I'm sure you railway experts can answer me a couple of questions.
During the 50's on my way back to school at lunchtime an express used to roar through Witton Station and over the bridge. I was always told it was The Pines. Is this correct ? and if not, any ideas as to what it was.
At the same period we spent our family holiday (the famous "Birmingham Fortnight") at a caravan site in Goodrington in Devon through which ran the main line (single track). I assume it was the Cornishman that came tearing through twice a day (each way) but was always preceeded about half an hour before by a lone tank engine. Any ideas why this was ?
Why was it called "The Pines" ?
Before Saltley received Jubilees and Scots they normally provided one of their best black 5's for the Pines Express in both directions between Birmingham and Bath. On summer saturdays it by-passed New Street and changed engines I believe at Walsall.
stan, i used to run from birchfield rd. school with my friends at dinner time to catch the pine,s roaring thru the bridge on welhead lane, on it,s way towards witton. usually it was pulled by what we called a "blackie" but sometimes a "blackie namer" (these were quite rare being so few of this class named. however occasionally it was pulled by a "jubilee" and i can recall rare occasions by a "royal scot".I travelled on the Pines Express between Manchester and Bath or Bournemouth several times in the 1950/60s. There is also a book "Portrait of the Pines Express" by Stephen Austin published by Ian Allan, ISBN 0 7110 2624 6.
This book and my memories confirm the validity of the previous posts, however sorry but I am extremely sceptical about it ever being hauled by a B1. Longsight provide the motive power between Manchester London Road and New Street/ Walsall and I am never aware of a B1 appearing at Longsight never mind it being rostered on the Pines. If one ever did it must have come from Saltley for the Birmingham/Saltley to Bath leg but then that appears extremely unlikely.
Hope this helps.
Stan Price
john, i,m not sure where melvina rd is but the bridge we used is in wellhead lane. the rail ran behind tufnel,s factory andthe other side between george elliot,s and kynochs amunition works. we could only see by jumping the bridge side and clinging on with our heads above the parapet.as the pines approached from prry barr it passed our school, birchfield boy,s. unfortunately we couldn,t view it from the school as that location was the junior school blocks and were out of bounds to us. it wasn,t worth 6 of the best from gabby whittaker just for the convenience.i got caught in aston, vauxhall,tysely and rugby sheds,usually by the shed master but once by rail police at vauxhall.my dad wasn,t impressed by the 7/6d fine.still, it was all worth it, aston often had pacifics (morning star,north star, sir william stanier). i once got a county at tysely.We always used to sit on top of the wall waiting for the Pines express, it was about 1.30 pm, this was in what is now known as Melvina road, please correct me if I am wrong.
radiorails, i,m sorry i,m not adept at computing yet, i guess there is a way of hearing your song but didn,t laurel and hardy do it?This recent addition to the thread caused me to think of thi
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/samcooke/farawayplaces.html
I can well imagine some of the youngsters wondering what it was like where the train went to.
I chose the lyrics principally because there were too many choices of well known singers of yesteryear, both male and female: I leave anyone to 'search' for their choice if they want to hear the song again.