CASHMORE’S SCRAPYARD
Where engines went to die
The vast mountain of dismembered locomotive parts at Cashmore’s scrapyard at Newport Docks in 1967 will be one of the most unforgettable images of the end of Southern steam. You could pick out smokeboxes discarded in their entirety, complete cylinder blocks, tubeplates, twisted and unrecognisable lengths of non-ferrous steel, and the odd Sherman tank. This spectacular pile of rusted, part-torched metal rivetted enthusiasts to the spot if they made it onto Octopus Bridge, a freely accessible viewing point that the yard owners were unable to block off to the public. Today, not a single trace of railway remains at this peaceful site, close to the banks of the River Usk – not even the bridge. Gone is the modest workforce that dismantled over 1,000 BR locomotives in the short space of a decade, and a similar number of ships over a longer period. Some dockside cranes toppled from their plinths because the weight of some chunks of metal they lifted upset their balance, and injuries were frequent among those wielding the flame-cutting torches. At the same time they worked for a generally friendly management who would happily oblige with souvenirs from engines for an appropriate payment, but with few takers. After the final handful of weary engines hauled their last expresses on July 9 1967, the Southern Region did not waste any time erasing steam from its memory. From that point on, every train leaving Waterloo for Southampton and Bournemouth had to be blue, silent and fast. It would be another 38 years before these 100mph electric units made their own journeys to the breakers. Following the decision in late spring 1964 to cease scrapping at Eastleigh Works, locomotives – often heavily cannibalised for useful parts – were sold to private contractors. South Wales, only a short distance away and with easy access to steelworks such as Llanwern, was the final destination for the vast majority of them. It was not just engines, however, that were redundant. Demolition contractors were also being hired to sweep away the principal sheds that maintained them. Some locations were still required to service the new rolling stock, but not the outdated buildings or
turntables. The idea was to sell some for redevelopment, and not having redundant buildings around meant reducing the risk of vandalism, trespass, and injury.
SHED AND BURIED
Eastleigh running shed was the first to go within weeks of the end of steam to make way for a new diesel depot. The ramshackle buildings at Nine Elms, a short distance out of Waterloo, were also flattened to make way for the New Covent Garden market. Further along the route towards the coast, there is now a multistorey car park where Guildford’s shed stood, and Basingstoke was redeveloped after its main buildings were pulled down in 1969. Salisbury was also razed the same year (see SR468). Bournemouth shed, at the west end of the station, is no more, and there is a housing estate where Weymouth shed stood until 1971. As for the 130 steam locomotives on the Southern’s books at the beginning of 1967, numerous attempts have been made to document their disposal, but not without considerable acrimony over the accuracy of published information. This came to a head in 2013, when some groups considered legal action to maintain their integrity. The ‘definitive’ list is still being worked on…
CASHING IN
The story of Woodham Brothers’ yard at Barry has been told, but far less has been written about the activities of other yards in the vicinity. The lion’s share of scrapping went to the aggressively active firm of John Cashmore, which in the mid-1960s had two principal processing centres, one at Great Bridge near Wednesbury in the West Midlands, and one in Newport.
By March 1969, the scrapping spree was all But over
John Cashmore, the founder of the business, opened his first yard close to his home in Horseley Heath, Tipton (formerly in Staffordshire, now West Midlands) in 1872, and was quick to cash in on the Victorian clamour for industrial modernisation. He bought up anything where there was a decent quantity of redundant heavy machinery and electrical plant. When John Cashmore died in 1932, his family-owned business had grown rich on the spoils of the First World War, and all kinds of ships would often be lined up at Newport in threes under the dockside cranes to await a rapid demise. Starting with the last examples of the Newport tram fleet, just before the beginning of the Second World War, it was natural that railway equipment would be Cashmore’s next target. Like Woodham Brothers, the firm dipped its toe in the water around 1959 with redundant GWR types, in this case 2-6-2Ts. Pannier tanks then arrived in significant numbers, and it was not long before there were larger catches, including Western passenger types such as ‘Kings’, ‘Castles’ and ‘Counties’. There were several harvest years. Cashmore’s yard mopped up most of the ‘Halls’, ‘Modified Halls’, ‘Granges’ and types of a lower status that were withdrawn en masse at the end of Western Region steam in December 1965. If the accuracy of records can be believed, the Cashmore ‘celebrity list’ includes No. 3409 (the last-built GWR-designed pannier), rebuilt ‘Star’ No. 4037 South Wales Borderers, the final BR ‘Castle’ No. 7037 Swindon, ‘Night Owl’ No. 4701, and ‘King’ No. 6029 Edward VIII.
CuTTHROAT BusINess
Later culls at Newport would include Riddles ‘tanks’ Nos. 80010 and 82000, Crewe’s final engine ‘9F’ No. 92250, ‘Brits’ Nos. 70017 Arrow and 70026 Polar Star and ex-M&GN Ivatts Nos. 43147/55. During this rapid rundown of steam, particularly on the Southern, new arrivals might last no more than a few days. Cutting crews had their own individual techniques, but in later years it was common to start by gas-axing through the boiler casing front and rear to gain access to the boiler tubes. Once these had been removed and stacked neatly, the adjacent crane might be employed to rip away the copper firebox (steel on Bulleids). Perhaps it was because of this speed and the number of engines available to process that the decision was taken to create the famous and incredible mountain of scrap, comprising bulky but less valuable steel items. Smokeboxes and cylinder blocks would be craned onto the growing pile, in readiness for a slow day when the cutting crews had nothing else to work on. For onlookers it was a source of frustration that the identities of the decapitated front ends of the executed BR Standards and USA 0-6-0Ts that stood out so prominently could never be determined. During 1967 and 1968, supplies of engines from the North West were diverted from Great Bridge to Newport to keep the teams active, but as far as is known, no LNER type ever made it there. London Midland engines included large volumes of LMS ‘Black Fives’ and ‘8Fs’, along with two BR ‘Britannias’, most Standard designs and even a few ‘WDs’. By March 1969, the scrapping spree was all but over. The last engine to be dismantled at Cashmore’s the previous month was BR ‘Standard Five’ 4-6-0 No. 73069 from Lostock Hall, an active participant in the previous August’s end of BR steam events, including hauling railtours. It was passed over for preservation because of a reported weeping firebox. Photographs from Octopus Bridge show No. 73069 on the cutting pad looking complete and almost ready to drive away. By that time, the height of the parts mountain had noticeably dropped. Despite a few diesel arrivals, railway activities at Cashmore’s had fizzled out by 1976. The work had been lost to the Far East and the yard closed completely in 1979. The parent company had been acquired for £2 million seven years earlier by the Glynwed Group, but the Cashmore name survived in a hive-off to British Steel in 1982 (then Corus, then Tata, now British Steel again). Today, even Octopus Bridge is gone, having been demolished in the 1990s during the construction of the Usk Way road.