Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: Lancashire

It takes years of real neglect to get as filthy as this unidentified Stanier Black 5. The cleaners (if there were still such things at Newton Heath loco shed in 1968) hadn't been near the cylinder and wheels of this example & no doubt it went to its grave with the accumulated grease & grime. The scrap men (and look away if you're sensitive) would set fire to the grease before cutting the engines up. This would burn away everything first so that their torches didn't start fires while they worked.

A reworked & re-cropped version of an earlier post. Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106 darkens the skies over Lancashire while filling its tender from the archaic looking water column. Her blower is hard on to lift the smoke & get up steam ready to depart the shed for the Severn Valley Railway at Bridgnorth and a new life in preservation. Stanier 8F Class No 48476 had its day of fame on 4th August double-heading 1L50, the RCTS 'End of Steam' tour with Standard 5 73069.

Despite the atrocious weather 7P 4-6-0 46100 Royal Scot looked and sounded the part as she opened up to climb the gradient out of the Calder valley with the returning Saphos Rails Fellsman.

In very poor conditions 4-6-0 46100 Royal Scot climbs the gradient out of the Calder valley with the returning Saphos Rails Fellsman.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 44971 taking water at the platform end of Preston station early on a Sunday morning near the end of BR steam. Myself & a friend had arrived at Preston station at approx. 05.00 in the morning after trying & failing to sleep on the footplate of a Black 5 at Lostock Hall shed, on a park bench in Leyland & at the cop shop in Leyland. We didn't really sleep in the waiting room at Preston either because this engine was pottering about. Later that morning we took the train to Carnforth to check out the shed before returning to Sheffield in the evening. An everyday scene about to disappear for ever.

Stanier Jubilee 4-6-0 45699 Galatea, beautifully turned out as 45562 Alberta, climbing the 1 in 125 gradient towards Diggle Junction box and Standedge tunnel with the Cotton Mill Express. The timetable had the loco looped at Diggle for 20 minutes so we expected the driver to be shutting off by this point but the train was actually held at Stalybridge instead. It was running 30 minutes late so the Diggle stop was dropped and she was really working hard through here. The backdrop is the W.H. Shaw Pallet (formerly Dobcross Loom) Works, reputedly one of the largest factories of its type before its closure in 2006. Dating from 1860 it was being demolished at the time of my visit.

British Railways Standard Caprotti 5MT 4-6-0 73143 and Stanier 8F 2-8-0s 48749 & 48553 deep inside Manchester Patricroft New Shed.

On the eastern side of Lancaster station Northern Rail Class 142 Pacer dmu 142035 waits in Platform 5 with a local evening train to Morecambe. I made a day journey up to West Coast Railways at Carnforth to renew my PTS. After driving to Crewe from Leicester I caught a Virgin train to Lancaster, changing for the short run to Carnforth.

Black 5 4-6-0 45420 bursts from under Cheetham Hill Road overbridge at the east end of Manchester Victoria station drawing a parcels train from platform 4 while acting as station pilot. I only just managed to see and photograph the fag end of British Railways steam in the northwest before it all went in August 1968.

Deep inside Newton Heath steam shed 8F 48529 simmers in the shadows.

Bolton steam shed, Stanier 8F 48652, 8th June 1968. The engine is fitted with a small buffer beam snow plough. Two Drewry diesel shunters including D2234 alongside. The signals on the far left are on the Manchester to Bolton line.

Burnley Rose Grove, Lancashire outside the steam shed. Stanier 8F 2-8-0 48348 is on a coal train heading west, 1st August 1968. Note the gaggle of enthusiasts on the cutting side in the background enjoying the view before the final end of steam on BR 3 days later when Rose Grove shed (one of the last 3 steam depots - out of sight to the right) closed. Rosebay willowherb is forever associated with August 1968 in my mind and its alternative name of fireweed is very appropriate.

Burnley Rose Grove shed. Various Stanier 8F and Black 5 steam engines including 48237 & 45110 near the pits in front of the shed building, 1st August 1968. A gaggle of spotters observe a white-shirted, and hence not a railwayman, cleaner working on 45110 - now preserved at the SVR - while other engines move about the yard near the shed entrance. The road bridge in the distance spans the Rose Grove station platforms. Only three more days to go before the end of working BR steam but all the atmosphere of a large shed was still there. The motorway now runs through this scene. See where this picture was taken. [?]

Sidings just east of Guide Bridge station on the Great Central Woodhead Route from Manchester to Sheffield in May 1968. EM1 electric E26014 waits to leave the up sidings. A line of at least 3 stabled electrics can be seen behind. This photo was taken from the footplate of British Railways 9F 92118 (curve of the tender bottom left-thought about cropping it but would have excluded other locos) while en route from Heaton Mersey shed in Stockport to Newton Heath steam shed in north Manchester. Our train was made up of the 9F and 2 Stanier 8Fs.

Manchester Victoria station Platform 17, Stanier LMS Black 5 45202 on a parcels train 4th May 1968. Today the overall roof has gone, this platform is underneath the Manchester Evening News arena and steam a memory! And what is that archaic wheeled contraption on the left? 45202 has a very clean smokebox door compared with the rest of the engine. Maybe some enthusiast got busy with an oily rag because by this late in the steam day cleaners were very thin on the ground. See where this picture was taken. [?]

Carnforth shed, Lancashire. British Railways Britannia Class 4-6-2 70013 Oliver Cromwell & an unidentified Stanier Black 5 in light steam at the north end of the shed blacken the late afternoon atmosphere as they await their next duties. I visited the shed in the evening en route back to Manchester Victoria on a Northern Railfans trip. The tall concrete building is the ash lift, an efficient way to clear away the piles of ash & char from engine disposals which could quickly accumulate in a large shed like Carnforth. Small tubs were filled by hand and then hoist up the tower & tipped into waiting 16 ton wagons for onward disposal. The much larger concrete coaling tower is just out of shot. 70013 has now (May 2008) been restored at the Great Central Railway at Loughborough after spending most of the time since August 1968 at Bressingham in Norfolk. The plan is to run-in the loco on the Great Central ready for main line train duty in 2008 to commemorate 40 years since the end of steam on BR.

Cabside number Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 44845, built at Crewe in 1944. I am contemplating the last day of steam at Newton Heath & the fact that the filthy cab won't ever be cleaned again. I don't think that left hand window has ever been cleaned! This engine still had 50psi of steam in its boiler but by the end of the day would be cold & ready for its last journey to the scrapyard.