The Border Railway: An operating review

While offering an introductory overview of goods operations on the Newcastle & Carlisle line in the early 1950s, ‘Swedebasher’ covers the route’s long-distance and branch passenger traffic before the advent of dieselisation.

While offering an overview of goods operations on the Newcastle & Carlisle line in the early 1950s, ‘Swedebasher’ covers long-distance and branch passenger traffic before the advent of dieselisation.

Ever mindful of the rule not to criticise other writers lest ye yourself be judged, I have to confess to being a little disappointed by the histories that have appeared from time to time on the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway, all of which repeat ad infinitum details of opening days and acts of parliament yet none even acknowledge the existence of the focal point of the route – Addison yard – much less dwell at any length on the working of the line. All this is an omission to be regretted since the yard, about five miles from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on the north flank of Addison Colliery (18651963) just west of Blaydon, was pivotal to goods operations over the route.

The North Eastern Railway was selfcontained to a far greater extent than any other British railway and had only four significant points of contact with the rest of the world: York, where it exchanged traffic with the Great Northern Railway, the Midland Railway, and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway; Berwick (Marshall Meadows), where it made an end-on junction with the North British Railway; Leeds, where it shared a station with the London & North Western Railway; and Carlisle, where second connections were made with the L&NWR and NBR, as well as links to the Caledonian Railway, Glasgow & South Western Railway, and Maryport & Carlisle Railway. None of the working arrangements at these points were much affected by either the grouping or nationalisation and until the 1960s matters continued more or less as they had always done.

Whilst the North Eastern exchanged traffic at the points mentioned above, the traffic concerned was minimal compared to that worked internally, and whilst much of the country served by the NER was a commercial wilderness, there were areas, such as the 50 or so miles along the coast between Tyneside and Teesside in which the industrial activity had few parallels anywhere in the country. Darlington and Newcastle were also industrially active on a major scale, whilst collieries and iron and steel works were almost too numerous to be counted. Much of the coal mined was used locally for industry, electricity generation, and gas production, as well as for domestic needs, and much of the NER’s activities revolved around moving coal over relatively short distances from colliery to user. Only a very small proportion of North Eastern coal went to destinations outside the NER and, of that, most was moved over the Newcastle & Carlisle main line.

Much of this extraordinary rate of activity was conducted between Middlesbrough and Newcastle and was reflected in a railway operation the size and scope of which probably could not be imagined today, yet was almost entirely self-contained, the only imported ingredient of any significance being iron ore, much of which was brought in by numerous trainloads from the East Midlands via Mexborough and York. Indeed, to ride on one of the hourly trains from Middlesbrough to Newcastle was an experience in itself since one’s carriage window seemed to be continuously filled by ‘Q6’ 0-8-0s and ‘Austerity’ 2-8-0s blasting smoke and steam to the skies as they brought coal out of the collieries and rushed empties in. Nothing seemed to matter except coal and steel, and perhaps the closest British parallel was to be found on Clydeside where the proximity of collieries and steel plants created another area that was considerably self-contained.

Although lacking much of the fire and energy of the Tyne and Tees industrial complex, the predominately rural Newcastle & Carlisle main line echoed the North Eastern’s propensity for self-containment. Its trains were largely confined to the route and visits by outsiders were noteworthy. Its wagons ran to Carlisle for local needs – Carlisle’s access to coal was limited – and were returned for refilling. Passenger trains, some of which masqueraded as expresses, ran between Newcastle and Carlisle and nowhere else, except on summer Fridays when an 11-coach train ran from Newcastle (11.40pm) to Stranraer (4am), returning a week later. The popularity of this service was such that an 11-coach set was kept in reserve to run as a relief when demand outstripped the booked train, yet for all this, other workings to

‘foreign parts’ were seemingly never contemplated.

At Carlisle, the North Eastern kept itself distant from the other interests that used the station, its passenger trains keeping to their own pair of bay platforms at the south end, whilst goods and mineral traffic from the North East was dealt with almost exclusively at London Road yard, so before the West

Coast main line and its Joint station were reached. The exceptions were a pair of goods trains that conveyed North British traffic and were routed to Canal yard, and the 2.20am to Newcastle, which started from platform 4 to facilitate the transfer of mails. Operations in two passenger bays at the Citadel station were a model of simplicity in that trains arrived, the pilot engine pulled the stock back to release the train engine, propelled the coaches back again and, shortly afterwards, the train engine, having turned on London Road motive power depot, would back onto the stock and prepare to work back to Newcastle. There was no local traffic, and apart from a handful of Midland and North Western trains, the North Eastern platforms were the exclusive preserve of the Newcastle trains.

The boundary between the North Eastern and the London Midland regions was at Durran Hill Junction and Table One shows the movement of trains to and from the Newcastle direction at that point; London Road yard was just west of Durran Hill. With a train every 22 minutes on average, it was not an especially busy section of line – there were rather more trains east of Hexham – and nor was the range

of motive power especially varied, the total for a day coming to 30 ‘K1’ 2-6-0s, 26 ‘B1’ 4-6-0s, 12 ‘J39’ 0-6-0s – which includes the banking turns from London Road to Low Row – and a pair of ‘A3’ Pacifics. The depot reference includes the shed’s locomotive diagram number. Passenger services are shown in italics, and the loads taken by goods trains are assessed, showing the number of wagons taken together with a suffix indicating goods, mineral or empty wagons.

Motive power was provided by Carlisle Canal and Gateshead depots, with both using Thompson ‘B1’ class 4-6-0s, which replaced Gresley ‘D49’ 4-4-0s during the early days of British Railways. The principal exception came in the afternoon when a Haymarket allocated ‘A3’ Pacific put in a trip to Newcastle and back after arriving in Carlisle with a

‘class E’ goods train from Edinburgh, although since Gateshead had only eight ‘B1s’ to meet its ‘class 5’ obligations it was by no means unusual to see a Gresley Pacific, or a ‘V2’ class 2-6-2 (of which Gateshead had 47), put into one of the Carlisle diagrams; the appearance of an ‘A4’ on the line was unusual but not unknown. Table Two (overleaf ) tracks the locomotive diagrams in 1955, while Table Three (overleaf ) covers the corresponding coaching stock workings.

