‘BlackFive ’No. 44957 and‘K2’
2-6-0 No.61786 on the climb
fromArrochar to Glen Douglas
with the 9.31amFortWilliam-
GlasgowQueen Street in March
1959.WJVANDERSON/RAIL
ARCHIVE STEPHENSONA‘BlackFive’double header of Nos.44968 and sister loco44967 withaFortWilliamto GlasgowQueen Street
trai nleavingTulloch onSeptember 30, 1959.prototypefor70t wo-cylinder ‘K1’ 2-6-0s, built
from May1949 underthe aegis of
AHPeppercorn. Some ‘K1s’ weredrafted
to theWest Highland line but werefinally
concentrated on the Mallaig Extension, with
Nos. 62011/12/31/34/52 based at FortWilliam
until they werereplacedby dieselType 2s during
1961/2.
Meanwhile, ontheLMS, Stanier’sClass 5
mixed-traffic 4-6-0s had infiltratedroutes to
Inverness and beyond, winning favourable
opinions from enginemen.Following
Nationalisationin 1948, BR sawthey wouldbe
ideal for the (formerly LNER)West Highland.
From 1954 to 1961, at leastsix we re based at Fort
William and, while crews wereinitiallyguarded
in their acceptance, they grew toappreciate the
Stanier locos for theirreliability and capacity for
hardslogging. While their nominal tractiveeffort
was 25,455lb against the36,600 of the ‘K4s’, their
larger boilerspartl ycompensated and, unlike the‘V4s’, they would handle their maximum permitted
load of250tons with confidence.
They werejoined onWest Highland duty
by ‘B1s’ and BR ‘5MT’ 4-6-0s based at Eastfield
(Glasgow); in the summers of 1958/9the
combination of No.73077 or 73078 witha‘K2’
coupled‘inside’ was normal ontheKing’sCross
sleeper.Yet it wasinvariablyapair of ‘BlackFives’
that displayed the fieriest displays of energy.
Table 2comparesacouple ofruns recorded by
RailwayPerformance Society (RPS)member Noel
ProudlockandAlastairWood, namesfamiliar to
readers of thesearticles. Forreasons of space,
Ihave tabulatedthe logs from Dumbarton.
On Noel’srunwith theDown King’sCross
sleeperin 1954, ‘BlackFives’ Nos. 44908 and45396 were banked up the 1-in-45 from Glasgow
(Queen Street) toCowlairs by former North
BritishRailway0-6-2T No.69179; sevenyears
later,inthe fina lsummerofWest Highlandregular
steam working,AlastairWood had Nos. 44956
and 44973, assisted toCowlairs by Gresley 2-6-2T
No. 67603. Thegross loads,around 300tons,
weresimilar.
Once clear of thesuburbs, bothruns were
brisk, with the pairsof ‘Fives’brieflyattaining
60mph beforeDumbarton. Noel’s traindidnot call at Craigendoran (Upper) and, despite
slowing forthe junction, was able to charge the
1-in-58 to Helensburgh, theinvigorating musicof
double exhaust beats carrying across therooftops
as Nos. 44908/45396 accelerated vigorously to
30mph.Alasdair’seight-coach 10.05am from
Queen Street, however,had to restartupgrade
from Craigendoran and managed only 24½ mph,
an acceptablerate nonetheless.
From Garelochhead, the firstlong stintof
climbingsaw th e1954 duoaccelerating from 20August2019 •TheRailway Magazine•25
WorldRecord Officiall ythe world’slongest-runningrailway series,establishedin1901