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Collett’s ‘68XX’ recalled

42 | April 3-April 30 2009 Issue 361

“‘Anborough, ‘Anborough, this ‘ere’s Anborough!” More than 40 years on, I can still hear the porter at the little Handborough station, just north of Oxford, calling his station name in the hope that

someone might alight there. Like poet Edward Thomas, 50 years before me, I was

riding a stopping train on the ‘old worse and worse’, the Oxford Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway, or at least its successor, BR’s Cotswold line. Like Thomas’ train, mine would stop at Aldestrop, but I would alight at exquisite Chipping Campden to photograph the station.

Thus ended my first and most memorable ‘Grange’ trip, the 1.25pm Saturdays-only Oxford-Worcester local. It called at all stations and lay over in a siding at Moreton-in-Marsh while a down express overtook it, before carrying on its way.

I don’t have the date of my trip but it was most probably in 1964. The locomotive was Oxford (81F)-based No. 6868 Penrhos Grange, filthy but otherwise in good health and still with a full complement of plates and fittings. With just a pair of cascaded Hawksworth corridor coaches in tow it made some lively starts away from the little wayside stations as it climbed the Evenlode valley.

We stood in the corridor as the series of pronounced tugs from the locomotive set the bright red fire extinguisher bouncing in its leather straps. Combe Halt, Finstock Halt, Charlbury, Ascott-under-Wychwood, Shipton for Burford, Kingham, Adlestrop, Moreton-in-Marsh - lyrical names, green English countryside, pretty stations and steam haulage. That sunny afternoon, the ‘Granges’ became firm personal favourites.

Nowhere was the GWR’s mix-and-match standardisation put to better use than in Collett’s ‘Granges’. Having already created the successful ‘Hall’ by modernising a ‘Saint’ and fitting 6ft driving wheels to produce a first-rate mixed traffic locomotive, Collett provided the operating people with their next requirement, a 4-6-0 to replace smaller and older mixed traffic types.

This was essentially a recycling process. The GWR maintenance system produced a pool of standard boilers to reduce the length of time locomotives were in works for overhaul. By using No. 1 boilers from the pool and recycling the wheels and some motion parts of the ‘43XX’ 2-6-0s which were to be replaced, with new frames and ‘Hall’-type cabs, Collett created his ‘68XX’ class.

The first locomotive of what was to be the ‘Grange’ class appeared in 1936. Many of the 2-6-0s were far from life-expired, but were simply to be superseded by something better, and it was not unusual for Swindon to take serviceable parts from older designs and simply refurbish and re-use them in new locomotives.

Outwardly, the combination of a lower-pitched ‘Hall’ boiler and smaller wheels resulted in a distinctive step in the running plate over the cylinders to readily

The best locomotives were often a blend of design features taken from other classes, but in the case of Swindon’s ‘Granges’ it was a combination of standard parts and one bespoke component that made them such a success. Chris Leigh explains.

At home on the ‘Grange’The ‘Grange’ 4-6-0sDesigner: C B Collett

Weight: locomotive: 74tons tender: 40tons

Boiler pressure: 225lbs/sq in

Cylinders: Two outside 18½in by 30in

Driving wheel diameter: 5ft 8in

Bogie wheel diameter: 3ft

Length: 63ft ¼in

Tractive effort: 28,875lb

Power classification: 5MT (GWR system: D)

GWR route availability: Red

Classic ‘Grange’ territory. No. 6864 Rockley Grange swings onto the sea wall at Teignmouth with an up freight in August 1957. A R BUTCHER

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At home on the ‘Grange’

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62 | April 3-April 30 2009 Issue 361

MAIN LINEWandering ‘Oliver’ finishes FolkestoneWELL, it’s shut. Or rather, it isn’t, but you still can’t run trains down there. I’m talking about Folkestone Harbour and the convoluted process our railway goes through to separate itself from a mile of rusty, virtually disused track that no regular passengers have used for almost a decade.

