| 1960 was, for me, a
vintage trainspotting year in which I put my "stop watching"
activities to one side, and concentrated on filling a few gaps on my
spotting map. The three principal gaps were 1) The East Coast Main Line 2) East
Anglia, and 3) Scotland. I am afraid that neither East Anglia nor
Scotland were ever accomplished, but I
did succeed with the East Coast Main Line with a Summer Saturday at
Paxton in July 1960, and a weekend in October 1960 that took in Doncaster, Leeds,
York, and Darlington.
So on Saturday 30th July 1960, an early morning drive from the Midlands saw us looking for a spot beside the East Coast Main line north of St Neots. |
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| The next few hours were magic. Pacifics galore, A4,A3,A2, and A1 classes. Also V2 2-6-2's and B1 4-6-0's, several WD's on freights. The Prototype Deltic was seen, the only bad news was that the English Electric type 4's had made inroads into the workings. | ||||||
| At 1.54pm, a freight headed north on the relief line, double headed by
class 20's D8027 and D8020. Almost immediately, at 1.55pm, V2
class 2-6-2 no 60928 appeared on the down fast, on the 1.00pm from
Kings Cross, the "Heart of Midlothian". But 60928 was
travelling slowly, and sounded off beat. Something was clearly wrong,
even though she had run the 53 miles from Kings Cross in 55 minutes. The
train continued slowly down to Paxton Signal Box, and came to a rest.
At 2.00pm, 60924 headed south normally on a Peterborough to Kings Cross slow. Next was 60880, another V2, on the 9.04am Sunderland to Kings Cross. The train was stopped at Paxton Box, and instructed to "proceed with caution", as were the following 9.45am Newcastle to Kings Cross, 2.22pm with D201, the 11.17am Yorkshire Pullman, 2.29pm, with 60148 Aboyeur, A Skegness to Kings Cross "Butlins Express" at 2.34pm with 61391, and the 10.42am Scarborough to Kings Cross, 2.40pm, with 60983. Meanwhile, northbound trains were being switched to the relief line. 60034 Lord Faringdon passed at 2.31pm on the 1.18pm Kings Cross to Bradford, 17 late. B1 4-6-0 no 61174, a rescue loco, arrived at 2.40pm, and eventually coupled on to the failed 60928. At 2.51pm, 61200 passed on the 1.25pm Kings Cross to Skegness, 26 late.. At 3.01pm, 60114 W P Allen passed on the 1.40pm Kings Cross to Edinburgh, 23 late. This was the last train to use the relief line. At 3.01pm, 61174 went forward with the stricken 60928 on the Heart of Midlothian. At 3.17pm, 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower passed on the 1.52pm Kings Cross to Bradford, 27 late. At 3.29pm, 60133 Pommern passed on the 2.00pm Kings Cross to Newcastle, 31 late. At 3.34pm, 60157 Great Eastern passed on the 2.10pm Kings Cross to York, 26 late. From this point, things began to improve, and by 4.00pm, trains were back to "right time". Presumably, 61174 would have been replaced by a pacific at Peterborough. |
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| With
services back to normal, we remained until 6pm, before returning to the
Midlands.
What a fascinating day. We had seen 16 Class A4 4-6-2, 14 Class A3 4-6-2, 2 Class A2 4-6-2, 7 Class A1 4-6-2, 14 Class V2 2-6-2, 10 Class B1 4-6-0, 1 K3 Class 2-6-0, 3 BR Class 9F 2-10-0, 6 WD Class 2-8-0, 1 Deltic (the Prototype), 9 English Electric type 4, 2 Class 20's. Many of the locos were seen twice, southbound in to Kings Cross in the morning, and back in the afternoon. |
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| I never did find out what the problem was with 60928. Possibly a Big End failure?. | ||||||
