"So post 1975, the 45/1s only had a skeleton presence on the Lickey, while the 45/0s and 46s took care of nearly all ‘Peak’-hauled cross-country runs."
They might seem like a primitive form of power today, but the ‘Peaks’ once represented the cutting edge of rail traction on the Cheltenham to Birmingham New Street line. Indeed, it was a ‘Peak’ whose awesome tractive effort first proved it possible to eliminate banking for northbound passenger trains on the Lickey Incline. Class 45 No. D40’s experimental, heavily-loaded assaults on the 1 in 37 back in 1961, were what persuaded BR that bankers (at the time still steam) could actually be used selectively, rather than religiously.
And the ‘Peaks’ never looked back. Twenty-odd years later they were still single-handedly wrenching rakes of twelve or more up the gruelling gradient without complaint. In this info-pictorial I’m recalling the irrepressible 16-wheeled monsters in the latter phase of their heyday between Birmingham New Street, Cheltenham Spa and Gloucester.
INTENSITY OF USE
On Mayday Bank Holiday, 4th May 1981, 46046 stands at Cheltenham Spa with the traditional steam-heated stock which had been familiar on the line for decades. The Mk.1-heavy regime was very much on its last legs at the time, and later that year, the upgrade to Mk.II air con stock would commence alongside some tentative introduction of HSTs. Class 46 withdrawals were already in motion.
Over the years, all ‘Peak’ variants saw use between Birmingham and Cheltenham. As late as 1980, the ‘Peaks’ as a general breed were still the most commonly observed loco type on the Lickey Incline, with a dominant grip on what we’d now describe as CrossCountry passenger traffic, as well as some freight. The Class 47s were also a very common sight, but not quite as common as the ‘Peaks’.
As the ‘eighties dawned, cross-country services were still predominantly steam-heated. Relative to the location covered in this article, such services included North East-South West traffic, and North West-South West ‘inter-regionals’ (as they were then often labelled) with electric haulage to New Street, and then a switch to diesel power.
- The trend with NE-SW trains was for ‘Peak’-haulage throughout. Example service, the 14:32 Leeds – Plymouth.
- The inter-regionals might employ an electric to Birmingham, a ‘Peak’ from Birmingham to Gloucester, then a WR loco such as a Class 50 down to Devon or Cornwall. Example service, the 09:20 Liverpool – Penzance.
- The odd one or two Devon-bound trains were Class 50-hauled from New Street. Example service, the 10:23 Manchester – Plymouth, which did not stop at Gloucester. The use of 50s from New Street, rather than Gloucester, increased as the 46s and 45/0s were phased out through the first half of the ‘eighties.
- Inter-regionals bound for South Wales might employ a ‘Peak’ from New Street to journey’s end. Example service, the 08:30 Manchester – Swansea.
Getting started as the southbound signal clears at Longbridge, 45001 is seen in a typical steam-heat era setting. The 45 is working a late-running Sundays only 12:30 Newcastle - Plymouth. The Class 116 unit is still in unrefurbished condition, with 'hard' compartments and no corridors.
Class 47s could appear in place of ‘Peaks’ – on some trains more than others. And sub-Type 4 locos – such as 31s or 37s – could also appear when Type 4 power was in short supply.
It should further be noted that Plymouth Laira depot had a substantial allocation of Class 46s until 1980, so in the 1970s the broad category of “WR loco” could still mean a ‘Peak’. A Mk.1 consist like the 08:15 Birmingham - Plymouth might, for example, get a Toton 45 from New Street to Gloucester, and then a Laira 46 from Gloucester to Plymouth.
But this had not always been the case. Deep back in the hydraulic era of the mid 'sixties, there were no 'Peaks' based in the West Country, and they would, pretty much on pain of death, be removed from westbound expresses at Bristol.
AT WHICH DEPOTS WERE THE ‘PEAKS’ BASED?
