With grimy roof, but shiny sides, D841 “ROEBUCK” awaits departure time in the yard at Penzance with an up goods train. The ‘Scillonian’ – ferry to the Isles of Scilly – is moored at the pier behind. 6####BT01-PNZ-D841–GDS_U
1969 became 1970 and I never realised I was having it “so good”. At the outpost of Penzance Station, apart from the maximum of four friends who tagged along with me after school – Patrick Dunn, Nick Payne, and occasionally one or two others – I knew of no one who was even vaguely interested in trains. It was at least a year before I discovered there were such things as train spotter books. Had I done so, I might have realised that what I was seeing before my eyes at Penzance was passing away, and made a bit more of a determined effort to visit more regularly.
These breakdown vehicles had been in this spot for some time on Long Rock depot without turning a wheel, and although I was surprised to see them go, I wrongly assumed they’d be back, as they’d become such a fixture. 69###AP01-LRK-BKDWN-PARKD
Although I was keen to see all of the more commonplace ‘Warships’ and ‘Westerns’, the appearance of the rarer locomotive classes also made a welcome reprieve from the norm. The new decade brought Peak locos on regular Midlands’ workings for a few months, and although their appearance was sparse, they were more frequent visitors than the D63XXs, which I knew by then through ‘The Observer’s Book of Railway Locomotives’, ‘The Dumpy Book of Trains’, and paragraphs in ‘Look and Learn’ Magazine were true ‘Western Region’ locos. My first sighting of a peak, D154, was from the sea wall, about four coaches back, that I bet my friend, Nick, was a ‘Deltic’, and so lost a ‘million pound’ bet with him (!)
St Blazey depot in the early 1970s shows Peak D154 in green livery buffered up to a Western, beside a Class 08 shunter. The Water/Coaling Tower mound has yet to be removed. 6####FO01-BZY-D154–PARKD
My enduring memory of ‘Class 22s’ is a snapshot recollection from where I most often saw one – parked by itself opposite the gate to Long Rock depot, a couple of tracks in. They were a fascinating mixture of repulsiveness and intrigue. Because of their short length, they looked very tall, and a bit ungainly from my normal, ground level viewpoint: and compared with the other locos, their spoked wheels seemed an anachronism. The shape of their front windows made them appear sad, and they were virtually always in awful external condition, with their paintwork in flaky, grimy, oily and scaly condition, and occasionally bits of their skirt poking out at odd angles, or absent altogether. The wonder was why British Rail wasn’t sufficiently embarrassed to do something about them!
Back in the early 60s, D6323 runs an express freight across Long Rock crossing as a pedestrian waits by the newly installed barriers. Pristine in appearance then, it wasn’t many years before these locos looked like mobile scrap heaps. 610521A01-LRK-D6323-GDS_D
These Type 2s only visited the far West sufficiently frequently for me to be able to see about a quarter of the class before they disappeared altogether – usually working local freights, shunting and (exceptionally) heading local passenger trains. I remember taking a ‘brass rubbing’ of D6318’s builder’s plate when it rested with the Fisons’ weed killer train in Platform 4 in May 1970, but it was seldom possible for me to get this close – or even examine the interior of the cab through the window – ever again.
Another very “early days” photograph shows a pair of D63XXs at the head of a Class 1 service, awaiting departure time. The large radiator grids show that they were of the production batch, rather than the prototypes. 6####EC01-PNZ-D6321-PAS_U
To minimise occupation of the Main Line, locomotives were often paired for their journey to and from the Engine Sheds, and according to my records at this time, Warship/Warship and Western/Warship combinations were common, but others comparably rare. Warships predominated in all our sightings, but I failed to gain the complete number sequence by about half a dozen locos. The last of those still extant was D816 Eclipse that I saw moving about in the bowls of the Goods Yard near the coal staithes making up for an otherwise fruitless after-school visit to the Sheds on my way back.
A pair of ‘Warships’ – the nearest one D803 “ALBION” – are parked on the Fitting Bay road at Long Rock Depot, both in matching liveries, although the positioning of logos is different. Penzance breakdown vans are on the left of the photo. 6####FW01-LRK-LOCOS-PARKD
Like many readers, I guess, I wish I had kept more details of what I saw in those days, but I was only a boy from a big family, who didn’t even possess a watch to check what date and time it was, or the spare cash to buy a dedicated notebook. For instance, most entries were made in my flimsy school issue notebooks along with homework notes and doodles – which didn’t necessarily get copied into a more durable notebook when I got one for Christmas or birthday. I had no idea what was normally recorded, and although I was aware the headcodes on the leading end of each loco must mean something, I didn’t know what for several years.
A spread from my first permanent Loco Log notebook showing numbers, occupations, names, whether I’d seen the loco before or not, and headcode. The horizontal line with chevrons in column 2 meant the locos above and below were coupled. 690927A02-MIS-L_LOG-NOTES
One sighting that didn’t survive was the arrival of yet another Hymek to Penzance besides the three normally reported in railway books. D7057 came in on the IV70 passenger at about five to six on a weekday, coupled with D812 “THE ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE” that had presumably failed en route; intimating perhaps a shortage of more normal motive power, as the appearance of this class was so unusual in West Cornwall. I also remember the incident more vividly, because I’d been unsuccessfully trying to persuade my friend Patrick to stay 20 minutes longer so we could both walk home together, and teased him about what he’d missed in the following weeks! As we never saw another D7XXX in Cornwall, I doubt whether he still believes me!
