Side by side by Jeff Nicholls

With regular working steam, as opposed to preserved, coming to an end on British Railways in August 1968, the only places where it could still be seen were in industry, most notably on National Coal Board metals. One of the last such places in the country where everyday steam could be seen was Bickershaw Colliery, on the outskirts of Leigh in Lancashire.

The National Coal Board years

Up to the mid 1980s, loaded coal trains were handed over to BR diesels at Abram North Exchange Sidings; these included HAA type Merry-Go-Round hoppers and the older, unbraked 16T standard BR mineral wagons. Motive power could be Class 25, Class 40 or, most commonly Class 47. Very occasionally, as illustrated in this article, one of the BR locos would make it down into the colliery yard. Quite what BR Management made of this is open to speculation: the trackwork was, generally speaking, in poor condition. Some of the accompanying photographs show steam and diesel working alongside each other.

Text and photographs by Jeff Nicholls

The British Rail years

In 1984 a 300 ton rapid loader was installed at Bickershaw, and the trackwork upgraded with continuous long welded rails, to take MGR trains of up to 45 wagons for Fiddlers Ferry power station, near Widnes. Gradients and curves were eased, and BR locos worked the whole line from Springs Branch into the colliery yard. At this time, over 50,000 tons a week of coal was moved along the branch as Bickershaw Colliery was connected underground to nearby Parsonage and Parkside collieries and most of their output was brought to the surface at Bickershaw.

At first Class 20s were used, one pair at each end of the train. These were replaced by Class 60s towards the end, which came offi cially on March 27th 1992. However, it was not unknown to have a pair of Class 20s at one end and a Class 60 at the other. Top and tailing only happened along the branch, once on the main line the trailing loco or locos were detached. A pair of Class 20s on 45 loaded HAAs on the West Coast main line made an awesome noise, even though in the short distance from Springs Branch to Fiddlers Ferry via Warrington the gradients are not especially steep.

n the first photograph, taken on the evening of ay , has arrived from prings ranch propelling an air raked rake van, unslet ngineering saddle tank wyneth watches on. rake vans were in use on R workings to iddlers erry at this time as the ourney involved a propelling movement at arrington rpley. few s can e seen in the distance ehind wyneth. n the second photograph, the rake van has een detached. his was the only occasion on which witnessed a R loco in the colliery yard, understand it was a rare occurrence although have seen a photo of a lass in the yard and, most remarka le of all, a photo of an usterity tank dou le heading with a lass on wagons

was then acked onto a set of empty s, ut not coupled to them, so as to e out of the way of proceedings. has attached its rake van to its train in order to draw it forward through the e change sidings, with si teen s now in the formation, wyneth would have een una le to perform this manoeuvre. he van will eventually e coupled to the opposite end of the train for the reasons mentioned a ove.

he third photograph, taken in cto er , shows unslet Respite fitted with iesl e ector that s chimney to those of you not familiar with steam language ringing loaded s into ram change idings alongside an unidentified lass on an empty rake of the same type of wagons. he heaps which can e seen in the ackground of this shot are of opencast coal from a near y working, the two tall towers carry lights. he ne t two photographs were taken later the same week. had arrived with a rake of empty tonners which it had shunted into a holding siding. wyneth arrived alongside with eight fully laden s, the ma imum allowed up the ank with a single usterity , then returned to the colliery for more.

‘Western King’ is seen again, this time charging the bank out of the colliery with its rake of HAAs on July 26th 1983. Sister loco ‘Western Queen’ (Works number 5479) arrived a little while after her brother, having worked for a short time at nearby Parsonage Colliery Unfortunately, the diesels were not an unqualified success, steam often having to be pressed into service.