A Christmas trip to the north
In search of Scottish Steam
We may have gone to search for steam - we
didn't find much though - not in action,
anyway. A trip to Glasgow, between Christmas
1975 and the New Year, raised the possibility of
wintry action on some of the colliery lines
north of the border. No such luck - the pits
were all closed for the holiday period, and
there was no snow either - just gloomy
overcast weather. So we had to "make do" with
what we could find...
Firstly - Glasgow Transport Museum: in 1975, this was in the former
tram shed at Coplawhill, not the more recent site at Kelvin Hall -
and there were a couple more residents - NBR 4-4-0 "Glen Douglas"
(currently at Bo'ness) and CR 0-6-0 no 828 (Strathspey Railway).
Another outing took us to Falkirk, which was then home of the
Scottish Railway Preservation Society - the site at AB 1937 of 1928
"Clydesmill no 3" Bo'ness was not then available, and coal was still
being extracted from Kinneil Colliery. Again, there has been some
further movement - "Ellesmere", built by
Hawthorns of Leith, is the oldest Scottish-
built locomotive in existence - and as such,
is now on display in the National Museum of
Scotland in Edinburgh.
Eventually, on our third outing, we found
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
some real steam. First port of call was the wagon
works of R Y Pickering at Wishaw. Still a "regular
steam working" at that time, their Sentinel (9559
of 1953) was not in action on this occasion. Its
colleague, Hawthorn Leslie no 2009 of 1884, was
by then out of use.
We moved on to our last location - and there,
visible from public roads, was a clean and smart
"Robin", Sentinel 9628 of 1957, shuffling about in
the fading light at R B Tennent's Whifflet Foundry at Coatbridge. I
managed to snap two workings before the light proved insufficient
for the 200ASA film I was using - another relic from the past, GAF
"Anscochrome", long since discontinued. Some "panning" can be
seen on the first picture of Robin below - takes some doing with a
Sentinel...
There were four Sentinels at Tennent's, though the oldest was by
then out of use. Today the foundry no longer operates - but
happily, Robin is still with us at the Summerlee museum just a mile
or so away.
Links:
•
Riverside Museum of Transport
and Travel
•
Industrial Railway Society
•
Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway
•
Summerlee Museum
December 1975
