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BASINGSTOKE & DISTRICT RAILWAY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

July 2009 Vol. 37: No 7

Chairman Secretary Editor

David Brace Peter Tran Sandra Brace 48, Hatch Lane 11, Starling Close 48, Hatch Lane, Old Basing Basingstoke Old Basing, Basingstoke, RG24 7EB Hants, RG22 5PY Basingstoke, RG24 7EB Tel: 01256 323958 Tel: 01256 326096 Tel or Fax: 01256 323958 e-mail: david.brace@twang.co.uk e-mail: petertran@talktalk.net e-mail: see Chairman’s email

FORTHCOMING MEETINGS to be held at Wote Street Club, Basingstoke Centre normally at 8pm.

Wednesday July 15th THE RAILWAYS OF CZECHOSLAVAKIA - A first time visit by Jeremy Harrison who will give an illustrated talk on the extensive railways serving this former country (now two separate states) Wednesday July 29th THE LICKEY INCLINE - Another first timer, Dave Besley, will describe the steepest main line incline (2½miles at 1 in 37) on a main line anywhere in the UK. I am also sure that “Big Bertha” will be mentioned! Wednesday August 12th THE WEST SOMERSET RAILWAY - Keith Smith from the WSR will give us an illustrated show describing the longest UK standard gauge preserved line complete with 10 stations. Wednesday August 26th F.W.WEBB OF THE LONDON & NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY - Martin Bloxom returns to tell us all about that well known Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Premier Line (the LNWR), F.W.Webb. No doubt “Coal Tanks”, “Cauliflowers” and “Jumbos” will feature.

Our Chairman or Secretary would be pleased to hear from anyone who could give a railway-based presentation. Please ring either of them on their telephone number as shown above. This Newsletter is produced by the B&DRS and is issued free of charge and for the interest of its members and of the Society’s friends

On 6th June 2009, 2' gauge O&K 0-6-0T No 14 from Sragi Sugar Mill, Indonesia hauls a passenger train on the Statfold Barn Railway. Photograph by David Brace

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OTHER SOCIETY MEETINGS Meon Valley Locomotive Society July 14th “Railways of South Africa” Geoff Ballard August 11th “Railways Around the Red Sea” Peter Pribik Newbury Transport Group July 17th “The 9-15 from Paddington” railways with a smattering of Simon Foote other transport (audio visual) August 21st “Gosling’s Gallivants” Paul Gosling Oxfordshire Railway Society No meetings until September

REVIEW OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS Meeting on June 10th Goslings Gallivants 2008 Paul presented his annual gallivant around the local transport scene starting, with just a little bias, in Southampton! Watching and photographing the varied trains at Millbrook was temporarily disrupted by a road accident - all duly recorded by Paul! Paul then moved to Eastleigh to observe the comings and goings including specials such as Hastings unit 1001, 50049 and a few Class 47s as well as the more normal fare of 66s. Next came a look at the Knights “takeover” of Eastleigh Works with shots of a Class 153, a 47 and some 73s. Switching to the 2008 Netley Rally, Paul showed us various preserved buses in all their glory then he moved on to the first of many ship shots. No criticism of the show but I did say to Paul afterwards that we may have to rename our Society the BDSS as I do believe he may have shown us more ships than trains! Paul then visited the GWS Railway Centre at Didcot with a good selection of pictures both standard and broad gauge and he brought us up to date with the various projects in hand such as the steam rail motor. More briefly Paul showed us the BDRS trip to Loughborough and the Chasewater Railway followed by the Bill Target Steam Fair near Eastleigh. The first half was completed with an RT935 bus trip abroad to a rally on the Isle of Wight. The second half was definitely more shipping but we started with the Community Rail Partnership 150 celebrations on the Lymington branch where all staff joined in to make it a memorable day. Class 73109 was in use in conjunction with slam door emu 1498. Next came the arrival of Lively Lady in Portsmouth Harbour returning from around the world with a young crew who had taken part in learning to sail. We rapidly moved to Southampton to see “Independence of the Seas” the latest “biggest” cruise liner. This and the final departure of QE2 took up most of the remaining time but Paul still had time to show us 70013 Oliver Cromwell at Salisbury and some more train shots at St Denys. Thank you Paul for your usual varied selection but above all for your unique style and presentation and we look forwarding to hearing from you again next year David Brace

