The Fish

At our monthly railway club meeting in Southwell last week, the legendary fish trains were mentioned in passing, yet again. I grew up in almost complete ignorance of the fish trains, but over here in the East Midlands they have become part of the local folklore.

Firstly - though unsurprisingly - the fish trains stank of fish and they announced their passing in that way throughout their journey. Secondly, the fish trains had some interesting locomotive haulage, especially over some lines in Nottinghamshire that were generally occupied by [arguably] more mundane types of power.

The daily Grimsby to South Wales fish trains passed through the county using the Great Central route from Lincoln to Mansfield and on to Nottingham Victoria. They were hauled in the 1950s by ex-LNER classes such as the K2, K3 and B1s and in the early 1960s by Immingham-based Britannia Pacifics. We were doing our spotting on Merseyside at that time and so the “Eastern” Brits were like gold dust to us, though we caught up with them eventually as they moved westwards towards the end of their, all too short, working lives.  

To my knowledge, the fish trains never brought that particular commodity to Southwell directly. Today, the fish is brought to town by Vincent Fowler, a mobile fishmonger who is based in Mapperley, a northern suburb of Nottingham, and who trades under the name of Vincent van Cod.

Britannia Class No. 70040 Clive of India, with a painted-on replacement nameplate, at Carlisle Kingmoor sheds on 24/3/67. She had been transferred from Norwich Thorpe to Immingham in 1961 after the dieselisation of the Norwich to London Liverpool Street expresses, and she would no doubt have found herself at the head of a fish train or two thereafter. She was stone cold and had no noticeable odour about her at all when we came across her at Kingmoor, and she was officially withdrawn from service the following month.