On Friday 24 April I went to a talk by Alan Clothier, Traction
Superintendant (or some such title, and covering a huge area, so quite senior), at the Stephenson Locomotive Society in Newcastle.
He went over many interesting things, one thing that was powerfully
driven home was how much the railways have shrunk over the years.
But what struck me was his story of de-electrifying the Tyneside
services. The Tyneside electrics were running OK, Clothier saw no need
to replace them. But his boss insisted on replacing them with
redundant DMUs from closed lines in the south and so it was done.
"Why" was not discussed. Maybe BR didn't want to be criticised in the
press for scrapping or "storing" fairly new DMUs, and it won't be the
only time that a public body has done the wrong thing for fear of
press criticism. But anyway, we have it from someone who was there at
the time and in a position to know that the Tyneside Electrics were
not got rid of because they were "life-expired".
(Remember, the DMUs of that time were also not maintenance-free)
In later discussion in the newsgroup uk.railway it was agreed that the rolling stock was in serviceable condition, indeed some of it was taken south to be used there, but it was argued that the power supply equipment was old and would need expensive replacement (but all railway equipment has a life of about 30 years, to spend money on renewals is part of the costs of staying in business) and that traffic on routes, north and south of the Tyne was falling off due to car competition, but the normal timetable never fell below three trains/hr, and there are plenty of 3rd rail electified routes in the south with 2 or fewer.
Michael Bell