The amount of corridor coaching stock required for the main line service was not excessive, amounting to no more than 36 coaches in sets and three strengthening coaches. The basic set was one of four coaches, although most trains used one of the strengthening coaches to bring the formation up to five. One special set – the dining set – consisted of five coaches plus a buffet. Most of the workings were cyclic, although the dining set followed a fixed daily routine covering 241 miles, which given the length of the line, was a very respectable total, although it fell short of the 301 miles worked by one pair of workings that together managed to cover ten Newcastle-Carlisle trains in a day. This mileage was the equivalent of London to Penzance or Carlisle and owed a great deal to the relatively short terminal times at both ends of the line.

Most of the stock was of familiar LNER design but by 1955 British Railways Mk I coaches had started to percolate through and had been made into two four-coach sets, which through no accident had been put on the lowest mileage circuits. The reception that these coaches were given when they were first introduced on the afternoon trains between King’s Cross and Edinburgh had to be witnessed to be believed – never before can a handful of coaches have generated such a volume of correspondence, and they were rapidly replaced and relegated to trains such as the Bradford-Scarborough service. The vehicles were everything a railway carriage should not be – dark, dingy and uninviting, whilst the riding of the bogies was appalling. Although they were based on pre-war LMS vehicles, somewhere in the process something had gone badly wrong, but the Railway

Executive, probably too engrossed in its fiveyear feud with the British Transport Commission, took no notice other than to order hundreds of the wretched vehicles. The sleeping cars met with an even more vociferous reception and most of the first class vehicles had to be taken out of service and replaced by pre-BR vehicles. Trains from

Euston and St Pancras ran with good, solid LMS 12-wheelers, whilst LNER sleepers appeared on the East Coast, a state of affairs that continued well into the ‘Deltic’ regime. The BR Mk I dining cars on ex-LNER lines were surreptitiously fitted with LNER bogies and earned BR an expensive lesson from the Gresley estate, who owned the patent. By the

late 1950s the penny dropped and the BTC, which had superseded the Railway Executive, set to work and re-launched the Mk I but with light rexine interiors, seats that were truly a delight to sit in and, above all, the Commonwealth bogie, which would have ridden steadily at high speed in a midAtlantic storm.

Having criticised the original Mk I vehicles, let it be said that the Commonwealth Mk Is of circa 1960 were beyond doubt the best vehicles Britain has ever seen. Much later it was decided to replace the bogies on the early Mk I coaches with B4 bogies and whilst this cured the poor riding, by the time the programme was underway almost all passenger services were formed of Mark IIs and air-conditioned coaches. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good and the arrival of BR standard coaches in the Newcastle sets permitted some of the displaced LNER vehicles to be used in the two Border Counties sets, which up to 1955 had used a pair of three-coach non-corridor suburban vehicles. The Border Counties line ran north-west from Border Counties Junction, just west of Hexham on the Newcastle-Carlisle route, through to

Riccarton Junction on the Waverley route, but Hawick and Newcastle both fell within the grasp of its various workings.

In contrast to the simplicity of the passenger working at Carlisle, the city’s goods operations merit an article in their own right, since every company had had its own yard at Carlisle and a host of shunting pilots were kept in business as they ferried transfer traffic from one yard to another. The North Eastern yard in Carlisle was London Road, which also had its own motive power depot and was not the only Carlisle depot that soldiered on for years after it had supposedly been closed. Just to its east, the Midland engine shed of Durran Hill continued to supply engines for trains to the south via Ais Gill as though nothing had ever changed and gave rise to much confusion in the eyes of enthusiasts who presumed that a depot closed as soon as it lost its allocation of engines. The real position was that a depot remained active so long as it had a complement of enginemen on its books, and the salaries paid to the supervisory and managerial staff at any depot were very much dependant on the number of men controlled; in this respect engines were irrelevant.

Although not the largest of Carlisle’s yards, London Road was busy – see Table Four (overleaf ) for booked activity in 1955 – and trains arrived in such quick succession from Newcastle that no less than two diesel shunters and a Reid ‘N15’ 0-6-2T were needed to shunt the yard and, as yard staff used to say, keep things fluid. The ‘N15’ worked during the day, whilst the diesel shunters worked continuously, breaking only for a short period in the early morning for fuel. Marshalling

yards were scenes of continuous activity as trains arrived, were broken up and the wagons shunted to form outgoing trains. Shunting was continuous and was accompanied by the ringing of buffers – a sound once as familiar as church bells – as wagons came together. Although the table shows the daily activity at London Road yard, the nature of goods working meant that on any day, a good proportion of the detail would be amended at short notice.

The first intimation of an approaching train would be a telephone announcement from the controller along the lines of: ‘Thirteen-twelve, six twenty, twenty-five. Twenty-six rough equal thirty-three. Right time. Engine to the Loco,’ advising the yard inspector of the 7.25am from Addison, train No 1312, worked by ‘K1’ 2-6-0 No 62025 (of Blaydon). The load is given as ‘26’, which tells the inspector that the train is bringing in a load of 21-ton hoppers, all of which are described as ‘rough’ which means they are to be re-marshalled to go to a variety of destinations. Occasionally a train will be wired in from the controller as ‘26 including 15 Carlisle CEA’ which is prior advice that 15 loaded wagons for the power station are in the train and on arrival can be shunted en masse into the siding reserved for power station coal. The standard load for a train worked by a ‘K1’ 2-6-0 from Addison yard is 39 loaded 13-ton mineral wagons but since this train is made up of hoppers, equivalence has to be calculated. In this case, 39 13-ton mineral wagons, or ‘pools’ as they are often known, equate in weight to 26 loaded hoppers. Hoppers are 25% longer than a 13-ton mineral wagon, hence the statement by the controller ‘equal 33’, which advises that 26 hoppers are the length of 33 pools; when written, hoppers are abbreviated to ‘Hxx’ and pools to ‘XPO’. The controller states that the train is running to time but takes this with a pinch of salt since trains have to stop at Naworth to apply wagon brakes, and again at Wetherall, if the driver thinks it necessary, to release them, and the latter can add

12 minutes to the running time. In any case the signalman will ask permission for the train to enter the yard when it is on the doorstep.

