Question: The Origins of the Myth of the Strategic Steam Reserve

Arglwydd Golau · 4 Feb 2020

edwin_m said:
But when that happened, the response was to build more diesel locomotives (some outsourced to the far side of the Iron Curtain) to bring more coal to the power stations.

The response doesn't have to be logical!

RailUK Forums

xotGD · 4 Feb 2020

Do all of those Class 60s at Toton count as a Strategic Diesel Reserve?

Romsey · 4 Feb 2020

Arglwydd Golau said:
The response doesn't have to be logical!

It's about the same level of logic as South African Railways in the early 1970's.
Will almost limitless supplies of coal and a fully functioning steam infrastructure, they ordered more diesels at the height of the oil price crisis in 1973.
Buying electric locos and using the coal to generate electricity seemed to be an afterthought....

randyrippley · 4 Feb 2020

edwin_m said:
But when that happened, the response was to build more diesel locomotives (some outsourced to the far side of the Iron Curtain) to bring more coal to the power stations.

When the 56 fleet was built we no longer had a foundry business capable of building steam engines. Diesel was the only option

Mogz · 4 Feb 2020

Like some who have already posted I always assumed that the Strategic Reserve (if it really existed) was the large number of steam engines in use on our many heritage lines, which are (for the most part) maintained to a very high standard and would therefore be ready to use.

randyrippley · 4 Feb 2020

Romsey said:
It's about the same level of logic as South African Railways in the early 1970's.
Will almost limitless supplies of coal and a fully functioning steam infrastructure, they ordered more diesels at the height of the oil price crisis in 1973.
Buying electric locos and using the coal to generate electricity seemed to be an afterthought....

You're forgetting that their SASOL technology was used to reform large volumes of coal into oil: trade embargoes put apartheid South Africa outside the normal oil trade, their economy was based on bootlegged cargoes and synthetic oil
Buying electric locos probably wasn't an available option due to the embargo

edwin_m · 5 Feb 2020

randyrippley said:
You're forgetting that their SASOL technology was used to reform large volumes of coal into oil: trade embargoes put apartheid South Africa outside the normal oil trade, their economy was based on bootlegged cargoes and synthetic oil
Buying electric locos probably wasn't an available option due to the embargo

But they did buy electric locos. Anyone remember those GEC Traction adverts on the back of Modern Railways?

RLBH · 5 Feb 2020

Journeyman said:
The Soviets would have known exactly where all the major junctions were, along with all the engineering and maintenance facilities, and they all would have been completely destroyed.

Railway junctions and yards are remarkably hard to destroy, even with nuclear weapons, so would probably survive unless specifically targeted. Some would be, of course, but not all. Engineering works would definitely be on the list, which would seriously reduce the ability to sustain a railway capability in the long term.

Since a nuclear exchange wouldn't actually destroy everything, there'd still be a reasonable number of survivors - assuming Civil Defence did its' job effectively - and a need to transport goods for post-attack reconstruction. Most of the rail network would probably survive, though with damage to trackwork.

A sensible strategic steam reserve would primarily consist of freight locomotives designed for easy maintenance and operations over poor-quality track. That sounds a lot like Austerities and some of the BR Standards to me. They'd be dispersed around the country for survivability, with a nucleus of volunteers maintaining skills in operating and maintaining them. The oft-imagined model of having them stockpiled in Ministry of Defence depots without crews seems utterly impractical. Heritage railways fit some of those requirements, but not all - and if they were part of a strategic steam reserve, I'd imagine they'd have got more support from government!

More realistically, of course - during the studies leading to the 1981 proposal for a comprehensive 20-year electrification programme, the Ministry of Defence was consulted, and was satisfied that the 600-odd diesel locomotives required would be sufficient for wartime emergency traffic.

Journeyman · 5 Feb 2020

RLBH said:
Railway junctions and yards are remarkably hard to destroy, even with nuclear weapons, so would probably survive unless specifically targeted. Some would be, of course, but not all. Engineering works would definitely be on the list, which would seriously reduce the ability to sustain a railway capability in the long term.

Since a nuclear exchange wouldn't actually destroy everything, there'd still be a reasonable number of survivors - assuming Civil Defence did its' job effectively - and a need to transport goods for post-attack reconstruction. Most of the rail network would probably survive, though with damage to trackwork.

I figured the biggest issue would be the level of destruction to infrastructure in towns and cities - surely loads of bridges, viaducts and embankments would be destroyed by blast? I suspect we'd end up with loads of isolated bits of line, with massive craters of highly-radioactive ruins blocking them in multiple locations.

