The Consett Circle

[Allan]

UpDistant,

Thanks for the wealth of information. So it does seem that there was not a continuous 'circular service', but two differently scheduled 'sets' of trains' that either reversed or stopped and rebuilt at Consett or Blackhill or elsewhere - nothing straight through. Anyway, I do understand your references and for the WTT enlightenment and references. The railway 'mapping' on those schedules is particularly interesting. However, the only passenger service photographs I have are either V1/V3 or K?? locomotives..I guess during my time there at Pelton, these would have supplied all the services.

Allan

[soliver1]

Hi,
the Beamish Museum website "People's Collection" has a search function which turns up some great images.

A search using 'passenger' (and 'only return photos') turned up a shot of Beamish with a V3(?) as link:
http://collections.beamish.org.uk/image-NEG11455-M.jpg

Earlier (Edwardian?)
http://collections.beamish.org.uk/image-NEG11391-M.jpg

Not passenger but birdcage brake van at Leadgate station...
http://collections.beamish.org.uk/image-NEG14005-M.jpg

...and AnnfieldPlain:
http://collections.beamish.org.uk/image-NEG24815-M.jpg

Poor quality scans but if anyone's local, they'll have the actual photos (and probably many more besides).

Also... not scanned but again, should be at the museum:
" BR steam locomotive No 67656 Class V1 2-6-2T passing through Beamish Station" (NEG12532)
"General view of BR steam locomotive No 62027 at the head of a passenger train at Consett Railway Station, 1950's. (From 35mm slide in Jack Uren Collection)
NEG178740
Another one of Blackhill with two trains, etc.

Cheers,
Steve O.

[soliver1]

...and a photo on eBay of Consett Station with a tender loco (K1?) and two carriages.
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewit ... 1169502556

[Allan]

Thanks again Steve,

unfortunately, I'm a long way from Beamish, but may make a trip there next year. is access to these photos available only with membership or can anyone go in and use their library?

Cheers,

Allan

[borderreiver]

I used to borrow "The Railways Of Consett And North West Durham" by G.Whittle from Consett library in the 1970s and I was lucky enough to buy a used good copy a few years back. It has several shots of passenger and special trains on lines radiating from Consett to Newcastle via Scotswood, Newcastle via Beamish, and Durham via Lanchester as well as at Crook and on the NCR line to Hexham.

Ones relevant to "The Consett Circle" and the Lanchester Valley:

Page 70 - K1 2-6-0 No. 62059 on the special "West Durham Rail Tour" 1958.
Page 87 - G5 0-4-4T in No. 1788 in July 1909 during NER days (Class O) at High Westwood with clerestory roofed coaches.
Page 87 - V1 2-6-2T with 4 coach train on Ebchester bank - undated. Fuzzy resolution but three coaches might be clerestory roofed.
Page 88 - NER Steam Auto Car (NER BTP 0-4-4T - LNER G6) between two clerestory roof coaches at High Westwood. Undated but appears to be of the 1909 - 1914 period (Autocars appeared on the Derwent valley in 1907 and High Westwood opened in 1909).
Page 175 - J38 0-6-0 No. 64842 from Blaydon shed (52C) at Blackhill with 5 coaches waiting to leave for Newcastle via Consett.
Page 175 - K1 2-6-0 No. 62027 of Consett shed (52K) on a special train at Consett in 1963.

Whittle mentions that V1 2-6-2T No. 465 arrived at Blaydon in 1936 for branch service passenger work. Some Sentinel steam railcars were used on the Newcastle - Blackhill - Durham services in the 1930s and in 1931 a diesel electric railcar was tried out on a run between Newcastle and Blackhill via Annfield Plain.

In "Consett to South Shields via Beamish" by Roger Darsley there are the following photographs:

21. Class K1 2-6-0 No. 62025 of Blaydon (52C) brings a train in to Consett station from Newcastle via Annfield Plain on the last day of service, 23 May 1955.
40. NER Class D (LNER H1) 4-4-4T approaching Shield Row station in the 1920s.
43. NER Newcastle via Birtley train at Beamish. Five coaches, three of which have clerestory roofs but loco is indiscernible.
44. V3 2-6-2T No. 67656 at Beamish bound for Blackhill via Consett with 3 coaches. Appears to be the set with a Thompson lavatory sandwiched between two Gresley Brake thirds.

In "British Railways Past and Present No. 4 The North East" by Peter J. Robinson and Ken Groundwater there are the following photographs:

Page 19 - The same photograph as 43 above.
Page 68 - V3 2-6-2T no. 7634 in 1949 arriving at Rowlands Gill bound for Newcastle via Scotswood. Appears to have 3 elliptical roof coaches as her trailing load.
Page 69 - V12-6-2T No. 67658 circa 1950 at Blackhill rolling in with a train from the Derwent valley. Appears to be the Thompson and Gresley coach 'sandwich' set.