BDRS TRIP TO THE BLUEBELL RAILWAY SUNDAY 9TH AUGUST The plans are now finalised for the Society trip to the Bluebell Railway. Costs will be £20 for members, £24 for guests and £15 for juniors. Departure time from the Central car park will be 08.00, returning at about 19.00 Please make your bookings with John Clark and, as usual, please support us on our annual outing. David Brace

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Meeting on June 24th 1000 Eggs on a Bicycle Colin Boocock Colin returned for the second time to give us a thoroughly entertaining evening in which he endeavoured to show us at least one picture taken by him for every year since he started taking photographs as a schoolboy. As Colin is now in his seventies this was some undertaking. All his photographs have been scanned to digital and appropriately improved to provide some classic shots. To liven up the evening he also gave chocolate prizes for the first person to spot any numbers containing three zeroes! I will not attempt to list all the trains and countries that Colin visited in over 50 years only to say that his wife shared his enthusiasm—at least to some extent! Colin has become a stalwart fund raiser for The Railway Children- a charity whose aim is to raise money to provide for food and shelter for the thousands of homeless children that live on stations every night around the world. Directly as a result of Colin visiting Romania he and his wife adopted an orphan and brought her up in the UK. Colin’s full time job was with BR as a mechanical engineer and his moves seemed as frequent as his trips abroad. As for the title- we spotted the 1000 eggs balanced on the back of a bicycle in one of his non-railway shots. Now was that in India or Pakistan, I cannot quite remember. For those of you who missed his show I suggest you look out for a repeat as it was a treat not to be missed. Colin will be returning to BDRS but with a completely different theme. David Brace

A VISIT TO THE STATFOLD BARN RAILWAY On a very wet Saturday morning on the 6th of June, Peter Hunt and your scribe teamed up with David and Sandra Brace for a visit to the private Statfold Barn Railway near Tamworth. The railway, which only opens three times a year, is located on a working farm, home of Statfold Seed Oils. Here, refined seed oils such as flax, hemp and borage are supplied for use in nutritional and personal care products. Also to be found here, is ”Hunslet Steam”, a company owned by our host, Graham Lee, the retired chairman of LH Group Holdings who now own Hunslet-Barclay, a going concern still supplying railway equipment worldwide. Upon arrival, the impression was one of a very busy railway with an intensive train service. Eight narrow gauge engines were in steam, all rides were free and you could travel as much as you wanted. The railway is very interesting because “the field” railway has dual gauge track using two foot and two foot six-inch gauges. This requires complex pointwork and crossovers. Not only is there dual gauge, but also in the engine shed area, there is triple gauge, where standard gauge trackwork can be found intertwined with dual gauge trackage. At the rear of the engine shed, there is a triple gauge turntable, which has a spur leading to a triple gauge traverser, which in turn, serves a three road restoration shed, where a standard gauge Hunslet “Austerity” saddle tank engine was undergoing a comprehensive rebuild. There was plenty of railwayana on display, such as cast iron notices and boundary markers from every pre-grouping railway company you could think of. In the Hunslet Museum building was a display of locomotive builder’s plates and nameplates almost entirely covering the walls. Transport artist, Jonathan Clay had a sales stand, selling original paintings and prints which now consist of over five hundred locomotive subjects, as well as, buses, trams, commercial vehicles, sports cars and aircraft. There was also a very fine 10¼" inch gauge model of “Royal Scot” in its original form with a parallel boiler and small tender. The extensive workshop facilities would appear to have sufficient capacity to take on work from

