This site uses non-intrusive cookies to enable us to provide a better user experience for our visitors. No personal information is collected or stored from these cookies. The Society's policy is fully explained here. By continuing to use this site you are agreeing to the use of cookies.
J. R. Hollick
This paper originally appeared in the Winter, 1974 edition of the Foxfield News and our thanks go to the editor, R. A. Reed, Esq., for permission to reproduce it as an Occasional Paper.
An interesting feature of the North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) was the extent to which industrial firms worked their own trains, using their own engines, over NSR metals. There were three reasons for this:-
All signalboxes dealing with such trains had a list of the trains concerned, the locomotives permitted and enginemen and guards, who had to be passed out on the NSR rules, working them.
These arrangements were of benefit to the NSR who charged tolls or rents for the passage of these trains and were saved the cost of providing workings which might otherwise have been inconvenient. For the most part they ran during the hours of normal traffic working. Late night and early morning miners' trains presented the problems of continuous opening of signalboxes for one or two trains. This was solved by the use of travelling signalmen. I am indebted to the late T. R. Tasker, a former stationmaster at Trentham, for a description of how these workings were carried out. He, in the latter years of the NSR, was a signalman at Biddulph and, when on the night shift, worked as a travelling signalman.
For convenience a list of stations and signalboxes between Ford Green and Congleton Upper Junction is given but Mr Tasker's range of operation was the 31½ miles between Biddulph and Whitfield Colliery Sidings.
Double line working:
FORD GREEN STATION
Whitfield Colliery Sidings
BLACK BULL STATION
Heath's Junction
Single line, electric train staff:
Heath's Junction
KNYPERSLEY HALT
BIDDULPH STATION - block post
MOSSLEY HALT
Congleton Lower Junction
Congleton Upper Junction - block post
The branch from Congleton Lower Jc. to Congleton Brunswick Wharf was worked by staff and ticket, the staff being kept at Congleton Upper Jc. whence it was collected by the train crew.
Robert Heath & Sons ran a coal train at 7.10 a.m. from Heath's Jc. to Brunswick Wharf and back. Worked by their own engine, it was accompanied by a travelling signalman as far as Biddulph. On the way it served Heath's coal wharf at Bradley Green between Knypersley and Biddulph, the sidings being worked by Annett's key attached to the staff. It was an order that an extra man was to accompany or meet the train if work had to be performed at Bradley Green. The 6.30 a.m. NSR goods train from Stoke (Pratt's Sidings) to Congleton (Main Line) also carried a travelling signalman from Whitfield Colliery Sidings to Heath's Jc. The purpose of this arrangement is unknown at present. Speculation with the aid of the Working Time Table is interesting but not factual evidence, though one can work out possible reasons.
More involved was the night working of the Chatterley-Whitfield miners' train from Whitfield Colliery Sidings to Biddulph (later extended to Mossley) at the end of the afternoon shift (about 11 p.m.) and the corresponding train in the 'reverse direction for the morning shift leaving Biddulph about 5.30 a.m. The train consisted of a Chatterley-Whitfield engine and a rake of NSR fourwheeled coaches, staffed by the enginemen, a brakeman, a guard and the travelling signalman. The coaches were vacuum fitted. Apart from one engine, the Whitfield engines were not a source of periodical dissension with the NSR. Hence the provision by the Colliery Co. of a brakeman who travelled in the front brake compartment and was useful in other ways, as will be seen. These trains did not, officially at any rate, call at Knypersley, in between trains the engine, together with the engine crew on the footplate, returned to Whitfield Colliery to shunt, and then return again for the morning train.
There was no steam heating or lighting in the carriages and of course there were no pithead baths in those days. Warmth was provided by crowded unwashed humanity, reeking tobacco pipes and closed windows. Weekly tickets, the size of a normal Edmondson single card ticket, were obtained, at the cost of 2d. per week each Monday morning at Biddulph and nipped for the appropriate day and journey by the combined efforts of brakesman, guard and travelling signalman. Ticket dodging at Black Bull, where miners had to obtain their tickets from Biddulph was common; a battle of wits between miners already in the train aided by a badly lit station and the train staff who developed a technique of stopping either short or ahead of the station entrance, so that passengers had to pass either engine or rear brake to reach the doors already opened for them.
The trains were controlled by the late turn Biddulph signalman who worked from 5 p.m. Ford Green box closed at 11 p.m. Whitfield Colliery Sidings had a day shift only. Most of the colliery output went down the private line to Pinnox Sidings at Tunstall and in the daytime Whitfield Colliery Sidings dealt with a small exchange traffic with the NSR and the daily private train over the NSR between the colliery and Botteslow Wharf at Bucknall. Black Bull and Heath's Jc. boxes were closed at night.