At a minute past midnight on March 15, the old South Eastern Railway spur was put, in the jargon of today, ‘temporarily out of use’. Don’t be confused by that: if Network Rail has its way, in a year’s time ‘temporary’ will become permanent. Between now and then, no trains will run.

So it seems as if the history of the steep little spur that sent our

troops to France in two World Wars and brought (some of) them back again, that saw the Pullman car luxury of the ‘Golden Arrow’, has finally run its course.

I say ‘seems’, because there’s still the chance to object, and then there’s the ‘Remembrance Line Association’, still fighting to give the Harbour branch a life after death (see News).

In the meantime, the line is in a weird limbo. What looks like the last ever train to use a route that opened to passengers in 1849 was dragged up the hill by Steam Railway readers appeal engine No. 70013 Oliver Cromwell shortly after 2pm on March 14. The crowds, once again, were extraordinary.

Unlike earlier ‘farewells’, this time there were no detonators, muted razzmatazz and not even any ‘Golden Arrow’ regalia on the engine (I’m told the bracket didn’t fit). Even so, the ‘Brit’ presented a fine sight clambering away from the harbour, and a sound much more in keeping with the ‘R1s’ that once worked here than the wheezy gasp of ‘Battle of Britain’ Tangmere when it visited in January. On the last run, I reckon they heard it in Dover.

No one, even on the train, really knew if it was the end (one comment was that DB Schenker planned to stable VSOE stock on the branch the next week). But it was, and it was ‘your’ engine, the National Railway Museum’s

Oliver Cromwell, that brought down the curtain.

All of which was very poignant and makes some of No. 70013’s forthcoming trips appear, well, a little tame in comparison. That’s a shame, because some of them are really rather good.

I won’t reiterate the whole programme here (that’s what the Main Line Diary is for), but by the time you read this the 1951-built ‘Pacific’ will be revving up for its role on the Railway Touring Company’s ‘Great Britain’. After that come trips for Steam Dreams and Past-Time Rail (a first trip to Lincoln, on April 25, when the Riddles locomotive could be one of two engines out of King’s Cross on the same day…).

After its final climb No. 70013 heads off across Foord Viaduct. ANDREW DENNISON

The clouds are gathering as No. 70013 Oliver Cromwell makes its final assault on the climb from the harbour to the main line on March 14. ED HURST

Waiting for the next turn, ‘Cromwell’ raises steam next to a signal box that has given its last instruction. TONY STREETER

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Issue 361 April 3-April 30 2009 | 63

6024 Society members were gazing concerned into a dark hole in late March - the 34 sq ft of King Edward I’s firebox.

Cracking has been found on the Collett engine’s rear tubeplate but no one yet knows how bad it is.

The discovery comes near the end of ‘winter maintenance’, which has been taking place in the ex-Swindon shed at Williton, West Somerset Railway. The plan had been for the 4-6-0 to take part in

the Minehead line’s gala (March 21/22 and 26-29), but it now looks as if it will sit out all of that on display.

That could be the least of the society’s worries. ‘KEI’s’ owning group is waiting on a visit by specialists to see what happens next: “We know that something has to be done, we just don’t know the extent as yet,” society press officer Dave Fuszard told me.

“It might be that we can simply

get a bloke in to fix it. But the worst case scenario is the boiler coming out.”

That would be a huge setback for an engine that’s only about four years into its latest boiler certificate. Whether No. 6024 makes the runs booked to it in the next few months (starting with Past-Time Rail’s ‘Red Dragon’ on April 18 and followed by the Royal Albert Bridge ‘150’ celebrations on May 2) is open to question.

The National Railway Museum’s ‘Steam our Scotsman’ appeal moves on, though it hasn’t grabbed the public in the way ‘Save our Scotsman’ did.

As of March 20 the ‘A3’ appeal total had reached £49,181.18 - up from £37,000 in February (SR360). It means the money’s now nudging a fifth of what the NRM appealed for when it

launched ‘SOS’ in January - but still has another £200,000 to go. York has pledged that Flying Scotsman will steam, even if the money doesn’t come in – it will just take a bit longer to achieve than the present target of 2010 (SR359).

