THE MIDDLETON MILESTONES
In the third of our special features of three heritage lines which celebrate their 60th anniversary this summer, editor Robin Jones looks back at the dawn of the Middleton Railway, the first standard gauge outfit to run public trains in the preservation e
of the explosion, he was “carried, with great violence, into an adjoining field the distance of 100 yards,” it was reported. Future Rocket inventor George Stephenson claimed that the driver had tampered with the boiler safety valve, when he gave evidence to a parliamentary committee.
A second boiler explosion occurred on February 12, 1834, this time killing driver Hewitt. Blame this time fell upon a badlyworn boiler, kept going by in- house repairs which were no longer expertly carried out after Blenkinsop’s death, and the railway reverted to horse traction the following year – apart from amile- long length cable- hauled by a stationary engine. Steam locomotives would not return to the railway until 1866 with tank engines supplied by local firm ManningWardle.
Pioneering the heritage era
The story of today’s lynchpin of British industrial railway heritage began in 1958, the 200th anniversary of the Act of Parliament which empowered theMiddleton.
On February 1 that year, the Yorkshire Evening Post ran a front page headline which said ‘ Coal board is to abandon pre- Stephenson railway in Leeds – it’s too costly’.
BroomPit was by then held to be “a losing concern”, the track needed heavymaintenance and was in desperate need of complete renewal, and the lease on the railway land was about to expire. It was deemed cheaper to load the coal into lorries at the pit, but residents – backed by Leeds City Council – objected loudly to lorries going through the Belle Isle housing estate.
Saturday, June 7 that year saw the city museum open a Salute to Steam exhibition arranged in conjunction with the Railway & Canal Historical Society and the West Riding branch of the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society. That same day, about 300 members of these societies embarked on a bicentenary journey fromHunslet Moor staithes in a rake of six open goods wagons loaned by BR behind the NCB’s now- scrapped Hudswell Clarke
0- 6- 0ST No. 1871 of 1954 Blenkinsop. For safety reasons, it was followed by new prototype Fowler 0- 4- 0DHNo. 423001of 1957, which was advertising that company’s products.
The council and Belle Isle residents fought on in the wake of the announcement that road haulage would begin in August 1959.
A comprise solution was reached whereby the National Coal Board agreed to send some of the coal by rail and the rest by road. BRwas to operate the rail traffic, and the section of the Middleton saved fromclosure for the purpose was relaid to its standards. The rot had set in for rail freight here: by 1967, just 3% of the weekly average shipments of 5400 tons left by rail.
In September 1959, members of the Leeds University Union Railway Society, which was looking for a site on which to preserve or even run trams, amode of transport by then fast disappearing from street scenes everywhere, came up with the idea of acquiring a short stretch of line, or even building one. However, the university quickly gave the cold shoulder to laying track on its West Park sports ground and the idea of students running trains.
The society then looked at the northern section of theMiddleton which ran towards Hunslet staithes and the BR connection at Balm Road. Clayton, Son& Company, which was still using the line and the major owner of the section in question, agreed that the society could try out the scheme on it. The students bit the firm’s hand off! Claytons also agreed to allow the society to use a strip of land at the south end of its DartmouthWorks yard in Garnet Road, two tracks in width and over 150 yards long, where the growing collection of locomotives and rolling stock would be kept when not in use, and huts were built for indoor work or storage of equipment.
In December 1959, at a meeting of the society chaired by lecturer Dr Fred Youell, its staff president, members voted unanimously to form theMiddleton Railway Preservation Society.
The society did not plan to run regular services on ‘ its’ bit of the line. Instead, the students acquired several street trams from closing systems, including several from Leeds. Hunslet loaned and later sold them 1932- built 0- 6- 0DM No. 1697, the first purpose- built diesel to work foramain line railway company, the LMS, which ended up as the first works shunter.
In January 1960, what had in 1804 become the world’s first passenger line – the Swansea & Mumbles Railway – controversially closed in favour of motor buses. The society’s tram enthusiasts obtained that line’s Car No. 2, one of its double- deck coaches, which resembled a large electric tramcar, and which had been built
by Brush of Loughborough. These vehicles ran in trains of up to four units, and were the largest tramcars of their type in Britain, each seating 106 passengers.
No. 2 came to Leeds by train, the upper deck, the lower deck, and themotor bogies travelling on three separate bogie wagons and on June 18 the Hunslet diesel, polished up for the occasion, hauled these sections on to the Middleton Railway.
The tramcar was reassembled in a highly unorthodox manner. The lower deck was jacked up and the bogies fitted, but there was no crane large enough to lift up the top deck. BR decided that the only way to reassemble No. 2 was to place them beneath a bridge, and the only one suitable was the one which spanned theMiddleton, half a mile from its Garnet Road base, and which carried the BR branch between East End Park and Beeston. It was arranged with the signalman on duty to ensure no BR traffic was running, and then the decks were placed beneath the bridge. The top deck was lowered onto the lower deck before declaring the bridge clear so that the branch traffic could resume.
Reopeningday andbeyond
country’s early heritage lines. Five years before that historic run of No. 1697 with Car No. 2, the Ffestiniog Railway ran its first heritage era public passenger train behind its 1917- built First WorldWar Simplex petrol tractor later named Mary Ann.
The success of that July 20- 24 first week of operations led the students to ask – why not run the line for freight, its original purpose? Approaches were made and two firms, Clayton and Robinson& Birdsell, agreed to continue to use the line, for shipments of heavy steel rawmaterials and scrap metal respectively. Three months later, the Middleton reopened to goods, trains being worked by students between lectures.
