE’S RAILWAYS

LNER BLUE PACIFICS IN COLOUR

THE EXMOUTH–CLEETHORPES HOLIDAY TRAIN

25 YEARS OF THE WINDSOR LINK

PENDRAGON

PUBLISHING

COMPRESSED AIR LOCOMOTIVES

WILLESDEN SHED IN COLOUR

RECORDING THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS

GREAT BOOKS FROM PENDRAGON

RAILWAYS IN RETROSPECT No.6

EAST COAST MAIN LINE

DISASTERS

By ADRIAN GRAY

£17.50

POST FREE

The East Coast route from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley is one of Britain’s

premier main line railways. Once the scene of the Victorian-era ‘Race to the North’, of

the ‘Flying Scotsman’ and epic feats of performance by Mallard and the famous ‘Deltic’

diesels, it has also been the scene of some of Britain’s most memorable rail disasters. This

book tells the story of how these disasters shaped the improvement of railway safety as

attention focussed on human error and design failure so that travel became both safer

and faster. The book provides powerful accounts of well-known disasters such as the

multiple collision in the snow at Abbott’s Ripton, the collision at Dunbar and the high-

speed derailment at Morpeth and shows how the type of accident changed over time

with thematic coverage of aspects such as problems with signalling or with pedestrians,

carriages and cars at crossings, culminating in the worst recent disaster, at Great Heck.

This is a book as much about people as it is about trains, for every ‘accident’ originated in

a mistake or a ﬂawed design. There are also the innocent victims, the heroic rescuers and

the painstaking investigators from the Board of Trade who together told a story which led

to lessons being learned and improvements made.

96 pages, card covers. • ISBN 978 1 899816 19 4

Index to locations and names is

available on the website

Compiled by Paul Chancellor. Captions by Ron White.

A COLOUR-RAIL JOURNEY

Colour-Rail has been known to transport enthusiasts for over thirty years and has amassed what

is probably the most comprehensive collection of colour images of railway motive power in the

country, with the aim of preserving as many of these images for posterity as possible and making

them available to all enthusiasts, either to purchase directly or to see them published.

Now, in association with Colour-Rail, we are pleased to present this very special compilation of

some of the choicest gems in the Colour-Rail Collection – most of which have never been seen

before. Over 200 pictures have been carefully selected to oﬀer a geographical tour of Britain,

including many unusual subjects and locations. The photographs have been chosen by Paul

Chancellor, the present owner of Colour-Rail, and have been characteristically captioned by Ron

White, founder of Colour-Rail and its previous owner.

£30.00

POST FREE

128 pages hardback ISBN 978 1 899816 18 7

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Vol 29 . No. 12

No. 296

DECEMBER 2015

RECORDING THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAY

Living in interesting times

During the late summer the BBC broadcast a season of programmes

with an ‘Indian theme’ and included among them were three dealing

with that country’s railway system, with Mumbai at the focus of the

presenters’ attention. There is, it seems, something special about India’s

railways and their place at the heart of that nation’s transport. Whether

for short-distance commuting or long-distance travel, railways are vital

in a country where roads tend to be less well developed and there was

no shortage of passengers ready to say how much they valued, even

loved, their railways. I suspect you’d ﬁnd less of that loving feeling here!

It struck me that Indian railways might be a reﬂection of Indian

life in general: an old system with a modern control centre, a chaotic

way of carrying on yet in its own way it somehow just seems to work!

I have, fortunately, never had to commute into and out of London

during the rush hours but that seems to be no more than mild jostling

when compared with the Mumbai equivalent: all-in scrimmaging to

board a train and success to the wiliest and most determined!

Railways there are a total way of life for their staﬀ and those who

earn a living on the back of them such as food and newspaper sellers,

as well as the local populace who wander to and fro across the tracks as

a means of general access in a casual manner which we would regard

as alarming in the extreme. But the thing is – it’s a national system,

vertically managed, joined-up in its operational structure, all that – and

it all apparently hangs together despite everything!

Given our Government’s propensity to invite foreign operators

to pitch for running trains over here, maybe we should let the

Indian railways have a go! The future ownership of the railways is

again on the agenda, or at least on that of the revised manifestation

of HM Opposition. I take no idealogical position on the state or

private ownership of the railway system; neither has proved perfect

and probably never will. However, I believe that no other nation

considering the privatisation of a state-owned railway has been

tempted by the fragmentation model practised here – which might

be a telling judgement on the soundness of the theory. We shall see

whether matters change in the future or stay the same; in either case

things probably won’t get better (since they seldom do), but whatever

unfolds railway politics will doubtless keep this magazine’s writers and

editors occupied for some years yet!