It is interesting to compare the respective payloads of hoppers versus pools. A train of 39 13-ton mineral wagons conveys just over 500 tons of coal, whilst a train of 26 hoppers conveys only 40 tons more, so the difference in payload is not great, although there may be a benefit in that fewer wagons are used. Engines used on the line tend to be on the small side – the ‘K1’ 2-6-0 is only a class ‘6’ engine – and in fact the North Eastern is generally quite deficient in the matter of class ‘8’ engines, and those it has are based either in Teesside, York or Hull. A class ‘8’ engine such as an ‘Austerity’ 2-8-0 would allow loads to be increased by five wagons, to 44, whilst a British Railways ‘9F’ class 2-10-0 would allow trains of 48 wagons to be run, albeit still 12 wagons short of the line limit.

Table Five shows the topography on the route, west from Newcastle, showing the locations on the line and the gradient (indicates a falling gradient) between each. The railway determined that a steep gradient – for which particular rules applied – was 1 in 264, and it can be seen that the route was remarkably level until Naworth, where it fell steeply to Carlisle. This was a sticking point so far as heavy trains was concerned, so mineral trains had to stop to pin-down wagon brakes before descending – when the ‘new world’ dawned a few years later and expensively new English Electric 1,750hp ‘Type 3’ diesels took over from the ‘K1’ 2-6-0s, the advance was scarcely revolutionary. Where the 2-6-0 had

handled equal to 26 hoppers, the diesel took 28, which was not only a pretty feeble advance but was still a long way short of the line limit of 48.

The actual destination of each wagon was something that had to be sorted out when the train arrived, although had there been any need for special arrangements, the controller would have mentioned it. Various attempts to advise yards of the individual wagons in trains had been tried over the years but in most cases it had simply been an expensive way of producing records that were rarely consulted. Looking ahead a few years, I well recall the expensive network of telex machines the railway invested in, which clattered out – with a great many superfluous vowels and ‘Xs’ – details of every train leaving or heading to a particular point. At the time the writer was based at Whitemoor, which had such a number of trains that the machine was never quiet, but if you had the time to contemplate and interpret the messages being sent, you were left with the feeling that providence had delivered into your hands a great deal of information with which you could do almost nothing. ‘It will help you to plan in advance,’ said someone from on high, as though you could rewrite the timetable hourly on the basis of a few telex reports telling you which wagons were on their way to you.

The telex messages, which like most things on the railway were filed occasionally, came in useful for tracing missing wagons but that was about all. One colleague (the type who a few years earlier might have been found a niche at Bletchley Park) took a detailed interest in the telex reports but even he had to admit that most of the time their fascination was more academic than practical. In the real world, both before and after telex machines, if a train contained anything special, such as a registered consignment or a ‘Green Arrow’, then the controller gave ample warning and that was really all that was needed. Otherwise, when a train arrived it was simply broken up and the wagons shunted into the appropriate siding to await the next booked service for their destination.

With hundreds of thousands of wagons on the move daily it was inevitable that things would go awry now and again, and when a wagon was reported as having gone missing, the first line of attack was to find the trains that the wagons had moved in, which meant the inspectors (or their clerks) scouring sheaves of records, looking for a wagon number. Sometimes luck held and it was possible to report back to the trains office that the wagon had left for Park Lane via Blaydon in a particular train on such and such a date, leaving the district clerk to get on to Blaydon and start the process over again. Sooner or later the wagon would be located (sometimes thanks to a station ringing in to ask why they had a wagon on hand that had no business to be with them) and usually the cause was either a missing or misread wagon label. The facility for tracing a wagon number by typing it into a computer lay 20 years into the future (by which time most of the traffic had evaporated) and even had such a facility been possible – one thinks of the early computers used by Lyon & Co for marrying receipts to cash – the cost would almost certainly have been out of all proportion to the benefit.

Although London Road was primarily a North Eastern yard it also dealt with a number of ‘foreign’ workings, amongst which were trains from Basford Hall (Crewe), Edge Hill (Liverpool), Bescot (Birmingham) and Preston – all services which, in the normal course of events, would have run to Viaduct yard, where their traffic would be handed over

to the Caledonian Railway in pre-grouping days, and thereafter its successors. Because these trains brought in a significant proportion of traffic for the North Eastern, it meant that provision had to be made for the rest of their traffic and for this reason a number of Caledonian trains were booked to start from London Road instead of Kingmoor, which was the usual starting point for CR trains. It is interesting to note that of the 28 goods trains that ran into Carlisle via Shap, 17 went to the L&NWR Viaduct yard, whilst Kingmoor and London Road received five each. In addition, a local trip terminated in Upperby yard, which normally dealt with up road traffic. Such was the strategic importance of Carlisle that all trains from the south via Shap terminated in its yards other than the 2.40pm Camden to Buchanan Street service, which called at Dentonholme yard to detach Carlisle Exchange traffic.

Incoming traffic from the Midland was even heavier with 36 trains, 22 of which terminated at Petteril Bridge yard, whilst five ran to Viaduct yard, four to Kingmoor and two each to London Road and Canal. Only one Midland train, the 8.38pm Rotherham-College, by-passed Carlisle’s yards and ran through from England to Glasgow. The importance of this service was that it connected with the 2.26pm Somers Town to Rotherham (Masborough) and gave a fast service from London to Glasgow. In addition to these workings, the daily trip from Howe & Co’s quarry, a few miles up the Midland main line to Leeds and which produced stone for the ICI works at Prudhoe, terminated in London Road yard.

Most of the trains from London Road to the Newcastle District conveyed either goods or empty wagons, which in terms of loading calculations were almost the same thing, although there were four trains that ran to Prudhoe with wagons of stone for the ICI works and these needed banking over the dozen miles between Durran Hill Junction and Low Row by a Carlisle Canal ‘J39’ class 0-6-0. The departure times of the Prudhoe trains were nicely arranged so that the same ‘J39’ could bank all four in the course of a single shift. Worked by a ‘K1’ 2-6-0, each train loaded to 26 wagons of stone.

