TRIAL TRIP ON THE LNWR

John Hill noticed this piece in ‘Locomotive Magazine’ for January 1901:

‘An interesting trial was made on the LNWR on Sunday 2^nd December when engine No.1518, one of the three-cylinder compound  eight-coupled  mineral engines hauled a train of 120 vehicles including three ten-ton brakes, from Basford Wood sidings to Whitmore, a distance of ten miles. The road is all uphill, 3 miles of it being at the rate of 1 in 177 and the time taken was 43 minutes.’

The April 1901 edition mentions another ‘trial trip’ – ‘another experiment was made with one of the three-cylinder compound eight-coupled goods engines No.2543 on Sunday 10^th February from Crewe to Edgehill, the load being 81 vehicles, most of them loaded’. There were no further comments on this performance.

RUNNING OUT OF COAL

John Lovell spotted the following in Railway Magazine for August 1941, in reply to a letter from a reader:

‘Instances are rare of locomotives running out of coal in the course of non-stop journeys, such as the example you mention when the LMSR Coronation Scot appeared at Euston towed from Bletchley by an ex-LNWR 0-8-0. with the tender of the streamlined Pacific completely empty’.

CAULIFLOWERS ON THE CK&PR

Thanks to Peter Robinson, Peter Davis, Alan Cliff and Pat McCarthy (onetime stationmaster at Penrith) for collectively coming up with the following relating to a photograph credited to Pat Whitehouse which we published on page 223:

The train, headed by two ‘Cauliflowers’  is actually leaving Blencow on the CK&P  heading west towards Keswick – not at Penrith. The lead engine is 58396 (formerly LMS 28512, LNWR 38), and was a Workington 12D loco at the time of the photo. The train engine, being in LMS livery, could be 28525.