Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2023 i Traction

In this issue of TRACTION we start several new series of articles. Andrew Overton photographed trains around the Doncaster area in the 1980s venturing out into the surrounding countryside in search of new photographic locations. In the first part he looks at passenger traffic whilst in the next issue he will concentrate on freight operations. Roy Kethro begins a major series of articles about his time working on the Western Region and especially at Bristol Bath Road depot. David Hayes concludes his article about the rundown of CO2 traffic in the 1990s, whilst the wagons used are portrayed in the accompanying feature by David Ratcliffe. Martin Axford was one of several hundred British railway enthusiasts who crossed the North Sea in June 1986 to take part in the EM2 farewell…

A total of 69 two-axle Carbon Dioxide tank wagons were built for the Distillers Company by Motherwell Bridge & Engineering and Fauvet Girel between 1962 and 1978. Leased from Storage & Transport Systems (STS), all were 45 ton glw but with a payload of only 27 or 28 tonnes, as the outer cladding covered a very thick layer of insulation surrounding a much smaller inner tank designed to operate at a maximum working pressure of 350 psi. This ensured that the load remained liquid, since carbon dioxide only exists as a liquid below its critical temperature of 31°C and above its triple point of minus 56.6 °C when at high pressure. Despite the relatively low capacity of the wagons it was normal practice, especially during the summer, to limit loading…

Football, training and the seaside The next opportunity to use D9000 was a short notice football special from Birmingham to Leeds on 14th February 1998. The loco came up light engine from Stewarts Lane the night before and then was sent to Derby to collect the stock before setting out to Leeds on an unusual route apparently dictated by pathing limitations. Given a 1Z55 reporting number, despite a request for 1E55 (which was displayed on the loco), this could almost be described as the first Trans Pennine ‘Deltic’ hauled service train since 55002 in December 1981, running via Stockport and Stalybridge. If there were any football supporters on board they kept a low profile amongst the rather more interested enthusiasts, including those who joined at Leeds when the service was…

Living in Doncaster, by the mid-1980s if you were looking for daytime locomotive hauled passenger services on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) you were going to have to wait a long time; it was a very barren era. An unrelenting diet of HSTs screaming up and down the main line tempted even the most ardent photographer over to the dark side to take some shots of this ubiquitous traction. But if you really studied the timetable and were prepared to head out and only be rewarded with a handful of photos or fewer, on certain days patience would be rewarded by some classic traction. One of the other problems is the topography of the area, which for the most part is rather flat, agricultural and somewhat featureless and uninteresting,…

On the morning of September 8th 1969, seven 16-year-old school leavers carrying a holdall or suitcase met up at Bristol Temple Meads. We boarded a Paddington bound service hauled by a ‘Western’ class loco for the one-hour journey up to Swindon. As the successful applicants for mechanical and electrical fitting apprenticeships at Bristol Bath Road Diesel Depot that year, we were about to embark on the first phase of our engineering training at the modern Swindon Works Training School, located on the down side of the main line opposite the huge ‘A shop’. The first year was to give us a good basic grounding in the sort of practical skills which would take us into our future careers: the use of hand tools, fitting, machining, sheet metalwork, welding and an…

Associated Commercial Vehicles Ltd. of London (previously better known as road bus manufacturers) was an early player in the burgeoning market to introduce diesel traction on to Britain’s railways, starting with a set of three fourwheeled railcars, soon nicknamed the ‘Flying Bricks’, which began testing on 28th April 1952, between Didcot and Newbury (DN&S) followed by a press run from London Marylebone to Princes Risborough on 20th May 1952. The three initial vehicles in the Demonstration Set were completed with skirts in a two tone grey and red livery comprised: • Motor Brake Third (125 h.p.), PRV No. B34485, Car No.1, BR No. M79742M, capacity 28, later reduced to 20• Motor Third (125 h.p.), PRV No. B34486, Car No.2, BR No. M79740M, capacity 41, later reduced to 33• Non Driving…

Speedlink had been an essential part of the collection, trunk haul and delivery process for carbon dioxide, so, following the wagonload operations demise in July 1991, an alternative set of arrangements were drawn up by Railfreight Distribution (RfD) to serve the three surviving CO2 destinations of Coleshill, Newton-le-Willows and Willesden. Block train operations were introduced between Scotland, Teesside and London, which also catered for traffic to Newton-le-Willows (detached at Warrington). These workings were operated by RfD as part of its UK Contract Services (UKCS) portfolio, which included the running of dedicated trains for the Ministry of Defence; RfD also ran European Contract Services (later branded Connectrail) in the early post Speedlink era for traffic based on the Dover train ferry. A different set of arrangements was provided for carbon dioxide…

I’ve always had a thing about the Manchester to Sheffield electrified route across the Pennines. An illustration in a child’s book of trains showing a large green boxy electric loco called ‘Diana’, pantographs up and flashing against a stormy sky was a big influence on an impressionable ‘Me’! Obviously in my train set days I ‘had to be’ the proud owner of a Triang ‘Electra’ EM2. Later I followed the history of the line and was saddened by its fall from grace but intrigued by the sale of the EM2s to NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen). With the impending closure of the line in 1981 I became very interested in photographing and travelling behind the EM1 Bo-Bos; on a railtour maybe? Sadly, that never happened; workmate ‘Wurzel’ (Kevin) tried hard to get…