Wigan Album

those were the days when you could go into the sheds and climb all over the trains.
me and my mates did it regularly in the early 50s.
mind you, those were the the steam trains

i,m glad you put the photo on chris.shots like that bring back many happy memories.

Geoff: you have mentioned the need to put chocks under the wheels of the class 40's even when their hand brake was on as there is a slight slope towards the camera position at this location. Can such a chock be seen on the left rail under the left hand loco (pale object)?

hi chris,you had to use the chocks in every situation,one for each side of the wheel.the handbrakes on these loco,s were useless.i can see something light coloured under the front wheel,and it is difficult to make out but it does look like a relatively new chock.(clean wood).merry xmas!

That is indeed a wheel scotch under the class 40. Most English Electric built locos had a bad reputation as far as the poor handbrake went. I've been told a tale by one of our (now retired) Drivers at Wallgate, about a class 40 actually running away due to the handbrake not being screwed down tight enough!

you couldn't leave a 40 without being scotched as the handbrake was a joke

Absolutely correct Ste, the number of runaways we covered up to stop form ones, when there was no damage to anybody....The runaways were usually caused when somebody had buffered up to the class 40 loco with scotches underneath and the front loco had left on a job a few hours later....The 40 then rolled back onto its scotches and pushed them out of the way and then that loco followed the front loco down the shed yard as was the case when Stan Smalley's loco was seriously damaged, fortunately no injuries although shock took its toll...