ANOTHER EVENING STAR CLAIM TO FAME
I enjoyed the article commemorating Evening Star’s 60th anniversary. Reference was made to the use of
No. 92220 for the final runs of the ‘Pines Express’, via the Somerset & Dorest route on September 8 1962, but I was surprised that a feat achieved by the ‘9F’ and her crew on that occasion went unmentioned.
Having suffered a signal check at Evercreech New, which resulted in a near-standing start on the ascent of the infamous Mendip gradients, No. 92220 working the last Up ‘Pines’ and in the very capable hands of my good friend, passed fireman Peter Smith and his colleague, Aubrey
Punter hauled the heaviest ever recorded unassisted load over this demanding route – 426 tons tare, which must have equated to around 450 tons gross. It was a record that was destined, with the imminent closure of the S&D, to never be beaten.
Peter, then only just 24 years old, and Aubrey share this record with Evening Star because Peter’s, colleague and mentor, Donald Beale, who had been booked to drive the train, made the amazing gesture of swapping turns to enable his young fireman the thrill of working the last Up ‘Pines’.
Unbeknownst to Peter until just a few days before the event, Donald had arranged with the list clerk to accept a mutual exchange of the duty rosters.
Mind you, had Peter’s colleagues, driver Peter Guy and fireman Ron Hyde (another young pair from Branksome), got their way, they might have bagged the record. Apparently, only officialdom deterred their ambition to add a 13th coach to the consist of the Down ‘Pines’ during the stopover at Bath Green Park later that day!
Reference was also made, in the caption to one of the photographs accompanying the article in SR, that it was Ivo Peters who first proposed to BR management the use of the ‘Nines’ over the S&D. That’s true; but in a modesty typical of Ivo, he never suggested other than his letter might have proved to be “the spark that fostered the idea” of allocating a few ‘9Fs’ to reduce the need for assisting locomotives between Bath and Evercreech Junction.
Not so well known is that, just a couple of years later, when closure of the S&D loomed large, Ivo again wrote to BR management – this time to suggest how operating costs via the route might be much-reduced by singling parts of the line, providing passing loops, and introducing DMU and other diesel motive power. On this occasion, however, it appears Ivo did not even receive the courtesy of an acknowledgment!
Mike Arlett, by email
IT WAS A RECORD DESTINED TO NEVER BE BEATEN