The Bristol Railway Archive

I've read about Hymeks working from newly built cars for export from Oxford to Harwich on Friday evenings. Also a Western worked a service train all the way to Leeds on one occasion.
OK, a Deltic worked an excursion here towards the end of that class' life but were there other Eastern Region workings here?
For example, did any of the D75XX class ever make it this far?
On Thursday this week class 40 D213 worked an excursion through Temple Meads. Did one of those ever make it here in "proper" days?

One evening in the mid 1960's I copped D320 approaching Stapleton Road hauling the City of Birmingham Holiday Express complete with headboard. The previous week it had been a Britannia 70054 narrowing the date a bit as that one was withdrawn in 1966. Earliest it could have been would have been 1963.

Roy

Whilst in steam days a driver was expected to dive any engine he was given, there were rules about traction knowledge when the diesels came along as well as route knowledge. This very much limited the railwayÔÇÖs ability to use unusual locomotives for a standard diagram or special train.

Very few non-WR drivers would have traction knowledge for the hydraulics. Some SR drivers on the Waterloo to Exeter line may have had experience of them, as would some Saltley men after the ex-GWR depots at Birmingham and Wolverhampton closed.

It would therefore have been plausible for a Western to reach Leeds on an out-and-home working from Brum (I suspect route knowledge of ex-Barrow Road men transferred to Bath Road would have expired north of Derby by then). However, no Leeds driver would have been allowed to touch it and, if it failed en-route, another Saltley driver with the appropriate traction and route knowledge would have had to go to get it back.

I am a lot less sure about the plausibility of a Hymek working to Harwich. Unless drivers were specially given route knowledge of the route to work these trains, they would have needed a conductor for a fair part of the way. Oxford men may have worked to Cambridge when that line was open so a conductor would be needed beyond, but if the trains ran via the North London line there would have been a shedful of drivers at Stratford to take the trains on with ER engines. I think we need more information on this before we come to any conclusions.

As regards unusual engines coming the other way (ie to the WR from other regions) similar rules would have applied. An out-and-home run for any locomotive permitted to use the route would have been OK. In my day Bath Road men didnÔÇÖt have traction knowledge of class 40s but other drivers from other depots that worked to Bristol would have done so. I was once told a story by the driver involved himself about relieving a train at Gloucester in the dark, and he thought from ground level that he had a 37, and only found out he hadnÔÇÖt and it was a 40 when he got in the cab. I forget the end of the story now ÔÇô whether he took it anyway or asked for relief or another driver.

Hi Robin.
The western reaching Leeds was a one off, a bit like the Clan that made it to Weymouth.
I read in a book about the Hymeks going to Harwich on Friday evenings. The author wrote that local spotters soon picked up on this working and would be out in force for this weekly working. As you posted, presumably a conductor would have been in the cab.
As for the driver mistaking a 40 for a 37; the version I heard was that it was in South wales and when he gott off, the driver commented "That's the best 37 I've ever had" before realising his error.

Whist digging around the internet tryingto find out some moredetails about this I stu,mbled upon a post on a railway modellers forum entitled "Hydraulics off the beaten track". https://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/F ... hp?t=37366

Here is one pertinent post from it from 2012:

"Westerns certainly worked to Bletchley because they went to Wolverton with a stone train for unloading on the remnents of the Newport Pagnell branch There was a 1930 Moscow - Anywhere Q path (ran when required) and certainly I recall a Hymek getting to Hull. That would have been in 1964 sometime when I was working in the staff office at Oxford before i moved on to Padd. That came about because there was no engine available to take the car train forward from Bordesley where the Hymek and crew were due to come off. They agreed to go to Derby. Same story there, so onto to Sheffield. Still no engine so they went through to Hull and returned light engine to Oxford. Twenty four hours on duty, plus a mileage bonus into the bargain. That threw the gauntlet down to the Oxford men and there was a reliable tale of another Hymek, with Oxford crew, going though to Harwich with the car train. Certainly the guard did, I had to do his time sheet when he got back, nearly twenty four hours on that one as well. Talking to a pal the other day he remembers seeing Warships working parcels trains in the inner London area Waterloo - Waterloo via Strawberry Hill, and another to Chessington. Certainly Westerns were diagrammed to Mordon on a milk train from the West of England on a nightly basis. Most of these moves took place as night and nobody was out with a camera then so these wonders went unrecorded."

All of that is plausible because of route and traction knowledge limitations. The tale of a Hymek working to Hull would have been expensive for the railway in more ways than one, because once the job was done then cinductors would have had to be prfovided to get the driver back to where his route knowledge started.

I must admit to being surprise by the route taken though. At the time the GC was still open so I would have expected it to go via Banbury and Woodford Halse.

Hymeks certainly worked on the GC to at least Leicester Central, because the train I was on was hauled south from there by one in 1966 - the 2222 York to Swindon (and Bristol SuO) via the GC