RLBH said:
A sensible strategic steam reserve would primarily consist of freight locomotives designed for easy maintenance and operations over poor-quality track. That sounds a lot like Austerities and some of the BR Standards to me. They'd be dispersed around the country for survivability, with a nucleus of volunteers maintaining skills in operating and maintaining them. The oft-imagined model of having them stockpiled in Ministry of Defence depots without crews seems utterly impractical. Heritage railways fit some of those requirements, but not all - and if they were part of a strategic steam reserve, I'd imagine they'd have got more support from government!

The "heritage railways as strategic reserve" theory is quite an interesting one, as yes, government could have requisitioned a few steam locos from them if they wanted to, but that's problematic in itself - loads of different designs, many unsuitable for the sort of traffic required, and although many heritage railways have a large fleet of steam locos on paper, it's common for many of them to only have a few in serviceable condition at a time. Many locos are often in pieces, and many at the height of the Cold War would still be in ex-Barry condition!

Also, a lot of heritage railways don't have main line connections, and back in the Cold War, even less of them did. Thinking off the top of my head, the Bluebell has been restoring steam locos since 1960, but they were all isolated from the main line until just a few years ago.

RLBH · 5 Feb 2020

Journeyman said:
I figured the biggest issue would be the level of destruction to infrastructure in towns and cities - surely loads of bridges, viaducts and embankments would be destroyed by blast? I suspect we'd end up with loads of isolated bits of line, with massive craters of highly-radioactive ruins blocking them in multiple locations.

You'd need a detailed study, at a level well above my security clearance, to tell exactly what would be likely to survive. The major thing is, even a big nuclear weapon is limited in how much it can destroy. And major civil engineering works, railway structures included, tend to be more resilient than most. Tunnels and embankments would probably survive unless directly targeted; bridges and viaducts would be more vulnerable but many would probably survive.

Actually getting all the way into a city might well be impossible, but finding a way around it - even a circuitous one you'd never normally use - probably wouldn't be. If necessary to reconnect areas, very replacement bridges could be constructed using conscripted labour. These, again, needn't be complex - Bailey bridges or trestles would be sufficient, and in some cases filling in the gap with a short embankment.

Remember that you'd be operating under war emergency conditions, not the normal railway rulebook. Running over very dodgy trackwork at walking pace may well be seen as preferable to having no means of transport at all.

Actually, most transport would initially be by road vehicle, precisely because of the flexibility. But for some purposes - coal being one - getting something resembling a rail network up and running in a reasonable time would be essential.

Journeyman said:
The "heritage railways as strategic reserve" theory is quite an interesting one, as yes, government could have requisitioned a few steam locos from them if they wanted to, but that's problematic in itself

It's one of those things that demonstrates the value of attention to detail. Superficially, yes, heritage railways have a lot of features that would be beneficial to a strategic reserve. When one looks into the detail, they're missing a lot of things that would be essential.

d9009alycidon · 5 Feb 2020

Back in 1975 the BBC ran a series for three seasons called "The Survivors", which was set in Britain following a mysterious pandemic accidentally unleashed by a Chinese scientist that has almost annihilated the world's population (sounds scarily prophetic given the current flap in China). One of the storylines in series three has the principle characters coming across another group of survivors preparing a preserved steam locomotive for use, if my memory is correct it was a Black 5 and it was shot on the Severn Valley Railway

High Dyke · 5 Feb 2020

d9009alycidon said:
Back in 1975 the BBC ran a series for three seasons called "The Survivors", which was set in Britain following a mysterious pandemic accidentally unleashed by a Chinese scientist that has almost annihilated the world's population (sounds scarily prophetic given the current flap in China). One of the storylines in series three has the principle characters coming across another group of survivors preparing a preserved steam locomotive for use, if my memory is correct it was a Black 5 and it was shot on the Severn Valley Railway

I don't recall watching the series, but your comment fits the description for the series.

Series 3 (1977)
... The third series juxtaposes the personal story arc of the search for Greg with a wider narrative of society appearing to re-establish itself, with federated communities, market bartering and rudimentary railway travel, based on using the steam locomotives preserved on heritage railways. This culminates in the tentative return of law and order, and the quest to restore power through hydroelectricity.

During series 3, production occasionally moved further afield to Suffolk, Derbyshire, and Wiltshire, with the last episode filmed in the Scottish Highlands. Extensive use was made of the Severn Valley Railway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series)#Series_3_(1977)

ainsworth74 · 5 Feb 2020

Cowley said:
I seem to remember that the USSR did along with Finland and possibly others.

