East Coast snapshots
I ENJOYED John Heaton’s article (March issue), it brought back two memories of my childhood living very close to the East Coast Main Line in Peterborough.
Firstly, the ‘Plant Centenarian’. As a nine-year-old, just starting to get hooked on trainspotting, I used to wander down to Spital shed with a pal, after Sunday School, including on September 20, 1953.
After viewing the shed yard, we went up to Spital Bridge where we found a man setting up a camera and tripod. He told us that a special was coming through, and asked us to be quiet and still so that he could get a good photograph. A few minutes later, the ‘Plant Centenarian’ came through on the Stamford lines with its strange engines. We thought that they must be ‘Westerns’ as they didn’t have a five-digit number. The gentleman patiently explained to us what a preserved Atlantic was and the meaning of ‘Plant Centenarian’.
Imagine my pleasure some four years later when I received Trains Annual
1957, with the photograph which this kind man, R J Blenkinsop, had taken that day with a nuisance of a small boy at his side.
John Heaton also refers to the down ‘Heart of Midlothian’ changing locos at Peterborough North. One of our spotting highlights would be seeing a Pacific trundling tender-first from New England shed down to the station, returning some 30 minutes later heading north with the ‘Heart’. This would be followed by the replaced loco working up to New England.
We used to wonder why this exchange took place here on a crack express, only 70 minutes out of King’s Cross, especially as the up working changed locos, as I remember, at Grantham. I think it was the only loco exchange which took place at Peterborough on a main line express, and a small number of Pacifics, usually ‘A2s’, were allocated to New England just for this diagram, or so it seemed.
Brian Hubble Ruthin, Denbighshire A FASCINATING account of contrasting ECML motive power performance over the years by John Heaton (March issue). I’ve been compiling a list of ‘9F’ passenger workings for many years, so the description of No. 92170’s run was of particular interest to me. My list comprises well over 700 instances (not including regular workings on the Somerset & Dorset line), but I had not come across that one before – even though it was more or less on my own patch!
May I make some observations, in the spirit of ‘putting the record straight.’ As can be seen by the train formation behind the two Atlantics, the photograph on page 18 is in fact the down ‘Plant Centenarian’ on September 20, 1953; the familiarisation runs were made on the 5pm King’s Cross-Peterborough/ Cambridge service, which was a completely different formation with no carriage roofboards.
The 90mph exploit of ‘9F’ No. 92184 (on August 16, 1958), mentioned on page 20, was on the untitled 1.10pm EdinburghKing’s Cross – not the named express quoted, which followed at 1.30pm. The oft-repeated error stems from the Trains Illustrated mis-identification at the time, mainly Cecil J Allen’s account in the November 1958 issue.
It was corrected in the January 1959 issue, in a letter from Hitchin enthusiast Michael Dean, but many writers since then have perpetrated the original mistake. As Mr Dean pointed out, the up ‘Heart of Midlothian’ that evening reached King’s Cross about an hour late behind ‘V2’ No. 60917, some 80 minutes after No. 92184 had arrived with the 1.10pm from Edinburgh.
The September 1959 run of No.
92170, however, is still something of a coincidence as the same ‘9F’ was reported to have worked a named express on the ECML just over two weeks earlier! On August 28, 1959, it took the even more prestigious up ‘Master Cutler’ Pullman from Biggleswade to King’s Cross after English Electric Type 4 No. D206 failed. David Percival
Knebworth