July 26th 2023 to August 1st 2023

Steam returned on the Bournemouth to Weymouth line this week, when The Railway Touring Company ran one of their summer day trips from London to Weymouth. The steam traction was in the form of LMS Jubilee Class 4-6-0 No. 45596 ‘Bahamas’ with support at the rear of the train from West Coast Railway Class 47 Brush Type 4 diesel locomotive No. 47802.  

The departure from Weymouth was planned to have been hauled by Swanage based Southern Railway U Class 2-6-0 No.31806 but a combination of gauging concerns and politics meant the return leg was instead in the hands of WCRC Class 47 No. 47802. The train reverses at Southampton Central with ‘Bahamas’ once again taking charge for the run to London. 

‘Bahamas’ was built in 1935 by the North British Locomotive Company at Queens Park, Glasgow and entered into traffic with the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) as No. 5596 being allocated to Crewe North depot. The “Jubilee” class of locomotives, so called after the first of the class was named ‘Silver Jubilee’ to coincide with celebrations to mark King George V’s 25th anniversary on the throne, was designed by Sir William Stanier on his arrival at the LMS following a review of locomotive requirements. Stanier discovered a requirement for a locomotive capable of hauling fast secondary express passenger services between major cities where his newly built 4-6-2 Pacific Princess Royal class engines were excluded by loading gauge restrictions. The “Jubilees” were derived from an older type of engine known as the “Patriots” which had been designed by his predecessor, Henry Fowler. On introduction to service, they failed to impress the LMS workforce and they initially gained a reputation for being poor steamers. However, after tests and modifications to improve the boiler design they eventually became efficient locomotives and the class survived until within 12 months of the end of steam on British Railways (BR), the last example being withdrawn from traffic in October 1967. 

One interesting ‘Bahamas’ fact to note is as steam was drawing to a close, BR made one last attempt to improve the performance of its steam locomotives and in 1961 No. 45596 was fitted with a double blastpipe and chimney as an experiment. This was the last modification to a steam locomotive undertaken by BR. ‘Bahamas’ was withdrawn in July 1966 and was put into storage at the back of Stockport Edgeley shed, under cover and forgotten until she was bought directly from BR in January 1967 by the newly formed Bahamas Locomotive Society. The rest, as they say, is history with the loco in great demand for mainline tours.

Saturday was a strike day on South Western Railway, but we saw another run to Weymouth of “The Dorset Coast Statesman”. On the outward run, the train was double-headed by two Class 47 locomotives, but on the return the locos were in top ‘n tail formation. I was enjoying the delights of the Poole Harbour Festival but did manage to watch the return working as it passed Baiter Park during an excellent set by Punk On Your Hits. 

Another attempt at taking Class 458 No. 458523 up to Widnes for refurbishment was scheduled for Monday 31^st July and this time the unit was successfully hauled out of Bournemouth depot as GBRf Class 69 No. 69008 returned to complete the job, this time with Class 47 No. 47749 ‘City Of Truro’ assisting. The locos and barrier coaches ran as 5Z51 0928 Leicester L.I.P. to Bournemouth T&R.S.M.D, but I didn’t pop out to see this arrive and elected instead to watch the later departure with the EMU.

The same evening Yoshi and I went to see the monthly Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR) test train passing Hamworthy on its way to Weymouth with GBRf Class 73 Electro-Diesel No.’s 73961 ‘Alison’ and 73965 ‘Des O’Brien’ provided from amongst the usual suspects

From The Archive

I very much enjoyed seeing No. 47749 ‘City Of Truro’ in Dorset this week. Currently part of the GB Railfreight fleet, this Brush Type 4 locomotive, one of 512 examples built at Brush’s Falcon Works in Loughborough and at BR’s Crewe Works between 1962 and 1968, entered service in February 1965 and numbered D1660. She was initially allocated to Landore shed in Swansea. Named ‘City Of Truro’ by Dr Mabel Andrews the Mayor of Truro at Truro station on 8th June 1965 she carried the then standard livery of two tone green with small yellow warning panels. As part of the TOPS renumbering scheme she became No. 47076 – the number I am most familiar with – in February 1974 and she would have gained her BR Blue livery around the same time.

In 1984 she was modified to the 47/4 sub-class and renumbered as No. 47625. During the period October 1991 to October 1995 she carried the name ‘Resplendent’ and carried the red Rail Express Systems livery. Further modifications to conform to the 47/7b sub-class meant another renumbering in November 1995 to No. 47749. At the same time came another change of name came as she became ‘Atlantic College’, and she carried these plates until 1999. Under Colas ownership No. 47749 was named ‘Demelza’ and she carried this name from September 2007 through to April 2016 when she was reunited with the ‘City Of Truro’ nameplates.

That’s all from us this week. Thanks for reading and for your kind comments and corrections. We’ll leave you with a photo of Yoshi. Be seeing you!