Rugby Great Central 1952 & 1953

 
   
My first visits to Rugby were in early 1952, and on each visit I remained on Midland Station.  And from the Midland station it was not possible to identify the locomotives which could be seen on the viaduct just to the south. But on a visit in the Autumn of 1952, a fellow locospotter asked "are you coming down to the viaduct?". So I went along, out of the station, first left, up to the railings just to the north of the viaduct, where access to the a small area of land was by crawling on one's belly under those railings. And from that area of land there was a grandstand view of both Midland and Eastern lines. Visits to Rugby continued until early 1954, and so I amassed a considerable number of LNER "Cops". These I underlined in an Ian Allan 1951 ABC, along, of course, with ex LNER locomotives that I saw at other locations. But once underlined, my rough notebooks were discarded. Only from mid 1954 did I keep all my source documentation. 
   
 

   
  So, how can I now identify, all these years later, the numbers of the locomotives that I saw on the viaduct between the Autumn of 1952 and the summer of 1954. By a process of elimination, based on the shed allocations of all of the loco numbers that I had underlined.
   
  My Eastern Region spotting trips had been few and far between. Birmingham New Street had a daily working of a B1 on the Cleethorpes service. There were short visits to Kings Cross in 1952 and 1953 when I was taken to London by my father to the annual Model Railway Exhibition at Central Hall. And on the journey to and from London, there were Marylebone suburban services to be seen between Risborough and Northolt Junction. And on a trip to Sheffield, a few locos were seen at Sheffield Victoria, and a D49 4-4-0 at Midland.

But there were problems. My V2 sightings included several 36A (Doncaster) locomotives. They could have been sighted at either Rugby or at Kings Cross. The same is true of several 36A based B1's.

   
  So the resultant Rugby listing is as follows.
   
  Class A3 4-6-2: 60048 Doncaster, 60054 Prince of Wales, 60059 Tracery, 60102 Sir Frederick Banbury, 60103 Flying Scotsman, 60104 Solario, 60107 Royal Lancer.
  Class V2 2-6-2: 60831, 60859, 60878, 60890, 60934.
  Class B1 4-6-0: 61056, 61077, 61078, 61083, 61092, 61136, 61141, 61155, 61185, 61187, 61298, 61327, 61368, 61380.
  Class B16 4-6-0: 61444, 61470.
  Class K2 2-6-0: 61768.
  Class O4 2-8-0: 63592, 63596, 63617, 63619, 63636, 63646, 63650, 63663, 63670, 63676, 63678, 63687, 63689, 63725, 63746, 63773, 63777, 63795, 63796, 63803, 63808, 63817, 63854, 63865, 63868, 63869, 63879, 63886, 63887, 63888, 63890, 63901. 
  Class J39 0-6-0: 64983.
 

 

 

  The remains of Rugby Viaduct, disused for almost 40 years, awaiting demolition in December 2006. Behind the vehicle can be seen the railings under which we climbed over 50 years ago.
   

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