Near misses

not quite right I think. BR sold the locos with a clause that the copper fireboxes would be returned (to make overhead wires). Thus they had to be scrapped. He got BRs agreement to sell them on when their attitude relaxed a bit and presumably paid them a fee in order to sell them complete.

 

Not sure on that one, really. There has been talk of the fireboxes - the most valuable part of the loco, Bulleids excepted - being returned for that purpose, but I think it was found that the arsenical copper of a loco firebox wasn't right for OHLW anyway. By the time the Barry saga started - 1968 - the Liverpool and Manchester - Euston electrification was complete so the demand for copper for the wires had reduced.

But I do know that we had a few problems purchasing 2968, and that started in 1970. BR had an almost psychotic negative attitude to steam at that period - no steam loco to carry BR livery, for instance, resulting in the strange appearances of locos at Carnforth and Haworth as an example.

 

Absolutely! 44871 was kept in immaculate BR lined black with nothing on the tender for a while. When BR requested it (in light steam) to attend the 'Rail Fair' at Morecambe Promenade station as an exhibit, in the summer of 1971, a late crest was applied to the tender and nothing was said about it IIRC.

 

I remember going to the East Lancs open day at Helmshore, which was then still rail connected, at August bank holiday 1970, at 5the age of 10, and 44806 was there, in lined green, again in steam. It had been hauled there by a class 25, D5239 from memory, and that had the late BR crest on.

 

Can you confirm or deny something for me? At the time my Grandpa commuted into Exchange from Crosby, on a good old LMS electric (that's another story - and I feel guilty about the surviving unit being so neglected...). I seem to remember him telling me about a very old Lanky engine at Exchange. He thought it was one of these. Was he misremembering this loco from Edge Hill (or somewhere else nearby) or getting confused with the Radials which were used as pilots? He was a GWR enthusiast himself and couldn't tell LMS locos apart. But he was most dismayed by my confusion between different Pannier tanks, or Prairies, or Halls and Granges...

 

Also the price of copper plummeted in the 1970s which may have lead to a more relaxed attitude by British Railways to the fireboxes.
(One of the American railroads - the Milwaukee - was very badly hit by this. It had committed to removing the electrification on nearly 900
miles of track just before the price crash and the planning had assumed a substantial financial contribution from the sale of the copper, however,
they hadn't hedged the money they expected to receive and got nothing like what they depended on. This and other troubles might have been surmounted but with payments for new replacement diesel motive power and all the effects of the oil crisis of 1973 - just when they really could have used the electrification - the company collapsed and the line was generally abandoned.)

 

While I knew Exchange well - it was my favourite Liverpool station - this was from the late 'fifties (very vaguely) up to the end of steam. There were none of the 0-4-4Ts there at that time, and I doubt before that. If one was anywhere, it would have been at Kirkdale Carriage Sidings, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't. The one at Edge Hill was more or less at or near what became know as Gullett Sidings, near the top of the tunnels to Crown Street and Wapping, and would not have been visible from a passing train.

50850 survived as late as October 1961, although I don't remember it. I think she was Southport allocated so might have turned up at Exchange, but that's the best I can do.

 

Thanks!
He worked for Manweb, and did visit lots of BR yards and things for work, so it could be that he had seen the Edge Hill one and was mixing things up with a separate memory of a 2-4-2T at Exchange.

 

There were quite a few of the Barton Wrights that ended up as stationary boilers, some lasting well into the sixties; albeit without driving wheelsets. There's a website with photos of quite a few stationary boilers and it is interesting to see what could have survived.
http://www.abrail.co.uk/SBPhotographs.htm

 

Throughout the 50's a Lanky radial was employed as station pilot at Exchange. I have photos of 50712/21 on these duties the latter surviving until Jan 1961 by which time it had acquired the later B.R. crest - unusual, if not unique, for a radial. Of the Barton Wright 0-4-4T's, the last one (as an 0-2-4!) survived until early 1969 at Edge Hill carriage sidings.
Some years ago BRILL (or maybe Bylines?) did an in-depth article on the ex L&Y steam heating locos with their disposition and L&Y numbers. There was at least one Lanky 0-6-2T at Cheetham Hill until quite late IIRC.
Ray.

 

Thinking back carefully, after consulting that website, I think it is me getting confused not my Grandpa. I think I am conflating Radials at Exchange in the 50s with 0-4-4T stationary boilers at Blackpool. Will have to see if anyone else in the family remembers better what he said.