1930's LMS Central Division WTT's

[Andy873]

This morning I decided to read through one section of a book I've had for several years. In it, buried in a pile of frankly boring workings detail, there is a mention of some trials runs of an LMS Leyland railbus running from Padiham to Spring Vale. It was thought (until mentioned in the book) that these trials were only done from Spring Vale to Clitheroe.

So I wonder do any of you have any LMS WTT's from the 1930's (post 1933) that cover East Lancashire? Can we find any mention of this railbus trial run from Padiham?

It's a long shot I know, the book doesn't mention when these runs occurred or for how long, only that these railbuses were ordered / built in 1934 by Leyland motors and used until 1951.

 

[Gloster]

This would be Four-Wheel Diesel-Hydraulic Railcars 29950 to 29952, which were based at Lower Darwen shed from 1934. Most of their work appears to have been on the Spring Vale-Blackburn-Clitheroe axis.

They would have been tried out or had clearance trials on other lines in the area, but these would almost certainly not be in the WTT, but in the weekly notice, or even a special notice. The book makes no mention of them doing regular work on your line, except for an instruction that, “These vehicles may, from time to time, be used for the running of late trips between Blackburn and Padiham, or Blackburn and Accrington, to convey passengers last thing at night, and all concerned must be prepared accordingly and apply the special instructions relating to the working of 29950-2 on such occasions”. This quote originally from the operating instructions issued for them by the LMS, which referred to them as ‘rail motors’.

Source: LMS Diesel Locomotives and Railcars, Richards, RCTS, 1996.

 

[Andy873]

@Gloster I'm always amazed just how you and others on here can pull a rabbit out of a hat quickly! Thanks.

I took the rest of the day to search through timetables to try to identify which last trains ran from Blackburn - Accrington, and also to Padiham, and I found two (from 1939). They were SO Blackburn 11pm - terminating at Accrington 11.14pm. Blackburn 00.07 - terminating at Padiham 00.27am (Sunday morning). This last one was also in the 1934 timetable.

Normally these services would continue on further but these two late SO services didn't. I can only conclude if a rail motor was ever used on these routes (likely) then these two services would probably have been the ones they did. As said, they were mainly used on the Blackburn - Clitheroe - Hellifield line, but according to the igg.org.uk site most actually stopped at Clitheroe and then returned.

At a time when the big four were trying to economise, I could quite easily see if one of these would stop at station C (where everyone gets off and nobody get on) simply terminate the service there not bothering to run to station D. I'm not surprised I don't have any photos of a rail motor on the loop line, and I could imagine some waiting on a platform at Blackburn wondering if they really did have too much to drink when one of these rolled in.

On a side note, the other surprise was on 14 April, 1955 the Royal train used the loop line on its way from Darwen to Colne, sadly it ran empty as the queen was in Colne at the time.