Shap Mountaineer: 27/09/25

Yes, a PSR of 30mph in both directions, so 20 for the Castle suggests a clearance issue

 

Some phone pics from Saturday,


Carlisle platform 1 (north end) - The crowd of admirers begins to disperse as 7029 waits patiently on the back of the ECS.



Carlisle platform 1 (south end) - 37814 aka "the diesel that wouldn't go away" prepares to haul the ECS out of the station



Blackburn platform 1 (south-west end) - In light rain and darker than it appears in this shot, The Shap Mountaineer waits for the signal from the guard to continue the return journey to Birmingham

 

A few clips from Saturday with 7029 and 'The Shap Mountaineer'.

Video available here

 

As a Moderator I would expect you to read a post before commenting, the only ‘Rubbish’ being your reply to my simple observation that most seem to agree with. I made no correlation between different types of coal and their adverse effects and my second paragraph ended with a question mark.

 

Are we ever going to overcome the red herring of Great Western engines being designed to burn Welsh Coal? They were fundamentally designed to burn coal (you know, the black stuff that comes out of the ground all over the place) and there is nothing of significance which sets them apart from any other engine. Most contributors to this column could be put in a locomotive firebox and they wouldn't be able to say whether it was a LMS Jubilee or a GWR Castle. In order to make the point may I quote a piece of writing from some years ago, it is a little lengthy but hopefully a little more informative than Shireman's monologue:-

"As a rule the best bituminous South Wales coal is used for fast and heavy passenger trains, and a mixture of hard Yorkshire, North Wales, or Staffordshire, with second grade South Wales coal for trains of less importance. What is known in South Wales as dry smokeless steam coal is of no use whatever for locomotive purposes, on account of its dry character. It is very rich in Carbon, and its calorific value is exceedingly high. With a steady continuous draught, such as is obtained in steam boats, it gives the best of results; but in locomotives, where the draught is intermittent, the punching effect of the blast produces the same result as poking an anthracite fire. On the other hand, when a bituminous coal is used, the punching effect of the blast has the desired effect of keeping the fire open and turning the binding qualities of the coal to the best advantage. The Northern coals have different characteristics altogether. These are not so rich in Carbon, but more so in Hydrogen, and are therefore swifter burning. For light work the hard coal makes an ideal fuel, and a mixture with a slower burning coal gives excellent results for heavy work. Instructions are given to the coal-men to put on suitable coal for particular trains."

This particular passage was written quite a while ago by a gentleman called Henry Simpson who not long after writing was promoted to be the Locomotive Running Superintendent of a company called the Great Western Railway, so we can deduce from this that he knew exactly what he was saying and that what he said was the official Great Western view on the matter. It may also be taken to indicate that the Great Western Railway was building engines which were capable of being run on a variety of coals, so can we please dispense with the ill informed train spotter claptrap about Welsh Coal. I do wonder how many of those who talk about Welsh Coal know that there are many different varieties which fall into three categories, the Bituminous coal in the eastern valleys, the dry welsh/deep navigation coal further west, and the anthracite even further west towards Swansea, their calorific values rising towards the west. As Henry Simpson points out, the dry Welsh is of no use for locomotive work and the anthracite is a positive no-no as they are both capable of burning holes in grates as was proved by the 4079 episode in 1964. Many years ago I had the privilege of acquaintance with an old lad who had been a fireman in the 1920s; not on the railway but in the Royal Navy on Dreadnought battleships, and there were some very interesting discussions about what went on with the handling of dry welsh coal in such boilers. One thing which was critical was the constant lifting of the fire with slice bars to aerate it and stop the coal from caking, even with a steady draught. And that can be a problem even with the Bituminous Welsh on locomotives. I don't suppose that there are many of you who have had the dubious privilege of getting an 11 foot long chisel bar out of the bar rack at the side of the cab, manoeuvering it through the firehole, lifting the fire, and then getting the red hot iron back into the bar rack without cauterising the driver's backside, but it's one of the unstated pleasures of being a fireman to do that several times in a shift with Welsh coal.