Political machinations lay behind the announcement early in the

year (by one of those odd coincidences just before the General Election)

that the Trans-Pennine route between Manchester, Leeds and York was

to be electriﬁed, along with the Midland Main Line to Sheﬃeld. Not long

after voting was out of the way both schemes were stopped – or, as the

Ministry elegantly put it, ‘paused’ – for further consideration. Now they

have been (less elegantly and more ungrammatically) ‘un-paused’ but

with longer achievement dates. Developments are awaited (though

not yet in the realm of being keenly anticipated) ‘in the fullness of time’

– and will doubtless be a subject for

Backtrack

historians of the future.

*****

This issue is where the 29th volume of

Backtrack

will terminate and as

you read the month’s little sermon the ﬁrst magazine of Volume 30

will be at an advanced stage of preparation. Thirty years is not a bad

achievement – and I’m sure

BT’s

founders and pioneers would have

been gratiﬁed to ﬁnd it well established and doing OK – but there is,

and always will be, much more to do.

At 30 we are, of course, still ‘newish kids on the block’ compared

with the likes of, say,

Railway Magazine.

The

was inaugurated in

1897 during the Diamond Jubilee year of Queen Victoria’s reign, just

ﬁve years after the abolition of the broad gauge on the Great Western

Railway, and its ﬁrst 30 years encompassed some momentous events

both on the railways and in the world of which they were part. There

was the eventual passing of the old Queen, the brief ﬂowering of the

Edwardian era before the death of the new King, the horrors of the Great

War, the ﬁrst Labour government, the General Strike; meanwhile the

railways saw the opening of the Great Central Railway – the ‘last main

line’, the grouping of companies into the ‘Big Four’, the ﬁrst LNER Paciﬁc

and GWR ‘Castle’, the beginnings of main line electriﬁcation...

During

BT’s

time we have marked the Diamond Jubilee of our

present Queen, lived through the ﬁrst coalition government since

the last war, celebrated the opening of the Channel Tunnel and the

East Coast route electriﬁcation and experienced the upheaval of the

privatisation of the railway system with all its ramiﬁcations current

and still to be revealed. There’s a sage benediction which supposedly

goes: “May you live in interesting times.” I rather suspect we might! And

perhaps even the Trans-Pennine electriﬁcation will have happened

before our 40th!

Looking back over this year’s volume, I note we have had another

ten new contributors making their welcome debuts on the

Backtrack

stage which is always an encouraging sign and more are already

waiting in the wings for 2016. And so, as the new Trans-Pennine

electric train of optimism runs into the ﬁrst snowdrift of winter and

becomes entangled in the blown-down overhead wires of fate, while

the replacement bus of inevitability sets out tentatively across the M62,

we raise a glass to the future and wish all our readers the compliments

of the season followed by a prosperous New Year!

25 Years of the Windsor Link

......................................708

Wiltshire’s Railways........................................................ 712

Golf and the Railways: The Links – Part Two

.........

719

Visiting Willesden Shed

.................................................

724

Return to the Waverley Route

....................................

728

R. Herbert Lapage – A Forgotten Engineer

and his Locomotives

.......................................................

731

A Cleaner at Hadleigh

....................................................

734

Eastern Blue

......................................................................

736

Contents

The Somerset & Dorset’s Exmouth–Cleethorpes

Holiday Train

.....................................................................

739

Passing Bredbury Junction

...........................................

743

Greasy Johnny and the Great Tay Whale

.................

744

The Formative Years of the Lancaster &

Carlisle Railway – Part Two

.........................................

750

Napsbury............................................................................. 758

It seemed like a Good Idea at the time

– Part Three

.......................................................................

760

Readers’ Forum

................................................................

763

Book Reviews

....................................................................

764

Index to Volume 29

.........................................................

766

LNER A4 Pacific No.60005

Sir Charles Newton

at York

locomotive shed in June 1950,

wearing the short-lived early

British Railways blue livery.

(Trevor Owen/Colour-Rail.com BRE538)

Publisher and Editor

MICHAEL BLAKEMORE

•

E-Mail

pendragonpublishing@btinternet.com

•

Tel

01347 824397

All Subscription Enquiries

01778 392024

(see inside back cover for details)

•

Trade Account Manager

Ann Williams

Design + Repro

Barnabus Design in Print

• Typesetting

Ian D. Luckett Typesetting •

IT Consultant

Derek Gillibrand

Printed by

Amadeus Press, Ezra House, West 26 Business Park, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire BD19 4TQ

Newstrade Distribution

Warners Group Publications Plc • Tel. 01778 391135

Contributions of material both photographic and written, for publication in BACKTRACK are welcome but are sent on the understanding that, although every care is taken, neither the editor or publisher can accept responsibility

for any loss or damage, however or whichever caused, to such material.

