Britain’s Depots – Coalville
Alex Fisher charts the history of the small depot at Coalville, once a vital part of the BR freight network.
Thirty years ago, one of BR’s smallest traincrew depots ceased to be. Coalville, on the Leicester to Burton upon Trent line, had been a busy place handling mainly coal trains, but with a declining coal industry and BR becoming ever more business focused in the era of Sectorisation, it was closed on October 1, 1990.
Alex Fisher looks at the BR outpost during its time as a diesel depot.
At the turn of the 20th century the collieries of the Coalville area, which relied upon horse and carts for transportation to Leicester and Swannington, were losing out to those of Nottinghamshire, which came by canal. A railway line was required for which William Stenson, a part owner in a local colliery, surveyed the land between Leicester and Swannington in 1829. With the backing of George Stephenson, the finance was raised and the line opened on July 17, 1832.
Background
The Midland Railway took over the line in 1845 and extended it through to Burton upon Trent in 1848. The MR’s three-track building replaced a couple of smaller single-track engine sheds at Coalville in 1890. It was a typical MR design and post nationalisation its allocation consisted mainly of 3Fs and 4Fs, along with a few 8Fs. The shed’s roof was re-clad in corrugated asbestos sheeting by British Railway’s London Midland Region in 1959 and at the time it had 24 resident steam engines.
Coal formed the majority of the shed’s work, along with a modicum of passenger trains that served the line and its intermediate stations. Drakelow Power Station was a real boon to the line and its A and B generators were commissioned in 1955 and 1959/60 respectively. Work on Drakelow C began in 1962 and, after two years of construction, electricity generation began in 1964. With a prodigious amount of coal to be transported, a new but shortlived manual box was opened to control the east and west junctions into the power
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station. The facility also had a flat-topped LMR shunting frame controlling a layout far more complex than most main line signal boxes of a higher grade.
DMUs took over the branch’s passenger services from April 14, 1958, and in an effort to dieselise the shed’s freight diagrams, 350hp shunter 12060 and BR/ Sulzer Type 2 D5249 were reallocated from Toton in November 1964. They were the only two diesels ever formally allocated to Coalville and they soon moved on to Derby (February 1965) and the Leicester Division (January 1965) respectively. BRCW Type 2s (Class 27s) are, of course, heavily associated with Scotland, but during their earlier days some were based on the LMR at its Leicester and London Division depots. While working from Leicester they were regulars on the Coalville branch, alongside BR/Sulzer Type 2 and the 17 Stanier 8Fs still based at Coalville in 1965.
The steam shed closed on October 4, 1965 and stabling transferred to Coalville’s old goods yard. A typical LMR amenities block of wood and glass with a flat roof was built and unusually it housed traincrew, shunters, yard staff and, later, the TOPS staff. This was a situation that fostered a feeling of camaraderie across all grades, latterly under Coalville’s Traffic Manager, Mr David Kirk.
The old steam shed lay decaying for several years until it was demolished in August 1969. Curiously, however, it seems that there had been no thought given to informing the Water Board and some ten years later they were still sending BR large estimated bills, which were to be paid for metered water despite steam locos being long gone!
A preliminary British Railways plan shows a proposed LMR standard two-road fuel and inspection shed at Coalville. It was to be sited end-on to the old goods yard building, which was either converted or rebuilt into a single road-through maintenance facility. The latter was to have had a long pit between the rails, along with fuel tanks, stores and office buildings. Also included were four long dead-end roads for loco stabling. Ultimately, however, it seems that the scheme wasn’t progressed and instead Coalville became a mere stabling point devoid of fuel facilities or resident fitters.
Coalville’s coal
While Coalville’s workings were predominantly coal, stone trains from Cliffe Hill had begun in 1966 using railway owned flat-bottomed wagons and tipplers that had been installed at Hayes & Harlington. Coalville’s diagrams also contained ‘ferry turns’, which in 1969 included booking-on times at 0700, 1500 and 2300 for a driver and secondman to trip locos from the depot to Leicester, Toton or Burton upon Trent for fuel and exams as required. There was also a ‘shed turn’ for disposing of locos and moving them around the stabling roads, along with a Mantle Lane shunt job for preparing trains. In the pre-Merry-Go-Round days of trains travelling directly from colliery to power station, a typical diagram included Trip No 20 for two Class 20s, which saw them leave light engine at 2230 for Mantle
Lane Sidings where they’d attach a loaded rake for Drakelow A/B as 9T92. Departing at 2305 and arriving at 2345 they’d bring empties back to Mantle Lane. They’d then make another trip to Drakelow A/B before returning with the empties at 0415, then light engine to the depot for 0430. The switch to Class 47s and air brake MGRs saw the diagram become 6T92. It still started from Coalville Holding Sidings and collected a loaded rake at Mantle Lane, but instead returned to Snibston Top End, while the second run came back to Bagworth to swap the empty wagons for loads for a Rugeley or Drakelow trip. These were taken back to Mantle Lane for onward movement later that night.