The narrow gauge tracks cross the standard gauge

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“the big” railway and a wheel lathe was set up to re-profile the tyres of an HST wheelset. Outside were the results of Graham Lee and his team’s labours – the steam locomotives. Amongst them was the last industrial locomotive built in the U.K. (by Hunslet) which was exported to the Tragkil Sugar Mill in Java. In 2004, Graham Lee negotiated the purchase and repatriation of “Trangkil No.4” (Works no.3902 of 1971), a “Brazil” class Kerr-Stuart design, which was one of the many locomotive manufacturing companies absorbed into Hunslet, others include: the Avonside Engine Company, Manning-Wardle, Andrew Barclay, the North British Locomotive Company, Kitson and a few more besides. Other notable engines in operation were: “Pakis Baru No.5”, a “Mallet” type built in 1905 by Orenstein & Koppel, a Peckett 0-6-0ST, built in 1944 for Harrogate gas works and was at one time owned by the Ffestiniog Railway, one of the Statfold built Hunslet “Quarry” tanks named “Jack Lane” (Works no.3903 of 2005) and a very British looking 0-4-0T, built by La Meuse of Liege, France, undergoing a steam test. The growing fleet of standard gauge locos included: Barclay crane tank “Glenfield”, which many years ago was based at the Great Western Society’s premises at Didcot, two saddle tanks that had come from the Falmouth Dock & Engineering Company in Cornwall, a Cockerill built, vertical boilered shunter, named “Yvonne”, the first standard gauge steam engine to operate at Statfold. A former Great North of Scotland coach body was nearing the completion of its restoration and awaiting the fitting of a suitable chassis. Also of note were the ornate stanchions supporting the platform canopies, these originated from South Beach station, Great Yarmouth and incorporate the initials E&MR (Eastern and Midland Railway), a predecessor of the Midland & Great Northern Railway, the subject of recent talk by Max Wilkinson, here at the Wote Street Club on the 15th April 2009. As can be expected, when it became time to return home, the rain began to ease off and the sun tried to break through the clouds. The Statfold Barn Railway is well worth a visit if railways and railway engineering interests you. In fine weather it would be superb! Phil Noble The operational railway comprised an island platform with two faces and a single track that led out into “the country” via a passing loop and station to a return loop on the far side of a large field. Modus operandi was that 3 passenger trains operated an intense service with an occasional freight thrown in for good measure. A fresh engine came off shed to work each out bound service to the far end of the line. The train then waited until the next train arrived around the loop when the first one returned to the half way station to take water and to pass the third one. There was therefore a constant procession of light engine movements from the main station to the adjoining shed. The service was managed all day by a lady “Slim Controller” and culminated in a double header and a final display of all eight engines on shed together with the crews who had worked so valiantly in less than ideal weather conditions David Brace

< Lining up the locos at the end of the day.

O&K 0-6-0T No 14 approaches the main station>

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BDRS 70D WEB SITE The response to our request in the last newsletter for pictures to populate our web site has been underwhelming! There is still limited time to redeem yourselves. To remind you we are looking for: Basingstoke theme (Modern and historical - locoshed, semaphores, signal box, etc) 6 No

Coach and other UK trips from 2000 to 2008 inclusive 2 No per year Early history of the Society (Clan Line at Basingstoke 1974 etc) 6 No

Your best photograph ever! 6 No Early society trips in the 1970s and 1980s

There is considerable urgency in this as we want to launch the site by September and your sub-committee are working hard to make it professional, enjoyable and something that you, the mem-bers, will be proud of. Please try to help. Pictures are really needed by mid or late July. If you want help in understanding what is wanted, please contact Wally Stamper or Howard Ray. David Brace

A GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY LEGACY – IMMINGHAM DOCKS I had previously thought that our economic work at the Office of Rail Regulation was only concerned with the national railway system i.e. Network Rail plus the various operators and contractors involved in running the national system. However, as well as safety issues on all railways (including HS1, light rail and heritage railways) we are also involved in granting track access agreements for private railways where a number of authorised operators need access to run their trains into private sidings and depots etc. One of the more substantial networks where this applies is the Associated British Ports (ABP) rail network serving Grimsby & Immingham ports. This amounts to over 20 miles of track serving a number of quays and most of the freight operators (DBS, Freightliner, GB Railfreight, Fastline) require access. Immingham is the largest port in the UK measured on tonnage shifted and it is possibly the most diverse dealing with coal, iron ore, metals, timber, cars, containers and Ro-Ro. Due to an ongoing dispute between ABP and DBS, the latter being the track maintainer in the port area up until 2009, I was instructed to make a visit to assess the condition of the infrastructure (track, signalling, structures, drainage etc) and this was arranged as a full day visit in March. Assessing the true costs of operating, maintaining and renewing such a system is of critical importance as this determines the track access charges – the amount each operator pays every year for the pleasure of running its trains into the docks. This becomes more complicated when track has not been maintained or renewed adequately. The only true measure of this is the ability of the system to carry the trains without risk of derailment. Clearly, track able to carry slow speed, heavy axle load trains requires different standards to normal main line freight lines and what might be unacceptable on the national network may well prove acceptable in the docks. Initially, I travelled up to Hull, on the previous day using Hull Trains. Despite travelling first class, the service was indifferent and as the train was virtually empty the 4 members of on-board staff spent much of their time sitting in my coach eating, drinking and making merry! I avoided the excessive security staff at Hull that Peter Tran previously reported on and obtained sufficient photographs of this still impressive terminus. I then retraced my steps to Gilberdyke Junction to photograph the semaphore signals and continued back to Doncaster and reversed my route for a spell at Barnetby. This was quiet with only two or three freight trains observed (including a Kingsbury-Lindsey Class 60 hauled oil train) but three different passenger operators now serve this station (Northern, Transpennine and East Midlands Trains) so passenger trains are quite colourful. I continued onto Grimsby Town for yet another reversal of direction to take the infrequent branch service to Barton-on-Humber. Timing was bad with numerous school children travelling but the return journey was peaceful. I finally left the train at Habrough where my hotel was conveniently located for the following day’s visit. Total mileage for the day was 314. The next day I was collected quite early by the ABP Maintenance Engineer and taken into the

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main offices (ex GCR) for an early morning meeting. This was held in the former board room with seats from the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (front picture of April newsletter) with views of the sea-going lock that links the inner harbour with the dredged channel in the Humber estuary. The day’s visit was entirely at my discretion and I visited and photograph everything! The tracks are formed into discrete groups and we visited them in turn using a 4x4 truck. The MS&LR created the docks for exporting coal and Immingham (was and is) also a convenient springboard for Scandinavia. The MS&LR became the GCR in 1897 and continued with ownership until grouping in 1923. A map in the corridor outside the board room showed the layout of the extensive sidings, at its peak totalling more than 220 miles. The LNER then operated the docks until nationalisation when it became part of the British Transport Dock Board although still continuing much as before with dock staff employed by BTDB and railway staff employed by BR. The plot thickened at privatisation with Railtrack inheriting some track and signalling, namely the double track lines from Humber Road Junction to the Killingholme branch and the “main line” along the southern boundary past Immingham Traction Depot to Immingham East Junction and onto the former Grimsby District Light Railway. These routes are still operated from ABP owned signalboxes (ex GCR!) but with Network Rail staff. Many of the internal sidings are ABP owned and operated but there are also private sidings owned or at least operated by private companies as part of the goods handling within the docks. In the latter category are the coal and iron ore loading sidings belong to Corus. The coal and iron ore is brought in by large ships that are moored at purpose-built jetties in the estuary. Conveyor belts move the material to storage and then lifted up into bunkers for loading into rail wagons for ongoing transit to Scunthorpe steel works. EWS sort of inherited the maintenance and renewals of the track but the contract was terminated at the end of 2008 as ABP were concerned that renewals were lagging and with a worsening of condition leading to more frequent derailments. Freightliner is the current maintainer. There is a serious issue on how much track needs renewing and over what period of time. This influences the level of access charges. My purpose was to review the physical condition of the assets and to assess whether the network was fit for purpose. We started with the Reception Sidings and the NCB sidings –small fans of sidings where traffic used to be exchanged with the BR network. This is now used for some wagon storage plus coal loading by bucket into 100 ton wagons, typically 21 No wagons to a train and hauled by EWS and others. The tracks were in a pretty poor state with heavy wear on the rail head and much of the track immersed in coal dust slurry. Some points were life expired. The practice at Immingham has been generally to use second hand materials with rail chairs from all the grouping companies and some pre-grouping. The oldest I found was a GCR chair. In many cases due either to coal slurry or weeds, the chairs could not be inspected. One particular stretch of track intrigued me. This linked the Reception sidings with Exxtor sidings and Immingham TMD. Picture 01 shows the state of the track and level crossing and it was difficult to believe that a train could run over it. 66206 shortly proved me wrong! and Picture 02 shows it passing the Hargreaves loading sidings after passing over the crossing! At the Reception sidings there was one of two GCR signal boxes still in operation and I visited the interiors of both. The frames were electro-pneumatic systems, now so rare that one of them is likely to end up in the National Railway Museum. Out of a total of some 90+ levers in Immingham Reception Sidings SB, only 4 or 5 are now needed. Picture 03 shows the frame with horizontal slide levers in brass that operate electrical switches that then connect to pneumatic point and signal levers. There is an object in each box,