The USSR and Russia generally don't seem to chuck stuff away. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a warehouse somewhere in deepest Siberia full of brand new never used T-34s just in case...

edwin_m · 5 Feb 2020

ainsworth74 said:
The USSR and Russia generally don't seem to chuck stuff away. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a warehouse somewhere in deepest Siberia full of brand new never used T-34s just in case...

That would probably be because someone forgot to amend the five-year plan and tell them to stop making them.

Anyway these days the strategic steam reserve would be useless as there's no source or stockpile of coal.

Journeyman · 5 Feb 2020

d9009alycidon said:
Back in 1975 the BBC ran a series for three seasons called "The Survivors", which was set in Britain following a mysterious pandemic accidentally unleashed by a Chinese scientist that has almost annihilated the world's population (sounds scarily prophetic given the current flap in China). One of the storylines in series three has the principle characters coming across another group of survivors preparing a preserved steam locomotive for use, if my memory is correct it was a Black 5 and it was shot on the Severn Valley Railway

I've never seen the original Survivors, but the BBC did do a remake of it about ten years ago. That storyline didn't feature, though, and the show was axed after two seasons. Must try and see the original, it was very well-regarded.

EDIT: it's all on YouTube, that's my viewing for the next few evenings sorted!

Merthyr Imp · 5 Feb 2020

Journeyman said:
I've just unearthed this shocking new evidence for the existence of the strategic reserve!

View attachment 73408

Henry wasn't a strategic reserve, he was just a very naughty engine.

Journeyman · 5 Feb 2020

Merthyr Imp said:
Henry wasn't a strategic reserve, he was just a very naughty engine.

That's what they want you to believe.

randyrippley · 5 Feb 2020

Is this how they hid them?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/raf-bombed-welsh-rail-tunnel-2472045

You can see real film of the bombing at the beginning of the movie "Mosquito Squadron"

Romsey · 5 Feb 2020

randyrippley said:
You're forgetting that their SASOL technology was used to reform large volumes of coal into oil: trade embargoes put apartheid South Africa outside the normal oil trade, their economy was based on bootlegged cargoes and synthetic oil
Buying electric locos probably wasn't an available option due to the embargo

South Africa purchased much of its oil from Iran and the fall of the Shah in 1975(?) affected their oil supplies severely. In 1977 and 1979 there was petrol rationing to the extent that petrol was only available for tourists at weekends. Sasol provided a fair proportion of oil products, but most was still imported.
Certainly the 50kv locos for the Saldanha Bay iron ore export line were built by GEC in the late 1970's.

randyrippley · 5 Feb 2020

Romsey said:
South Africa purchased much of its oil from Iran and the fall of the Shah in 1975(?) affected their oil supplies severely. In 1977 and 1979 there was petrol rationing to the extent that petrol was only available for tourists at weekends. Sasol provided a fair proportion of oil products, but most was still imported.
Certainly the 50kv locos for the Saldanha Bay iron ore export line were built by GEC in the late 1970's.

Weren't they built in South Africa by UCW to a GEC design?

Spartacus · 6 Feb 2020

randyrippley said:
Is this how they hid them?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/raf-bombed-welsh-rail-tunnel-2472045

You can see real film of the bombing at the beginning of the movie "Mosquito Squadron"

Saw some actual footage of that a year or two ago but can’t for the life in me find it. Remarkably one bomb bounced all the way through and came out the other end, something nobody had expected!

Mogz · 6 Feb 2020

I should also add (and this is second hand hearsay) that a friend of mine once claimed to have been told by an older family member that there was a collection of stored steam locomotives located in tunnels somewhere underneath Birkenhead and that he had seen them with his own eyes!

Given the Woodside and Monks Ferry tunnels have been explored by urban exploration types (and there’s definitely nothing down there with wheels except for an old shopping trolley!), are there any other tunnels under Birkenhead that he could have meant? Said friend’s relative is now deceased so can’t be grilled, sadly.

I suspect one or the other of them had the wrong end of the stick, or that he was referring to a time before 1968.

silverfoxcc · 6 Feb 2020

There is a railway tunnel near liverpool that cpntains a abandoned car repairers, and from what i can gather some saveable classics!!

