Hydraulic anecdotes

Id love to hear some stories of Hydraulics in service...to bring back a few memories of my youth

a few of mine

paint flaking off Warships
Cabbing Westerns on Reading's platform 5 and going through the engine room double quick in order to get out before the RA
Hymeks on Oxford/Worcester trains
2x class 42 on up Cornish Riviera non stop through Readings middle line (wow)
The occasional Class 22 on the goods lines...often ona PW train or similar.
Minding your head getting into the cab of a Warship

 

Hello arthur maunsell,

Oh, happy days, yeah, I loved hydraulics when they first came out especially the Class 42's, I was a bit ignorant to the fact then they were going to replace my beloved steam locomotives. My mum thought I was train spotting at my home station of High Wycombe, little did she know that I use to get on the "Marlow Donkey" often pulled by 1400 Class 0-4-2T 1450 before the DMU days to Maidenhead Station. A double-headed warship straight through there was a bonus, \/ I can still hear it in my head now. Then got braver and I used to travel to Reading and bunk the sheds, if my Mum had seen my note books and all the Southern locomotives I had "copped" for the day, supposedly through High Wycombe. Dream on.
I found my avatar picture of King Class 6022 King Edward III taken from the footbridge I did my train-spotting from as a kid which was just north of High Wycombe Station.

Best regards SteamHawk216.

 

we used to do that sort of thing too....Mum never knew we were in London or Eastleigh or similar....

 

1962 the family was staying at Paignton and I accompanied my brother who was taking numbers to the station. There were these new green things pulling trains and they all carried the names of battleships. The first loco whose number I made a note of still exists, D832 Onslaught.

In the late 60s every so often, we used to go from Bristol to Barry Scrapyard for a day. Imagine our surprise & pleasure when for a time BR Western Region replaced the Bristol - Cardiff 3 car DMU service with a Hymek hauling 4 coaches. The service seemed to be much faster. Perhaps it really was becuse I filled the toilet sink to wash my hands and the train's motion caused the water to slop over the sides, so I washed my shoes as well as my hands.

A year or so back I asked on here where was the furthest from the Western Region hydraulics worked trains to. Forum members posted about specials hauled by a class 52 to Leeds etc, but someone else posted there was a weekly working from Oxford to Essex with a Hymek hauling throughout taking cars for export.

 

When Hymeks took over from steam on the South Wales route they seemed pretty poor replacements. For a short while in 1961/62 there were even a few Kings on the Cardiff trains, I don't think they were allowed any farther west at that time. Even if you didn't get a King there would usually be a Castle up front. Then came the Hymeks. Oh dear. not a happy outlook to find one of those rolling up with anything more than 9 or 10 coaches in tow. I remember one trip in the spring of 1963 when the Hymek needed to take a 41XX 2-6-2T pilot through the Severn Tunnel, and I don't think that was unusual. Moderate loads on the Oxfords or Worcesters suited a Hymek much better than a South Wales train.

 

The curseof the changeover I'm afraid !

When the Hymeks were specified it was as a Mixed Traffic loco to replace the Halls on their mixed traffic duties - hence their competence on fitted goods, local trains and chunters up and down the Cotswold Line.

It was the lack of experience which led to staff wondering if the Hymeks could handle the Red Dragon and replace the Kings immediately rather than wait for the new Super Type 4s ( Classes 52 / 47 ) to come along as replacement. The miracle wasn't the sight of a Hymek on a King duty but the ability of the Hymeks to acquit themselves on a duty for which they were never intended.

 

My memories of hydraulics start in the 1970's in my home town where various friendly signalmen allowed unofficial visits to local signal boxes. With that access came knowledge of timetables and the greater railway which spotters never enjoyed.

Where I lived was outside Romsey and I could hear the Westerns climbing from Romsey towards Eastleigh on stone trains at night. They were much louder than the 47's which also worked the stone trains. One night someone turned out a Hymek instead of a Western. I gave up listening after 10 minutes as it clawed its way up the 1 in 120 from Romsey towards Chandlers Ford. As a school boy I never thought that within a few years I would be on night shift dealing with freight traffic.

In 1970/1972 two hymek hauled trains passed near Romsey at about 1530 on weekday afternoons. With their noisy exhausts they could be heard across the town and nearby hills. From that time signal ,when I was doing cross country running for PE, I could often get back just before the football training finished. I never did tell the games master how I managed it!

Move on some years to a traffic office in the south of England. This office faced onto the platforms and whenever the windows were open suffered from public and enthusiast enquiries despite the protestations we were the "Area Freight Centre". One summer afternoon we had all got a bit fed up with enthusiasts asking where particular locos were so the yard supervisor and I had a bit of fun. Bill returning from the yard, complete with Southern Region "dinner plate" inspectors cap, was waylaid by one of the spotters who asked where "Western 45 " or whatever was working. Bill then asked what class the loco was in as we didn't work on class names. A few minutes later, I duly produced an E3 1 loco enquiry from TOPS which showed -

"52045 NO RECORD OF ENGINE EXISTENCE."

