Winter weather

[Flamingo]

This is 90151 on an up coal train at Ganwick taken on 29 December 1962. New England WDs were not that frequent by this time but my main reason for posting is to ask if anyone can identify the vehicle at the front of the train. Some sort of departmental coach presumably?

[AndyRush]

Looks like it - handles and hinges missing from most of the doors. It looks a bit like the one I inhabited on the GN in 1964, although I only have a (bad) picture of the other side

Andy

[Bryan]

It wouldn't be a PW ballast train would it?
What day was the stated date?
Mess van and spoil wagons.

[stembok]

29/12/62 was a Saturday. The snow had started some three days previously and the winter went on and on and on until early March, 1963. I remember lots of emergency coal train workings, with two Gateshead A4s 60001/20 arriving at Stockton yards on two such coal trains on the morning of Sunday 30/12/62, returning light engine to Tyneside.

[Flamingo]

It wouldn't be a PW ballast train would it?
What day was the stated date?
Mess van and spoil wagons.

Well yes, now you mention it that could be a ballast train, I never thought of that before. At the time I put it down as a coal train because the wagons look like 16-ton minerals and ballast wagons were usually lower sided. But towards the rear they look pretty full of something that may not be coal. It was a very cold and icy though fairly bright Saturday morning and I got there on the motorbike, only falling off once at low speed on the way!.

[hq1hitchin]

It wouldn't be a PW ballast train would it?
What day was the stated date?
Mess van and spoil wagons.

Well yes, now you mention it that could be a ballast train, I never thought of that before. At the time I put it down as a coal train because the wagons look like 16-ton minerals and ballast wagons were usually lower sided. But towards the rear they look pretty full of something that may not be coal. It was a very cold and icy though fairly bright Saturday morning and I got there on the motorbike, only falling off once at low speed on the way!.

He's running as an old Class K (one headlamp LHS of buffer beam) so it could be either a pick up freight or a ballast train, the only thing being that 16 ton minerals weren't often used for loading spoil in those days, highs were the most common form of traffic wagon 'borrowed' by the civils if they didn't have enough departmental wagons. The leading vehicle has had most of its stepboards removed as well.