Stanier Pacifics at Bristol

[Matt Thomas]

Does anyone have information about the Princesses' post-war visits to Bristol? I'm surprised these magnificent machines' occasional forays into the West Country aren't better documented and depicted.

I seem to remember seeing a shot of one passing Kingswood Junction or what was left of it (just as the preservation era was starting, I think). I may be wrong; certainly I had assumed they were never cleared for the old Midland main line to the north (however, at the end of the steam era people often weren't too bothered about this). I may be totally wrong on this one. Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on this.

Matt Thomas

[mjt]

I'm pretty sure that 6201 attended one of the first Bath Road Open Days - 1965/1966???. At that time it was based at Ashchurch & so may have gone past Kingswood Junc twice. Whether it was in steam I have no idea. Has anybody a better memory (or not suffering the inconvenience of being at work)?

[sideways]

Yes it did I was there! I wrote down the engine number in my observers book of trains, problem was my edition did not have this class in its pages as all the class had been withdrawn I guess?

Great day walking around on my own,bit sad really!

I think I must have been nine or ten,I had to walk back to hartcliffe as I had spent my 2/6 on entrance and a bus to Temple Meads

[BristleGWR]

There are a few photo's of 6201 at Mangotsfield on Russ Cribb's flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rustysea/with/2953636479/

[Robin Summerhill]

Does anyone have information about the Princesses' post-war visits to Bristol? I'm surprised these magnificent machines' occasional forays into the West Country aren't better documented and depicted.

I seem to remember seeing a shot of one passing Kingswood Junction or what was left of it (just as the preservation era was starting, I think). I may be wrong; certainly I had assumed they were never cleared for the old Midland main line to the north (however, at the end of the steam era people often weren't too bothered about this). I may be totally wrong on this one. Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on this.

Matt Thomas

As has already been said, 6201 was at the Bath Road Open Day on 21st October 1967 (according to the caption on my photographs from the time, but my captions have sometimes proved to be wrong before - see the recent S&D threads!). I also have photographs of 7808 and 7029 at the depot that day.

I seem to vaguely recall an incidence of a Coronation pacific working into Bristol via the North & West route in the early 1960s. I think I read it in a Modern Railways from the time, but I'm not going up ino the attic to look through them all this side of Friday as I'm unusually busy this week! Perhaps someone else knows about this without me going to look?

You have to bear in mind that the Stanier pacifics were built for the heavy trains on the LNW line from Euston to Liverpool/ Manchester and Scotland, and it was on these duties that they spent the majority of their working lives. It was only towards the end, when the first generation diesels started taking over their workings, that they started to "fall spare" and get used on other duties. It says quite a lot about the utilisation of these machines on the LNW line that the only reason 71000 was built in the first place was as a replacement for 46202, written off in the 1952 Harrow accident.

As you imply, the pacifics were barred from the Midland main line between Bristol and Birmingham and, indeed, no shed on the ex-Midland lines in the Brum areas would have been likely to have had anything to do with them, so it would have been unllikely in the extreme for one to arrive in Bristol from that direction. They were not, however, specifically barred from arriving via the Severn Tunnel (according to my 1959 WTT anyway). For one to arrive from that direction it would presumably have been put on a North & West express at Crewe. I don't have any WTTs from that part of the world so I don't know if there were any restrictions on working the joint lines south of Crewe.

And even if there were, engines did from time to time break those restrictions, as in the notable case in 1963 when SPM rostered a Castle through to Portsmouth on a school special, and it sat in Fratton MPD for a couple of months whilst they decided how to get it home (the width of those cylinders and the curved platforms on the LSW between Salisbury and Fareham being a potentially toxic mix ) It wasn't a case of not being bothered about the restrictions in the later days of steam, because they were in place for specific reasons (mainly gauging and axle weight issues)

All that said, and back specifically to 6201, that engine was kept at Ashchurch for some years, and the only way it could get in or out was via the Midland line, so there clearly would have been some sort of dispensation already in place to allow it to be moved occasionally. I would imagine that a special instruction would have been issued (eg not to exceed a given speed at points A, B and C)

[trafalgar45682]

46220 Coronation worked into Bristol on the early morning 1V86 Glasgow portion from Crewe on Feb 7 1963. It was stabled at St Philips Marsh, where I saw it in the shed later in the day.

46229 passed through Bristol on April 20 1964 on its way to Minehead for static display. It was towed into Bristol Bath Road Depot by 6825.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bristolsteam/5285905560/

Patrick