Thursday 25th October 2007 ~ 40 YEARS OF FREIGHT IN EAST ANGLIA

Richard Adderson ~ summarised by John Day

Appeared in Journal 515

A traditional welcome was afforded to Norwich based, and Norfolk Railway Society Member, Richard Adderson who opened his presentation by showing a map of East Anglia and the vast number of main and branch lines that existed some forty years ago. Richard explained that we would be going on a journey from March to March to show how much of the freight traffic arrived at and radiated from the (then) major railway yard at Whitemoor. Some of the presenter’s earlier Norfolk/Cambridgeshire material was obtained on a number of “Brake Van Trips” either arranged officially or by just turning up and a friendly guard welcoming the company at the rear of the train.

The journey started with a visit to Wisbech when in the late 60’s/early 70’s the branch trip was worked by an 08 with a few odd wagons sandwiched between the loco and a brake van. Crossing gates were opened and closed by the train crews which allowed for photographs to be taken at the often frequent pauses in the journey. In its final freight only days the branch operated a lengthy daily train to Paisley formed of VGA vans.

Next was a visit to Kings Lynn where one shot showed the yard full with coal, ballast, sand and general traffic with a variety of heritage power as well as the 03/08 shunters that trundled traffic to the docks and South Lynn. Sand traffic originated at Middleton Towers and this traffic still runs on an almost daily basis. A brief stop was made at Denver Junction to visit Wissington where the sugar beet factory was still worked by steam before its final disconnection from the national network.<

In Norfolk, trips were taken both by brake van and general photographic visits to Dereham, Fakenham and Lenwade. A factory at the latter place manufactured prefabricated concrete beams for the building industry and provided the main source of traffic which came to an abrupt halt following the collapse in 1968 of the tower block of flats at Ronan Point at Newham in the heart of London’s east end. Other traffic on the line comprised grain and coal which was shunted into and out of trains at various locations on this idyllic rural route, while sand from Coltishall was moved in block trains for Pointers to Beddington Lane (nr Croydon). In more modern times (the 1990’s) grain traffic was worked from Eccles Road where a Section 8 Grant allowed sidings to be installed. However, traffic was very spasmodic although the presenter was eventually rewarded with a freight train in the sidings with an EWS Class 66 with short term aggregate traffic associated with the Attleborough by-pass construction.

Norfolk’s capital, and Richard’s home city, did not escape mention. Traffic from Whitemoor across the Breckland line ended up to distribute wares to such outposts as Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as well as terminals within Norwich at Thorpe, City and Victoria. The laborious sixty or so mile detour that trains had to take to reach Norwich City, an as the crow flies journey of about a couple of miles, was well illustrated. Occasional traffic was photographed at a number of locations which included cement at Whitlingham Junction and Wymondham. Views of Norwich’s yard with an array of motive power and wide variety of traffic showed how much the city’s rail network has changed. The Charrington’s oil train was seen in some shots at Norwich whilst the North Walsham condensate tanks in varying forms with a variety of motive power combinations were seen on the “Bittern Line”, nowadays, the only regular freight flow on that line. As for the city of Norwich, the only traffic regularly reaching there today is the EWS operated Lafarge aggregates traffic from Mountsorrel to Trowse and the Peak Forest limestone traffic that is off-loaded and roaded to Cantley Sugar Beet Factory.<

The next areas to be visited were the east coast ports of Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft where both had dock systems. An evocative shot of a freight train vying with road traffic along the quayside at Great Yarmouth brought back many memories of that once busy town, now devoid of pretty well everything loco and freight wise. However, it is at both Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft that the signalling infrastructure still reminds us of the past with well kept signal boxes and semaphores. At Lowestoft we saw a lengthy coal train waiting to shunt into the coal yard and to bring the scene into the privatised era was a Class 37 with the mud-oil, a by-product of the North Sea Oil Industry, from Aberdeen being unloaded before the empties returned to Parkeston Yard and thence to Scotland via the EWS Enterprise network.

Moving down through East Suffolk it was impossible to miss out the Leiston branch where, until recently, somewhat more regular freight traffic in the shape of the Sizewell “coal” – in reality the “Nuclear Flask” - was seen. In the days that our presenter visited the amount of freedom to either photograph or just observe the operation, which was just part of the regular “goods” train that worked from Ipswich, was surprising from today’s perspective. Today, a visit there with a camera will see the photographer questioned, with personal details often recorded by BT Police who appear to always be in attendance. How times have changed!

