Another first for Bodmin clay train
THE Bodmin & Wenford Railway has chalked up another first with its three-wagon china clay ‘hood’ train.
As reported in issue 294, the train became the first clay hood rake to operate in the heritage sector when it featured in a freight driver experience course on May 17.
On July 2, the rake and its brake van again made history by being hauled by a Class 50 diesel, No. 50042 Triumph – which was almost as long and twice as heavy!
Class 50s, which were originally built for express passenger trains, initially saw service on the West Coast Main Line north of Crewe before that section was electrified.
They then moved south and for many years during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s were the mainstay of Paddington to Plymouth and Penzance expresses – but certainly not local freight workings on a small Cornish branch line with tight curves and steep gradients.
A BWR spokesman said: “It was indeed an incongruous sight trundling along a 61⁄2-mile branch line!”