Picture 01

Picture 02

Picture 03

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called the grandfather clock, that supplies the electricity to the panel. From the steps of the box I was able to photograph an incoming empty coal train hauled by GB Railfreight 66709 plus some of the semaphore signals. (picture 04) My inspection continued with visits to Mineral Quay Sidings and Simon Storage West. These only have intermittent usage with goods other than coal (scrap metal, imported finished metals, chemicals, fertilisers etc) and the track is overgrown (suitable for football) with broken chairs, seized up fishplate bolts and other signs of minimum maintenance. At least one line serving storage tanks is a designated hazardous route and requires weekly inspections although usage is probably less than monthly. The highlight of the morning was a visit to the Immingham Bulk Terminal, a recent construction in the Humber estuary to serve the larger bulk carriers (100000 ton capacity). Offloading is by grab and each grab lifts 36 tons! (picture 05). The coal is taken by conveyor for surface storage and blending and then by further conveyors into bunkers over the loading sidings. I was then taken up into the loading control room directly above the wagons and watched as an EWS train of 23 wagons hauled by 66199 was loaded automatically, each wagon receiving precisely 76 tons of coal as the train moved forward at 0.8mph (picture 06). Before loading, the operator sets the computer controls for the type of wagon and consist. EWS uses a spare driver (not necessarily qualified for the main line) to take the train through loading whilst the regular driver takes a meal break. The view from outside the bunker was good for studying the surrounding track layout (picture 07). The train being loaded is to the left whilst a second train waits its turn. On the right an EWS hauled loaded iron ore train leaves the Corus loading terminal for Scunthorpe. To be continued. David Brace

Picture 04

Picture 05

Picture 06

Picture 07

FARES FAIR OR ARE THEY? In my travels at home and abroad this year, the issue of cost of rail travel in the UK has arisen time and time again. Despite protestations by ATOC, representing the operators, it is very difficult to obtain cheap tickets in advance and often I cannot plan to travel 10 or 12 weeks in advance. Even at the top end of 1st Class fares, the limits on which trains one can use are far too restrictive. My employer recently booked me a first class ticket from London to Durham returning on the next day. I asked for an open return to give me choice of trains and operators. I was given a National Express East Coast service only ticket at a price of £375!! This allowed me one 3 course meal. Breakfast now on the ECML is a shadow of its former self with no silver service and toast is extra! Very few services offer a full dinner so again no 3 course meals were possible. To top it all the stewardess knocked my full gin and tonic over me and my neighbour and not a single apology. Part of the journey involved TransPennine and they wanted an additional £52! We recently wanted to visit Plymouth on a Sunday. The faster route was FGW via Reading but the fare was £170 per person. At one point we travelled in a nearly empty FGW HST. Is this a good example of pricing using demand management that all the operators boast that they operate to give us low fares on empty trains? By the way we used SWT with their free weekend tickets for Gold Card holders David Brace