When closing his box, the signalman at Heath's Jc. would request the Biddulph signalman to release a token for the single line section to Biddulph. He would then set the junction for the down line on to the single line and pull off the down home signal. The Biddulph signalman then closed his box, walked, cycled or "otherwise travelled" (according to Mr Tasker) to Whitfield Sidings where he opened the box. The Biddulph train loaded up in the sidings parallel with the down main line. He set the exit road from the sidings, pulled off the ground signal, and helped check tickets on the train, which then drew on to the main line, stopping there for the signalman to close the box and reset the points. Setting off again, it called at Black Bull and then stopped again on the single line clear of Heath's Jc. The signalman got off, opened the box, reversed the points and down signal and pulled off the up home signal. The train set back on to the up line. Leaving the up home signal off, the signalman locked the box and rejoined the train on the engine, proceeding thus to Biddulph where he opened the signalbox. After unloading the coaches were set back into the down siding, the box was locked up, and the signalman, with the rest of train crew, travelled on the footplate of the light engine back to Whitfield Colliery Sidings; not stopping at Heath's Jc. as the road was correctly set. Whitfield. box was reopened for the night and the engine crossed to shunt in the exchange sidings or to work trips over the private railway to Pinnox.
At 4.20 a.m. the signalman would reset the points and signal for the engine to run on to the main line, reverse the levers and close the box. He then travelled on the engine to Heath's Jc., where it stopped at the down home signal for him to open the box, reverse points and the up signal, and pull off the down signal. The engine moved over on to the single line; points and signal were reversed and the up signal pulled off, and the engine set back on to the up main. Leaving points and signal set for the up main, the signalman closed the box and rejoined the engine on its way to Biddulph where he reopened the box and, with luck, handed over to the day man; otherwise he would work the box for the shunting of the miners' coaches for the early shift into the platform until relieved. The train then left for Whitfield; by this time Heath's Jc. and Whitfield Colliery boxes had opened normally.
At Whitfield Colliery the train set down at a platform (Chell Halt) on the up main line only; as stated, they loaded up in the sidings where the coaches spent the day. When extended from Biddulph to Mossley, the train ran loaded normally to Mossley and was propelled back empty to Biddulph; and vice versa. This operation was controlled by the token for the section from Biddulph to Congleton Upper Jc.
One is tempted to wonder how the rate for such an adventurous night's work would be negotiated today.
The afternoon miners' working between Whitfield Colliery and Biddulph was in normal operating hours and no special arrangements were necessary. The train was signalled as an ordinary passenger train.
For a few months in 1912, Robert Heath & Sons ran a miners' train which required a travelling signalman. An accident at their Norton Colliery at Ford Green caused a temporary closure of the pit and as many men as possible were transferred to Victoria Colliery at Black Bull for the afternoon shift. A train of NSR coaches hauled by a Heath's engine ran from Ford Green to Heath's Jc. in the early afternoon. It returned at 11.43 p.m. from Black Bull. As Ford Green Box was closed, the opening of Whitfield Colliery Sidings box had to be extended to allow the signalman to accompany the train, having closed his box on its arrival, to Ford Green to permit the engine to stable the coaches and return light to Heath's Jc. where, presumably, the closure of the box was delayed to permit the necessary shunting. From the point of view of the NSR the cessation of the need for this train was hailed with relief as it was inevitably invaded every night, when it stopped at Whitfield Sidings, by Chatterley-Whitfield miners off the afternoon shift taking advantage of a free ride to their homes around Ford Green. On occasions the police were called in, with pugnacious results.
In conclusion the LMS, at the time when signalbox names were being affixed at each end of the box, changed the name of Heath's Jc. to Heath Jc. This did not make sense as the box controlled the junction for the line into Heath's Collieries, ironworks and engineering works. The ironworks have long been closed but the engineering works are now the property of Cowlishaw Walker & Co. Ltd. The Victoria Colliery is, of course, owned by the NCB.
The following additional Historical Notes have been kindly supplied by Dr Hollick:
Whitfield Colliery was linked to the NSR at Pinnox Junction on the Longport-Tunstall. Spur line by their private Railway, which crossed over the NSR Biddulph Valley line, by the Colliery. Until 1910 there was also a link from the Colliery to the Biddulph line at Whitfield & Chell Junction, ¾ mile north of the overbridge. In 1910 new sidings were opened on the down side of the Biddulph line immediately south of the Pinnox Railway overbridge, served by, a new Whitfield Sidings NSR box. There was a link from these sidings to the Pinnox Railway, though the greater part of the Whitfield output still went down the Pinnox Railway to the NSR at Pinnox Junction. So in 1910 the former link from the Colliery to Whitfield & Chell Junction was closed. Also in 1910 Chell Halt was opened, on the up Biddulph line only, opposite the new sidings and immediately south of the Pinnox Railway overbridge. From 1910 the Biddulph Paddy train used this platform as described. It had previously used the old line into the Colliery yard.
The Biddulph Paddy commenced on 3 November 1890 as a day service only. The night train was added in November 1898. The trains called at Knypersley from September 1916. The service ceased in 1926 after the General Strike.
Site contents Copyright © LMS Society, 2025
October 31st, 2025
Site contents Copyright © LMS Society, 2025