Ashton Boatman

Another day out in the car with Merv in 1962. We went to Bromsgrove to see the Lickey Bank. This is the steepest incline on any British mainline railway at 1 in 37. Originally trains were hauled up it by ropes attached to a stationary engine at the top. Later, banking engines were employed, including for many years a massive engine nicknamed "Big Bertha".

By the time of our visit some of the expresses had been taken over by the "Peak" class diesel locos, though many were still hauled by Jubilee class steam engines. The first picture shows Peak number D105 heading South out of Bromsgrove. On the left you can see a queue of tank engines at the coaling stage where they waited for their next turn at banking a train up the incline. By this time Big Bertha had been replaced by a modified 9F.

The gradient rises northward from Bromsgrove up about 2 miles into the Lickey hills at Blackwell. About halfway a minor road dives under the railway, but originally there was a level crossing here. The old crossing site was a handy point from which to view trains labouring up the bank. This was 9F number 92118 on a long goods train. In the distance you can see a plume of smoke from the banking engine.

In the opposite direction, drifting downhill on another goods, is 9F number 92151.

Nowadays the passenger trains in use are so powerful that they hardly notice the gradient, but bankers are still needed to assist the heavy freight trains. The line is now electrified from Birmingham to Bromsgrove for outer suburban trains that whirr up the incline with no trouble.

Nearby the Worcester & Birmingham Canal climbs into the Lickey hills by the Tardebigge flight of 36 locks. The longest lock flight in the country.

I

wasn't sure if I could get anything out of this awful photo. I think I took it with a fairly useless plastic camera that came with a bag of sweets but had the advantage of taking twice as many pictures on a roll of film. As film was expensive this would have been good, if the pictures were.

This is a 9F passing Charwelton station on the Great Central main line with a Northbound train of coal empties. In those days the economy ran on coal. Not only was it burned in power stations but it fueled a lot of industrial boilers as well as domestic hearths. As there was little coal available in Southern England a constant parade of trains transported it from pit to furnace

The Great Central was the last major railway route built in Britain (pre Eurostar and HS2). Completed in 1897 it linked Sheffield with London Marylebone, connecting with a pre-existing link over the Pennines to Manchester. Originally the plan was to link to the South Eastern & chatham Railway via the London underground and thence via a channel tunnel to France.

By the time I found the railway it had lost it's express trains but was still an important freight route. In particular, frequent coal trains ran from Annesley in Nottinghamshire to Woodford Halse in Northamptonshire. Here they were re-organised and despatched to various destinations in the South.

I think this must have been 1962. I was 9 and big brother Merv was 17 and had just passed his driving test. Sometimes he would borrow the car when Dad wasn't using it and we would go off chasing trains. I'm not sure whether on this occasion we still had the old Austin A30


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_A30

or whether, by then, we had our new Morris 1100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMC_ADO16   I think that may have come in 1963. As it was our first new car it indicated that Dad was going up in the world.

I remember that I was obsessed with the song Duke of Earl and probably drove Merv mad constantly singing Doo Doo Doo Dook of Earl Dook Dook Dook of Earl Dook Dook

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnfooEED8Y


I was dismayed to be told by him that Charwelton station, just about visible silhouetted in the background, was slated for closure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charwelton_railway_station . The ironstone quarry railway that left the goods yard, on the right of the photo, had recently closed. In general it was a dismal time for anyone obsessed with trains, but I had no idea of the destruction that was to come.

The 9Fs were the last of British Railways steam locomotives, built between 1954 and 1960. They were clearly the best of the British Railways standard classes and were the most powerful engines in Britain, being intended for heavy freight work. In spite of having the small wheels of a goods engine they had quite a turn of speed. On one occasion the engine for the crack Red Dragon express from South Wales to London failed and the only spare engine to take over was a 9F. Not only did this humble coal hauler make up the time lost in changing engines. It was recorded at a top speed of of 92mph and used less coal and water on the trip than the express engine would.

The standard engines were a set of steam designs built during the 1950s as a stopgap pending the intended electrification of the railways. The capital for universal electrification was never forthcoming from an increasingly road obsessed government. In 1956 a change of tack brought in a headlong rush to dieselisation. This resulted in the standard engines, especially the 9Fs, having ridiculously short working lives. Many of the early diesels made premature trips to the scrapyard too as over hasty procurement resulted in some troublesome or inappropriate designs being constructed.