Now the problem with Welsh coal is that the stuff which the GWR was using has been unavailable for many years, and what was being sold in recent years was from further west, and did cause issues because firemen weren't lifting it sufficiently frequently resulting in burnt and distorted firebars at around £75 a piece. In my time running the Tyseley engines for 20 years, it was entirely my decision not to use the South Wales coal which was on offer, and I truly believe that that decision is vindicated by the fact that 5043 still has the firebars in it which it had when it first turned out on the main line in 2008. Better still 4965 has most of its first set of firebars from 1998. It is also worth noting that all of 5043's record hill-climbing exploits and non-stop runs were accomplished using Midlands hard coal much of it out of the Warwickshire 'Thick' seam at Daw Mill. And then there is the 2010 S&C run when 5043 turned in what has been claimed by Mike Notley to be the highest power output ever obtained from a Double Chimney Castle. I had the privilege of working on that day with Driver Mick Kelly, Firemen Alastair Meanley and Dean Morris and we will probably never again witness a Castle, quite a number of miles into a heavy climb with 10 coaches and a certifiably dead class 47 (load= at least 14) going over the top of Ais Gill at over 40 mph, almost 50% cut off, full regulator, safety valves feathering, boiler full, and both injectors on for some miles. All done on best Warwickshire hard coal, so you will have to forgive me if I laugh when any of you say that Great Western engines don't work on hard coal because we know, just like Sam Ell knew, that they actually do so, very well. But please don't ever say that a Castle can't move Scot loads over there because Mr Notley stated that no other 4-6-0 had ever achieved this time and load to Ais Gill, and that it was actually in pacific territory.

What I think that you train timers have forgotten, if of course you ever knew, is just how slow trains were in the 50s and 60s, and you have really been spoiled by the privilege of witnessing some of the excellent work which steam has been turning in on the main line in recent years, but you should not take it for granted because as the years pass it will get harder and harder to sustain it. Maintenance costs continue to increase drastically and it becomes harder to source materials and specialist processes for spare parts. Skilled labour resource continues to dwindle too, and you need to recognise that there is a distinct possibility that the golden age we have witnessed over the last thirty years or so is beginning to dwindle and you may yet be grateful for the opportunity to travel on trips such as Saturday's for all its difficulties. For those of you on here with gripes you may do well to reflect that without the absolutely supreme selection of people manning the engine and some outstanding characters at Network Rail, things could have been a whole lot worse and it does seem to me that some of you have forgotten to thank them for their efforts.

And of course the other sword hanging over us is coal supply. I note a slightly sour comment about the source of coal but you all need to be really grateful for that particular company's persistence because without it a very large part of this movement would very quickly end up dieselised. It is all very well criticising some of the quality, but it is entirely possible for the same batch to vary. We used to get it with Daw Mill coal and knowing people there, we knew exactly where in the seam it had come from. Whatever, it is probably nowhere near as bad as some of the rubbish which BR crews had to endure in the 60s, but a number of you would not have seen that or have known men who had to put up with it. I'm afraid that when you get involved in this business it is something which you have to put up with and you really have to acknowledge that it is actually utterly realistic first-hand experience of what BR was like on a fairly bad day.

The number of people who actually keep the main line steam business going are probably far fewer than many might suspect, it wouldn't be in their nature to throw their hands up in the air and give up, but when you read some of the commentaries it does make one wonder why not. So hands up all those who think that we should give up before someone upstairs decides it's time that we all went home.

Incidentally can we get a download on our contributor's inability to get any of his three cars to work reliably, it might make an amusing change to his advice on how to run steam locos.

Best Wishes
Bob

 

Thank you for that extensive insight into the facts. I don’t think the myth about Welsh coal comes from train spotters, I’ve seen it in print several times, usually followed up by stating it was the reason why the GW didn’t build modern coaling towers as dropping coal into the bunker from height would reduce it to dust. Is that just another myth?
I go back to the 60s and take your point about slower trains, although there were some notable exceptions especially during the final year on the Southern when some enthusiastic crews were working wonders with clapped out Bulleid Pacifics. I was lucky enough to be on the 18.15 Weymouth - Waterloo on June 26th 1967 when MN Royal Mail reached 106mph at Fleet. I think a lot of people overlook the fact that back then loadings and timings were geared to what could be achieved with a crew of average ability and a locomotive in average mechanical condition. The condition of the permanent way was also often not what it should be, as an example the Erewash Valley line was just a series of colliery subsidence slacks. Today we have engines in top mechanical condition and highly motivated crews and it shows in some of the startling performances with engines hauling loads in excess of what would have been allowed in steam days. I’m not a train timer btw.
As for the number involved in keeping the great steam show on the road I think it depends on who you include. At the top are people like yourself who we rely on to pass down the knowledge and skills to the following generations but then we have the workshop staff, support crews and independent engineering firms all having a part to play. I know there are problems with numbers but the two owning groups I have experience with seem to be getting an encouraging number of young volunteers, then there seems to be a gap in the 25-45 age range, not surprising as they generally have more important priorities of bringing up families etc. The danger is that they acquire other interests and don’t return later in life. I’m in the latter group being age 68 before I returned to do anything practical.
What the future holds we don’t know but I remember Dick Hardy saying in the 80s that he couldn’t see main line steam surviving beyond 1995 but here we are thirty years later and that’s something everyone involved should be proud of.