To reach Ipswich a stop was made at Melton, on the outskirts of Woodbridge, where unbelievably “siding” traffic continued for much longer than other local freight traffic in the area. The then-closed station still retained a very active box on the erstwhile “up” platform and coal and ballast traffic were the order of the day. Suffolk’s other “major” branch line is of course that to Felixstowe and currently the reason for Ipswich being the haven for loco hauled trains and freight traffic in particular. A reminder of what could be seen at Felixstowe was a shot of the North Terminal (before the embankments became totally overgrown) with Freightliner traffic much to the fore. All of this traffic passes through Ipswich, mostly via the “Top Yard” and memories were stirred with a shot from London Road Bridge that not only showed the containerised traffic but some of the general freight/Speedlink traffic that flowed between March and the then busy Parkeston Yard and the Zeebrugge train ferry.

In recent years a lot has changed around the Ipswich docks lines, with the Lower Yard now effectively closed we will never see the likes of Freightliner boxes behind one of the now long gone Ipswich shunters traversing the Cliff Quay branch. Richard showed the diversity of his collection with shots at Cliff Quay, along New Cut and across Stoke Bridge crossing into the Lower Yard, commenting on how quickly the traffic built up as the drive home from work was brought to a complete standstill. On the other side of the port similar traffic was seen on the West Bank and it must be recorded that traffic still operates on this branch from the main line at Halifax Junction, albeit an occasional train of dredged aggregate but more importantly it is still open for traffic and who knows what the future may hold. Next we headed for the Harwich Branch, stopping off first at Manningtree North Junction where a Class 37 hauled Speedlink service was allowed onto the GE main line ahead of a Class 47 hauled Freightliner that could clearly be seen crawling up to a red light at the junction. Then onto perhaps one of the most intriguing sequences of the whole presentation was a series of images at Mistley with the Class 08 shunter working the Mistley Quay branch. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence and to just turn up and see the job actually working had to be regarded as a bonus for the presenter. The steep incline from the quayside to the main line must have presented the crew with a challenge on this occasion as the load was steel rods which were being moved to the sidings at Mistley station for onward travel. At the time there was still some grain traffic to Edme’s Maltings adjacent to the yard. Moving further down the branch a Class 08 shunter was seen carrying out it’s work on the train ferry at Harwich, the traffic seen on this day was a ferry van and an imported Plasser Theurer tamping machine being off loaded.

It was then time to head back towards March, this time on the Bury route both via Soham and Cambridge then Ely. In the Speedlink heyday this route carried the bulk of East Anglia’s non-containerised traffic. A stop was made at Newmarket where grain traffic was shunted by the privately owned shunter at the terminal while at Cambridge we saw a diverted EWS worked North Walsham to Harwich condensate train, sent that way during the closure of Ipswich tunnel for a number of weeks during the summer of 2004. A clean Class 37 with a couple of Grainflow wagons that had possibly originated at Newmarket was waiting for an onward signal probably towards March to join the rest of a northbound train. Most appropriately at the time of the meeting a shot was shown of a train crossing the “now missing” bridge at Ely on the Soham line, readers should not need be reminded that the bridge was “outed” by a Lafarge aggregate train in June of 2007 and is in the process of being replaced. At Ely we were privileged, as was our presenter, to visit the Papworth Freight Terminal and an earlier shot of the train heading there was seen with a Class 67 on the front.

Having the freedom of the terminal allowed shots to be taken from a number of vantage points around the site before heading back to March via Manea and Stonea.

This was truly a nostalgic presentation which showed the larger than usual audience just how much has changed in all sorts of ways over the last forty years. We have moved from the trip freights with general merchandise and a wide variety of rolling stock behind corporate imaged locos to a colourful, in all senses, but stereotyped form of traffic. Containerised intermodal trains operated by three main freight operators and block aggregate trains form the backbone of freight in East Anglia today but the interest is ever there, especially with the photographic fraternity.

In closing, Richard, who had earlier stated that 45 years ago steam had disappeared in East Anglia so regrettably no shots would be seen of steam hauled freight trains, surprised his audience with a sequence on the North Norfolk Railway with J15 65462 hauling charter freight – the perfect end to the perfect presentation?

John Day proposed the vote of thanks which was warmly acknowledged by everyone present.

Footnote:

Richard is co-Author, with Graham Kenworthy, of local titles in the Middleton Press Country Railway Routes Series and a much more comprehensive overview of the lines and area covered by Richard’s presentation can be gained by reading volumes from this series. These books are available at both the Ipswich Transport Museum and Mid Suffolk Light Railway shops.

Front Cover. Minesweeper, HMS Brocklesby was photographed at Orwell Quay on 17th November. Photo by Joe Palmer

Rear Cover Top. Far East Travel's Marshall bodied MAN, P190 SHR, on the short lived service 55. Seen here turning into Grove Lane on the 5th November.

Rear Cover Bottom. Yet another demonstrator for Ipswich Buses, this time BMC BV57 MPU captured on Park and Ride service 802 at the Old Cattle Market on the 5th November. Photos by Ivan Watts.