Sheffield Steam Sheds Article in Steam Day Magazine

[mikeG 16]

I found myself on Exeter St. Davids station on an August Saturday, 1959. Holiday specials were steaming in from the North, the Midlands and London. Loads of Halls, Manors, Castles, Kings, 9Fs, a few Black 5's plus Standard 73 and 75 thousanders. Also Battle of Brittain and Merchant Navy's some on their way to Ilfracombe. I had a few boating holidays on the Thames in the late 50's and it was easy to moor up for the night within easy reach of the GWR. We used to moor near a bridge on the Oxford branch of the line. Battle of Britains would take trains from Southampton/ Bournemouth to Manchester/Newcastle (I think) as far as Oxford. Doesn't seem like 50 years ago but it is. Took my Dad on the Welshpool to Llanfair steam line last August on his 90th birthtday. He's a member of the Welsh Highland Railway - had a couple of trips on that.

[hillsbro 32]

I had almost forgotten the Immingham trams... In the Ian Allan books they were described as "Grimby-Immingham Electric Trams" and were numbered 1 to 33 (I just had a look in my carefully-preserved " combined" - it's the winter 1958-59 edition). On being withdrawn, the wooden bodies were sold off for garden sheds etc. and there used to be one in a field at Loxley. Another one was on the east side of the line, just south of Clay Cross station. It was there at least until the 1980s, waiting for some enthusiast to restore it, but in the end it rotted away, I guess. Sic transit gloria...

I didn't take many photos in the 1960s, but here's a photo that evokes a former age at Sheffield Midland: http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u219/twigmore/45273.jpg Taken on 18 September 1965, it shows the "Black Five" 45273 about to leave Platform 6 with empty stock for Heeley. And here are two more shots that will seem familiar to ex-spotters “of a certain age”:

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u219/twigmore/ABCs.jpg

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u219/twigmore/Ticket.jpg

For a spotter from up North, Exeter St David's must have seemed like paradise on a busy summer's day in 1959. I'll be there on 11 March; maybe if I close my eyes I'll be able to imagine a streamlined Bulleid Pacific coming into the station with a rake of spotlessly-clean coaches. Then I'll be brought to my senses with a start when I hear over the tannoy "We regret...."

I hope that we'll all celebrate our 90th birthdays with a ride on a good old train, MikeG!

[CHAIRBOY 10]

I think you were hiding a light.....Mike. You seem to have seen plenty. I was always envious, from a spotting perspective, when school chums on SW holidays were copping SR and GWR engines - me having to make do with a trip to Preston for LMR stock.

Black Five is the correct term as per photo but we often called them "Mickeys" in Sheffield?

Your pics are great and that 10/6 combined was the one I alluded to as being 'red' - I had that one. Great material.

[Texas 10]

Once, in my firing days, I fired a 'Wessie' to Gowholes from Grimesthorpe. Wasn't I the lucky one? I remember it clearly. Thirty two Mineral (Coal) we had. I especially remember the 'blowing off'' through Sheffield Station, and apart from the labour going up the bank, the lurching about when going down the other side, everything on it was in apposition to every other engine on the railway. A G2 freight from the LNWR, wheel arrangment 0-8-0. Killers they were. A mechanical contraption for utilizing the expansive power of steam indeed.

[Sweetcheeks 15]

Once, in my firing days, I fired a 'Wessie' to Gowholes from Grimesthorpe. Wasn't I the lucky one? I remember it clearly. Thirty two Mineral (Coal) we had. I especially remember the 'blowing off'' through Sheffield Station, and apart from the labour going up the bank, the lurching about when going down the other side, everything on it was in apposition to every other engine on the railway. A G2 freight from the LNWR, wheel arrangment 0-8-0. Killers they were. A mechanical contraption for utilizing the expansive power of steam indeed.

I would have loved to have travelled in the brake van on that trip Texas. Although the Flying Scotsman is beautiful in full flight, I always adored watching the worn out, dirty freight engines struggled slowly up the goods line with a long rake of mineral wagons. Magnificent sights and sounds that live in the memory for ever.

[Runningman 148]

Many thanks to all contributors to this thread, what memories !

 

I worked with a guy, ex BR fireman, who commented that it was normal for many drivers to have drunk a few more glasses than they should have done before commencing their shift !

When returning north towards Sheffield, especially during hours of darkness, the crew would attempt to wind the loco up to 100 mph as they were coming through Chesterfield, in order to attack the gradient up to Dronfield and beyond before the descent to Sheffield.

Can someone add weight to that story or is it simply not true ?

 

Some special memories - The sight of a Beyer Garratt passing through Totley cutting pulling what seemed like a mile of trucks.

 

Donny station and those streaks coming through on the middle running lines.

 

Football specials coming into Sheffield Victoria from London and the expectation of the sight of an A4

 

Going to Crewe via Manchester London Road and seeing the Coronation Class loco's. Were they really as big as they looked.

 

Saturday mornings in Millhouses Park and the sight of a York based V2 travelling light up to the cutting to turn round.

 

Oh boy !! if my Mom and Dad had ever found out that one Sunday morning, me and 3 other lads went round Mexbro' and Donny sheds and the plant.

[CHAIRBOY 10]

I remember the Beyer Garratts but don't think they were a common sight in Sheffield. There were some locos, that unless you travelled, you never saw and I mention this story to prove that point.

I mention another trip organised by Sheffield LSC. It most likely incorporated about half a dozen shed visits and I recall Toton, Stapleford & Sandiacre (just one), Coalville and Wellingborough (15A). The rarity at Wellingborough was a large number of engines called "Crosties" because they were fitted with "Crosti" boilers and looked very distinctive.