Back to trains

Ruours going about in the late 60s were

62613 was carefully dismantled and hidden around Stratford works complex

An Unknown B17 ( not 61668) is hidden away on an estate somewhere in Leicestershire

Not true, but would have been nice

delt1c · 7 Feb 2020

There were plenty of rumors doing the rounds in the 60’s and 70’s. One was the conversion of the Claytons to Electrics. A hypothetical conversation on a platform end could quickly do the rounds and be taken as fact

d9009alycidon · 7 Feb 2020

delt1c said:
There were plenty of rumors doing the rounds in the 60’s and 70’s. One was the conversion of the Claytons to Electrics. A hypothetical conversation on a platform end could quickly do the rounds and be taken as fact

I do remember this from the time, Wikipedia confirms that "...the possibility of converting 9 of the remaining locos to battery operation was mooted. This came to nothing, and although D8512, D8521 and D8598 enjoyed a brief reprieve by being sent to Derby Research Centre all were later withdrawn and subsequently scrapped". IIRC the locos were to be used in tunnels for electrification and other infrastructure work

Clayton have not however given up on the idea, you can just about see the heritage (if you added another bonnet and raised the cab roof a bit)

https://claytonequipment.co.uk/metro-mainline/battery/

43096 · 8 Feb 2020

d9009alycidon said:
I do remember this from the time, Wikipedia confirms that "...the possibility of converting 9 of the remaining locos to battery operation was mooted. This came to nothing, and although D8512, D8521 and D8598 enjoyed a brief reprieve by being sent to Derby Research Centre all were later withdrawn and subsequently scrapped". IIRC the locos were to be used in tunnels for electrification and other infrastructure work

Was that before the conversion of the surplus Class 501 cars to battery power (as Class 97/7) or for something else completely?

coppercapped · 8 Feb 2020

Arglwydd Golau said:
Just a thought (without any validation)... were there any other possibilities (not just nuclear war) for which a strategic reserve might be useful? Thinking about the global oil crisis of 1973? Other countries maintained steam in service after the UK and that particular oil crisis might have triggered such action?

I started work in southern German in 1974 and was very surprised to still see steam locos! But they were oil fired...

6Gman · 8 Feb 2020

delt1c said:
Ah the Telegraph. During my spotting days I cleared most of the 24's and 40's so wonder where these "100" were. Think this another journalist stories. If there were to have been a " diesel " reserve then surely it would have been something newer

In the mid-70s a large number of 24s were "stored" at Basford Hall for a lengthy period. I have no idea whether this was a book-keeping exercise, holding them for spares recovery, delay in waiting for the scrappies to have the capacity to break them up, or part of a government request to hold a reserve.

Whatever the reason, they would have been of little or no use considering how heavily vandalised they were.

6Gman · 8 Feb 2020

Calthrop said:
I seem to recall that the "Steam Railway" article included the quoted words of a chap who claimed to have, I think in 1969, seen in an out-of-the-way section of Shrewsbury's rail installations, rows of steam locos, cold and with boarded-up cabs, "parked" on sidings. (He had, I think, fallen asleep during his rail journey from Aberystwyth: woke up when his dmu was, after terminating at Shrewsbury, on its way to wherever in the rail complex it was to be serviced -- at the station, nobody had noticed him asleep, and got him out on to the platform. He awoke, adjacent to all these dead "steamers".) The guy wasn't a railway enthusiast; but his occupational field was mechanical engineering -- he was thus unlikely to misconstrue as steam locomotives, "something which was altogether something else". I believe SR quoted this as the best account which is known, of someone seeing first-hand, what could be elements of the strategic steam reserve. Of course -- as per @Spartacus's Post #12 -- these locos could simply have been in transit for scrapping.

There are a number of problems with this account.

1. Pretty sure that DMU servicing at that time would have been at Abbey Foregate - a location visible from passing trains, the platforms at Shrewsbury station and other public locations. Bit difficult to hide "rows of steam locos"!
2. Any location used for DMU servicing would have been visited by enthusiasts and hundreds of railway staff. None of whom seem to have commented on all those steam locos ...
3. What did this guy do when he found himself at the carriage sidings? Presumably staff would have needed to assist him and might just have commented on the unusual circumstances.

The Shrewsbury area was a staging point for locos going from the North West to the South Wales scrapyards; I certainly saw them there in 67/68 (possibly into 69). Perhaps that's what he saw.

Journeyman · 9 Feb 2020

43096 said:
Was that before the conversion of the surplus Class 501 cars to battery power (as Class 97/7) or for something else completely?

I assume the converted 501s are what eventually materialised to fulfill the role. They seem to be some of the most mysterious and poorly documented rail vehicles anywhere. I only ever saw them in depots, never working, and photos of them in use seem very rare. I have no idea where they were used, or when they were withdrawn.

Question: The Origins of the Myth of the Strategic Steam Reserve

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