A Class 50 is parked on Long Rock MPD as buildings are being demolished, viewed from the opposite side of the A30. The last to be dropped are those still in use – the diesel shed, fitting bay, mess and offices. A grey day for a grey sight! 7705#AA01-LRK-E_SHD-DMLTN
The absolutely final days of the Westerns were upon us in 1977, and they died out very early in the New Year in West Cornwall. In stark contrast to the previous year’s first entry, six class 50s and two shunters opened the year’s sightings, and it wasn’t until the 7th that a class 52 – apparently without plates – was glimpsed in the carriage heating loco position at the station. With the depot rebuild, a certain amount of stabling was done in the station yard and very occasionally a loco – normally a 47 or 50 – would be noticed heating stock in the siding there.
This sort of view from the steps to the north western entrance of Penzance Station of a year earlier were unlikely to repeated in 1977. D1030 “WESTERN MUSKETEER” & D1071 “WESTERN RENOWN” rest near the stop blocks. 760214B01-PNZ-D1030-PARKD
My first close-up view of a class 52 for the year was the appearance of Western Sentinel, in awful visual condition, on the 12th, parked at the buffers on platform 2. I saw ten on a return trip to Paddington, mostly in Laira’s scrap line with “HERO” and “INVADER” among them, which also included one at Taunton that I hoped might be destined for preservation on the Minehead line. D1041 “WESTERN PRINCE” turned up as Penzance’s pilot at the end of the month – also in abysmal external appearance – and apart from unidentified sightings, made from the college bus, that was that so far as my West Cornwall sightings were concerned.
Obviously in bad shape before it was rescued for preservation, D1041 “WESTERN PRINCE” stands before the buffers in Platform 2, attached to a General Utility Van. The frieze of permanent posters below the clock was there for many years. 770217A01-PNZ-D1041-PAS_D
Another London trip in March showed their scrap lines reduced to three Westerns, besides the one heating carriages, so the last lingering sight I saw as I pressed my face against the window was the hulk of 1009 on 16th April, which was no longer in view on my return journey a few days later. With my last sighting at Penzance being a month and a half earlier, and seeing none at such an auspicious location, as Laira, with the exception of the preserved few, I knew the BR hydraulic era was finally over.
In the final days of the hydraulics, Westerns are marginalised by 50s and 46s on Laira that is down to three 52s in the scrap line and D1033 “WESTERN TROOPER” parked in the foreground providing heating for coaching stock. 77###AB01-LRA-D1033-HEATG
The demolition of the part of Long Rock sheds still in use for fueling and servicing took over a month. A Class 24 loco brought in for heating (which I never noticed actually in use) disappeared on 2nd May; demolition of Long Rock’s brick engine shed started on 12th; and carriages were inside the new depot receiving attention on 17th. The GWR depot’s roof’s absence was visible by 24th, the fitting bay walls alone were still standing on 13th June and very little remained on 17th.
Hard against the stop beam at Ponsandane sidings is TDB968008 (apparently still numbered 24054 on the other side of the machine) awaiting re-use as a carriage heating unit, but as yet simply boxed in with vans and parked out-of-use. 76###AB01-PDN-TDB24-PARKD
Last day of college was a week later, and within months I was living in the Kings Cross/Camden part of London, seeing the last days of the Deltics at Kings Cross and 45’s and 46’s at St Pancras. Passing through these termini regularly, including Euston where class 86’s were being named, and along with returns to Penzance a few times a year on named 50s, I really consider myself very fortunate in seeing so many of British Rail’s named locos, so frequently. The only ones which largely escaped me were the class 44 Peaks which didn’t often work South, but even so I saw some of these on my forays north.
45118, “THE ROYAL ARTILLERYMAN” is caught by a shaft of light through the roof glass at St Pancras Station. I have fond memories of passing through this dusty station, but less so than King’s Cross which was on my way home. 8####AY01-STP-45118-PARKD
However on leaving the county to live elsewhere, it was great to leave behind the new depot as a tangible commitment to a future for railways in West Cornwall, and certainly the High Speed Train service, which 33 years later is still amongst the best travel experiences on British Rail. My father, who was used to barely making it over some of the South Devon banks in steam days, lying on the footplate to get some air through Dainton Tunnel, was favourably impressed when he realised he was travelling up the same slopes at about 60mph in an HST. At the same time, he lamented the railway that he once knew, seeing everywhere the ghost of stations, goods yards, and other infrastructure, all now swept away in the process of rationalisation.
