SIX-COUPLED SUCCESS: Pradice & Performance
For this instalment of Practice & Performance, Keith Farr analyses the performance of another selection of 0-6-0 tender engines on passenger duties.
- p26
In the January 2020 issue of The Railway Magazine we surveyed the performance of various 0-6-0 tender locos, from Collett's '2251' class on the Great Western to a
'Jl9' and 'J39s' on the former Great Eastern. We shall now look at five more classes, still leaving many others unremarked; after all, on Nationalisation in 1948, BR inherited 4,259 0-6-0s, comprising umpteen different types from before the 1923 Grouping.
One ofthose was the impressive-looking former North Eastern Railway stud classified 'J27' by the LNER and used extensively on heavy duty moving coal in Northumberland and County Durham. With crews on mileage bonus payment, they always seemed in a hurry - as did the 'Q6' 0-8-0s - often tender-first, apparently revelling in being thrashed, and forming the centre piece ofJohn Heaton's comprehensive article in the March 2011 issue ofiheRM.
In contrast, let us examine a 'snippet' behind another former NER class on a rural duty. Classified 'J21' by the LNER, these
0-6-0s were not in the same league as the
'J27s' but were just as useful. According to the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society's definitive history of LNER locomotives, between 1886 and 1895 Gateshead and Darlington works turned out 201, ofwhich
171 (NERClass 'C') were compounds and the remainder, the 'Cl's, were 'simples'.
NER Locomotive Superintendent
T W Worsdell claimed the compounds consumed less coal than the 'Cl's, but his brother and successor, Wilson Worsdell, thought otherwise and converted all the compounds to 'simple', to be reclassified 'C'. Some were superheated, others not; by 1913, 121 had Joy's motion and slide valves and the remaining 80 Stephenson piston valve gear. See panel on page 28 for general dimensions.
Challenging route
Tough little engines, what became the
'J2ls' formed 10% ofthe North Eastern Railway's motive power contribution to the LNER and, unlike the similar 'J25s', were widely used on passenger as well as freight duty. And they lasted well into BR days, with the final survivor, No. 65033, active from South Blyth shed until April 1962.
A route on which the 'J2ls' are remembered was the line across the Pennines from Bishop Auckland in the east, over Stainmore Summit and down into Edendale; at Kirkby Stephen it divided into branches north to Penrith and south-west to Tebay. This was the challenging route taken by pairs of 'J2ls' in the 1930s with Saturday Newcastle to Blackpool excursions; they would also double-head mineral trains from the Durham coke ovens to iron and steel works on the Cumbrian coast.
The Stainmore route from Barnard Castle to Eden Valley Junction, Penrith, was closed to passengers in January 1962, after the 'J2ls' had largely been replaced by LMR and BR Moguls, which were within the load limit for Belah Viaduct, the work ofThomas Bouch, engineer ofthe first Tay bridge. Logs of'J2ls' are therefore hard to come by, although a perusal ofthe Railway Performance Society's
(RPS) electronic archive unearthed a 'snippet' from Barnard Castle to Kirkby Stephen recorded by the late Michael Bland in July
1953 (Table 1). The gradient was less severe westbound than eastwards, but several miles of l-in-68 had to be conquered before reaching the 1,370ft summit. For six years after the closure of Devon's Princetown branch in 1956, Stainmore was the highest point on any English passenger line.
Michael Eland's log shows signal checks on departure from Barnard Castle and at