45699 'Galatea' at Shrub Hill 18 Feb. 2023

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TimBrown
Posts: 1280
Joined: 05:59 Monday 4th July 2016
Location: Worcester

45699 'Galatea' at Shrub Hill 18 Feb. 2023

Post by TimBrown » 14:13 Sunday 19th February 2023

Saturday 18 February 2023 saw LMS Jubilee Class 45699 'Galatea' haul a 10 coach Railway Touring Company charter from Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill via Swindon and Cheltenham. This locomotive was built at Crewe Works in April 1936 and is owned by West Coast Railways of Carnforth who completely restored it some 10 years ago. Galatea was a regular performer through Worcester in British Railways days during the 1950s and 1960s. It carries two identities at present, with 45627 on the smoke box door and 'Sierra Leone' nameplates, but has 45562 on the cab sides which is the number of 'Alberta'; both aliases in memory of locomotives which have long since met the scrap man's oxy-acetylene cutting torch.
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bmmoboy
Posts: 549
Joined: 20:02 Tuesday 5th July 2016

Re: 45699 'Galatea' at Shrub Hill 18 Feb. 2023

Post by bmmoboy » 20:17 Sunday 19th February 2023

I'm too young to remember, but I know that Jubilees would be seen on the Worcester avoiding line, were they frequent visitors to Shrub Hill?

TimBrown
Posts: 1280
Joined: 05:59 Monday 4th July 2016
Location: Worcester

Re: 45699 'Galatea' at Shrub Hill 18 Feb. 2023

Post by TimBrown » 12:27 Monday 20th February 2023

bmmoboy wrote:
20:17 Sunday 19th February 2023
I'm too young to remember, but I know that Jubilees would be seen on the Worcester avoiding line, were they frequent visitors to Shrub Hill?
LMS locomotives ran through Worcester from Birmingham New Street via Bromsgrove to Gloucester, Bristol and the South West on passenger and freight trains. 'The Devonian' from Bradford to Paignton ran through Worcester for a time in the Southerly direction but not going North. Bristol Barrow Road locomotives were generally rostered including Jubilees 45690 'Leander' and 45699 'Galatea' and Patriots 45509 'The Derbyshire Yeomanry' and 45519 'Lady Godiva'.

In the late 1950s many WRGS pupils including yours truly went up Railway Walk at lunchtime to see the incoming local New Street to Gloucester train at 13-25, or thereabouts, as it could be hauled by very interesting LMS locomotives including Fowler 4F 0-6-0 'Duck sixes', 4-4-0 Compounds, 4-4-0 2P, Fowler 2-6-4 tank engines, Stanier
2-6-4 tank engines, Hughes 2-6-0 'Crabs' and Ivatt 'doodlebugs (or 'flying pigs'), and Stanier 4-6-0 Black 5's and 'Jubilees' and occasionally a BR Standard Class 5.

Midland freights produced above mentioned 'Crabs' and 'Black 5's' plus Stanier 2-8-0 and Riddles WD 2-8-0 locos and the ever present Fowler 'Duck 6's' and even older Class 3
0-6-0s. There was an evening steam heated banana train around 21-00 hours that ran from Avonmouth or Southampton to Yorkshire which produced class 5 LMS and Standard locomotives and if you were very lucky an LNER B1!

If you really wanted to see LMS and Standard passenger locomotive at full stretch and high speed, then Bredicot, Dunhampstead and Spetchley on 'the back line' was the place to be.

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