●

Opinions expressed in this journal are those of individual contributors and should not be taken as reflecting editorial policy. All contents of this

publication are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers

●

Copies of photographs appearing in BACKTRACK are not available to readers.

All editorial correspondence to:

PENDRAGON PUBLISHING • PO BOX No.3 • EASINGWOLD • YORK YO61 3YS •

www.pendragonpublishing.co.uk

DECEMBER 2015

PENDRAGON PUBLISHING 2015

707

PENDRAGON

PUBLISHING

New ballast shows that the Windsor Link

had not long been fully commissioned

when Class 47 No.47 501

Craftsman

was

photographed bringing the diverted

Carlisle–Paddington’s Network South

East stock round the curve on 23rd July

1989.

(Gavin Morrison)

25 YEARS OF THE

WINDSOR LINK

ALAN TAYLOR

reviews a successful railway network development in the

Manchester/Salford area and the new train services which resulted.

in the metropolis including Rochdale, Oldham

and Bury (the latter opened in 1879 and was

electrified by the Lancashire & Yorkshire

Railway on the third rail system as early as

1916 to encourage residential development

along its 9�½-mile-long route).

Difficulties caused by the lack of a

centralised network had long been recognised

and from time to time proposals were put

forward to alleviate inconvenience to travellers

(including the possibility of an underground

link). In the early 1970s the then recently

established Greater Manchester Passenger

Transport Executive took a major step forward

by introducing a new bus service (Centreline)

linking Piccadilly and Victoria stations and

running at frequent intervals for most of the

day, passengers with rail tickets being able to

travel free of charge. In addition to beneﬁting

rail users, who previously had to make their

own way between the two stations, the service

(operated by midi-bus type vehicles) was also

well used by commuters and shoppers for

its route took in the central commercial and

shopping area including the Arndale Centre,

then Europe’s largest covered shopping area

(perhaps appropriately placed given the city’s

probably undeserved reputation for rainfall).

To the south of Manchester passengers

from the West Midlands and Shrewsbury area

etc bound for Yorkshire and the North East

had long been able to avoid the inconvenience

of crossing Manchester from one station to the

other by changing at Stockport, six miles from

the city, into a connecting service running at

hourly intervals (and in the mid-1980s often

operated by one of the few remaining single

unit Class 122 railcars first introduced in

1958) for the seven-mile run to Stalybridge

(just over seven miles east of Victoria on the

former London & North Western Railway

main line to Leeds via Standedge) where

connection was made with a trans-Pennine

service from Liverpool Lime Street. In publicity

material British Rail advertised the Stockport–

Stalybridge shuttle as the “Pennine Connector

– saving time and cutting corners with no

transfer between stations, the ideal link in

the Inter City network between Yorkshire/

North East England and the Midlands/Welsh

Borders”.

t is now over 25 years since the new three-

quarter-mile long £13 million Windsor

Link connecting Manchester’s two virtually

separate networks based on Piccadilly and

Victoria stations became fully operational,

revolutionising travel in and through the

city and enabling long-distance services to

be concentrated on the more modern and

conveniently located Piccadilly station.

At the same time many local services were

improved under the auspices of the newly

established Network Northwest which also

began a programme of new station building

and upgrading of existing facilities.

Unstructured piecemeal development by

the various companies which projected their

lines into the city of Manchester during the

middle years of the nineteenth century led to

the emergence of two separate networks which

bedevilled travel in the conurbation.

Piccadilly station (formerly London Road

but renamed in September 1960 following its

rebuilding in connection with West Coast Main

Line electrification) handled long-distance

workings from the south (Euston, Birmingham,

South Wales, Bristol and the West of England

etc), also Shefﬁeld and East Anglia, and was

the terminus for intensive commuter services

to the south and east of the city. Victoria

station (opened in 1844 and named after the

monarch who was then in the early years of

her long reign), situated just over a mile away,

dealt with Scottish services, trans-Pennine

workings to Leeds and beyond and semi-fast

and stopping services to Liverpool, Blackpool

and Southport etc. In addition Victoria was also

the hub of busy and well used commuter routes

radiating to the west, north and east which

served some of the former cotton mill towns

n March 1985 British Rail unveiled plans to

build a 700-metre double track connection

extending northwards from Ordsall Lane

Junction (on the Liverpool–Manchester line

opened in 1830, the ﬁrst passenger railway in

the world) to join the line running westwards

out of Victoria towards Bolton and Preston at

Windsor Bridge, effectively linking the two

networks and providing a north–south through

route by way of the city centre.

