On Parallel Lines

Four track main lines always have an added attraction. Not only do they signify an important and busy route but they offer the possibility of watching trains at speed running alongside your own. I’m sure it must have happened a lot in my early train spotting days, for example when passing freight trains around Rock Ferry on the line from Birkenhead to Chester, or where the ex-GWR and ex-LMS main lines ran alongside each other for the first few miles west out of Chester.

The two stand-out moments for me, however, were further from home. After Church Fenton on our way to York, our train from Liverpool ran alongside A3 Class Pacific No. 60036 Colombo, running light engine. That was a stunning sight as we inched past her, providing great views of the motion of a thoroughbred, just stretching her muscles lightly on her way back to base.

On the last day of our family holiday in 1964, we left Bristol Temple Meads at the same time as another summer Saturday departure for the north, which was headed by Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 No.92000. The photo I took of her backing onto the stock in the adjacent platform is my only surviving example from the two weeks spent away from home. If I had to choose between money to get somewhere or money to spend on films and developing them, then photography often had to come second.

92000 was suffering from a serious attack of lime scale, it seems. Nevertheless, she offered us fine sights and sounds as both trains threaded their way through the Bristol suburbs, before our Warship diesel-hauled express gradually accelerated away from her.