The ‘Peaks’ operated off quite a few different depots over the years. This did, to an extent, influence which services they might haul, but the relationship between depot allocation and service assignment was not particularly strict.
The Class 44s spent almost all their lives based at Toton (Notts) as freight-only diesels. Beyond the very first phase of their existence in the early 1960s, they were phenomenally rare on passenger trains. They did appear on the Birmingham – Cheltenham line up until the mid 1970s, most synonymously with freight bound for Severn Tunnel Junction. But by the late ’70s, their workings were a lot more heavily restricted to the East/North Midlands, so the chances of seeing one on the Lickey were, to all intents and purposes, nil.
In the twilight phase of its life, and minus its nameplates, 45006 'Honourable Artillery Company' tackles the Lickey Incline with Mk.1 stock in October 1984. By '84, a 45/0 hauling Mk.1s was very much a target for enthusiasts.
The Class 45/0s had a range of bases over time, including Derby, Toton (Notts), Bath Road (Bristol), Holbeck (Leeds), Tinsley (Sheffield), York, and Cricklewood (North London). By the late 1970s they were distributed between Tinsley, Toton, York and Cricklewood. The York examples had been shared between Toton and Tinsley by the early 1980s, and by the middle of that decade the surviving machines were all based at Toton.
The depot allocations did have some bearing on the 45/0s’ duties, but certainly in their later lives there was a very large amount of ‘diagram leakage’, so to speak. In 1980 you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a Cricklewood 45/0 on a Cardiff – Newcastle train, for instance. Indeed, by then it was impossible to predict whether some steam-heat ‘Peak’ turns would produce a 45/0 or a 46 – never mind the depot allocation. There was often a sense that the 45/0s and 46s were operating as one giant pool of steam-heat ‘Peaks’.
The glaring exceptions to this in the mid ’70s to early ’80s period were the four Class 45/0s with isolated steam heating boilers. Namely, 45004 Royal Irish Fusilier, 45045 Coldstream Guardsman, 45068, and 45072. All of these locos bar 45045 were based at Toton. 45045 was based at Cricklewood. Specifically reserved for freight duties, the four ‘isolated’ 45s were notoriously difficult propositions for haulage fans.
As the 1980s progressed and steam-heated passenger trains heavily diminished, a lot more 45/0s had their boilers isolated. By late 1985, 22 of the 33 remaining 45/0s had isolated boilers. But the practice of isolating a larger volume of Class 45 steam boilers was not new. There had been an even bigger pool of ‘isolated’, freight-only 45s in the late 1960s.
Still sporting split headcode panels in 1982, 45128 speeds through Worcestershire towards the Lickey ascent.
The 45/1s came into being when fifty Class 45s had their steam boilers ditched completely and replaced with electric train heating equipment. The conversion programme coincided perfectly with the TOPS renumbering scheme of the early to mid 1970s – the first 45/1 having emerged in April 1973. Before this, no ‘Peaks’ had possessed electric train heating. The initial allocations for the 45/1s were Toton, Cricklewood and Holbeck, but they were all based at Toton by the second half of the ‘seventies. This only changed very late on in their lives, when they moved to Tinsley for use on the Trans-Pennine route.
The intention was always to use the 45/1s on the Midland main line, but they were not initially a necessity on services out of St Pancras, and therefore they did a lot of roaming elsewhere. Including the line between Birmingham and Cheltenham. This changed forward from 1975, when MML services progressively switched to air-conditioned coaching stock, which demanded ETH motive power. After said stock ‘upgrade’, Class 45/0 and 46 could not interchange onto a typical MML duty because they couldn’t provide a compatible train supply.
