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Outbased Shunters & Long Trip Workings

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RichmondCommu

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Hi everyone,

This thread is intended to be a trip down Memory Track to recall shunters plying their trade some distance from their home depot and long meandering trip workings.

I'll kick things off with the DY based class 08 shunting the MGR repair depot in Burton during the 1980s.

Thanks for reading.
 
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Czesziafan

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In the seventies the NCB had a coal line from Coventry Colliery to a junction on the Coventry - Nuneaton line. Whilst the NCB had its own motive power, I did see 08's working on that line with trains of (often antiquated looking) wooden coal wagons some of which were visibly bulging at the sides.
 

LMS 4F

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In the days of MGR with the original 30 ton wagons an 08 made a daily run between Knottingley wagon repair facility alongside the loco shed up to Monk Fryston sidings with repaired wagons.
It returned usually after midday with the cripples for attention.
 

Taunton

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In the 1960s Taunton had three (what became) Class 08, D4163-5, and four Class 03, around D2140. The three 08s had various duties around the station, but the Class 03 were rarely to be seen there, because they were all outstationed down at Bridgwater, where they shunted what remained of the docks, and the local industries and yards.

I think the 03's fuel tanks lasted for about a week, so on odd afternoons one would waddle back down the main line to Taunton (there was a special signalbox bell code for them) for refuelling and examination. It's about 12 miles
 

eastwestdivide

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One of the longest waddles might have been the Scarborough station pilot, outbased from York (or Hull??).
An 03 and an 08 on duty in this 1983 video:
 

RichmondCommu

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Another example that comes to mind is the Tinsley shunter that was based at Earles Cement Works during the 1980s. I'm curious to know whether the loco would have been refuelled and maintained at the works?
 

alistairlees

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The Tweedmouth Yard pilot was a Gateshead 03 (or 08), which was probably the most distant in England - about 60 miles.
 

randyrippley

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The Tweedmouth Yard pilot was a Gateshead 03 (or 08), which was probably the most distant in England - about 60 miles.

The 02 and (later) 03 shunters for Weymouth were outbased from Eastleigh, which is around 70 miles by road, so probably further by rail
 

randyrippley

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I'm guessing that the docks complex must have been fairly large to warrant the use of a full time shunter?

There were usually three of them, also used for shunting coaches to release incoming locos. Even in the 70's they were still there when the freight had gone and the boat train had switched to 33 haulage on the tramway
Saw one once trying to move a rake of five parked 33s, the wheels just spun. Talk about optimism!

I guess one for the tramway, one as station pilot, and one spare
They were all modified with lights and bells for the tramway. Thinking about it now its a surprise that the wheels & motion weren't boxed in
 
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33017

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The 02 and (later) 03 shunters for Weymouth were outbased from Eastleigh, which is around 70 miles by road, so probably further by rail
04s, not 02s (they were all Midland Region loco's apart from a couple which ended up at Goole). Both 03s and 04s worked boat trains to Weymouth Quay, too.

Eastleigh to Weymouth is just over 69 miles by rail. Another shunter outbased a similar distance from home was the Landore 08 which used to work at Fishguard, nearly 72 miles away.
 
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Taunton

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I'm guessing that the docks complex must have been fairly large to warrant the use of a full time shunter?

There were usually three of them, also used for shunting coaches to release incoming locos. Even in the 70's they were still there when the freight had gone and the boat train had switched to 33 haulage on the tramway
Saw one once trying to move a rake of five parked 33s, the wheels just spun. Talk about optimism!

I guess one for the tramway, one as station pilot, and one spare
They were all modified with lights and bells for the tramway. Thinking about it now its a surprise that the wheels & motion weren't boxed in
Weymouth is nothing more than a long quay at the river mouth, with the rail tracks in the road alongside, but it could (can) take several ships. As well as the passenger vessels the railway also had freighters to the Channel Islands as well - all the Jersey early potatoes etc came to the mainland this way. So there could be two or three freights departing when the freighter was unloading.

The "tramway" had a very sharp right-angle curve, just upriver from the town bridge, which prevented main line locos getting to the quay, so the shunters had to handle everything. The passenger services to the Quay would be duplicated at peak times so more than one loco was required at once. The locos were steam until summer 1962, when the Class 03 shunters took over. The steam locos were the small 1366 class Panniers, with outside cylinders and a short wheelbase. We had one of these at Taunton as well, again for the Bridgwater docks mentioned above, and they got exchanged from time to time, as well as the last of some older pre-grouping short-wheelbase saddle tanks that lasted to the end of the 1950s at both places. The curve was too sharp for normal passenger trains, and on arriving alongside Weymouth station each screw coupling between coaches would be wound out to its maximum and the gangways disconnected, which needed several shunters to achieve quickly. These were the men who subsequently walked in front of the train along the tramway. Reverse process for Up services.

A lot of longer WR bogie freight stock, and especially cranes and other departmental vehicles, was not allowed on the Quay lines, leading to the "wXq" branding seen on much such stock.

In the mid-1960s the SR, who had taken over from the WR a few years beforehand, sorted all this out and realigned the sharp curve, which was quite an engineering operation, and that is how Class 33 etc got allowed down to the Quay.
 
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High Dyke

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After Grantham shed closed in the 1960's a Lincoln based 08 was outstationed to shunt the yard. In later years the task was undertaken by the loco on 8J06, usually a class 31.

For a time departmental loco TDB966510, formerly D3037 was also based there prior to withdrawal. This was one of the 350hp shunters converted for snowplough duties.

Didn't there used to be a daily trip-working from Peterborough to the Dow-Mac concrete plant at Tallington too? Also a working to the British Sugar plant in Peterborough, usually on a Saturday morning.
 

D1537

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After Newton Abbot Depot closed, the Meldon Quarry 08 was a Laira loco.

Berwick-on-Tweed used to have a Gateshead 03.
 

Andy R. A.

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The 09s for Tonbridge and Dover were based at Ashford Chart Leacon. There were night turns at Ashford which ran as required to change over Locos, the crew took the whole shift to get there and back, getting waylaid in the various loops for other traffic to pass.
 

delt1c

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just moving slightly of topic, wonder how far north the inverness shunters worked.
 

xotGD

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Gateshead 03s used to do trip workings from either Tyne Yard or Low Fell Yard to Swalwell and back. No passenger trains to fit in between back then.

Do 08s still appear on trip workings through Newport station?
 

FGW_DID

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just moving slightly of topic, wonder how far north the inverness shunters worked.

In the 1981 ICRS book “Shunter Duties” it lists the following duties for Inverness:
  • Inverness Station Pilot
  • Inverness Millburn Yard
  • Inverness Goods Yard. Trips to; Millburn Yard, Inverness Harbour & Station Motorail Pilot (seasonal).
I also have the 1983 & 85 edition, the only difference being that the above duties are being shared by 2 Shunters instead of 3.

I would presume there may have been ad-hoc workings elsewhere but were one-offs or were so irregular that they weren’t included for publication.
 

delt1c

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I believe (But could be wrong) , there was a yard on the southside of Royal Border Bridge that they worked
 

alistairlees

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I believe (But could be wrong) , there was a yard on the south side of Royal Border Bridge that they worked
Yes, that's Tweedmouth Yard. I guess they were stabled in the station, rather than the yard, over the weekend.
 
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