Bearing a misleading headcode, D7008 with a ‘Warship’ in tow, waits after drawing away from a rake of coaches at the eastern end of St David’s Station. Awaiting instruction, the Second Man looks back while the Driver reads. 7####A01-EXD-D7008-PAS_D
With merely the records which survive to refer to, when it came to loco liveries, I apparently only marked down what seemed exceptional then – like an apparently emphatic, yet dubious, one of D1013 “WESTERN RANGER” in green livery, a metal shed plate, or the colours of the infrequent Brush Type 4 visitors – although I did comprehensively mark in red, green or blue biro blobs all the colours I saw each loco in a ‘definitive’ book that never left my home. This shows that nearly half of the Westerns I sighted I first saw in maroon; with about the same proportion of Warships (excluding three in faded original livery); and eleven out of the fifteen D63XX’s I saw initially appeared in green.
One of my ‘ABC’s and a Locoshed book. I won the school Geology Prize and got a Book Token as a gift, but my choice of the ‘Combined Volume’ bewildered my headmaster on presentation as all the other books he presented were academic. He didn’t seem impressed! 200701A01-MIS-BOOKS-COVER
Nowadays in looking back, it’s these additional notes that are more interesting than the stark facts, and I’m glad that as time went on and pocket-money permitted, I made frequent little entries, which I can still refer to. Damage to nameplates or their absence altogether, missing destination blinds, or unusual movements were always squashed into the margin of my book. However, recollections I still have of being taken on one of the last trains to Helston before the branch closed; to see cart-horses shunting four-wheeled goods vans along the wharves at Hayle; and riding the St. Ives branch for our Sunday School outing – were sadly not recorded as they all took place prior to my awakened interest in rail. I can also recall Long Rock depot’s sand shed being demolished, but there doesn’t appear any entry anywhere of when exactly this happened.
D1621 swings inland from the sea through Dawlish Warren in green livery, with front end unusually displaying a red buffer beam and torn headcode blinds. A little boy waves to it as it passes, although his guardian seems obliviously lost in a book. 7109#AA01-DWL-d1621-PAS_U
So – by the time 1970 closed, as far as I was concerned, the appearance or non-appearance of certain types of locomotive was simply their redeployment elsewhere. In good time, I thought, I would see them all, so there was no urgency to ‘class’ them by spending every hour God sends down at the trackside just in case one came along. The last Western I needed was D1026 “WESTERN CENTURION”, which I’d eventually seen earlier that year, and although still waiting to clear the Warships, I thought I’d see them and the balance of the 63XX’s in time – or at least (because by then I’d seen a recent Ian Allan book with printed listings) what then seemed to be the unbroken sequence following the production version of the classes.
To see a loco of the 17XX number range was unusual to my experience in Penzance – even the Western Region allocated locos were rare sights. 1729 runs back from the station throat into platform 2 to take a service to London. 6####EZ03-PNZ-d1729-LIG_U
Warships still dominated traffic at Penzance, even on the more prestigious roles like the Mail Train, and were also paired to head up ‘The Cornish Riviera’ on a faster schedule. The majority of passenger roles were undertaken by Westerns, and although I was rarely seeing new locos, my interest was kept alive by the possibility of the arrival of a D63XX or Brush Type 4 – particularly if it was one of the Western Region “namers”. A few trips farther afield to Plymouth and Gloucestershire broadened my horizons a bit – especially through talking with others on platform ends – but as the builder’s plates frequently reminded me, most of the locos I saw were only a few years old. Compared with the passing of steam still within memory, most engines of which were pre-War, the diesels I saw each week were essentially new locos, with a long life ahead of them. Or so it seemed then!
Exhaust rises from 825 and D822 “HERCULES” for an accelerated service out of Paddington in 1969. Very soon after the “rail alphabet” was decided upon for loco numbering, the ‘D’ prefix was dropped, and these locos were repainted either side of that divide. 690118A01-PAD–d8XXs-PAS_D
Example of a Loco Log entry during 1970
Sat 28/08/1970 Long Rock to Penzance
1616 Parkd 1A83
853 Parkd 1A35 THRUSTER
D1046 LtEnD 1B54 WESTERN MARQUIS
D1065 Parkd 1C45 WESTERN CONSORT
D1587 PassD 1C14
D4161 ShunG
D1587 LtEnU 1A80
D823 GoodU 6C30 HERMES
D1711 PassD 1V49
D1018 PassU 1E21 WESTERN BUCCANEAR
D1046 PassU 1M95 WESTERN MARQUIS
D4013 ShunS
853 LtEnD 1C16 THRUSTER
853 PassU 1A53 THRUSTER
D1587 GoodU 1A48
D832 Parkd 6V07 ONSLAUGHT
The Eric Curnow Collection 