Long Rock’s new depot building in very much its final form – the building clad and roof surmounted with extractor fans. Roller doors, fire doors and fueling shelters still have to be added. 761218A04-LRK-HST_D-VI_NE
And it wasn’t that my Dad couldn’t cope with the transition from diesel to steam at the beginning of the hydraulic era, either. He’d had an aptitude for picking up mechanical things, but even the challenge of tracing an electrical fault on a D63XX wasn’t any comparison with the job satisfaction of nursing an old steamer home. I once saw a farm tractor with massive rear wheels lying stripped into component pieces on a barn floor in Dorset which he’d taken apart, and (unlike one of my brothers) he got it back together in working order!
My father’s involvement with railways ended with the demise of steam and entry of the D8XX warships. A pair of Glasgow-built ‘Warships’, a Swindon-built ‘Warship’, and several steamers are lifeless on Long Rock depot. 60###AA01-LRK-E_SHD-VIS_W
Thinking back over these notes, other little memories even now come popping back – a Western standing by the sea wall getting soaked as waves broke over it; the extraction fans of the roofs of locos when viewed from the station wall; my one illicit trespass from the sheds through the goods yard just to see from the inside what had been hidden to me all these years. I was even introduced early to the famous “bouncing” of Westerns at speed, when for no apparent reason a driver at the sheds asked if my friend Patrick and myself would like a trip back to Penzance on a Western. Would we ever! He warned us to hold well on and intentionally sidelined the speed limit to demonstrate what happens – fortunately still slowing in time for the station approach.
D1033 “WESTERN TROOPER” pulls away with an up passenger, crossing the walkway at the end of Platform 1 leading to the Shunter’s Mess cabin, a short distance before it. Its roof and sides suggest a recent visit to the Works. 740628A01-PNZ-D1033-PAS_U
Much had changed, of course, over these 8 years. In 1969 there were sidings alongside the stockade wall at the sheds which held a lot of condemned stock with their diagonally crossed circle painted on each one; the little depression in the lineside bank that I used to watch the sheds from on the seaward side of the main line had gradually filled with hummocks of grass and a bramble bush; and the drone of engines drifting across with blue exhaust smoke and the occasional horn as something moved, is now history. D828 ‘Magnificent’ overwhelmingly pitted with crevices which denied her name; holes in loco bodywork where metal shed plates once were; crew members climbing to their cabs, letting go of one hold to quickly turn the handle and throw the door open before grabbing again to finish their climb. No arrival with windscreen wiper waving madly; no ringing of the buffers of the shunter’s truck as an 08 propelled it along; no clang of the points handle by the shunting staff before being waved forwards, and no sliding of points rodding, or twang of signal wire.
Storage roads are in use by a variety of stock at Long Rock, under lighting gantries which have still to receive lamps. The buffer stops have been concreted over and huts erected. 770326A05-LRK-C_SDG-VIS_W
Largely unchanged, however, is ‘Chy An Mor’, a little terrace of houses built beside the depot to house its railway staff and still very much as it was when opened early last century. Even Penzance station is materially little altered, although its offices are rented out, a buffet and ticket hall have been built inside, and the cliff wall outside is covered with more clumps of buddleia plants. This granite building is still a fitting terminus for arrivals, and although the bookstall no longer straddles the end of platforms 2 and 3; GWR trolleys loaded with signal lamps are not scattered about the platform arms; and there is no aluminium-strip name punching machine or scales at the foot of the internal stairs; there is still much in Penzance which is evocative of that wonderful era of the diesel hydraulics some of us were privileged to know.
Every eye is drawn to the railway and the sea from the walk along this stretch of wall at Penzance. Signals indicate an ‘Up’ Train, a ‘Western’ brings in a ‘Down’ service, and a another shunts the sleeper into position. 740615C02-PNZ-D10##-PAS_D
Example of a Loco Log entry during 1977
Thu 03/02/1977 Penzance to Camborne, return am
50— Parkd O O 08643 ShunS 50— Parkd O O D1010? SleeD 1O10 WESTERN CAMPAIGNER? 08377 GoodS TDB’24 Parkd 47028 Parkd O O [NOTE: NEW GANTRY SUPPORTS AT APEX OF HST LINES]
eve
[NOTE: 3 LIGHT TOWER VERTICALS ERECTED] 08377 ShunG TDB’24 Parkd D10– PassU Western ———— 08643 ShunS D1041 ????? 0O41 WESTERN PRINCE
The Eric Curnow Collection 