Wednesbury (13/07/1989)
| Thursday 13th July 1989 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Train | Wednesbury | Loco | Comments | ||||||||||||||||||
| 8T19 Bescot - Wednesbury | 07.21-07.25 | 08746 | The previous day's strike has obviously caused some disruption on the morning of the 13th. Neither 6M40 nor 6M51 ran, and T42 was 90 minutes late on its normal timings. As a result trip 19 was the first train of the day. Also of note is that Wednesbury box opened at 06.00 rather than the normal 05.30, which may indicate when the strike actually ended. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6T42 Bescot - Brierley Hill | 07.32 | 47102 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 8T19 Wednesbury - Bescot | 08.05 | 08746 | This is an unusually early departure for the morning T19. As a rule it didn't leave Wednesbury until 09:30 at the earliest, and often ran much later. The explanation is that it was going to make a second morning trip to Wednesbury. At this remove we can only speculate why. The obvious explanation would be that there was too much traffic for the Class 08 to handle in one go, but I'm not sure that was the case as it came back to Wednesbury as 9T19 - possibly implying just engine and van. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6M72 Gloucester - Cliffe Vale | 08.53 | 47291 | Thursday morning's 6M72 would normally have started at St Blazey on Wednesday evening, but that wouldn't have been possible due to the previous day's industrial action. In all likelihood the Tuesday night train would have recessed somewhere en-route, starting from there on Thursday morning. I'm guessing the recess point was Gloucester, but it's only a guess. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 9T19 Bescot - Wednesbury | 09.27-09.31 | 08746 | T19 returns for a second time. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6T52 Lawley St - Round Oak | 09.37 | 47451 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 0T60 Bescot - ? | 10.14 | 31290 | A minor puzzle this. T60 was the Duddeston trip, and wouldn't normally have been seen at Wednesbury. It came back just under 2 hours later, so it wasn't going very far. It hadn't gone to collect a train as it came back light engine, so my initial instinct was that it had done a banking turn in lieu of T55. However it's a bit too late to have banked T52 I think. T52 was back at Wednesbury by 11.20, which suggests it wouldn't have had time to wait for T60. And the times don't really suggest that T60 had gone to assist a northbound train, so this move remains unexplained. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 0T42 Brierley Hill - Bescot | 10.30 | 47102 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 6Z94 ? - Bescot | 10.58 | 37074 | Here's a nice surprise, in the form of a special. There weren't that many Zs running around the Wednesbury area in 1989, so it's
probably a safe bet to assume that 6Z98 (below) is the return working of this train. If so it's probably gone no further than Bescot
as 6Z98 passed within 85 minutes.
There are no clues to the origin of this working, other than the loco which is a Railfreight Distribution engine. Back in 1976 it might have been possible to draw a conclusion from the allocation of the loco, but in 1989 the sector allocation reveals more. 37074 was a Tinsley loco at this time, but that's of very little significance. Once again it's not unreasonable to suspect that the strike may have something to do with the appearance of this train. |
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| 6T52 Round Oak - Bescot | 11.21 | 47451 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 8T19 Wednesbury - Bescot | 11.35 | 08746 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 0T60 ? - Duddeston | 12.03 | 31290 | The comment in the register actually says "Vauxhall", harking back to the earlier name of the location. The Duddeston trip usually left Bescot in the early afternoon, so it would have picked up some approximation of the normal path for that working. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6Z98 Bescot - ? | 12.22 | 37074 | There's nothing at all in the register to link this train with 6Z94 (above), but it looks very much like the return working to me. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 0T42 Bescot - Brierley Hill | 13.05 | 47102 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 8T19 Bescot - Wednesbury | 14.35 | 08746 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 0T52 Bescot - Round Oak | 14.42 | 47451 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 8T19 Wednesbury - Great Bridge | 15.03 | 08746 | T19 was booked to visit Great Bridge as required, but it didn't go every day by any means. This was the only trip to Great Bridge
during the week commencing 10th July, but some weeks it went more often than this. For example here are the Great Bridge workings
for the week commencing Monday 24th July...
The picture was taken at 09.12 on Friday 14th June 1991. It's something of a grab shot, taken in a brief burst of sunshine, hence the slightly
ropey composition. On the left 08759 is shunting steel wagons into the sidings at Great Bridge, it had brought these wagons up from Wednesbury
as T22. Meantime 37905 stands at the signal with 6M40 Cardiff - Wednesbury.
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| 9T19 Great Bridge - Wednesbury | 15.32-15.34 | 08746 | Definitely just engine and brakevan only, as the signalman noted "E/BV". From this, and the swift return, we can probably deduce that the purpose of this trip was simply to take wagons to Great Bridge. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6T50? Round Oak - Lawley St | 17.07 | This train is shown as 6T50 in the register, but I think that must be a mistake. Firstly T50 didn't normally reach Wednesbury in the course of its duties (although it would do so from October 1989 when the trip diagrams were revised). More importantly there's no record of a 6T52, despite the fact that the loco went south in the normal path. This, I think, must be it. | |||||||||||||||||||
| 6T42 Brierley Hill - Bescot | 17.24-17.38 | 47102 | This train appears to have called at Wednesbury to detach wagons, but is shown as one entry in the register. Normally it would have been recorded as two entries, one for the arrival and one for the departure. | ||||||||||||||||||
| 8T19 Wednesbury - Bescot | 17.27 | 08746 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 6V70 Cliffe Vale - St Blazey | 17.32 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 8T90 Bescot - Wednesbury | 18.15 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 8T90 Wednesbury - Bescot | 18.57 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 6M12 Cardiff - Wednesbury | 18.58-19.09 | M12 was running untypically late, it normally appeared between 17.00 and 18.00. | |||||||||||||||||||
| 6M29 Taunton - Bescot | 19.21 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 6V69 Wednesbury - Cardiff | 19.49 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 6V80 Bescot - East Usk | 20.47 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 6M17 Gloucester - Bescot | 21.02 | There's no box-closing entry for Eagle Crossing, so it was presumably still open when Wednesbury closed at 21:10. I guess
this was because 6V80 ran a little late, and Eagle Crossing was still waiting for train-out-of-section from Kingswinford Jct when
Wednesbury closed.
The box was open for 15 hours and there were 29 movements. Once again an average of roughly two trains an hour, even though 6M40/6V43 and 6M51/6E29 were non-runners, and there were no engineers trips. In the event 6Z94/6Z98, the unexplained T60 and the additional T19 trips compensated for the missing trains. Of the 29 movements 5 were light engines, although once again a couple of the T19 moves were just engine and brakevan. The longest gaps between trains were the 90 minute interval between 13:05 and 14:35, and the 93 minute interval between 15.34 and 17.07. |
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