Blackpool Corporation Electric Locomotive 717

Street tram networks operated ancillary or department vehicles to help with the maintenance of their networks, often these were modified former passenger carrying trams.

On some tram networks such as in Birmingham and Manchester there was a substantial business in freight sometimes employing purpose built vehicles. Parcels was the most typical load [1] though sometimes other goods too. No. 717, built for the Blackpool Corporation, was used for hauling coal trains along tram company tracks.

717 at Crich Tramway Museum

Information
Number built:	1
Built:	1927
Builder:	English Electric
Motor:	2 Dick Kerr DK30 traction motors (550v DC OHLE)
Power:	100 hp (75 kW)
Wheel arrangement:	4w

717 was a small steeple cab electric locomotive similar to hundreds built by English Electric for industrial users like the Type 3B. It was built to haul coal wagons from an LMS siding at Fleetwood next to a tram depot at Copse Road and taken to sidings at Thornton Gate four kilometres for distribution to coal merchants.

717 was fitted with a tram style trolley pole. Originally it had heavy rail style buffers but in 1949 it was reassigned to become a works shunter and departmental vehicle and had a tram coupler fitted. It remained in service until 1963 and has been in preservation since 1966. It is used by Crich Tramway Museum for shuntering and departmental duties.

Front view of 717

717 lurks in the tram sheds

717's trolley pole can be seen clearly here

[1] R.W. Rush, British Electric Tramcar Design (Oxford Publishing, 1976) p. 121

Mail Rail Museum Train

The London Post Office Railway (known as Mail Rail after 1987) was an electric railway which ran underneath London from 1927 [1] to 2003 transferring mail between Post Office sorting offices and railway stations such as London Paddington. In 2017 the Post Office Museum opened at Mount Pleasant which included the "Mail Rail" tourist attraction running on tracks around the former Mount Pleasant Sorting Office station.

The Red Train arrives back after a trip around Mount Pleasant

Information
Number built:	2
Built:	2016
Builder:	Severn Lamb
Motor:	Battery electric
Power:	32 hp (24 kW)

Two battery-electric trains were built by Severn Lamb for the Mail Rail attraction. Each train (one is red and the other green - the traditional colours of the Mail Rail and Post Office Railway trains respectively) consists of three cars, the centre car containing the rechargable gel cell battery pack. Up to twelve passengers can be carried in the two outer cars which have a cab at the end. The battery car can carry up to eight passengers [2]. All four bogies on the train are powered.

Due to the narrow tunnels (and narrow gauge, the railway uses 610mm gauge) the trains are small. Being only 946mm wide and 1, 492mm tall. The passenger compartments are fully enclosed and have alarms to stop the train if the doors are opened in transit.

The Green Train at Mount Pleasant

View of one of the cabs

The Red Train at the loading station under the museum, the former depot of Mail Rail

Inside the train

The Green Train is dwarfed by the station!

[1] Peter Johnson, Mail by Rail (Ian Allan, 1995) p. 115
[2] Mike Sullivan, Mail Rail from Beginning to End (Redshank, 2019) p. 65

Class 25 (BR / Sulzer 1,250hp Type 2 Diesel-Electric)

Following on from the Class 24, the Class 25 Type 2 diesel-electric locomotive was built in large quantities in the 1960s and became a very common sight on British Rail in the late 1960s and 1970s before being phased out in the 1980s.

The early Class 25s shared the same design flaws of the Class 24 such as the awkward layout of the engine room which hindered maintenance and the position of air intake louvres and filters (some of which got so filthy they stopped working). The draughtiness of the cab was also a problem largely thanks to the seldom used gangway doors [1]. During the long production run a number of improvements were made which are detailed below.

D7535 at Kidderminster Town

Information
Number built:	327
Built:	1961-67
Builder:	BR Derby, Darlington, Crewe and Beyer Peacock
Motor:	Sulzer 6LDA 28B diesel
Power:	1, 250 hp (932 kW)
Wheel arrangement:	Bo-Bo

The Class 25s were mixed traffic locomotives, spending much of their time on freight duties (not all were fitted with train heating boilers) and also some cross-country passenger services [2]. As the 1980s wore on the changing nature of the freight business meant they were becoming underpowered and regional cross country passenger duties were increasingly going over to multiple units. They were all withdrawn by 1987 though twenty have been preserved.



Class 25 sub-classes are listed below but there were also differences within sub-classes too especially with respect to train heating provision (or lack of).

Sub-class	Details
25/0	Original, very similar to Class 24 but with uprated engine
25/1	Improved lighter traction motor and other weight saving measures
25/2	Redesigned interior, air filter louvre layout and cab with gangway doors removed
25/3	Final version with improved equipment
25/9	Locomotives dedicated to mineral traffic

D7629 at Duffield

D7659 at Rowsley South

D7535 at Hampton Loade

D7612 at Chinnor

D7535 at Kidderminster Town

[1] Brian Haresnape, Production Diesel-Electrics Types 1-3 (Ian Allan, 1983) p. 33
[2] John Vaughan, Diesels on the London Midland (Ian Allan, 1981) p. 30

Wirral Tramway HK Tram

The Wirral Tramway, which opened in 1995 [1] runs between the Woodside Ferry Terminal (near Hamilton Square) and the Wirral Transport Museum. Along with heritage trams there were two newly built trams for the line, although built to a 1950s doubledecker style. These were built by Hong Kong Tramways to the same design as their own 1950s fleet which they had been rebuilding in the 1980s and early 1990s [2]. The trams were built to run on standard gauge, the HK system uses 1, 067mm gauge) [3].

Information
Number built:	2
Built:	1992
Builder:	HK Tramways

The two trams arrived in 1993 and were tested out on the Blackpool tram network (Blackpool Transport Services ran the Wirral Tramway until the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society took over in 2014). The two trams are numbered 69 and 70 following on from the number scheme of the original Birkenhead Corporation Tramways.

The trolley pole on Number 70 is turned around

Cab of Number 70

Number 69 in the museum shed

Number 70 at Woodside Ferry Terminal

Ready for another trip

Number 69 amid considerably older trams

[1] Keith Mitchell & Keith Smith, Birkenhead to West Kirby (Middleton Press, 2014) Fig. 116
[2] Peter Waller, The Tramways of Hong Kong (Blacksmith Books, 2018) p. 87
[3] Mitchell & Smith, Fig. 117

Brookville Petrol Switchers

The Brookville Locomotive Company (nowadays known as the Brookville Equipment Company) began operations in 1918 converting Ford gasoline trucks for rail use with flanged wheels. By the 1920s they were making their own locomotives [1], many of them small petrol engine powered shunters (switchers) which found their way into many industrial users fleets.

Information
Builder:	Brookville
Motor:	Ford petrol engine
Wheel arangement:	4wPM

Two locomotives are in the Statfold Barn Railway collection having once worked for Charles Matthews Ltd. in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. Brookville 3526 (built 1949) and 3746 (build 1951) are narrow gauge (610mm gauge) switchers which were both bought over from Canada to the Statfold Barn Railway in Staffordshire for restoration and preservation.

Brookville 3526 at Statfold Barn Railway

Brookville 3746

Another view of 3526

[1] Amanda Anger & Adam J. Mohney, Brookville 100, p. 13