More on Bristol captions
George Heiron's wonderful photograph of Bristol Temple Meads (Steam World 439) was almost certainly taken on a Summer Saturday (the express locomotives all carrying reporting numbers) and in the early 1950s (the ‘King’ still has a single chimney). It is also a reminder of how easy it was for trains to get delayed then.
Train 815 was the 6.55am from Wolverhampton (Low Level) to Paignton that was due to arrive in Exeter at 12.17pm. In 1952, I saw it on nine of the times it ran. On seven, it had a ‘Hall’ 4-6-0, Nos. 4964, 5931/83. 6923/30/94, and 7901 appearing. On July 19, ‘Castle’ No. 5008 Raglan Castle was in charge and on September 6 it was ‘Grange’ 4-6-0 No. 6854 Roundhill Grange.
Train 130 was the 7.30am Paddington to Plymouth via Bristol that ran on every weekday during the year. Locomotives were changed at Bristol with a Bath Road ‘Castle’ working forward to Plymouth, returning to Bristol with the 4.25pm Plymouththe right of George's photograph was waiting to work train 107 forward. I also saw this train on nine Summer Saturdays in 1952 and it had a wide variety of locomotives: ‘County’ 4-6-0 No. 1012, ‘Castles’ Nos. 5003/59 and 7011,’ Halls’ Nos. 5922, 6900/25/57 and a solitary’ Grange’, No. 6863 .