This was the second such project to connect

two routes by comparatively short stretches

of new track in quick succession in Greater

Manchester, the Hazel Grove chord then under

construction to the south of Stockport being

the ﬁrst major new development in this part

of the north west in 75 years. When opened

in May 1986, the 400-metre £1.5 million

chord descending quite steeply from the

former Midland Railway London St. Pancras–

BACKTRACK

708

Manchester Central main line (opened in

1902, closed to passenger services in 1968

but retained for freight) to join the Stockport–

Buxton branch at Hazel Grove enabled trans-

Pennine services from Sheffield via the Hope

Valley (together with Nottingham–Glasgow/

Edinburgh and Harwich–Manchester workings

etc) to serve Stockport. Its commissioning also

resulted in Sheffield trains being extended to

run through to Liverpool Lime Street instead

of terminating at Piccadilly, eliminating the

need for passengers to and from Merseyside to

change there.

The Windsor Link scheme was

considerably more involved and included major

infrastructure work, notably the construction

of a new £700,000 station at Windsor Bridge

which would not only be an interchange

point for local and provincial services on the

splitting routes to Victoria and Piccadilly (an

island platform layout enabling same platform

connections to be made) but would also serve

the nearby Salford University campus which

drew students from a wide area who were not

readily able to access rail services. The station,

Salford Crescent, opened in 1987, taking its

name from the nearby east–west arterial road

(the A6).

In addition the three city centre stations

which would be served by new services

once the link opened – Deansgate, Oxford

Road and Piccadilly – underwent extensive

modernisation to cope with the increased

number of workings which its commissioning

would bring.

At Deansgate, situated just over a mile

from Windsor Bridge and close to where the

busy electrified commuter line from Altrincham

DECEMBER 2015

trails in, major improvements part funded by

the Passenger Transport Executive costing £1

million were made to the two-platform station

which, in addition to being conveniently

located for the west side of the city, also served

the nearby G-Mex Exhibition Centre (formerly

Manchester Central station until its closure

in 1969). Deansgate was linked to the Centre

(which in recent years has reverted to its

original name) by a tubular bridge, the Greater

Manchester Museum of Science and Industry

also being situated close by at the former

Liverpool Road goods depot, the original

terminus of the Liverpool & Manchester

Railway and the first passenger station in the

world.

Improvements were also carried out at

Oxford Road station, less than half a mile

east of Deansgate station and located close

to the business heart of the city and also the

university and theatreland. Its more substantial

layout of four through platforms, all signalled

for two-way working (with single west facing

bay), was the only break in the 2¼-mile-long

double track section, much of it elevated at

rooftop level above city streets, between Salford

Crescent and Piccadilly.

At Piccadilly, half a mile further on and the

hub of the cross-city link, improvements costing

more than £2 million included lengthening the

station’s heavily used two through platforms

– Nos.13 and 14 – to enable two trains to be

handled simultaneously. This was to be an

important provision for many additional

workings, some long-distance including a

new Paddington–Edinburgh service, would

be superimposed on an already intensive

commuter operation, maximum platform

With Manchester’s city skyline as a

backdrop (including the Granada TV

studios and the town hall clock tower),

No.47 750

Atlas

heads the diverted

09.10 Paddington–Carlisle (the whole

ensemble in Virgin colours) via the

Windsor Link towards Bolton on 10th

August 2000.

(Gavin Morrison)

utilisation being of critical importance at this

bottleneck. In addition new passenger facilities

were provided including escalators and lifts

linking the island platform to the overbridge

connecting with the main terminal platforms

(Nos.1–12).

lthough the Windsor Link was

completed in early 1988 its use was at

first restricted pending major changes

to the layout and platforms at Piccadilly. From

the start of the summer timetable on Monday

16th May a two-hourly interval service

between Blackpool North and East Anglia

formed of recently introduced Class 156 ‘Super

Sprinters’ became one of the first workings to

use the new route.

The trackwork and signalling on the half-

mile track section between Piccadilly and

Ardwick Junction dated from the rebuilding

of the station in 1960 in conjunction with the

pilot West Coast Main Line electrification to

Crewe and was now in need of renewal. The

opportunity was taken to remodel the layout

particularly as services between Liverpool

Lime Street and the North East via Leeds,

rerouted via the Windsor Link and Piccadilly,

would need to cross four of the tracks when

negotiating the layout between Platforms 13

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