| My
Railway Interest was boosted in 1950, when I began trainspotting. And
for the next few years, I visited Tamworth, Rugby, Crewe, Shrewsbury,
the Birmingham stations, Bristol, Gloucester, and wherever else my
pocket money would stretch. Then there were the occasional excursions
that included shed and works visits. By late 1954, there was a lot of
underlining in my Ian Allan ABC Combined Volume. It was the arrival of
a couple of O S Nock books as Birthday presents that moved my interests towards train timing
and the study of locomotive performance.
And so my days out were now based on train travel where I hoped to record some hard working locomotives. I still continued noting locomotive numbers, but that activity became secondary. By 1958, I had covered a large part of the country, and a wide variety of locomotives. And had encountered some splendid performances, and some not so splendid. In 1957, schedules throughout the uk had recovered almost to their pre war levels, and in the case of the London Midland Region main lines out of Euston and St Pancras, hard work was required to keep time. This was particularly so on the Midland Main line from St Pancras, where Jubilee class 4-6-0's were expected to run to Leicester in 99 minutes with a 300 ton load. By mid 1958, I had already sampled the Jubilee running into and out of St Pancras three times. Run 1 (45605) was dreadful, run 2 (45598) mediocre, and run 3 (45683) excellent. But I hadn't travelled north of Derby over the Peak Forest route to Manchester Central. |
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| On
21st November 1958, I put matters right by adding a days holiday to my
Accountancy examination leave. I travelled from Birmingham to Leicester
on a DMU, and awaited the 7.55am St Pancras to Manchester, the Palatine.
Whilst I waited, 70004 William Shakespeare called on the 7.25am
Manchester to St Pancras, before 45675 Hardy arrived, 2 late, on the
Palatine, which was loaded to 8 coaches. Due to a late connection from
Peterborough, we were 9 late away, and although by standards elsewhere,
the running was quite good, it was not good enough to keep the extremely
tight timings. So with 4 minutes overtime at Derby, and a permanent way
slowing at Bramhall Moor, we were 15 late into Manchester.
Since I intended to return to Leicester on the Up Palatine, which left Manchester at 2.25pm, I had well over two hours to spare, so I opted for a return trip to Liverpool Central, via the CLC route. Outward I travelled on D5000, a brand new 1160hp Diesel Electric. On the return, I had Black 5 no 44717. Both locomotives had to run hard to keep time. |
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