The J94s – Our Easterns

The 75 J94 saddle tanks were designed by Riddles and built by the Hunslet Engine Company. They were War Department Austerity locomotives, which the LNER bought in 1946. They had a 4F power classification under BR. All had been withdrawn from BR service by 1967, with some being sold on to the National Coal Board and 2 surviving into preservation – Nos. 68077 and 68078.

The first engines I recorded that started with a number 6 were the three J94s that resided at Bidston sheds. In fact, they were the only Eastern locomotives shedded anywhere on Merseyside in 1960/1. They were very familiar engines to us, as we could often see them from the electric trains between New Brighton and Liverpool. At the time, I had no idea what they were doing at Bidston except that as strong tank engines with a short wheelbase they were suitable for dock working. The historical connections with the old Great Central Railway were not of any immediate interest to me then.

We could also see them pottering about on the dock road from the top deck of the numbers 10 and 11 buses that ran over the bridges between Wallasey and Birkenhead and when using the footbridge over the lines next to Bidston station during cross-country runs from school. Cross country was what you had to do on a Wednesday afternoon if you wanted to avoid playing rugby. The specified route took us from the rugby club changing rooms in the grounds of St George’s School on Leasowe Road across Bidston Moss, where the M53 motorway now flies over the original landscape on a viaduct, as far as the top of Bidston Hill and back. It was a rather bleak and undeveloped area at that time and the railway, with its comparatively remote station, junctions, sidings and the sheds [6F] in this low and boggy part of the Wirral, was the predominant user of the land.

Bidston sheds had been a haunt for John Dyer for a few years before I first visited it by bike, taking the tracks that followed the railway line over the moss. His photos of the 3 Class J94s, Nos 68063, 68065 and 68066, were all taken either at Bidston station, on shed, or at Birkenhead docks. Bidston closed in 1963 and its allocation went to Birkenhead Mollington Street [6C then 8H], though our 3 J94s had all been withdrawn during the previous year.