BATH RAILWAY SOCIETY

President: Pete Waterman OBE DL

Chairman: John Froud    

 Email: bathrailwaysociety@gmail.com

FEBRUARY  2024  NEWSLETTER

Dear Member,

SOCIETY MATTERS

Our last meeting on 4th January was a day of heavy rain and flooding, including the venue which saw our host Stuart literally bailing out the basement of the museum.  Unfortunately, the weather no doubt led to a smaller than usual attendance and we thank those who successfully made it to the meeting and to those we know who tried, but were thwarted by flooded roads and had to return home. 

Fortunately, our speaker Mark Glover arrived in good time and presented ‘Railway Signalling in Chippenham’.  Mark is Head of Marketing, Rail Infrastructure, at Siemens Mobility Limited and he drew on the extensive Westinghouse archive to provide a history of the development of the firm and the factory in Chippenham, referring to the various companies that ultimately became Westinghouse, including the early signalling contractors of Saxby & Farmer, Mackenzie & Holland etc.  Mark introduced his talk by explaining his version of the Westinghouse story was based almost entirely on the work of O S Nock, who was a senior executive at Westinghouse and commissioned to write their centenary history in 1981 - 'A Hundred Years of Speed with Safety', although this was not published until 2006. ‘Ossie’ was also Bath Railway Society’s first president (1957 – 1994) and regularly attended meetings during his tenure to provide an annual address.

Mark’s presentation brought us right up to date and it is heartening to see that manufacturing in Chippenham continues to make a major contribution to railway infrastructure worldwide.

We thank Mark for visiting us a on such an inhospitable evening.

For our next meeting on Thursday 1st February, Andy Cope will present the intriguingly titled ‘The Last Wheeltapper’. Andy is a career railwayman; starting as a 17-year-old apprentice in 1972 he rose through the ranks to become deputy managing director of First Capital Connect and later serve as a non-executive director with East Coast Trains and Directly Operated Railways. Along the way he had responsibilities as depot engineer at St Philips Marsh.

The talk is in two parts with slides and rare video clips about the Western Region influence on his growing up around the railways of the West Midlands and later on working with railway carriages in the 60s and being part of a "quiet" revolution in traction and rolling stock in the early 1970s. For your homework in advance of the meeting, find out what the ‘Stourbridge Lion’ was and we can astound Andy with our knowledge. We look forward to a good turnout and as usual doors open at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Both our treasurer and newsletter editor and are away for the next 2 months.  Mike Dodd will be standing in for Richard and as per our usual request; please can you ensure that you ‘sign in’ with Mike when attending the meeting. Your co-operation with this will be greatly appreciated.

NEWS ITEMS

Strike action has been announced by the ASLEF Union on Tuesday 30th January for South Western Railway (including Island Line) and on Monday 5th February for CrossCountry and Great Western Railway. In addition, the above train operators will have an overtime ban between Monday 29th January and Tuesday 6th February. Other train companies will be affected by strikes on other days.

Track upgrade work will affect train services that would normally run between Bristol Temple Meads and Weston-super-Mare over the weekend of 3rd/4th February, trains will still run between Weston-super-Mare and Taunton, CrossCountry train services will continue to run between Bristol Temple Meads and Taunton using an alternative route, extending journey times by around 45 minutes, replacement buses are planned between Bristol Temple Meads, Nailsea & Backwell, Yatton, Worle, Weston Milton and Weston-super-Mare, no replacement buses will stop at Bedminster or Parson Street.

Engineering works will also affect local Great Western Railway services during February.  This includes the Trowbridge area on the weekends of 10th/11th and 17th/18th February.  Trains will continue to run between:

·               Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington via Bath Spa and Chippenham

·               Bath Spa and Cardiff Central or Gloucester via Bristol Temple Meads

·               Westbury and Frome, Weymouth or Portsmouth Harbour

No trains will run between Swindon and Westbury via Melksham and replacement buses are planned to operate between:

·               Bath Spa and Bradford-on-Avon or Westbury

·               Chippenham and Westbury

Please do check the relevant train operating websites for more detailed and up to date information.

Local Rail tours to note during February include: –

·       Sat 10th February: The Bath & Gloucester Steam Express (Railway Touring Company), Black 5, London Paddington(pu)-Slough(pu)-Reading(pu)-Newbury(pu)-Bath Spa(sd)-Gloucester (break/rev) & return

·       Sat 24th February: The Settle & Carlisle Winter Express (Pathfinder Tours), WCRC Class 47/57, Bristol Temple Meads(pu)-Bristol Parkway(pu)-Cam & Dursley(pu)-Cheltenham Spa(pu)-Worcestershire Parkway(pu)-Birmingham New Street (pu)-Stafford(pu)-Carnforth, 34067, Carnforth-Shap-Carlisle- S&C-Hellifield-Preston, WCRC Class 47/57, Preston-Stafford(sd)-Birmingham New Street(sd)- Worcestershire Parkway(sd)-Cheltenham Spa(sd)-Cam & Dursley(sd)-Bristol Parkway(sd)-Bristol Temple Meads.

