AS older readers will often relate – and some younger readers may get bored of hearing! – there was a time when you could see literally scores of locos at work during the course of a day, even into the 1970s and 80s after steam had been phased out. Multiple units were mainly confined to shorter routes, meaning locos were in charge of most medium and long-distance passenger trains, while freight activity was intensive – especially in areas of heavy industry where coal, steel and chemicals were the main types of traffic.
Nowadays, however, loco-hauled trains can be a rarity in many areas and you can often go on fairly long journeys with little hope of seeing one. But there are some still centre of activity for both freight and passenger trains worked either by locos or High Speed Train power cars (which we will consider as locos for the purposes of this survey). So, is there anywhere you can see 50 loco movements during a 12-hour spotting marathon?
For our survey, we used 08.00-20.00 on Tuesday, June 14, 2022 – which was in the week before the first rail strikes. Information was collated using the excellent Realtime Trains website (www.realtimetrains. co.uk); double-headers count as two locos, as do HST-powered trains; and passenger trains are only counted once regardless of how many times they might pass through a particular location.
Disappointments
There were some major disappointments in the survey, especially when reflecting on locations in their heyday. Warrington Bank Quay, for example, produced only 20 loco movements – and that is counting double-headed trains powered by Freightliner or DB Cargo Class 90s. The loss of coal trains to Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station means hardly any traffic now uses the low level line passing under Bank Quay, but at least there is variety with Classes 60 and 88, as well as ‘90s’ and the ubiquitous