The question I raise is, what was the reason this type of engine, was located to Northamptonshire? I know most things have a reason and wonder if this type of boiler allowed them to do specific freight work in that area? Their five-digits began with a 9----.

[bus man 10]

Iron ore trains rings a bell but not sure

[mikeG 16]

My Ian Allan 1957/58 tells me I copped 2 Beyer-Garratts - only place I saw them was Dore and Totley cutting. Numbers 47968 and 47994.

[hillsbro 32]

My goodness, what memories! I'd almost forgotten that we called Black Fives "Mickeys" (from "mixed traffic", I think). None of my school pals were posh enough to go very far on holidays, such as to resorts outside the E.R. and L.M.R. At least, not until 1963 when my pal John Hissett came back from Weston-super-Mare with a book full of exotic numbers that turned us all green with envy. I went there in 1966 but I think that steam had finished on the W.R. by that time - at least, I don’t recall seeing much apart from some rare diesel-hydraulics.

Sweetcheeks is quite right - nowadays we can see locos hauling specials (and in November for example, Mrs hillsbro and I went on the "Cheshireman" from Scunthorpe to Chester and back behind 60009 Union of South Africa) but there's nothing quite like seeing a heavy freight loco hauling a long train up a gradient. I had a taste of this, two decades after steam finished in Britain when I went to China. Our "Yorkshire Tours" group leader was a steam fan, and so when taking his tourists, say, from the Ming Tombs to the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing the coach would "accidentally" pass a major junction where we would stop to see huge (and I mean HUGE) steam locos hauling heavy coal trains. The best we can do now is to watch films or listen to "Transacord" recordings of this sort of activity.

Beyer-Garratts were just a bit before my time, but I once worked with an ex-fireman who had fired 69999 on the Penistone-Wath line before it was electrified. Here’s a photo of the loco in LNER days, as No 2395: http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thewoodheadsite.org.uk/MotivePower/Garratt.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thewoodheadsite.org.uk/MotivePower/BeyerGarratt.htm&h=320&w=500&sz=33&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=suzxzwKTUt0SbM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3D69999%2Bbeyer%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26cr%3DcountryUK%257CcountryGB%26sa%3DN%26ie%3DUTF-8 There were more Beyer-Garratts on the Midland Region, as MikeG notes - the class of 29 were shedded at 18A Toton and 18C Hasland. All had gone by 1958 as my "combined" confirms, as had 69999 - this would have been redundant after the line was electrified in 1954.

The Coronations were indeed big, Runningman, in particular they were long - here’s a photo of City of Sheffield without its windshields (it was never streamlined): http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u219/twigmore/6249CityofSheffield.jpg

I hadn’t realised that A4s came into Sheffield Victoria from London - presumably the football specials went via Retford, as A4 drivers wouldn’t know the ex-G.C. line. I remember, in c. 1957, my older brother Roy telling me that he’d heard that an A4 would "definitely" be pulling the Master Cutler the next (Saturday) morning. I told our dad, and Roy rather sheepishly backed me up. Dad and I got up early and went on his motorbike to the station, bought platform tickets from the machine - and saw … an A3. It was a leg-pull, and Roy got a good telling off from both dad and me (especially as I hadn't even copped the A3 - Sir Frederick Banbury).

The V2s were a class apart. At Bernard Road you could always tell when a V2 was about to emerge from the cutting - they had a distinctive exhaust sound, with blasts in groups of 3 (my sister, who once went with us and was bored stiff most of the time except when we produced the Tizer, sandwiches and a bun, said it sounded like "a waltz rather than a quick-step").

I well remember the Crosti-boilered 9Fs, CHAIRBOY, but didn’t often see them. My 1958-59 "combined" confirms that they were numbered 92020 to 92029 and they were all allocated to 15A Wellingborough. Perhaps the Crosti boilers required special maintenance skills, so they were all put in the same area where suitable skills were available, or maybe the Crosti boilers made them suitable for a particular type of working. I imagine they would have been used to haul heavy trains up the Sharnbrook etc gradients. For a photo, go to this page and scroll down to "Great Britain" near the bottom: http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/francocrosti/class741.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/francocrosti/francocrosti.htm&h=259&w=600&sz=22&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=TC3BdDulqzAczM:&tbnh=58&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522crosti%2Bboiler%2522%2B9f%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26ie%3DUTF-8

The iron ore trains that bus_man is thinking of might be the ones on Tyneside. I remember seeing a note that some 9Fs were “fitted with air pumps for working Tyne Dock - Consett iron ore trains”. A Google search produced this page, which includes the statement (under '1965') that the "ten dedicated 9F's had also required Westinghouse Air pumps prior to taking over this run from the NER Q7 0-8-0's": http://www.derbysulzers.com/24102.html

Memories…

[CHAIRBOY 10]

Cor H, caused you some work there by mentioning the Crosti's! You brought back memories of the Tyne Dock engines, Consett, Pelaw etc. Thanks for all the links.

We've done Immingham, Tyne etc. - I recall there was something different at Fleetwood but can't remember what? Glad you remember the term "Mickeys", do you remember the Jinty?

Regarding the link of the publications, I remember buying a plastic Ian Allen cover (bit like a cheque book cover) which slipped round the combined. We had to cover our school books, why not the cherished Combined?

V2's - was that the class that had a few named eg Green Arrows (?) Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, Green Howards, Durham Light Infantry etc?

Talking of gradients - Lickey Incline near Bromsgrove - often double headed? Only last night did I check out Beattock summit and found a Coronation at the helm - possibly Duchess of Bucchleuch.

Shap was another snappers' pradise.

[CHAIRBOY 10]

Today's Look North news is featuring steam engines No.51218, 41241 and 90733.

40th anniversary of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway - some weak feature about "The Railway Children".