For timings when available see https://www.railwayherald.com/railtours.

On the heritage railway front, the Avon Valley Railway will be running on 10th, 11th, 14th, 17th & 18th February and the Swanage Railway will be running on 10th–18th, 24th & 25th February with driver experiences on Bulleid Pacifics on 21st-23rd February, see appropriate websites for details.

Advertised Model Railway Exhibitions include: -

Sat 3rd February, Shirehampton Model Railway Club Annual Model Railway Show at Shirehampton Public Hall, Station Road, Shirehampton, Bristol, opening times 10am - 5pm, admission Adults £4.00 Family £6.00

Sat 10th & Sun 11th February, Cale Rail Society 18th Model Railway Exhibition at the Gartell Light Railway, Common Lane, Yenston, Near Templecombe, Somerset.  It is expected to include 12 layouts from N to O Gauge with 3 traders attending.  Train services on the GLR (2ft gauge) are also running for an additional charge.  Opening times Sat 10.00 - 16.30 Sun 10.00 - 16.00, admission Adults £6.00, Children £1.00. 

Sat 17th & Sun 18th February, Sedgemoor Gauge O Group Annual Model Railway Show at the King Alfred School & Academy, Burnham Road, Highbridge, Somerset TA9 3EE.  8 O gauge layouts and 6 traders, opening times Sat 10am - 4.30pm Sun 10am - 4.pm, admission Adults £6.00 Family £12.00. 

Sat 24th February, Glastonbury & Street Lions Club Model Railway Exhibition at Meadway Hall, Ham Lane, Compton Dundon, Street, Somerset TA11 6PQ.  There will be approximately 25 layouts in a selection of gauges, opening times 10.00am to 3.30pm, admission Adults £5.00 Children £1.00 Family £10.00.

Sat 2nd March, Swindon Model Railway Club MODRAIL 2024 at the Steam Museum, Firefly Avenue, Kemble Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire SN2 2EY.  Features 16+ layouts and demonstrators in N, 3mm, OO and O standard gauge representing British and Continental railways including narrow gauge, opening times 10.00 - 16.30, admission Adults £7.00, Children under 16 Free. 

LOOKING BACK – Mike Beale

Sixty years ago on 23rd February 1964, I went on a coach trip organised by a local railway enthusiasts group from Bristol to the London area, visiting locomotive depots at Reading, Slough, Southall, Old Oak Common, Willesden, Cricklewood, Kentish Town and Devons Road. Having been given my first 35mm camera for Christmas, number taking had been superseded by photography, so I don’t have a complete list of all locomotives seen but my photographs provide a partial record. In store at Southall was 6028 “King George VI”, Old Oak Common had no locos in steam but two sidings of stored locos including GWR 2-8-0 4701, inside Devons Road shed was 1883 GE J15 0-6-0 65462, Cricklewood and Kentish Town were all diesels, but the highlight was Willesden with Coronation Pacifics 46240 ‘City of Coventry’, 46245 ‘City of London’, 46238 ‘City of Carlisle’ in steam and standing in a row.

MORE NEWS ITEMS

New society member Rob Irving is also a Trustee of the Friends of the STEAM museum at Swindon and organiser of the STEAM Lecture programme.  He has drawn our attention to their 2024 programme with lectures held on the third Monday of relevant months at 7pm in the Sir Daniel Gooch lecture theatre.  The next event is on 25th March 2024 when Dr Alex Medcalf from the University of York will be presenting “Advertising the Great Western Railway 1900 – 1940”.  The full programme for 2024 can be seen by searching for ‘talks’ on the events page of the official STEAM website https://www.steam-museum.org.uk/events.

On 22nd August 2023, while hauling a Steam Dreams circular tour around the Surrey Hills, BR Pacific 70000 Britannia suffered a catastrophic failure of its right side crosshead, which fractured into two pieces. 5 months to the day on Monday 22nd January the locomotive was due to undertake a test run from Crewe to Shrewsbury, but was postponed due to delays in obtaining parts.  Nevertheless, all credit to those involved in bringing the locomotive back to service in such a short time.

To finish on a positive note, after the disappointment of an unsuccessful test run in September 2021 it was good news for D1015 Western Champion which ventured out onto the mainline from its base at the Severn Valley Railway for a loaded test run on 10th January. This included hauling 6M42 Bristol Avonmouth to Gloucester Cement tanks. Apparently all went well and hopefully we can look forward to further main line running in due course.

COMPETITION    

No competition this month.

Newsletter Archive