High Dyke-Frodingham Iron ore...route?

[rob237]

As is always the way, just after posting the above, I found my 'lost' Section H WTT for Winter 1955 and found that the Highdyke - Frodingham services had been rerouted via Boston and the East Lincs line by then.

Two illustrations of O2's on the Grimsby outskirts, heading to and from Scunthorpe in 1963.
From a link in another thread:

http://www.davesrailpics.co.uk/

Lincs Railway Gallery >> John Willerton >> Grimsby Area 60's.

Cheers
Robt P.

[strang steel]

As is always the way, just after posting the above, I found my 'lost' Section H WTT for Winter 1955 and found that the Highdyke - Frodingham services had been rerouted via Boston and the East Lincs line by then.

Regards

Andy

I remember the iron ore trains running on the Sleaford-Boston route in the 1960s because my parents garden almost backed on to the line. My father was friendly with a signalman from Sleaford East box and he maintained that the short uphill gradient just west of Ancaster limited the capacity of eastbound loaded trains.

If my memory is correct, they were around 27 wagons plus brake van. On one visit to Sleaford East (strictly for educational purposes ) I was shown a large number of b/w photographs of these trains at locations between Barkston East and Rauceby. I dont remember who the photographer was, but maybe he was a relief signalman from the area and photographed trains passing various signal boxes where he was working. I often wonder what happened to those photos, because shots from that area are quite rare. I hope they may still be in existence in someones loft, somewhere.

As a schoolboy I could never understand why most of the returning trains of empties were twice the length (35-36 wagons) but I rarely saw many light engine movements. I can only assume there were unbalanced workings maybe of steel southwards from Frodingham and certain locos returned on those.

O2s were the most frequent locomotives, but O1s, O4s and the occasional WD also appeared. I have no access to the WTTs so have no idea if the High Dyke trains were supplemented by others from Colwick yard, but many of the O1/O4 locos were allocated to Colwick shed. 9Fs were very rare on that route. I lost all my notes from that period so cannot say if the few 2-10-0s I did see were working iron ore trains, or occasional timber trains to/from Boston Docks.

I would estimate that in 1960/1 there would be around 12-15 loaded trains per day, but within a few years diesels took over and the train lengths increased and their frequency decreased. Brush type 2s were used initially, but type 4s appeared later in 1964
and during 1965 the iron ore trains virtually disappeared (see the AndyRush comment earlier in the thread, about the Newark curve).

Observations at Barkston Junc in 1968 show Brush type 4s handling up to 50 loaded wagons plus brake van, which is almost three times that of the O2s through Sleaford.

John

[ROY@34F]

i was a fireman at grantham '57 to '63 and frequently worked on the iron ore trains.at that time the route we took was;off the main line at barkston ,through sleaford and boston(stopping for water),and on towards louth,which was the farthest grantham drivers would go.most would'nt go past burgh-le-marsh,where we would go just over the level crossiing,and set back into the siding on the down side,the fireman getting off while setting back to mash a brew in the 'box.we then waited for frodingham men to come with the empties,when we would change over,pull forward for the guards to c/over,then ,of course set off back home.we would arrive in the up slow road at grantham and be relieved.walking back to the loco,to sign off,calling in the brake van to pick up the driver's "bill",(the guard used to fill it in so the times would match).engines used were always tangos(02s) or frodingham austerities.i do'nt recall any other in my time.the relief crew took the train on to highdyke,returning l.e. to grantham and dipose of the engine,ussually turn and clean the fire ready for the next trip.we always went tender first of course to h/dyke to pick up the frod.trains,which were marshalled by the "branch"engines.we had two of these on days,and two on afternoons,six days a week.sometimes one engine[and a guard]on nights.these were always "tangos" in my time,always faceing south,because of the 1 in 40 bank from h/dyke.[must keep the firebox crown covered of course].an L1 would take a brake van from grantham about 2.00 pm,for c/over crews on the branch trains.hope this is of interest.

[strang steel]

Thanks for that interesting information, which sort of confirms my theory that the Colwick based RODs I saw on iron ore trains originated elsewhere.

I have just acquired a WTT from the late 1950s and that shows the regular High Dyke - Frodingham services but also one or two Belvoir - Frodingham and one from Welham, but I am not sure exactly which Welham that is.

It would make sense if Colwick's O1s and O4s were used on these trains.

To complicate things even further, I remember very rare sightings of Stanier 2-8-0s heading towards Boston with iron ore trains, but I had better not go O/T.

John

[ROY@34F]

further to my post of june 10.yes,we (grantham men)did,in the early 60's,run a fully fitted iron ore train to aldwark,rotherham.it was a late evening job leaving highdyke,turning off the main line at doncaster,and,from aldwark with the empties,doing a circular route to re-join the main line southwards at retford north,arriving back at highdyke in the early hours.can't recall the exact route once off the main line,as it was'nt aregular job for me.it was in ahigher link;a no.2 link job i believe.belvoir has been mentioned in these pages.we at grantham had one job each day from belvoir,though i think colwick men olso took iron ore from belvoir.they also worked the branch trains from belvoir to the mines in the denton area.this is in my time at least as a fireman at grantham(57 to 63) hope this helps/is of interest.

[edlivewire]

in this thread it was asked if anyone else had seen Class 33's around Lincolnshire.
I believe some were shedded here before reallocation to the southern region.
I think driver training had something to do with it ?
anyhow check out
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.enef ... mabjcn.htm

Ed

[strang steel]

While reading through Railway Observers trying to find a completely different news item, I discovered this Highdyke-Frodingham quote in the May 1965 edition which obviously never came to anything;-

"Further developments are in the offing; consideration is being given to building 56 ton fitted bogie wagons and forming them into a permanently coupled 4000 ton load hauled by two Brush type 4s in multiple. One rake of about 70 wagons would then do two, or if the traffic required, three round trips per day from Highdyke through to Scunthorpe on a merry-go-round basis."

[strang steel]

If you can get hold of a copy, I can recommend the Model Railway Journal vol 180 (published early in 2008 I believe).

This has a 20 page article on High Dyke, both the model from the early 1980s and the real life version.

[52D]

Why did UK mined Iron ore finish? Was it exhausted or was it un economical to dig it or is it still in the ground waiting for the price to be right before extraction.

[strang steel]

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/apack1/page9.html

This page only deals with Irthlingborough, but it would seem that the ore was rather low grade.

[52D]

Cheers john id heard that British ore was often added to foreign ore to bulk it out.

[strang steel]

Slightly O/T but I have always wondered about the number of Stanier 8Fs I have underlined in an early 60s ABC, but the 1961 WTT probably has the answer as I have discovered a Market Harborough to Normanby Park goods train which ran SX and SuX via the GN&LNWR, Bottesford South Junc, Barkston East Junc. and then Boston to Scunthorpe.

This may have been the service on which the ex-LNWR 0-8-0 reached Boston in the late 1950s.