Whilst London Road depot turned and serviced engines in mid-diagram, by the end of 1933 provision of power for the Carlisle end of the Newcastle line was the responsibility of Canal depot, which also provided power for the North British route to Edinburgh. One might well ask why two depots (not to mention Upperby and Durran Hill) were required. Why not let Kingmoor take over the lot? The problem was that the various routes through Carlisle were so congested with trains that the time required for an engine to get from Kingmoor to London Road or Durran Hill would have eaten up such a proportion of the diagrammed working that the proposition would be both impractical and hopelessly uneconomic. The running time for engines from Kingmoor depot to London Road was 35 minutes, which was far too long for engines that had barely two hours between arriving from Newcastle and working a train back. On top of that, drivers from Blaydon (and probably a dozen other depots working into Carlisle) would be screaming for pilotmen to conduct them from the yards to the depots, and chaos would descend pretty quickly. Thus London Road and Durran Hill remained fully active until the diesels, the new Kingmoor marshalling yard and a dramatic decline in traffic changed all the rules in the early 1960s.

Prior to World War I, Carlisle had played a role in the working of the East Coast main line, but productivity had been low as even the standard 10-hour shift of the day rarely permitted more than a single return trip to Newcastle to be worked. As a way of increasing the mileage worked by Carlisle engines and men – in NER days engines and men were diagrammed as a single unit – some Carlisle turns were twinned with those of Gateshead, with Carlisle engines and men working from Newcastle to York – see Table Six and note the lodging for crews at Newcastle. In this way the 10.04am Newcastle-Bristol, and the 10.10am and 6.05pm from King’s Cross were worked by Carlisle depot. Workings at Gateshead and York were also combined in this way and thus York engines could be seen several times a day at Carlisle. After the introduction of the eighthour day, in 1919, such strange workings ceased and from that time the only ‘foreign’ engines seen at Carlisle were those from Gateshead and Blaydon.

Apart from the impressive sight and sound of trains climbing out of Carlisle, the 22 miles to Haltwhistle were relatively unremarkable, although the nine intermediate points generated enough goods traffic to warrant a trip of their own – a ‘J39’ 0-6-0 left London Road at 6.20am, calling at all-stations to Haltwhistle, where the engine turned before returning to Carlisle, again calling at all stations. The outward train from Carlisle generally took goods traffic and empties for loading in the coming 24 hours but the down train took coal from Haltwhistle and collected loaded goods wagons as it proceeded and was limited to 31 minerals or their equivalent. In common with established North Eastern practice, the only time shown for the trip was the starting time from London Road, after which the running of the train was a matter for the crew and the controller who followed its progress from Newcastle. All that was called for in the way of timekeeping was for the trip to finish its work without the crew incurring any overtime and without getting in the way of passenger trains.

In fact, the inclusion of the starting time in the timetable was generous, as the great majority of NER trip workings were never mentioned in a timetable of any sort – something that makes life very difficult for historians. Anyone who consults a working timetable to see how many goods trains started from, for example, West Hartlepool in 1955 will arrive at a startlingly low figure that is highly misleading, because Hartlepool started a train about every ten minutes of the day but since they were local to the district and followed no fixed routine the North Eastern saw no point in putting them in a timetable. Had it done so, the North Eastern working timetable would have grown to the size of the London telephone directory.

The Haltwhistle-Alston line, a 13-mile single line blessed with a talent for survival, was sufficiently significant to warrant its own motive power depot, which prior to the summer of 1954 had two engines, a ‘G5’ 0-4-4T for passenger work and a ‘J21’ 0-6-0 for goods traffic, Wilson Worsdell and

T W Worsdell designs respectively. Given the industrial activity at Alston – a quarry, an iron foundry, and a gas works – there was every justification for two engines, but in 1954 the passenger service was cut from six to four round trips, which left a four-hour gap of sufficient length for the passenger engine to work a goods service to Haltwhistle and back, calling en route at Lambley colliery. Accepting that this task was probably beyond the powers of the ‘G5’, British Railways Standard ‘4MT’ 2-6-0 No 76024 was allocated to the depot; it was later replaced by BR ‘3MT’ 2-6-0 No 77011. One of the casualties of the economies was the sight of the ‘G5’ and ‘J21’ double-heading the 7.12am Alston-Haltwhistle and 11.45am Haltwhistle-Alston services in order to position the 0-6-0 for the first goods duty of the day.

The section of main line between Haltwhistle and Hexham contained industrial activity, with Henshaw Colliery at Bardon Mill, as well as a quarry, a paper mill and a lime works at Fourstones, all of which was sufficient to warrant a through service to and from Newcastle in the form of the 8.35am Addison to Haltwhistle, which ran as a class ‘K’ trip from Hexham; the motive power was a Blaydon-allocated ‘J39’ class 0-6-0. The section had also witnessed the ruthlessness shown by the NER and its successors towards lines that failed to meet their costs, a local example being the Allendale branch, which left the main line at Border Counties Junction and ran more or less southwards for a dozen miles to Allendale. The passenger service was withdrawn in 1930, although the goods service, operated three times a week by the Hexham ‘J21’ class 0-6-0 pilot, survived until 1950.

Border Counties Junction was also the point at which the Border Counties line (North British Railway) to Riccarton Junction diverged, a line that once had Anglo-Scottish pretentions. Built as part of an arrangement that enabled the NER to run between Berwick and Edinburgh, the quid pro quo was a through North British service from

Edinburgh to Newcastle via Hexham and Riccarton Junction, a journey only four miles greater in distance but a great deal longer in time. By virtue of the fact that North Eastern engines worked all trains to Edinburgh via Berwick, the Border Counties service was the only passenger service between Edinburgh and Newcastle operated by the North British Railway. The through train disappeared long before the grouping and the service that remained consisted of three daily departures from Newcastle, one to Riccarton Junction and two to Hawick. Two 4-4-0s – a ‘D30’ from

Hawick and a ‘D49’ from Blaydon – alternated daily on the service and for many years goods traffic was dealt with by a Riccarton Junction based ‘J36’ class 0-6-0 that worked a goods service to Hexham and back. However, from around 1954 the working was altered and instead a Hexham-based ‘J21’ class 0-6-0 worked a return trip to Scotsgap each day.

