A photograph of Thornabys Breakdown Train taken during the 1990s.
Photograph courtesy of Peter Dickenson.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A photograph of Thornabys Breakdown Train taken during the 1990s.
Photograph courtesy of Peter Dickenson.
Picture Stockton Archive 
Understand that there is now a shortage of breakdown trains
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Major derailment at Morpeth caused by too much speed on the bend, the type 47 was on its side and dug into the earth we did this job without using a crane, it involved putting two flexible ladders round near each end of the engine. The rungs were made of flexible steel and two foot jacks were used to lift the 100 ton engine so far then packing was used to hold it in position. The procedure was repeated many times, the engine was now upright four jacks were used one on each corner lifted the engine so two long beams were put underneath the two jacks used to shove the engine across to the main line. The biggest problem we had was that the ground was very soft and as soon as weight came onto the jacks the packing sunk into the ground so it had to be repacked. It was no problem for lads to do a normal 8 hour shift then being called out to do a further twelve hours or more it was hard graft but all the team enjoyed the challenge Dick Watson was the supervisor a Thornaby lad more details can be seen on the York Museum search engine.
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This could be the 75 ton Cowans Sheldon crane, DB967160/ADRC96700 built in 1962 and converted from steam to diesel in 1978 whilst it was still located at Gateshead Depot. It was transferred to Thornaby circa 1988 and scrapped at T J Thompsons in 1993.
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