Despite having neither a loco allocation nor fuelling facilities, Coalville was coded CV under TOPS in 1973. At the time, the October 1972 Trip Notice booklet stipulated that a Burton Class 08 was required to continuously shunt Mantle Lane Sidings,
and make trips to Coalville Goods Yard and station from 0600 Monday morning to 1350 on a Saturday. Additional Saturdays Only trips were made to Snibston and Whitwick Collieries. The turn was also covered by Toton or Derby Class 08s if Burton’s was unavailable. Main line loco diagrams for pairs of Class 20s included the following trips. Trip 88 to Desford Colliery and loads to Leicester CEGB. Trip 89, which began at Burton HS and called at Bardon Hill, Bagworth Colliery, Cliffe Hill and Mantle Lane. Trip 90, which ran with wagons from Mantle Lane to Humberstone Road and return, with a run round at Knighton South Junction. Trip 91, which ran from Mantle Lane to Drakelow and return, and then a rake to Desford Colliery Sidings, loads to Drakelow and return to Mantle Lane. Trip 92, which saw afternoon trips from Mantle Lane to Bagworth and Drakelow and return to Mantle Lane. Trip 93 from Mantle Lane to Moira West Junction for coal from Rawdon Colliery for Drakelow. Trip 94, which made two return runs between Mantle Lane and Drakelow. Trip 95, which began at Burton HS and made trips between Overseal Sidings, Rawdon Colliery and Donisthorpe Colliery Sidings. Trip 96, which was the stand-out trip that started at Burton HS and ran to Mosley Street to attach yeast vans to 1E10 0655 Gloucester to Leeds; the rest of its diagram involved work between Cadley Hill and Drakelow. A single Class 25 off Burton HS as Trip 97 was booked to serve Cadley Hill with a return trip to Drakelow. Trip 98 was for a Class 47 working intensively between Mantle Lane, Drakelow and Snibston Colliery. And, finally, Trip 99 was for a Class 25 to make six trips between Mantle Lane and Drakelow.
Crew influx
Burton Train Crew Depot was closed in 1975 and with its drivers and second men, some of whom were ex-Overseal shed, looking for further employment, many came to nearby Coalville. The fuel point at Burton remained open and rafts of Class 20s and 47s continued to make the trip there for fuel and water. A few retained men covered
the two shifts of a fitter and his mate – 0800 to 1600 and 2000 to 0600 Monday to Friday –until its closure in late 1981/82, after which Coalville’s locos continued to head to Leicester or Toton as required.
Bagworth and Nailstone Collieries were linked underground in 1966, with coal surfacing at Nailstone’s coal preparation plant and taken along the branch to the exchange sidings by two NCB shunters. A 3km overland conveyor was later built to a new rapid loading bunker (RLB) at Bagworth, adjacent the main line, which was formally opened on September 2, 1979. Donisthorpe and Rawdon Collieries were also merged in 1980, with the former’s coal travelling underground by conveyors to Rawdon where a loading bunker had been commissioned on August 13, 1978.
Demand
Even in the summer of 1981, when demand for electricity was usually suppressed, the programme of Drakelow A/B’s coal intake was for 2,000 tons from Cadley Hill, 10,500 from Rawdon and 10,500 from Snibston. Drakelow C was also forecast to take 5,000 tons from Rawdon, 10,000 from Swains Park, 5,000 from Bagworth and 10,000 from Snibston. This was a total of 53,000 tons of coal per week, which along with 3,000 tons from Cadley Hill to Willington, meant more than 100 trains a week just to those two power stations over the western end of the branch. In all, the line was seeing between 90,000 and 100,000 tons of coal per week heading between the branch’s
collieries and power stations, primarily to Drakelow, Didcot, Rugeley, and Willington, with occasional trips to Ratcliffe and latterly export coal to Garston Docks. On Didcot services, Coalville men took the trains as far as Washwood Heath before heading to Saltley Depot to await a returning empty service. Bagworth, Swains Park, Coalfields Farm opencast and Rawdon all had rapid loading bunkers. Other mines loaded directly at the colliery, with wagons taken to exchange sidings as around 100 loaded MGR trains were scheduled per week.
