Clan Line Farewell 30th June

Timings !

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U50554/2015/06/30/advanced

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U50555/2015/06/30/advanced

 

Timed for 60mph max!

 

I've noticed it says this on RTT for virtually all steam hauled tours, unless they are using a slower loco. It has never stopped them doing 75 though...

 

I seem to recall reading, in relation to either this trip or some other one that is/was routed via Coventry and Nuneaton, that the reason for this routing is to allow a stop somewhere that is not under the wires. The RTT timings show a stop at Nuneaton Chilvers Coton Jn, which is where the wires start according to TRACKatlas. Anyone able to shed any light on this?

 

It's so that we can climb up on to the top of the tender to pull coal forward. That is frowned upon under the wires!

 

Yes of course, but for that the stop will need to be somewhere before the junction (if TRACKatlas is accurate).

 

Yes, it will be. As always, the MNLPS has done its homework, and we have identified a location - with NR agreement - where there is off-road parking for a water-tanker and is suitable for support crew to get on the tender. The location shown on RTT is simply the nearest 'official' timing point to the actual one we will use (which will not be publicised).

 

Thank you for resolving that one.

 

For those of us who timed 35028 in real steam days there were times when it seemed as though power was being taken from overheard wires!

 

The wires fell down beside the track long before you were timing it.......

 

I thought of Mr Yeti today when I read an extract from the Southern Region Working Timetable for 1961 in which it states quite clearly that the speed limit for locomotives like Clan Line, was 85mph. Are you really telling me, and I was a young spotter at that time, that these locos actually did over 100mph. Did the drivers never get caught or did the authorities turn on a blind eye? Mind you, I did do 89mph through Winchester in the company of the late Mike Notley behind Taw Valley so clearly a Merchant Navy would have been capable of 100mph+

 

OMG!

Here's one of my 100 mph plus logs of a Merchant Navy, timed from the footplate. It was published in Steam Railway a few years ago.

Very lightweight load, but on a semi fast train with no really steep downhill grades, never worked hard and the loco was right at the very end of it's life and clanking rather loudly. If Fred Burridge had really opened her out I have no idea as to what maximum speed we would have reached. Well over 110mph for certain. On the footplate I could have easily have thought we were drifting along at 60mph except for the speedo and my stopwatch and the stopwatches of 20 or so other timers in the front coach. And the way Winchfield and Fleet stations raced by the drivers cab window, which I was standing behind. Total lack of fuss from the loco and crew. A few months earlier 35028 had reached circa 103 mph on the same stretch with the up Club Train, (19.15 ex Southampton), with ten or eleven on. Fred had 35028 the night after that run with 35003 but as it was about to be sold to the MNLPS, (I was a member when that group was formed), he was asked to go easy. So only reached 95 mph. The next night he had 35003 again and got up to 105 mph. Then a badly steaming Light pacific on the Friday of that week he got to 98 mph. Unrebuilt 34102 in very poor condition on the same stretch a few weeks earlier than Fred's week, had reached 100mph on just about the nosiest steam experience I have ever enjoyed.

Bulleid pacifics were/are very, very fast steam locomotives.

100mph was not common place but it happened right from when the MNs were brought into service. Drivers took the risk over the 85 mph speed limit and enjoyed themselves with a very, very fast class of steam locos. Rebuilt or not. Some got caught and disciplined. Most did not. I suspect that towards the end with CWR and MAS signalling etc all set for the fast electric service the authorities turned a blind eye to the speeds and also to us enthusiasts travelling a lot on the footplates which was very common then. Although not into Waterloo, that was seen as pushing your luck. Only very few happy gricers ever did that, big brother Don being one of those.

Those were the days my friend
We hoped they'd never end.....................

Now that log, notice when the safety valves opened. OVS knew how to design a steam loco boiler!

 

"100mph was not common place but it happened right from when the MNs were brought into service. Drivers took the risk over the 85 mph speed limit and enjoyed themselves with a very, very fast class of steam locos. Rebuilt or not. Some got caught and disciplined. Most did not. I suspect that towards the end with CWR and MAS signalling etc all set for the fast electric service the authorities turned a blind eye to the speeds and also to us enthusiasts travelling a lot on the footplates which was very common then. Although not into Waterloo, that was seen as pushing your luck. Only very few happy gricers ever did that, big brother Don being one of those."

Wow, I am very envious of those including your brother Don. By an amazing contrast, the only footplate ride my brother and I shared, was at Dulverton when on a Devon Railrover in 1963. The driver at Dulverton, on the Barnstaple branch, asked if we would like a footplate ride on the class 14xx tank and we gratefully said yes of couse. We were told to get off at Tiverton because they could not afford to have us spotted at Exeter St David's.

Highlight of the trip? Driver said we could blow the whistle! What is more we reached 40mph which for a branch line tanky was great but not in the same league as your MN's, BB's and WC's!!!

 

Yes I was on that run and also the best 100+ Merchant run ever which Bryan mentions, the 103 mph at Fleet on a decent load. The IHP that night was close to a record 3,000. Also many footplate rides, all unofficial, with speed sup to 95 mph with light pacifics. Its impossible to realise today that such things happened but we are talking about 50 odd years ago. Yes indeed those were the days......

Don

 

Keith Widdowson's book The Great Steam Chase includes a table with 29 runs with max above 90 in 1966 and mostly 67 after the electrification works were complete over the racing ground. One of the 29 is the one mentioned above on 26/6/67, on which the author describes the 106 as the highest documented speed on SR metals. Six of the 29 involved 35003. Seven of the 29 involved a Mr G Porter. Top speed by a WC was 98.

On 6 July, three days before the end, 35007 suffered internal damage at 98mph at Fleet, coasted to Waterloo and was withdrawn on arrival at Nine Elms. Presumably by that stage a few drivers more than the usual suspects were willing to have a go as a last farewell if the conditions were right.

 

Great reminiscences there Mr Yeti, I think that things loosened up a fair bit towards the end of steam on the Southern.

During Easter school holidays in 1967, I spent a week at my Gran's in London so that I could witness as much as possible of steam at Waterloo before it disappeared forever. One afternoon that week, I was on the footplate of 35008 Orient Line - "can I cab your engine please?" - after it had pulled into the station on a train from Southampton. Chatting to the crew, I mentioned that I was going to get a train soon to Vauxhall to go on to Nine Elms, whereupon the driver said " Just sit over there son and we'll give you a lift to the Shed" - Wow!! was I excited!! Anyway, about 15 minutes later the empty stock was drawn away and we left shortly after for Nine Elms light engine. Of course, I asked the question, "how fast?" to which the driver replied that 2 weeks earlier he had 35008 over 100 twice on a train to Bournemouth and during the same week he had "the ton" on another "Merchant Navy" on a similar train, I certainly had no reason to doubt him. If I remember correctly, 35008 still carried it's nameplates then and was very clean compared to most of the other engines that I saw that week. A very enjoyable week in London; as for that cab-ride, well it was all my birthdays at once, etc., etc. I can still feel the heat of the footplate to this day.

Cheers

Alan

 

My gran lived in London too and my parents took me there in the 1966 summer holidays. I didn't cab an MN but did get a rover ticket to visit most of the London sheds that week. Topped off the week by convincing my dad to go to soak up the atmosphere at a football match in North London. Touts were selling tickets for this match on the underground platforms at 10 shillings.....and so dad bought two. That's how I ended the week, watching England win the World Cup.