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08-07-2012 |
Bishop's Lydeard Sat. 23 March 2002, pt. 2 .
   
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| This page starts with a second view of 5224, showing her bulk. They were large for British tank engines, their 2-8-0T wheel arrangement suiting the Welsh Valleys well as they came down hill boiler first with the guiding wheels leading, while they slogged slowly uphill on the return. A downturn in coal traffic led to some members of the class being fitted with a trailing wheels and a larger coal bunker as the 72xx 2-8-2T for longer runs. 5224 departed for Minehead double heading with BR Standard 4MT 2-6-4T 80136. The 80000 tanks were used extensively across the BR system, working suburban services around Glasgow and locals on the Southern Region. The reason for the double heading was that there had been a spare loco at Bishop's Lydeard all day, this balanced workings so that all locos finished the day back at Minehead. The carriages in this train are of note, several are suburban DMU trailers, some of which have been converted to include a buffet in place of the original toilets in the centre of vehicle. They provide high capacity open coaches, very useful on busy days, while at quiet times they can revert to use as DMU vehicles. It might be a Steam Gala but a diesel shunter is still useful to help in manoeuvring stock. D3462 is seen here in the bay platform at the Taunton end of Bishop's Lydeard station. This type of loco was developed from a 1940's LMSR design, many are still in service across the fragmented national system today. Another diesel present was 47732 Restormel of EWS Railways which had worked in on a through train from the national network and spent the day in the bay platform at Bishop's Lydeard. The 47s originally numbered 512 as the BR standard type 4 loco, working a wide variety of services across the system from Inter City expresses to merry go round coal trains. This particular loco is fitted with "push pull" controls for working EWS's mail trains. Also visible in the photo are two of Rexquote (now Quantock) Heritage's restored Bristol buses. A final shot from this location, the fireman is on top of 5051's tender replenishing her water supply. |
This site was last updated 28-08-2011
Photos not otherwise credited are ©2001/2002 S G J Huddy. Other photos are included with permission of the copyright holders.