The students’ first freight train ran on September 1, 1960, and comprised three empty four- wheel wagons to Robinson& Birdsell, two of which went out the same day loaded with scrap metal for the steelworks. Clayton’s DartmouthWorks traffic startedamonth later. That first, week, Colonel Robertson from HerMajesty’s Railway Inspectorate, who later became chief inspector of railways, visited Middleton and found that all was in order, and gave the students good advice on how best to run it.
It could be argued that the Middleton was merely carrying on as before and was not ‘ preservation’ in the traditional sense. Yet just like their Talyllyn, Ffestiniog and Bluebell counterparts, the students were not paid.
In January 1961, LMS brake vanNo. 158760 arrived for use on the freight trains and at the same time, No. 1697 was named John Alcock after its designer – in the presence of John Alcock himself. The ‘ new’ brake van replaced an identical one, M357620, which had been hired fromBR until the society’s own vehicle was ready.
Fred Youell was the guiding influence for the railway- operating students for many years. He later became the vice- president and continued to take an active interest in the railway’s life until not long before his death in 1998.
Another early mainstay was the late Reggie Lawrence, who became the society’s permanent
way expert, drew up its first rule book, and had played a key role in acquiring its first steam locomotive. LNER Y1 0- 4- 0VBT No. 54 ( BR No. 68153). Built by Sentinel of Shrewsbury as its No. 8837 in 1933, it ended up working at Geneva Yard in Darlington, fromwhere it was withdrawn in 1961. It was acquired with the aid of a generous loan by society president, David, Lord Garnock, No. 54 and arrived at Holbeck depot on a Lowmac for unloading. It was then ‘ tripped’ to BalmRoad and brought to Dartmouth Yard.
However, the early dreamof a private tramway slowly faded away as the railway carried more than 10,000 tons of freight a year under volunteer auspices, and with renewed pressure on space at the Dartmouth works sidings, the society’s collection of trams was dispersed. Most of the trams ended up at Derbyshire’s Crich TramwayMuseum.
The railway continued to acquire locomotives rather than trams, and in early 1968, Hudswell Clarke 0- 4- 0STNo. 1309 of 1917 Henry de Lacy II arrived fom Kirkstall Forge, to which it had been supplied new. Just prior to its departure to Balm Road sidings on February 4, one of the Kirkstall Forge directors announced that it was to be donated to the Middleton.
Ceremonial honours
The previous day, the railway’s Bagnall 0- 4- 0ST No. 2702 of 1942 had been named Matthew Murray after the pioneer locomotive builder. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Wakefield, Dr Eric Treacy, a renowned enthusiast, and Gerard Fiennes, former general manager of the Eastern Region. After the naming ceremony, Dr Treacy drove it firmly down the BalmRoad branch.
By 1969, however, the days of wagonload traffic on BRwas over, and the Middleton’s goods traffic went into terminal decline, finally ending in 1983.
The chance came to acquire the southern part of the line. However, the serious loss of income from Clayton’s goods traffic, which had just been lost to lorry transport, led to a repositioning of the railway’s operations.
It was then decided to run a weekend passenger service between Moor Road andMiddleton Park, and that stretch of track was overhauled and brought up to passenger standards.
Henry de Lacy II hauled its first regular passenger service during the July ‘ Hunslet Feast’ week in 1969. Those first services operated from what was known then as Tram Crossing, where today’s subway under themotorway is situated. There was no platform, and passengers had to climb into the LMS brake van, often with assistance.
Sadly that year, Car No. 2, a sole complete survivor of theMumbles line, was scrapped after it was declared unsafe and despite strenuous efforts, no other home could be found.
All was not lost from theWelsh line’s latterday heritage, however, as the front end of car No. 7 was also saved for preservation, at SwanseaMuseum, and is now on display in that venue’s dedicated Tram Shed in themarina.
In 1981, the Middleton celebrated its 21st anniversary as a heritage line. The first major event of the year was a celebration of the life of John Blenkinsop, which included a photographic exhibition at the Yorkshire Evening Post building in Wellington Street and a special service at Rothwell Parish Church, where John Blenkinsop is buried. The Reverend Redhead conducted a short service, which included a reading by the then trust chairman Joe Lee, followed by wreath laying at Blenkinsop’s grave. Following lunch, a John Blenkinsop nameplate for Peckett 0- 4- 0ST No. 2003 of 1941 was unveiled.
TheMiddleton Railway became a market leader as an example of a private industrial line. Today it houses a representative selection of locomotives built in the Jack Lane, Hunslet area by renowned Leeds manufacturers John Fowler, Hudswell Clarke, Hunslet, Kitson& Co. and Manning Wardle.
In 2020, the railwaymade major plans to celebrate its years of volunteer operation, with visiting locomotives and events organised in co- operation with Leeds City Council.
However, the unexpected brought a swift end to the best- laid plans, as the entire country, indeed the world, was placed on a war footing with the Covid- 19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown.
Undeterred, as we reported last issue, despite it being closed to the public, a handful of Middleton officials privately ran a special train to mark the diamond jubilee.
Echoing that first working 60 years before, at 4.45pm on Monday, June 20, No. 1697 departed from Moor Road, waved off by Fred Youell’s sonMatthew, for a round trip. This time there was no behemoth tramcar behind it, but an infinitely more conventional private owner open wagon and brake van.
While the planned June 20- 21 anniversary gala was cancelled, public services resumed on August 2 following the easing of lockdown, and it is intended to hold the celebrations at a later date.
The railway’s vice chairman Ian Smith said: “The Middleton Railway Trust has evolved from a very small group of students attempting something which had never been done before – the operation of commercial freight services using volunteers – into the thriving and professional tourist attraction it is today.
"All this progress has only been possible through the dedication and persistence of many people, some of whom are still with us, others who have passed away. We look forward to many more years successfully operating the world’s oldest railway.”
Along the railway today