For many years the Border Counties trains used the same three coach non-corridor sets that were standard on the Hexham suburban trains – brake third (BT), corridor lavatory (CL), and BT – but from 1955/56 the arrival of BR standard stock in the Newcastle-Carlisle trains allowed enough LNER corridor stock to be released for work between Newcastle and Riccarton Junction/Hawick. The Border Counties sets also worked a number of local trains between Newcastle and Hexham. It was still possible to travel from Newcastle to Edinburgh via the Border Counties, changing at either Riccarton Junction or Hawick, depending upon the service used, although the connections were far from ideal. The 5.58am and 4.27pm departures from Newcastle entailed waits of 89 and 84 minutes at Riccarton Junction and Hawick respectively, with only the 11.10am from Newcastle giving a reasonable connection, 32 minutes for the 1.28pm Carlisle-Edinburgh. Even by the 11.10am service the journey time was almost 5½ hours and was therefore not an enterprise likely to be repeated.

In travelling east from Carlisle to Border Counties Junction we have so far covered 38 miles and 24 chains of the Newcastle & Carlisle route, and Hexham station is officially just 1 mile 7 chains beyond. As the end of a suburban service from Newcastle, and with the still rural nature of the route gradually seeing more industrial installations as we make for Tyneside, the intensity of traffic on the 20 miles and 68 miles of railway east of Hexham station warrants greater inspection and thus will be covered in a follow up feature.

D Dunn Collection/ARPT Late afternoon sunshine illuminates Thompson ‘B1’ class 4-6-0 No 61239 (NBL Works No 26140 of October 1947) on Saturday, 27 October 1956 as it leaves Haltwhistle with the 12.20pm Newcastle to Carlisle passenger train. Haltwhistle is the junction station for Alston, with the branch train seen ready to leave, after offering cross-platform interchange with the down main line service. While at Haltwhistle the branch locomotive, a Worsdell ‘G5’ class 0-4-4T at this time, used the servicing facilities seen to the right of the ‘B1’, and the route itself can just be seen climbing steeply to the right upon leaving the station, soon crossing the River South Tyne; the nearer road bridge is in view. Across on the up side of the line, a healthy amount of goods stock occupies the yard, Haltwhistle enjoying a position as the terminating point of a morning trip working from Carlisle.

W A Camwell/SLS Collection The south end of Carlisle Citadel station, circa 1949/50, with three 4-6-0 types: Stanier ‘Black Five’ No 45332 takes over the 10.25am service from Glasgow, Stanier ‘Jubilee’ No 45569 Tasmania is on the 10.10am Edinburgh (Waverley) to London (St Pancras) duty, and Thompson ‘B1’ No 61014 is just in view in the Newcastle line bay on the 1.50pm to Newcastle. The ‘B1’ was new to Gateshead shed on 23 December 1946 and is most likely seen after a boiler exchange of September 1949, given that it has the early BR crest on its tender and that the ‘Black Five’ still has its ‘BRITISH RAILWAYS’ branding written in full.

Virtually coast-to-coast, the 60 mile long Newcastle & Carlisle route and its branches are illustrated by a pre-grouping RCH map. Note the three NER branches west of Hexham, the 13 mile route south from Haltwhistle to Alston proving the most resilient to closure, though ultimately succumbing in 1976 – Allendale was goods only after 1930, and thereafter only lasted until 1950, while that to Brampton Town lost its passenger service in October 1923 and was closed completely by the end of that year, so falls outside the post-war remit of this feature. Finally, in regard to neighbouring company operations, those of the former North British Railway’s Border Counties line north of Hexham and through to the Waverley route found themselves knitting with Newcastle & Carlisle duties, and interaction at the Carlisle hub is similarly covered.

Table Three: No more than 39 coaches were required for the main line services, and these included three strengthening vehicles and six for the Border Counties services, the latter only having acquired corridor stock in 1955/56.

Table Two: Given the frequency of trains, the number of engines involved in the main line passenger workings was small, calling for only six ‘B1’ 4-6-0s, three from each end of the line, and a pair of 4-4-0s for the Border lines services. The Hawick-allocated ‘D30’ was replaced in 1955 by a ‘D49’ 4-4-0.

J W Armstrong/ARPT Newcastle-bound, Thompson ‘B1’ class 4-6-0 No 61219 is seen at Wetheral station, about 4¼ miles out from Carlisle with an up passenger service. The station is on a curve and trains departing eastwards immediately cross the River Eden. The view is not dated but the leading coach is of LNER design, which points towards the period prior to the use of BR Mk I stock, and the locomotive’s allocation history indicates pre-1958. This particular ‘B1’ was completed by the North British Locomotive Co Ltd and was taken into LNER stock on 9 August 1947 as No 1219, its first shed being Carlisle Canal. Called upon to help out on the Southern Region during the Bulleid ‘Merchant Navy’ cracked axle drama of May/June 1953, No 61219’s second and final spell at Canal shed was from 21 June that year through to 9 December 1957.

John Pedelty/ARPT Carlisle (Citadel) was a magnet for enthusiasts, so much so that many of the surrounding yards largely failed to get any enthusiast attention, but this view does record London Road yard from a Carlisle-bound train, and seemingly after Ivatt ‘4MT’ 2-6-0 No 43027 reached Carlisle (Kingmoor) in July 1960. The Mogul appears to be making up a train, or is just being called upon to take a Conflat and container somewhere, with the required brake van. The two rakes of wagons are alongside the partly obscured the ex-NER goods shed, its diesel pilot glimpsed alongside, and the land between the nearby 16 ton mineral wagon had a 50ft turntable. To its right, the elevated coal stage had watering facilities on the far side, so outside the double-roundhouse, which by this time was largely used for wagon repairs. The 1880s saw the North Eastern Railway upgrade the locomotive and goods facilities here, but the former fell out of favour post-1925 after a regional boundary change saw London Road become part of the LNER Scottish Southern Area.

