131’S RENAISSANCE REPRISE
A reborn GNR(I) 4-4-0 maintains its reputation – despite some ‘over-cautious’ decisions.
THE BEST OF THE DAY CAME ON THE STEEP CLIMB FROM WHITEHOUSE TO GREENISLAND
The last of our three newcomers is the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s ‘Q’, recently restored 4-4-0 No. 131. Each year, the RPSI runs an extensive tour which eventually returns the train to its Whitehead base on the Monday following the weekend trip. This year Tralee was the destination. On May 14, after taking over from GNR(I) Compound 4-4-0 No. 85 Merlin, black liveried No. 131 was in charge of the day’s appropriately titled ‘Renaissance‘ tour. This was due to depart at 08.23 from Whitehead, cover the mothballed line from Lisburn to Antrim and then continue to Bangor before returning to Whitehead. Unfortunately, NIR has only a limited number of steam-authorised personnel, and Noel Playfair and Gary Moore had been rostered for both the Dublin-Whitehead leg and the next day’s ‘Q’ tour. To allow them the regulation 12 hours between turns, the departure was put back an hour, but otherwise the itinerary was unchanged. With no turning facilities at Antrim or Bangor, a lot of tender-first operation would be needed, and with the same six-coach train as the previous day, north of Dublin the first section to Antrim was run tenderfirst. Since the paperwork to authorise No. 131 to run at 60mph had not yet come through, its speed was limited to 40mph, though in truth, this itinerary afforded little opportunity to run much faster. The line between Lisburn and Antrim opened in 1871 and lasted until 1960. It reopened in 1974, and between January 1978 and 2001, it carried the main BelfastLondonderry service while the direct line from Belfast York Road was being re-fettled. Nowadays it is only used for diversions and nothing had run over it for some time.
RUSTY AND DAMP
All was well, until a mile or so from Antrim we encountered a half-mile 1-in-104 gradient leading up towards Antrim. The track was rusty and damp, the train was on a curve and the sanders on the 4-4-0 were only positioned for forward movement, not for tender-first running. Several attempts were made over 40 minutes or so and the crew resorted to hand-sanding over a couple of hundred yards before No. 131 was able to get sufficient grip to carry us over the gradient. Water was taken at Antrim, the locomotive ran round and we headed back towards Lisburn 54 mins late on the retimed schedule. With speed maintained nicely at 40mph, No. 131 drifted gently down towards Belfast where we stopped in the newly renamed Belfast Lanyon Place (formerly Central, but it was far from ever being that!) at 14.22, 64 mins late. Here the train was held for 27 mins, during which time the NIR operations people decided that to allow us to proceed to Bangor, given the manoeuvres necessary to run round there, would jeopardise punctual operation of the intensive rush-hour train service. A little over-cautious in my view as it was still before 15.00 and the line is all double track. The only option was for No. 131 to head straight back to Whitehead, where the eventual arrival into the RPSI siding was 84 mins early! As it happened, the best performance of the day came on the steep climb from Whitehouse to Greenisland. I have tabulated the section between Belfast and Carrickfergus in Table 4. For speed to fall only from 36½mph to 31mph at Greenisland summit was quite good work and represented about 600ihp. It will be interesting to see how No. 131 performs once it receives its 60mph documentation. In fact, with 6ft 7in driving wheels, it would be expected to be able to run at 75mph on Network Rail metals (were the gauge 5ft 3in). I think it’s high time NIR and IR relaxed the steam limit to 70mph.