This was handed out of the office window to the waiting spotter, who went away with a long face.
About an hour later a special freight of returned empty banana vans from Barry Docks to Southampton Eastern Docks rolled into the yard worked by 1045. We didn't have any more disturbance from spotters on late turn that week .....
(Actually the Westerns and Hymeks were reported on TOPS by their old numbers, to save removing the cast numbers and applying new transfers.) Another yard supervisor was more direct, he used to swear at the spotters in Polish .... Mind you, "tea with two sugars" sounded pretty insulting!

Cheers, Neil

PS Athelney, It's your turn for a few stories now.....

 

I remember every last one of those and still have the paint off 25 different Warships sitting in a book on my shelf today. Although I prefered the NBL Warships on the Worcesters to the Hymeks.

 

Double headed Warships on the up Cornish Riviera on a summer Saturday with 12+ on, restarting on the 1 in 222 (or something) gradient after being stopped by signals at Lavington on the B&H. Magnificient roar from the combined 4400hp.

Flying out of New Street on a late night Birmingham to Paddington train of six coaches behind a Western. (Via Coventry in those days).

 

Yes 'Romsey' a couple spring to mind -- first in 1961, I think , on one of my first spotting trips to Reading -- we are with the crowd at the west end, when this strange looking loco approaches on the up fast from the Swindon direction , mass hysteria sets in as no one has seen anything like it before , turns out to be D1002 & must have just come out of the plant as it was pristine condition, I do have a picture taken with a Kodak Brownie -- but have to get a scanner before I can share , it's B&W .After that time they started to appear regularly , warships were already on the west of England trains by that time -- the end for steam was sealed .
Then in the late 60's , not sure on dates , after the end of steam & Brush 47's were on Saturday extra's to Weymouth from Waterloo . One Saturday we get a Warship on the line from Southampton so we have to make the trip to Weymouth or wherever it is going . All is well on the down trip & we get to destination on time & quick wander downtown & find that it's on the return service we intend to catch . Great noise leaving Weymouth up to Dorchester South , we progress fine until between New Milton & Sway then speed drops off & we grind to a halt - failure! Authorities decide to bring up Rep & T/C on the following service to push us to Brockenhurst , where all dump out & we cram onto the the electric to Southampton - not sure what happened to the warship but no picures as it was dark by then.

Richard

 

When I was at college in Dudley I did not have any lectures in the morning on Monday,Wednesday and Friday so I used to go to New Street to see what was on the 10.25 to Paddington, quite often it was a 1000 which I would take to Solihull.Unfortunately I have lost all my notebooks from the seventies so cant give a full list of my haulage.A couple I do remember were 1071 which,when I got there,was seen to have flames coming out of the exhaust port after a small explosion, which I suspect was unburnt fuel igniting!!!
Then one day 1008 was doing the honours and when we got on to the main line at Bordsley the acceleration was just the fastest I have ever known on ANY loco.It just took my breath away as I was in the front windowlistening to the Maybachs powering away.
I used to go to New Street most Saturdays(It was worth going in those days.I went through there some weeks ago and there was not one person on the platform ends.) from Stourbridge Junction.There was usually a couple of 08s 3 or 4 25s and a 45 or 47 stabled in the yard,these were duly noted and the last loco in line was about to be written down when I realised it was D1038 Western Sovereign!!!!It must have been off a caped 6V53 Clay train but it was very rare to have a 1000 stabled there.

Happy Days

 

Another Western adventure comes to mind , as "Romsey" alluded to , we had access to local signalboxes although unofficialy , we learnt alot about manual signalling and were able to be present when things went sideways & were able to record them .This event happened one summer Saturday afternoon in 1973 . I was present in Romsey signalbox when we were offered the Westbury to Northam bulk cement train hauled by a Western class -- it was offered on via Eastleigh , all well & good , about 40mins later control rings to see if we can stable a cement train?
The situation was ---- no shunter was available at Northam to stable the train, hence it's heading down the Southern mainline with no place to park---- on a summer Saturday afternoon ! We of course had a small yard empty so we accepted it , the train then had to go on via Southampton & Redbridge to reach us. On arrival it,s facing the Salisbury direction so we have to run the Western around it's train , pull forward on the Eastleigh line & back into the up yard - (all not scheduled) - hence we had local passenger trains coming real quick towards us on regular timetable services - much quick shunting was achieved - even the local station staff were confused ! The Western sat there maybe 2 hours in the up yard waiting for another path to go unload at Northam - which did happen eventually - great fun watching a Western shunting in a small Hampshire town . Yes I have photo's of the event .

Richard