A Section 8 grant for £500,000 was secured in 1977 to renew handling facilities at Cliffe Hill and Hayes & Harlington, with new air-braked PGA hopper wagons introduced in 1979. A new fleet of PHA (later JHA) hopper wagons was introduced in 1986 on granite services from Bardon Hill, initially to Thorney Mill and Brentford with two or three services a week out of Bardon Hill running in early 1988. The Cliffe Hill loading facility was replaced by Stud Farm in the late 1980s and new trains to Hothfield along with short-term services to Luton Limbury Road and Eccles Road were introduced. Cliffe Hill (Tarmac) Rail Terminal was welcoming around 15 trains per week. Perhaps the most well-known of its trains was the 6V76 Cliffe Hill to Hayes & Harlington, which ran Monday to Thursday only with 33 private owner wagons, totalling 1,680 tons. Keen to utilise its assets to the utmost, the wagons and loco would continue to Westbury to work another stone train before returning to Cliffe Hill for 0600 the following Monday. The service provided a stern test for its booked Class 56, but it was known to have been hauled by a Class 58 in their earliest days. Ballast trains formed the most common traffic from Cliffe Hill, with a Monday to Friday service to Doncaster and Cricklewood along with an additional Doncaster trip on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Cricklewood train even brought pairs of Class 33s to the line, although these weren’t worked by Coalville men. Occasional trains were also run to Norwood Junction, Tonbridge and Bescot.
Into the 1980s, a single Class 08 was still supplied by Leicester shed and its duties included shunting Coalville’s Mantle Lane yard, Bardon Hill quarry and the shed. Between duties it would often be stabled inside the former goods shed, with 08788 a regular inhabitant, along with three pairs of Class 20s, irregularly a Class 31 or 47 and also Class 56s and 58s, which had replaced the Class 47s on the MGR trains.
Come to Coalville
Commendably for such a small depot, it hosted a variety of open days, which were well appreciated by the attending public. The first one was on August 28, 1978 when 08037, 20139/40, 25079, 40076, 44008, 45039 and 56046 were all on show. Inaccessible to the public were 16 locos normally found on the depot and they included 20040/66/7/72/87/159/633/9/81, 47190 and 56031/7-9/41. A platform had been built for the first open day by Dougie Elliot and when an officer’s special headed by a Class 25 traversed the line with none other than the LMR General Manager and his senior staff on board, it aroused the suspicion of the Civil Engineer, who stipulated that an official one would have to be provided for future open days. Nevertheless, buoyed by the success of the first open day further events were held up until 1991. The final open day, nearly a year after the depot’s closure, was perhaps regarded as the best, with an impressive display including 09008, 20058/87, 26025, 31174, 33051, 37019/350/904, 45133/5, 47001/634/973, 50008/15, 56035, 58048, 60006/35, 97204 (31326), 73104, D5705, D9000/16, D1013, D5410, D5583, D4/8, 90045, 4472 Flying Scotsman, 46203.
Coalville’s closure
In early 1988 Coalville dDepot had just eight loco diagrams, mainly using either a Class 58 or pairs of Class 20s. Tuesday August 16 saw a notice go up that drivers would receive a one-off payment of £200 for accepting the ‘trainman’s concept’, which dispensed with driver’s assistants, first on Landor to Coalville services and then on the Drakelow ones. Trains were assisted by travelling shunters based in a cabin at Moira for loading Lounge and Rawdon services, and ; by the end of the year Coalville had lost all of its guards.
Drakelow’s A station had closed in 1984, but B and C remained, taking 700,000 and 2.25m tonnes of coal respectively. MGR trains usually worked direct to Drakelow from colliery or opencast sites, while those to Didcot or Rugeley were regularly staged at Mantle Lane Sidings for crews and loco changes. Departures from Mantle Lane to Didcot were: 7V20 at 2351, 7V06 at 1354,
7V04 at 1704 and 7V92 at 1925, while Rugeley services included the 7G27 at 0457, 7G23 at 1135 and 7G29 at 1437. A vacuumbraked coal train also ran from Coalfields Farm to Lea Hall Colliery where it sweetened its coal for Rugeley, which it fed directly by a conveyer belt. Bitumen trains ran from Bardon Hill twice a week as a block load to Ellesmere Port, while a 7T39 Speedlink service took privately owned wagons to Leicester from Marcroft wagon repair depot at Coalville and from Mantle Lane at 0750 on weekdays, with a 1010 return.
While the Lounge railhead was commissioned in January 1987, Bagworth RLB was demolished in February 1990. Monday March 19, 1990 also saw Coalville’s old goods shed demolished on the same day that the Bardon Hill tanks finished for good. The Donisthorpe/Rawdon Complex closed on April 12, 1990 to end deep coal mining in the South Derbyshire Coalfield. From a peak of around 145,000 tonnes of coal per week, the branch was down to just 45,000 tonnes by early 1990 and yet it was still said that the depot was making around £1m profit per year. Nevertheless, Trainload Coal was always looking to cut costs and Coalville Depot sadly became the target of the accountants.
