Ths is a poor quality image of a locomotive crossing Yam Viaduct, we are guessing at a date of around 1900….anyone any thoughts?
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Ths is a poor quality image of a locomotive crossing Yam Viaduct, we are guessing at a date of around 1900….anyone any thoughts?
Second thoughts: I wonder if the original print has had some not altogether successful or sympathetic “photo-shopping”.
Still one or two puzzles over this shot. The apparently different colour of the locomotive splasher over the driving wheels and the ornate cast number plate that locos such as this carried on the splasher near to the cab appears to be missing, the splashers had distinctive beading which also seems to be missing.
Definitely a D20 on the NER directors saloon. I have a shot of a D20 in BR days at Berwick with a similar saloon. At the grouping ex NER locos retained their original numbers till 1946 when there was a renumbering to put the classes and numbers in a logical order. British Railways added 60000 to the 1946 number.
To add to my earlier comments, I should have said that the tender bears North Eastern Railway lettering and crest, which puts this earlier than the fomation of the LNER at the railway grouping of 1923. Clearly locomotive liveries would not change overnight and some may not have been repainted until 1925/6. However, this has the look of the first decade of the 20th century, I feel.
I agree with the last comment, in that the panel (splasher) over the driving wheels is too light in colour and the brass beading does not curve back down to footplate level at the rear as it should. Also, the footplate appears bent downwards out of true towards the front, there is a dark patch at the bottom of the splasher as if there is some sort of access for oiling the motion and there’s a light object above the splasher, which I can’t identify from any North Eastern class photographs (perhaps the photograph has been altered in some way? ). Having said all of which, this is undoubtedly a North Eastern Railway Class M like the preserved No. 1621, as noted by an earlier contributor. These locomotives were built between 1892 and 1894 and they were altered to provide new cylinders with the valves inside the frames between 1903 and 1908 – this locomotive has that alteration, I think, so puts the picture after 1902. Locomotives of the class were shedded at Gateshead, York and Darlington in North Eastern days (as well as further afield at Hull, Tweedmouth, etc) – this makes Gateshead or York the favourite for home shed, in my opinion. North British locomotives did not have a double side window cab (apart from the Reid designed Atlantics – this is not one of those). The carriage is difficult to identify because of the photo quality, but seems to have more panelling than windows, suggesting that it is a brake end or full brake vehicle of typical North Eastern clerestorey design. Being unfamiliar with Yarm, does anyone know if the train is heading South, or North?
The arch on the right is now very substantially reinforced with a lot of extra brickwork, requiring the demolition of the houses under the arch. When was that done?
Looking at the various classes of North Eastern Railway 4-4-0, the loco in the picture is not exactly similar to any of them. The flat panel over the driving wheels is distinctive and appears to be a different colour from the boiler and the tender. The base of the chimney is notably swollen, too.
I am NOT an expert on locos,no doubt there is a guy out there that could tell us,but,it has a kind of North British look about it-the cab,roof,they have an American look?,yes ,no?? Come on gricers,do yer stuff! For those that may not know,North British locos were built in Scotland,where incidently,I thought I had roots-turns out I’m wrong-I’m a very very small part Irish, gt.gt.grandmother to be sure! Says it all,that,!.
The engine is a North Eastern Railway Company 4-4-0 express locomotive designed by Wilson Worsdell, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the NER. He designed and built several classes of 4-4-0 engines similar to the one in the photo in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. So your estimate of 1900 give or take some years either side seems a reasonable one. An engine similar to this No 1621 is preserved.
Just checking through my old books, the locomotive look’s like a class D20, 4-4-0, with a numbering range from 2340 to 2387, the book dating from 1948, and by the look of the train, the coaches look the celestial type being 1900, and it could be a train for either for York or Harrogate area’s, I am not sure if the local depot’s had any of these locomotives on their book’s.
To add to the comments I made above and again checking records, I discovered that Stockton Shed 51E, did have two class D20’s 4-4-0’s on its books in 1948, these being 62365 and 62390, so the train shown may have even been a Whitby working via Picton.
The coach could be the North Eastern Railway’s Directors Saloon.