LNER coaches at Bellingham Station, 1930s?

[wwrsimon]

Hello everyone

Can anyone tell me what kind of coaches these are in this photo from the Disused Stations website's page on Bellingham.

http://disused-stations.org.uk/b/bellin ... s)old7.jpg

Main page: http://disused-stations.org.uk/b/bellingham/index.shtml

Regards

Simon

[jwealleans]

A better quality scan would help a great deal, but I'd hazard that the far one is an ex-NER brake, probably a BT and the nearer one is a Gresley CL.

[wwrsimon]

Thank you for the reply, and apologies for the poor image quality.

I'm trying to find out what coaching stock may have been used on the Wannie Line/Rothbury Branch and the Cornhill Branch around the late 1930's and wartime period, and that's the only photo I could find online.

There's a much clearer photo of G5 1745 pulling a couple of coaches in both Locomotion Papers 180 "The Rothbury Branch" and the Middleton Press book "Morpeth to Bellingham" (image 33), but I don't really want to post either of them for copyright reasons.

Regards

Simon

[Trestrol]

Don’t think that’s a Gresley CL. Not with end steps like that. I would say it’s NER as well.

[jwealleans]

Quite possible. As i said, a higher resolution scan would be well worth finding.

[billbedford]

The first coach looks like a NER top-light saloon.

[UpDistant]

There's a clearer image here https://www.thetransportlibrary.co.uk/m ... bellingham although the caption is typical of the TL but, on the other hand, it is at least the right way round.

Loco is J21 5111 (not J25), first coach would appear to be an ex-GNR 58' Saloon to D21, and the second coach is either an ex-NER BT(5) to D161 or, more likely given that it would be the only first class accommodation, BC(1:4) to D145.

[UpDistant]

You might be interested in "The Alnwick and Cornhill Railway" by J Addyman and JF Mallon published by NERA but no longer in print - try second hand book sellers or Amazon.

There's a good history of the line on the Disused Stations website, but you have to remember that the passenger service was withdrawn in 1930, restarting for a while during WW2.

I'll have a trawl through my books for the Wansbeck and Rothbury branch workings - might be a while, I usually get sidetracked.

[wwrsimon]

Funny you should mention that book UpDistant, as I'm currently waiting for a copy to be available at Morpeth Library.

Fortunately the Northumberland Library system has some good books on the county's branch lines, and that's my next one to get hold of.

Regards

Simon

[Hatfield Shed]

Slightly tangential. While at Bellingham 50 years ago one of the village shops had a large selection of monochrome prints of railway scenes around the locality, and I bought the few I could afford, which were the work of 'EE Smith'. All of them very well composed and frequently gave the impression of the railway running through parkland, dates in the 1930s and 40s. Is this a 'known' photographer, and is there a published collection?

[UpDistant]

Not tangential at all - I picked up a good few of Ted Smith’s photos in my youth, all local to me at the time. I “believe” they all ended up in Neville Stead’s hands and, since his death, have now passed on to the Transport Library IIRC.

[Hatfield Shed]

Thanks for this information. I haven't looked through the whole of the Neville Stead collection yet...

[UpDistant]

Whilst trawling through my photos, it has struck me that the photo of (6)5111 at Bellingham has a bit of a rarity value. It's the only one I can find of a service train at Bellingham, all the others are of Specials of one variety or another. It is odd that there are photos of service trains at most, if not all, the other stations on the Border Counties but none showing any of the ex-NBR 4-4-0s or D49s on either Non-vestibuled stock or the later Thompson corridor stock.

I can't even find any of the last day of passenger services. Of course, that's not to say there aren't any, they just haven't surfaced yet.