ARPT By Monday, 7 April 1958, the date of this view, the passenger stock in use on the 2pm Carlisle to Newcastle duty was BR Mk Is, while still being in the safe hands of a Carlisle Canalallocated ‘B1’, No 61395, its allocation being proudly carried on the front buffer beam, as well as on a shedplate. A reorganisation of shed codes was ongoing at this time, with Carlisle’s Kingmoor and Canal sheds passed from their traditional Scottish territory to the London Midland Region, and between 23 February and 20 April 1958 the ex-NBR shed of Canal was coded 12D (previously 68E), before settling as 12C – so across nine weeks the Canal fleet saw three different codes used! The location for this view is the Brampton end of Cowran cutting, just east of How Mill on the long climb from Carlisle through to Naworth, with the ‘B1’ clearly hard at work.

S C Crook/ARPT Photographer Stanley Crooks must surely have been ‘in the know’ to be braving the elements at Petteril Bridge Junction when Rebuilt ‘Patriot’ class 4-6-0 No 45530 Sir Frank Ree exited the Newcastle & Carlisle line on a rake of hoppers in late December 1965. Most likely an engine change rather than a trip from Newcastle, perhaps this was the locomotive’s concluding duty. It would be withdrawn from Kingmoor shed on 31 December. Whilst the sight of 21-ton hoppers arriving from the Blaydon direction was regular fare at this location, and ‘Patriots’ were a possible (though not especially common) sighting on the Settle & Carlisle line – the route across the view in the foreground – we seem to have a meeting of these two possibilities. The working is believed to be a throwback to Stainmore route days and the Derwenthaugh-Millom coke duties, although it seems to be empty wagons so is perhaps a positioning move to Millom for a future diesel-worked job. Back on 2 December 1959 it was recommended that through freight workings over the Stainmore route be stopped (it closed as a through route in January 1962) and that they should instead be routed via the Tyne Valley (N&C) route. Originally coke went west from Derwenthaugh to Millom and the return trains brought iron ore to Teesside.

Milepost 92½/Transport Treasury Approaching the delightfully named Heads Nook station with a goods duty from the Newcastle direction, and thus London Road-bound, is ‘Peppercorn ‘K1’ class 2-6-0 No 62002; the date is 8 April 1951. Documentation in regard to station openings can be a little patchy on the Newcastle & Carlisle route, a fire that is stoked in part by some early omissions in Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, but Heads Nook most likely dates from September 1862, so a few weeks after the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway was amalgamated with the North Eastern Railway. A two-road goods yard goes unseen beyond the bridge, set back on the left and closed from 5 April 1965, while the passenger facility was withdrawn from 2 January 1967. The next station towards Carlisle is Wetheral, which remains open.

Old habits die hard in terms of operations on the traditional railway, hence a pre-grouping map of Carlisle’s various yards applies to trip duties still running 35 years after the grouping. NER interests are coloured yellow and can be seen meeting the Midland at Petteril Junction. Other than the various outlets and incoming goods opportunities on to the various routes, the NER path beneath the West Coast main line allowed goods to bypass certain delays at Citadel station, and among the important yards served was Viaduct, which is described as ‘CAL. GOODS’ and is north-facing.

Author’s Collection What could possibly go wrong? Well, given the size of the operation, things occasionally did, although how a shunter at Scunthorpe could mistake a wagon loaded with nearly 11 tons of ore as being empty takes some understanding! When all the detective work of the District Missing & Tracing section failed to locate a missing wagon, the last resort was to order a search of all stations, depots and yards. Such issues were not confined to wagons, the writer well remembering a similar search being made in 1966 for a lost 2,750hp Brush ‘Type 4’ diesel locomotive. It was eventually discovered at Nuneaton motive power depot.

Brian Lewis Having passed through Rome Street Junction and between Dentonholme Goods (originally run by a Joint operation made up of the Midland Railway, G&SWR and NBR) and Viaduct Goods (ex-Caledonian), this view records Fowler ‘4F’ class 0-6-0 No 44183 heading a northbound trip duty on 4 August 1962. The photographer is on Caldew Bridge a little to the north of Citadel station – the West Coast route through the station goes unseen behind him – and the goods is on the avoiding line, so may well soon reverse into Viaduct Goods, the link in the left foreground. Such bread and butter duties were the glue that held the Carlisle goods operation together. Completed in March 1925 at St Rollox Works in Glasgow, No 44183 would end its 38+ years of service in the week ending 26 October 1963, its final shed being Kingmoor.

Dr I Scrimgeour/Signalling Record Society/ Kidderminster Railway Museum Immediately west of London Road yard, and indeed London Road overbridge, was London Road Junction, this east-facing view dating from 24 August 1963. The photographer is standing on the NER route to Citadel station (to the north) or onwards westbound as the ‘Canal branch’ and beyond there its Rome Street Junction options. Looking ahead, the doubletrack spur to and from the south at Upperby and the L&NWR’s West Coast route is just this side of the road bridge, while the other two connections closer at hand are links to sidings. Adorned with a ‘London Road Junction’ nameboard, the box, a timber-on-brick structure with a gabled roof, has clearly got L&NWR heritage, the ground to the right of the photographer being railway used since Lancaster & Carlisle Railway times.

M Carrier/Kidderminster Railway Museum Historically, Petteril Bridge Junction was the meeting point of the Midland Railway and NER, with the former using Durran Hill yard and the latter London Road, which were south and north of the main running lines respectively. This 18 July 1954 view records Johnson ‘3F’ 0-6-0 No 43301 in Durran Hill yard, the breadth of the siding space is very apparent beyond the engine. New from Kitson & Co Ltd in 1891 as MR ‘1873’ class No 2024, this locomotive wears a 68A shedcode to denote allocation to Carlisle (Kingmoor), which proved to be its last shed, from May 1953 through to 25 October 1958.

T B Owen/Colour-Rail.com/3924 Another trip duty has arrived at the greater Durran Hill/London Road site, this time representing the North British Railway, and most likely with Waverley line goods traffic, in the form of Holmes ‘J36’ class 0-6-0 No 65304 on 27 May 1950. This locomotive was based at Carlisle Canal shed between 13 March 1940 and 17 December 1956. The smokebox is scorched, probably due to the door not being sealed shut at some recent point in time. A hybrid grouping/nationalised railway livery is carried thanks to the five-digit BR number being applied to the cab side (but as yet no smokebox number plate) and yet LNER ‘ownership’ prevails on the tender; also, note the tender cab. Ultimately, this 0-6-0 would serve from October 1898 to October 1962, the standard saturated 0-6-0s being amongst the railways’ most unappreciated types.