 

Yes I was musing on that statement of Mr Meanley's about speeds. Yes there were some exceptional runs, but in a broader sense I think he's right. Here from my Bradshaw of winter 1960 are the best timetabled trains I can find on a selection of routes. Some of these will be limited trains eg eight coaches with 7 or 8P power. The heavy trains tended to (a) be slower and (b) have more stops. So these are examples of la creme de la creme.

Waterloo--Salisbury 84 miles in 83min
Salisbury- Sidmouth Jct 76 miles 82 min
Euston-Carlisle 299 miles 326 min
Crewe--Carlisle 141 miles 162 min
Ipswich-Norwich 46 miles 47 min
KX--Darlington 232 miles 231 min
KX--York 188 miles 170 min
Padd--Bristol 118 miles 105 min
Westbury--Taunton 48 miles 50 min

Where the modern day charters can get a decent path eg CME from Carnforth to Carlisle and Carlisle to Hellifield, the schedules are probably comparable and the train weights heavier than the fastest trains back in the day. Of course the infrastructure was not the same ( slowings through stations, Peterboro, Selby etc, level crossings, line speeds, PW slacks) and the intensity of freight and conflicting movements was something else.

 

The SR ACE times had considerably improved on those you show when my timing of those trains started in 1962. And even then the 80 minutes each way Waterloo-Salisbury still had a good margin of 'slack' in it. My last down Ace run with Salisbury's Fred Hoare and his fireman Pete Allen left Waterloo, with 35028 as it happens, 2 late, had a lengthy 20 mph tsr at the top of Grateley bank, and a short signal stop outside of Salisbury - yet stopped in the platform 1/2 a minute early.

And @Johnb It wasn't just the last year when some crews started to really show what the Bulleids could do! And getting back to coal. Like a lot of us SR enthusiasts at the time, I was able to watch first hand how the crews and pacifics coped with rubbish coal that they quite often had in the tenders. Sadly I never took the chance when invited up onto the footplate to do some of the firing under instruction - others like me certainly did. But I did see, and often talk about with the crews that we got to know so well, the coal that hardly looked anything like the black substance that comes out of the ground. The crews had various names for it, most not repeatable here - and I never heard any of the sort of technical discussion about it I have just read here. And that wasn't just in the last year or so - bad coal, even brickettes once on the down Ace, very late into Salisbury where the driver told me 'the fire just fell in'. Not that I saw much of the coal when riding on the footplate of 35003 on the 26 June 1967 night JohnB mentioned. The main activity by the fireman after we had left Basingstoke (yes, on a very light load) was to come over to the drivers side and stand next to me as the speedo needle covered a fair amount of new ground once it had passed the last number, 100 mph, on the speedo!

Bryan

 

Thought I'd drop the outward timings in pdf form for anyone who wants to look at the run in more detail.

 

Many thanks interesting reading.

I'm sorry you 'fell over and down bank' at MP 17.

I did that once in DDR (East Germany). I was filming with a super 8 cine camera as a tank (loco, not a Russian vehicle with a big gun on top) on the Harz metre gauge came towards myself, brother Don and a couple of other guys that made up the four in my car, and I slipped in the mud and fell down the bank. What bothered me wasn't the lack of any 'oh are you ok Bryan' as I lay there in the mud and brambles' but, and only after they had all got their shots (with cameras, us being from the UK and doing that with a gun out there at that time wasn't fully acceptable to the local police, Stasi, Russian Secret Service and Russian troops etc) , but the comment, 'I hope you kept the camera going'.

Anyway, using the black substance that came out of the ground, the loco at the front of your train did well under the circumstances to get over Shap. And having read the various reports here, my armchair view is that it made a lot of sense to have the diesel stay on the back (and then the front) back from Carlisle.

Bryan

 

That told 'em Bob, luv it!