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CABLE AND HOWIE VISIT CZECHOSLOVAKIA 2009 Whilst Howie made his way from Berlin by train, Cable made his way to Vienna using Aer Lingus from Gatwick on a pay for everything flight. The onward train journey to Wien Sud was straightforward, allowing time to photograph one of the OBB class 1014 electrics, which are shortly to be sold, possibly to a German operator. But the expected Pendolino from Vienna to Brno turned out to be a class 1216 working through to Prague, with Czech (CD) coaches. We were advised that the train would be 30 minutes late into Brno before we started, due to engineering work. That turned out to be construction work associated with the new Hauptbahnhof station in Vienna that will replace three terminal stations. So instead of leaving Wien Sud and turning sharp left, we headed out towards Hungary, past the huge marshalling yard on the outskirts of the city, and the traversed a freight only loop to come round to the other side of the yard, joining the line from the airport, which I had already been over about a couple of hours earlier! (When I had been changing trains at the underground station at Rennweg to get to Wien Sud from the airport, I was amazed to see main line passenger and freight trains going through a station which only sees S-Bahn and CAT services – I now knew the reason why). So having traveled over all sorts of unknown lines on the North side of Vienna, I eventually arrived at Brno and made my way to meet up with Howie at the Grand Hotel – where else?! Day 1 was spent using our first class railcards (four days for £80!) initially at Zamrsk, where I had spent a day on a previous visit, but the station master who had spoken passable English had been replaced by staff who spoke none, making conversation impossible. It had been intended to then move on to a town on another main line – Hradec Kravlove – but in the event we stopped off at the major junction at Pardubice, the only station east of Prague on the main line, where all trains stop. The problem there was that the freight lines avoid the station on the south side, meaning that shots were limited by looking into the sun. Our return to Brno and the Grand, was celebrated this night – and all the others – by sampling some of the very pleasant Czech white wines. Day 2 involved a trip into Slovakia. First to Bratislava, we changed trains onto an express to Zilina in the north of the country. The journey, although not high speed, took us through some very picturesque countryside, and some massive EU investment in motorways and factories . However Zilina station, although good for trains was unsatisfactory for photography, causing us to travel back to Puchov.. This station was also limited, being one with narrow paving between the tracks, and a large station building which needless to say faced the sun. Since we were not allowed to stand on the paving for safety reasons, we were unable to do much apart from getting good shots of one of the only two advertising locos on the Slovakian railways (ZSSK), for which we were able to walk across the tracks. Our train required us to do a circuitous trip through the mountains, a change of trains at Ceske Trebova then more wine! Day 3 dawned without a cloud in the sky, and Bratislava, with its long curved platform beckoned. Practically all locomotives were in the new ZSSK colours of red and white, and most were in very clean condition. As the sun moved round, so we returned to Brno, and another bottle. Day 4 had a total change of weather – rain and wind. Ostrava, the industrial city in the north east of Czech Republic was the destination, together with the adjacent border town with Poland of Bohumin. Several private operator locos and trains were captured by the camera, together with Polish electrics which worked in on trains from Warsaw. Then more drinking! In terms of the trains we saw, a wide selection of DC and AC electrics and two particular classes of diesels were seen, and hardly any multiple units – this being a major reason for going to this part of the world. Colour schemes on CD are very varied with many one off schemes, contrasting with the new ZSSK scheme being applied almost universally. The “goggles” diesels classes 750, 753 and 754 are to my mind some of the most attractive, and are very good locos, used on a good variety of public and private services. So a worthwhile trip in spite of having to cope with an impossible language, about which all will be revealed in Cable’s Railway Year 2010. DAVID CABLE