J W Armstrong/ARPT Heading away from Carlisle and making for the Newcastle District, Peppercorn ‘K1’ class 2-6-0 No 62030 brings a lengthy train of mineral empties through Haltwhistle station in the late afternoon of Saturday, 12 April 1952. Built by the North British Locomotive Co Ltd as Works No 26634, the pictured engine was new to Blaydon shed on 22 August 1949 and would continue to serve from there until a transfer to Gateshead on 6 May 1962; steam at Blaydon ceased from 16 June 1963. A North Eastern Region asset throughout its life, No 62030 would go on to serve from Alnmouth shed before concluding its career as a Sunderland engine in August 1965.

Fleetwood Shawe/ARPT While concentrating on the BR era, as the running of the railway was yet to see radical change it is perhaps a moment to indulge in the work of photographer Fleetwood Shawe, who covered Brampton Junction in some detail from pre-war days through to the first years of the nationalised railway, and as such he portrays a rural country junction with a busy goods yard, as well as express services passing through. This view is taken from virtually the same spot as the ‘B1’, but looking east. Making for Carlisle, Gresley ‘D49/2’ or ‘Hunt’ class 4-4-0 No 201 The Branham Moor passes the up goods yard and junction for the eastern section of Lord Carlisle’s line. Note the check-rail on the curve, the wooden post signals, the yard crane of five ton capacity, the goods shed, the white painted fencing of the cattle dock on the down side, and even the crop gathering in the field in the ‘V’ of the junction. The ‘D49s’ were intended for secondary express duties, with the pictured locomotive new from Darlington Works on 20 April 1932.

J W Armstrong Collection/ARPT About 11 miles from the hubbub of Carlisle’s Citadel station is the tranquil charm of Brampton Junction, its peace proving fragile as Thompson ‘B1’ No 61276 hurries past with a Newcastle express in the mid-1950s. Completed by North British Locomotive Vo in January 1948, this 4-6-0 served from Darlington until June 1959, when moved to York for exactly six years, to be withdrawn and scrapped at Ellis Metals, Derwenthaugh. As for this location, the coming of the Newcastle & Carlisle route – this section was opened from Greenhead to Carlisle London Road in July 1836 – brought about a diversion for Lord Carlisle’s Brampton Railway, a mineral line with roots going back to 1798. Ultimately, it was the earlier route from Lambley to Brampton Town that crossed the N&C route and created Brampton Junction, albeit Milton rather than Brampton was initially core to the name. The Brampton line to Lambley turned south behind the camera, while the one-mile branch to Brampton Town started northwards from the other end of the station, so near the rear of the pictured train. The line was worked for many years by a ‘BTP’ from London Road shed.

Fleetwood Shawe/ARPT Shunting a well-loaded timber wagon in the up goods yard at Brampton Junction is Gresley ‘J39’ class 0-6-0 No 1494. Completed at Darlington Works and new to Immingham shed on 10 December 1926, this scene of No 1494 is definitely recorded in the 1930s after subsequent moves, although other members of this class would continue to ply their trade along the Newcastle & Carlisle route into the 1950s, notably on the 6.20am Carlisle London Road to Haltwhistle pick-up goods and its reciprocal return leg. Carlisle Canal shed enjoyed a 33-year relationship with the ‘J39s’, a last quintet of these Canal 0-6-0s being withdrawn together on 22 October 1962.

Fleetwood Shawe/ARPT All is not quite as it seems as this view is taken during March 1948, before these two LNER lorries were rebranded. They are parked on the south side of Brampton Junction’s goods shed and will be part of a integrated collection and delivery service to and from Brampton Junction as a rail hub – with trains taking goods traffic over the lion’s share of any required distance, and at the end of that a similar road service offered to complete delivery. Such services had been created and evolved when the railways were king and the concept of road deliveries over long distances was unfathomable. By Act of 1947, this part of the railway businesses became British Road Services under the British Transport Commission, albeit the business was to run hand in hand with the newly-created British Railways.

Fleetwood Shawe/ARPT This view in Brampton Junction yard sees LNER Raven ‘Q6’ 0-8-0 No 2247 on an up mineral train. The 1938 edition of the Handbook of Railway Stations noted that Brampton Junction had the full range of facilities, with the following private sidings listed, although some must appear in terms of their management, being away from the site: Brampton Coal Staithes; Hallbankgate Siding; Kirkhouse Brick & Tile Works; Naworth Collieries Industrial Co-op Society Siding; Naworth Lime Works; Plane Head Siding; Roachburn Siding; Tindale Granite Co’s Siding; Tindale Zinc Extraction Co’s Siding; Whitescut Siding. There would have been many more regular users of the everyday goods services that did not have such siding space. The view is undated, but the engine’s near constant reallocation sees two periods at Blaydon – from 8 June 1937 until transfer to Heaton on 17 July 1939, and from 15 February 1941 through to 28 March 1943 when it found a new home at Newport shed on Teesside – so one of these seems likely.

R B Parr/SLS Collection It’s all action at the east end of Haltwhistle station on 27 May 1953 as a Worsdell ‘G5’ class 0-4-4T arrives from Alston and three other locomotives make up the scene, seemingly up and down main line trains, and a light engine ‘K1’ occupying the distant up siding. Perhaps the branch train is timed to connect with the Carlisle bound working running in alongside. The alignment of the Alston branch is clear to see as it descends from the right of the view, and a somersault signal is off to allow entry into the regular branch platform, the southernmost. The dominant brick structure near left is the signal box, and at least two additional wooden posts offer stabilising support for the nearby lattice post signals, which suggests an exposed location – there is open land unseen to the right and much of the near 180 degree approach of branch trains can be traced from a position on the down island. The incoming branch is single-track, the additional line at the lower level being a lengthy siding, complete with a kick back addition that is occupied by a hopper wagon.