So post 1975, the 45/1s – now essentially “locked in” to MML ops – only had a skeleton presence on the Lickey, while the 45/0s and 46s took care of nearly all ‘Peak’-hauled cross-country runs. This situation persisted until autumn 1981, when the NE-SW route began a staged adoption of air-con stock. By the second stage of the NE-SW ‘upgrade’ in May 1982, the 45/1s held a sizeable share of the 'Peak'-hauled traffic between Birmingham and Cheltenham. The downside was that by then, the HSTs had significantly reduced the total number of 'Peak'-hauled expresses, and steam heat 'Peaks' were a minority component in the whole.
The Class 45/1s were intended for use out of St Pancras, and between 1975 and 1981 were held on a pretty tight leash by the Midland main line.
Trains that could produce 45/1s between Birmingham and Cheltenham during the barren 1975 to 1981 period included…
- 06:02 Sheffield – Cardiff / 17:45 Cardiff – Sheffield. This was a rock-solid 45/1 turn, hauling air-con stock, even before the 1980s. The entire consist was sourced from the Midland main line.
- 21:30 Bristol – Glasgow. Not predictably a ‘Peak’ duty. The Bristol to Birmingham leg could also be a 47 or a 50. But if this service was a ‘Peak’ out of Bristol, it would likely be a 45/1. The train was a sleeper with a very heavy load, and thus would routinely be banked on the Lickey. It was one of the most spectacular uses of a ‘Peak’ on the Lickey Incline.
- 09:50 Edinburgh – Plymouth. Once again, unusual in its use of air-con stock on a NE-SW run before the 1980s. The train ran via the ECML to York, and was booked for a ‘Deltic’ on its first leg. Motive power was most commonly a 47 forward from York, but the coaching stock dictated use of an ETH loco, so if it did get a ‘Peak’, it would have to be a 45/1. This train was also famously used for running ex-works Class 50s from York back to the West Country, after release from BREL Doncaster.
One of two front-end designs remaining on the Class 46 at the tail end of the steam heat era - a one-piece 'domino' headcode panel.
Through the middle of the 1970s, the Class 46s were shared between Laira (Pymouth), Bath Road (Bristol) and Gateshead (Newcastle) depots. By 1978 the Bath Road locos had moved to Laira. Staged withdrawal began in 1980, and by spring 1981 all surviving class members except 46010 (LA) were Gateshead-based. 46010 then relocated from Laira to Gateshead, giving the North East depot full possession of the class.
As mentioned in relation to the 45/0s, all of the steam-heat ‘Peaks’ were basically interchangeable by the late 1970s. As a good citation for that, in haulage guide To The Last Drop, circa 1979, the 14:36 Paignton – Leeds had its booked traction listed as: “45/46”. Most other ‘Peak’ duties listed in ‘bashes’ had the same denotation, although they didn’t traverse the Cheltenham to Birmingham line. Remember, the 45s and 46s were not only different classes – they also had different geographical bases. So the scheduling was clearly observing collective “pool” dynamics.
EXTERNAL DESIGN DIFFERENCES
One of the reasons the ‘Peaks’ remained such an interesting breed for enthusiasts, was that even going into the 1980s, they managed to cling onto a wealth of external design differences.
All Class 44s originally had disc headcode displays, with corridor access doors on the nose front. But 44009 later received a new nose front at its No.1 end, with a centrally-placed, one-piece, numerical headcode panel. 44009 and 44010 also had restyled bodyside vents, which were manufactured to a US design and were very different from those on all other ‘Peaks’.
The original headcode panel design for the Class 45 - wide split boxes. This is Blackwell at the top of the Lickey bank.
The first Class 45s to be built were fitted with wide-spaced split numerical headcode boxes. They were designed this way because of the perceived need to accommodate corridor access doors in the centre of the nose. However, cab front corridors were dying out as building commenced, so the doors themselves only appeared on the first handful of Class 45s. Classic OPC book The Power of the Peaks has early photos of D11 (the first one) and D15 with nose-front doors.
Wide-spaced boxes out-survived the doors, though, and were originally fitted to locos D11 to D30, and D68 to D107. The rest of the 45s – D31 to D67, and D108 to D137, were delivered with centrally-placed split headcode panels.