Yeadon's Register shows some data for locos of class A8 4-6-2T and vacuum ejector fitted N8 0-6-2T allocated to Consett shed (52K) in the post WWII era:

A8 No. 2154 (No. 9861 from Dec 1946) - allocated 5 Aug 1946 to 20 Jan 1947.
N8 No. 76 (No. 994 from June 1946 and No. 69394 from March 1950) - allocated from 14 Dec 1942 to 14 March 1954.
N8 No. 9384 (ex - No. 348) - allocated from 20 Jan 1947 to 14 March 1949.
N8 No. 69390 (ex - No. 345/9390) - allocated from 14 Sept 1952 to 23 Oct 1955.
N8 No. 9395 (ex - No. 267 and No. 69395 from Oct 1949) - allocated from 3 Apr 1949 to 18 Aug 1952.

The above locos could be used on passenger duties but there appears to be a lack of photographic record showing them actually accomplishing any. The Working Timetables for 1953 mentioned elsewhere also appear to show no rostered passenger work for them. So, were they merely goods/mineral locomotives while at Consett shed or did they do banking/shunting/trip working duties? The incline out of Consett Low yard to Consett East junction was a short but steeply graded incline. The A8 in 1946 appears to be under-utilised if she was merely a banking locomotive at Consett, a duty the class did undertake later in their lives as the end of their days loomed.


Finally, the attached photograph was taken in a book at Newcastle Model railway exhibition in 2012. Another attendee had just bought the book and kindly let me take a shot of a GWR Railcar at Blackhill.

[johndon]

Disused Stations has a pic of a V3 at Blackhill:

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/blackhill/

John

[ArthurK]

If you want something more exotic Try this. A special excursion at Swalwell. Considering that it is heading towards Scotswood it must have arrived via Blackhill.

ArthurK

[PinzaC55]

Here's the remains of Swalwell station seen by me in summer 1978 from a similar viewpoint.The only identifiable features are the power lines which were behind the signalbox and the corresponding one on the right.

Swalwell Station 1978 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

[borderreiver]

I have just seen this photograph on flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/owen-edwa ... /lightbox/ Posted by chrisy76115 all rights reserved, hence the link and not uploaded to here.

I have not seen this one before. It is undated, but from the lettered tender, a lack of smokebox plate and lack of shedplate, it is very early BR days. 1934 built J39 0-6-0 number 64853 (formerly 1488/4853), allocated to Blaydon shed until 18 Sept 1949 and then Gateshead until 18 Oct 1953. http://shedbashuk.blogspot.co.uk/ lists "4853" seen at Blaydon in August 1949 (but lists seen as "64583" in August 1948). Yeadon's says it received 64853 in August 1948 which coincides with a general repair at Cowlairs. Yeadon's lists a Light/Intermediate repair at Cowlairs on16 November 1951, so I assume it got the early BR totem on its tender at that time.

Trailing load is four bogie coaches, one of which is a clerestory roofed example.

[WTTReprinter]

WTT reprints do the passenger and freight WTT (minerals not included) for 1953 for both Newcastle - Blackhill via Lintz Green, and Newcastle - Blackhill via Annfield Plain and Consett. At this time the former was part of Newcastle district and the latter part of Sunderland district - so you have to buy 2 WTTs.
John

I missed this when it first posted.

I've actually got a summer and a winter '50 Sunderland District Local Workings book, and a poor copy of a '49 Newcastle Freight loco workings but I'm away from home for a few days. They are a long way down the list but if there's something particular you want I'll see if I can dig them out.

I now do the entire NE WTT for Summer '53 as a compendium and it costs a little over the price of two individual WTTs. The only thing missing is the ECML freight which BR took out of the compendium in 1953. The freight was in a separate book, which I intend to get around to in due course.

[borderreiver]

A trip down to Yorkshire resulted in me buying some volumes of the RCTS series "Locomotives of the LNER". Tonight, on reading Part 9A on tank engines class L1 to N19 I have been rewarded with photographic evidence of an N8, 69394 of Consett shed on a Newcastle - Blackhill local service around 1950. This is plate 132 between pages 124 and 125.

On page 143, it states: "In 1942 Nos. 76 and 861, then stationed at Consett, began to operate a passenger diagram involving four return trips between Blackhill and Newcastle, with additional turns from Newcastle to Lintz Green and to Scotswood Bridge carriage sidings. The diagram commenced with the 6:25 a.m. from Blackhill and terminated with the 9:23 p.m. from Newcastle to Blackhill. In January 1944 class G5 No. 1737 was sent from Hull to Consett when the same trains were altered to push-and-pull working, but in 1947 they reverted to non-auto with class N8 haulage. This diagram was still in force when the L.N.E.R. ceased to exist at the end of that year, Nos. 9378 and 9395 being the engines so employed."