Lickey ‘Castle’

I WAS interested to read the account of the ‘Duchess’ and ‘Castle’ climbing the Lickey Incline in January’s RM.

Today the appearance of locos away from their traditional routes are of course commonplace. In contrast, the appearance of either class climbing the incline in BR steam days would have been regarded as noteworthy.

I don’t know whether a ‘Duchess’ ever climbed the Lickey in BR days, but a ‘Castle’ certainly did. The engine involved was again No. 7029 Clun Castle, which worked an Ian Allan Special on March 27, 1965 and I was aboard the train as it left Paddington at 8.48am for Nottingham (Midland).

Our outward route was via Oxford, Worcester and Derby, using the Birmingham avoiding line. The climb of the Lickey was, I remember, rather disappointing as it seemed the crew of No. 7029 were happy to let the banking Class 37 No. D6938 do most of the work.

After stopping at Leicester, the train ran down the ex-Midland Main Line to Market Harborough, where we took the ex-LNWR line to Northampton. This had lost its passenger service in 1960 and later closed completely. Today part is operated by the heritage Northampton & Lamport Railway.

We were then scheduled to run down the ex-LNWR mainline to Bletchley, where I has hoping we would use the flyover to gain access to the Oxford line. Instead the train ran through the station and, keeping to ex-LNWR metals, ran as far as Calvert Junction before turning sharp left onto the ex-GCR mainline to Aylesbury. After a stop at Princes Risborough we arrived back at Paddington around 8.00pm.

My photo shows Clun Castle on the train at Worcester, and my ‘Recollections’ of ‘The last years of BR steam in Wessex’ Volume 1 Western Region & Volume 2 Southern Region has recently been published by Silver Link/Mortons.

Philip Horton

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