Perhaps, though, given all we hear about No. 4472’s iconic status, the NRM’s parent body the

National Museum of Science & Industry should now put its hands in its pockets to finish the job.

I know museums are always meant to be penniless, but given the millions already donated to ‘Scotsman’ by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Great British Public (together with the engine’s much-claimed popularity), surely it really shouldn’t be too much to ask…?

You may not have heard of Trudi Tate. She’s a National Express East Coast driver based at Newcastle, and she won ‘driver of the year’ in 2008.

That means she’s at the top of her particular tree - piloting today’s Class 91 electrics and High Speed Trains up and down the East Coast Main Line.

If that doesn’t seem relevant to steam, bear with me. I was privileged to interview Trudi recently, for the new ‘A Day in the Life’ feature in Steam Railway’s

sister title RAIL (issue 614). Steam was far from my mind

as I boned up on the questions to ask someone for whom even BR was a long time ago (after a career change she was in one of its last intakes, in 1993). So I was surprised when the topic came up…

Explaining what drew her to railways Trudi, North Eastern lass born and bred, said she remembered watching steam crossing the spectacular viaduct above her family’s farm at Yarm,

North Yorkshire (“Sometimes coal used to drop down on us”). The bug bit deeper when she saw Mallard in the National Railway Museum at York. Only later did she come across the High Speed Train.

So even today’s top East Coast driver - as acknowledged by her own contemporaries - was infected by steam. It shows once again that it really does ‘warm the market’ for railways.

I wonder what Bill Hoole would make of that?

‘King’ boys stare into black hole

‘scotsman’: time science Museum shelled out

Today’s ‘Top Link’ - infected by steam

DOWN MAiNWith tONY StrEEtEr

Am I the only one who noticed that GROUCHO’s immaculate rant (‘The Safety Valve’) didn’t appear in last month’s SR? There was I, feet up, flicking through the mag and looking forward to reading an outrageous argument to scrap ‘Bulleids’ or some such. It wasn’t there. The other day a slip of paper was passed to me anonymously, and on it was the missing text. Does it provide a clue? I quote:

“I swear, if I see another e-mail that starts ‘the £3 million new steam locomotive’ I’ll climb the walls! I KNOW IT COST £3 MILLION! I don’t need telling any more. Everyone must know it cost £3 million by now, surely? Anyway, isn’t that £2 million more than it was supposed to cost? I guess ‘the £2 million over-

budget new steam locomotive’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

“There is an old saying that you can have too much of a good thing. I reached that point some while ago with No. 60163. In the meantime, I’m off for a lie-down. Hopefully they won’t ask me to write about ‘Yawnado’ again.”

There’s more, but you get the gist. So, the question has to be asked: has GROUCHO been censored? Is no one allowed to say anything against the new ‘A1’, not even GROUCHO? C’mon Mr Editor, we need to know. And while you’re at it, how about publishing the original, unexpurgated text…?Ed - I deny everything. The rumours of extraordinary rendition are all false. Groucho is currently under sedation.

Wandering ‘Oliver’ finishes Folkestone

‘Cromwell’ takes the ‘Golden Arrow’ through Knockholt

before its emotional duties at Folkestone.

ROBIN COOMBES

GROuCHO censored?

There’s one other day out worth flagging up, as it’s only just been finally confirmed: ‘The Palatine’ for Steam Dreams on May 9. This London-Manchester job is a ‘leftover’ from last year, but although an aspiration for a while has only just been ‘inked in’. The significance, of course, is that the Midland Main Line is classic ‘Brit’ territory.

The ‘Palatine’ also adds to the wanderings of an engine that has recently been on the Western, Southern and Eastern Regions… helping to fulfil the commitment when it was restored that it would appear around the country. Just the Scottish to go, then it’ll have the full set.

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