However, as part of a refurb programme beginning in 1967, a substantial range of 45s had their split headcodes replaced with one-piece, four-character central displays. So by the early 1970s, Class 45s could have either wide split, central split, or central one-piece headcode displays.
Over half of the 46s were built with a central split headcode display. Later examples had a one-piece four-character display from new. In similar fashion to the refurbished 45s, the Class 46s which had split headcodes from new were subsequently updated with one-piece displays. The update programme for the 46s began earlier than that for the 45s, and unlike their elder sisters, no 46s retained split headcodes in the 1970s.
When headcode displays were abandoned in the mid 1970s, Derby works began to fit 45s and 46s with “re-skinned” front ends, which had marker lights directly set into the metal. A minority of ‘Peaks’ were never updated with the marker lights, and retained their redundant ‘domino dot’ headcode panels until withdrawal.
The "re-skinned" style of front end, with marker lights set straight into the metal nose face.
In 1980, the 45s in use on the Birmingham to Cheltenham line could have any of four basic front end designs. Marker lights, wide-split boxes with domino dots, central split headcode panel with domino dots, or one-piece central panel with domino dots. The 46s in use on the line would have either marker lights, or a one-piece central headcode panel with domino dots.
Other detail differences included the orange, bufferside ETH jumper heads, which only appeared on the 45/1s. And there was a small grille on the lower bodyside, which all 46s had, but which was plated over on the majority of 45s. All Class 45s had started life without the grille, and its presence on class members in the 1970s and beyond was a result of refurb work in the late 1960s. To uniquely differentiate a 45 from a 46 with 100% success, you’d look at the battery boxes, which were cross-groove decorated on the former, but not on the latter.
UNUSUAL PASSENGER TURNS (LATE 1970s)
45115, seen just south of Northfield, working the 09:50 Edinburgh - Plymouth in 1981.
It wouldn't be right to conclude without mention of the following two unusual services, which generated heightened interest among 'Peak' fans in the late 1970s...
06:55 Gloucester – Leeds. Highly unusual in that it served as a local, nearly-all-stations service between Worcester and Birmingham New Street. It essentially slotted into the Cross-City timetable as the 08:10 ex-Longbridge. The loco came off Bath Road on a Monday and so would routinely be a Class 47. But Tuesday to Friday it was most typically a ‘Peak’ off Gloucester depot on a ‘kick-out’ basis. With a light Mk.1 stock load, the train was no great challenge for a single 31 (arguably with the exception of its station stop at Bromsgrove and standing start for the Lickey), and the EE Type 2s did frequently deputise for the more common power of Class 45/0 or Class 46. Classes 37 and 40 also appeared on occasion. From 1980, the train terminated at Birmingham, but motive power remained similar.
15:15 Plymouth – Manchester. This hotly-monitored train was not specifically a ‘Peak’ duty, but its motive power between Gloucester and Birmingham came off a freight working. The service was best known for producing Type 1s and Type 2s on that section of its journey, but on several occasions it employed one of the isolated boiler Class 45/0s which were so difficult for haulage fans to bag on other services.
Class 46 No. 46011 (left) compared alongside Class 45 No. 45126. Only the 45/1s received high-power headlights on the nose front.
FINAL WORD
Although the 'Peaks' were very similar in engine design to the Class 47s, they had a very much more favourable reputation among enthusiasts, and drivers were reassured by their rocksteady handling of challenging loads. And as an observer at the lineside, you got something from a big, heavyweight 45 with power at full and that characteristic drone raging beneath the hiss and thunder of its 12LDA28B, that you just didn't get during the later era of the Class 47/8. The 'Peaks' looked authoritative, and slogged their way through adversity with a minimum of fuss. As a railwayman hinted to me on Twitter, their reliability was no small tribute to the people who maintained them. But it was also rooted in their design. They've been greatly missed since their demise in the 1980s.