When Stanier 8F No. 48305 was a star on ironstone trains

THE photograph depicting Pitsford Quarry in issue 291 brought back memories of being taken to see the quarry in the late 1950s. To a child’s eye at the time the quarry seemed even deeper than as shown!

The huge dragline was used for stripping the overlying rock beds, while the diesel shovel extracted the actual ironstone. Very little evidence of ironstone quarrying remains, but where the quarries have been filled levelled fields a few feet lower than adjoining roads can be seen.

Back in the 50s and early 60s, trainspotters at Northampton would have noted loaded ironstone trains and their empty return workings, nearly all Stanier 8F-hauled, bewilderingly arriving from all directions. One might have expected that the ironstone was being taken to the nearby massive Corby steelworks but it could be travelling to steelworks just about anywhere in England or Wales.

I used to see such an ironstone train which ran with empty iron ore tipplers from Blisworth exchange sidings at about 1.35 pm (weekdays) along the Stratford & Midland Junction route as far as Byfield ironstone sidings, where it collected loaded tipplers. It would be powered by a Northampton (2E) 8F, quite often the since-preserved No. 48305.

Star Consol

This 8F was a ‘star consol’ with balanced weights allowing it to run on faster freights. It was often used by 2E for a short mad dash along the West Coast main line from Blisworth to Weedon with chalk wagons during a sufficient gap between the expresses and fitted freights. It would return running tender first equally rapidly. Incidentally the crew, including guard, would sign on at Blisworth and not Northampton MPD. There was still a single link signing on there, a relic from much earlier times when there was a small sub-shed at Blisworth.

Along the SMJ at Blakesley, baton tokens would be exchanged at the maximum speed allowed, regular signalman Tommy Townsend being particularly skilled at these rapid exchanges, then the regulator would be opened up to get a good run at the long 1-in-101 climb towards Moreton Pinkney. On the return run from Byfield, arriving back at Blisworth around 4pm, a stop to pick up ironstone loaded tipplers that had come from Charwelton quarry would take place at Woodford West sidings. Eventually the tipplers would leave Blisworth at around midnight and travel to the Shelton Steelworks at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent. Byfield quarry and more frequently Charwelton quarry also sent tipplers to J Summers & Sons Steelworks at Hawarden Bridge via the Great Central line, and occasionally sent tipplers to South Wales steelworks via the SMJ.

Good luck to the Northampton & Lamport Railway for it projected ironstone tippler project.

Dick Bodily, email