Mid-May 1990 saw rumours of Coalville’s closure reach the men in the messroom. By late May the depot’s shunter, 08623, a former Leicester, Colwick and Burton loco, had been taken to Burton MGR and later Toton. July 4, 1990, the day of England’s World Cup semi-final defeat to West Germany, saw a couple of light engines derail in the shed yard while heading for the ‘shed side’ road. The damage and impending closure meant that the ‘shed road’ and ‘dock’ road’ were clipped up, never to return to use.
Trainload Coal men from Toton had started to work over the branch by June 1990. Some knew the line while others required conductors. Leicester’s Trainload Construction drivers were also poised to take over the stone workings from Bardon Hill (Bardon Hill Quarries) and Cliffe Hill (Tarmac).
On September 10, 1990 the P-way offices at the back of Coalville’s former goods shed were closed and in the final weeks the depot’s welfare fund was wound up. Friday September 29, 1990 saw Anthony Gregory take the final engines, 56026/19 and 58040, off Coalville Depot, light engine for Toton.
The final train, driven by Albert Pickering, was a Coalfield’s Farm to Drakelow service later that day. The depot was officially closed on Monday October 1, 1990. Working out their notice were some men who remained on the Coalville payroll until Friday October 12, 1990. Mick Geary was the last Coalville driver to book on at 1900.
Operating to strict seniority, some dating back to the 1950s, the men were given the September’s vacancy lists from which to choose where to go upon closure. From Monday October 15, 1990, seven drivers went to Leicester, two to Saltley, two to Bescot, one to Birmingham and one to Derby, and two resigned. Three Trainmen Ds went to Toton and two to Leicester. Even the Coalville pool table found a new depot and ended up at ‘Beal Street’ Leicester.
When the train crew depot and TOPS office were vacated, they were taken on by the local Permanent Way depot, but they were moved out in the run up to privatisation. The buildings stood empty for a while until they were demolished to leave little trace of a once proud depot.
The line was carved up under sectorisation and while part of the East Midlands Freight area. The western end, with its collieries and opencast facilities came under the Freight Services Manager (FSM) North, based at Toton TMD, while at the eastern end the quarries came under the FSM South, based at Leicester TMD.
Recent developments
With trains still to run, there came the somewhat ludicrous situation in which drivers were utilising locos off Toton as taxis to get out to Moira in order to relieve train crews. Taxis and revised through workings later did away with such inefficiencies. Rawdon had become a mixing plant for Powell Duffryn and Daw Mill coal, with the last trains taken out on Good Friday March 28, 1991. The first train to use the re-opened Cadley Hill Colliery branch was 58024 on August 13, 1992, collecting coal from British Coal’s £2.5m Nadins coal disposal site. BC had a contract to supply Powergen’s Drakelow Power Station with 2.5m tonnes of coal. The journey only took ten minutes and there were plans for 12 loaded trains per week. Drakelow B station closed in 1993 after surpassing its designed life expectancy.
Into the 2000s and the depot seemed abandoned and devoid of further use. Remarkably, Freightliner made occasional use of the sidings when Bardon Hill was full, and former Coalville driver Anthony Gregory even managed to take six locos onto the former stabling roads with a fitter travelling out from Crewe to service them and add sand to their sandboxes. Fragonset even made use of Mantle Lane Sidings and for a short period of time it seemed like it would become a busy place again. Vandalism and liquidation of Fragonset’s rolling stock sadly put paid to such plans.
Drakelow C station was desynchronised from the National Grid on March 31, 2003. The very last coal trains from this area were 7M97 from Hicks Lodge on October 4, 2004 and 6A18 from Swains Park with opencast coal on July 6, 2005. The only freight over the line today is the Tinsley stone train that travels near to the whole length of the branch to Bardon Hill, while most of the quarry loads depart eastwards towards Knighton Junction.
Passenger services along the line had been withdrawn on September 7, 1964 and calls for their return are growing ever greater. In 2016 the transport officers at Leicestershire County Council warned that its re-opening would not be possible due to costs of up to £175m and a requirement for a £4m annual subsidy. Nevertheless, a movement led by the Campaign to Re-open the Ivanhoe Line (CRIL) is supported by authorities, including North West Leicestershire District Council. While Coalville’s traffic will never return to the levels previously enjoyed, hopefully, one day at least, passengers may get to ride again.