New from Bill Watson is a superb shot of LNER K1 62007 setting off from South Pelaw Junction past Stella Gill sidings on a loaded coal for Consett.
Stella Gill (03/12/2017)
New from Bill Watson is a superb shot of LNER K1 62007 setting off from South Pelaw Junction past Stella Gill sidings on a loaded coal for Consett.
Lovely shot Bill, the track, bridge and gantries balancing the loco. Where did all that railway go?
The railway cottages have gone so I’m guessing this was at the end of steam.
Quite a few Kis appeared at the end ( following the closure of Alnmouth)
There was 62007 of course, but also 62011, 21, 23, 26 and 50. I think 07 had been overhauled in 1965 and was a good candidate for preservation but then weren’t so many others?
I remember when a K1 could handle 11 on this climb but at the end they were entrusted with no more than 7 hoppers and a Class 37 could do double that on a good day.
Tyne Dock had been at the paint pot again with the smoke box door!
Yes David,
Where did it all go? I often wonder. The cottages were a major landmark in our experience, anyhow. We saw little traffic other than coal/oil/iron ore at South Pelaw as we were quite young then, and missed all the traffic that
Stella Gill created. We had only ‘gravitated’ to South Pelaw after main line steam had gone – no more Minorou at Central Station on the Brownie 127 or Sundays climing up the ‘Ash Heap’ at Gateshead to raid the Pacific shed! My last really vivid image was when ‘The Great Marquess’ in L.N.E.R. Green passed through Birtley on a train of hoppers heading South. We only spent months, not years, around South Pelaw in reality, mostly in the evenings and well into dark just watching what was going on.