W A Camwell/SLS Collection A visit to the terminus at Alston on 7 May 1948 allows the entire stud of branch engines to be recorded together – ‘G5’ 0-4-4T No 7315 and ‘J21’ 0-6-0 No 5100. The tank engine looks ready to depart for Haltwhistle with a passenger service, while the goods engine simmers outside the singleroad engine shed. As yet, neither of the locomotives has received British Railways branding or a five-digit BR running number, those shown being from the era when Edward Thompson took the bull by the horns and shook up the muddle that was LNER locomotive numbering pre-1946. The tender engine was completed at Gateshead Works as NER ‘C’ class No 1122 in August 1891, and it was in Compound form until February 1909. It would ultimately serve until December 1954, while its neighbouring 0-4-4T operated until December 1958.

W A Camwell/SLS Collection We have effectively turned on our heels to look west from a very similar position, again in 1953, and more than likely it is the same ‘G5’ in both views, No 67315. Since arrival, the needs of the locomotive have been attended to and the train run-round ready for departure. Completed at Darlington Works in December 1900 as NER ‘O’ class No 2086, the record cards for the pictured 0-4-4T note its allocation to Alston shed from 29 May 1940 until a move to Blaydon on 7 June 1953. An anomaly is that the Blaydon shed code of 52C was already carried on the locomotive as the un-coded Alston had been a sub-shed of Blaydon since early BR days. Historically, Alston was a London Road sub-shed until June 1925 when, unlike Carlisle’s ex-NER shed, Alston stayed in the North Eastern Area, being aligned to Gateshead until nationalisation.

Born as the Hexham & Allendale Railway, Allendale station, actually at the south end of Catton village, was designed as a through station but remained a terminus, albeit with a lengthy spur that ran from near the station throat through to Allen smelt mills. Passenger services operated through to Hexham from 1 March 1869 and until 22 September 1930, a journey time being 33 minutes, this scene was recorded in the last year. The motive power is a ‘G5’ class 0-4-4T and the passenger service was, at least in 1920, three trains a day each way, with an extra return trip on a Tuesday as that was market day in Hexham. Goods traffic continued until 20 November 1950.

Dr I Scrimgeour/Signalling Record Society/ Kidderminster Railway Museum This is the first of three views, taken on Saturday, 29 July 1939 at Border Counties Junction that record the path of the Newcastle & Carlisle main line and the incoming Allendale and Border Counties lines. In this west-facing scene the single-track ex-NER route from Allendale is seen with its down and up line connections – note the slip arrangement at the main line – and in the foreground is the former North British Railway route to Reedsmouth and Riccarton Junction, the Border Counties Railway, which crosses the River Tyne within feet of the box. The Allendale route was by now goods only.

A Linaker/Kidderminster Railway Museum On 4 July 1959, Blaydon-allocated BR Standard ‘3MT’ 2-6-0 No 77014 takes a turn on the twocoach Alston branch duty, this view being recorded on the long curving climb away from the main line at Haltwhistle and across the River South Tyne. Completed at Swindon Works to Order No 406, the pictured Mogul was new to Darlington shed on 7 July 1954 and, after a spell at Whitby in 1955/56, it reached Blaydon shed in the week ending 16 June 1956 and would serve from there until a move to Gateshead on 27 September 1959. Ultimately, it would gain renown as the Northwich engine that reached the Southern and stayed as that region’s only ever member of the class of 20 engines.

Dr I Scrimgeour/Signalling Record Society/Kidderminster Railway Museum Standing on the formation of the Border Counties route, we are looking towards Hexham and Newcastle, with Border Counties Junction signal box overseeing its namesake and a swathe of the Tyne. The signal box is a North Eastern Railway oversailed brick structure with a hipped-roof, brick chimney, and air vent. It is the constraints of the site that necessitated such a design, part of the building being cantilevered above the Carlisle-bound main line. Access appears to be via the footbridge, and there was a factor in the amount of main line trains and the need to always be able to cross the double-track for tablet exchange with Border Counties trains. The base of the steps on both sides of the line is lit, aiding safer operations, Allendale trains also needing an exchange. Note the height of the main bracket signal, for sighting by trains approaching from the Hexham direction, the varying height of the three signals denote the prominence of the routes, that protecting the main line being the tallest.

Dr I Scrimgeour/Signalling Record Society/Kidderminster Railway Museum Another 29 July 1939 view records the inside of Border Counties Junction signal box, showing the lever frame, standard LNER block shelf, and the track diagram high above. Interestingly, in a cost saving exercise there was no neighbouring box on the Allendale route, just groundframes for passing loops and access to sidings.

Neville Stead Collection/Transport Treasury Reid ‘Scott’ or ‘D30’ class 4-4-0 No 62423 Dugald Dalgetty – originally North British Railway No 414 of June 1914 – is seen on the main line near Corbridge, east of Hexham, with a Border Counties line service. On this occasion the usual rake of non-corridor ex-LNER stock – two brake thirds sandwiching a corridor lavatory – is running with a tail load. Named after a soldier of fortune in Sir Walter Scott’s A Legend of Montrose, this locomotive was a long-standing member of the Hawick allocation, working from that shed from 9 July 1945, when still running as LNER No 9414, through to its withdrawal on 18 December 1957.

Neville Stead Collection/Transport Treasury Crossing the River Tyne on approach to Border Counties Junction is Gresley ‘K3’ class 2-6-0 No 61897, a St Margarets-allocated locomotive that has worked through, and the stock is different too, ex-LNER and cascaded down from main line work. In due course the condition of the Border Counties Bridge and the predicted cost of repairs was a major factor in the abandonment of this ex-NBR route, with passenger trains ceasing to run on 13 October 1956, although the passage of goods trains continued through to 1 September 1958.

A N H Glover/Kidderminster Railway Museum On hand at Hexham shed on 10 August 1939 is LNER ‘J36’ class 0-6-0 No 9724. This ex-North British Railway locomotive was Hexham-based throughout the LNER era and until transfer to Glasgow’s Parkhead shed on 11 March 1951. Its allocation to former North Eastern Railway haunts was surely related to the Border Counties goods operation. This Holmes ‘717’ series Standard Goods was new as NBR No 724 in July 1897, and after September 1948 it ran as British Railways No 65295 until withdrawn in April 1961. Hexham engine shed was on the down side of the Newcastle & Carlisle line at the east end of the station, signals on the main line being just in view in the background, while the edge of the turntable pit is in the foreground.