Circling Witches

On 27th March 2004 Lancashire Railtours arranged a series of steam hauled trips using the ex LNER K1 2-6-0 62005.
Starting at Carnforth in the morning the route was via Lancaster, Preston, Blackburn then through Clitheroe to Hellifield and back to Carnforth. After a break of a couple of hours the K1 then repeated the same route before finishing off the day with a run down the main line to Preston and back.
Thanks to plenty of pick up points and sensible fares these trains did very well for passenger loadings and are almost certain to be repeated later in the year.
For the first circuit the train carried the name 'The Lancashire Witch' and our first lineside recording of the day was made near Gregson Lane level crossing on the climb from Bamber Bridge to Hoghton.
With 11 coaches behind the tender 62005 sounds well passing on the 1 in 99 gradient as a Class 156 diesel unit descends heading for Preston.

62005 was booked to stop for water at Cherry Tree before stopping again to pick up passengers at Blackburn and this gave us plenty of time to get to Clitheroe and find a suitable spot near Horrocksford Jc. where the short line to the nearby cement works, audible away to the left, branches off.
The train stopped to pick up more passengers at Clitheroe and could be heard departing. However, the signalman in Horrocksford Jc. signal box has a message for the driver and the K1 had to stop at the box.
Once the signal man has passed on his message, Frank Santrian once a driver at Crewe, now working for the West Coast Railway Co. who provided the stock and train crew, soon has 62005 on the move again on the rising gradient. The K1 slips dramatically on the pointwork but this is quickly controlled and the train is soon accelerating towards it's next stop at Hellifield.
You can hear the complete recording on the steamsounds volume 3 audio CD, details here.

The train was booked to pick up passengers at Hellifeld an as this was another water stop for 62005 we had time once again to get ahead for another recording.
Going back some years one of the favoured locations for lineside recordings was Giggleswick Bank. More recently a by-pass road has been built alongside the line here to take traffic on the busy A65 road away from Settle and this has rather spoiled the location for sound recording.
Despite this we thought that we would give it a try and, as you can hear, the result, despite some traffic noise, isn't too bad.
I wish I had some recordings here form the days before the by-pass was built. Without the road noise it would have been a tremendous location but, back in those days, I was almost always riding on the trains!

On the second circuit the train now carried the name 'The Pendle Witch' and our first recording was at Lancaster. We had hoped to find a suitable location on the 1 in 98 gradient away from the station but ended up in the small car park, not an ideal location, but the best we could find in the time available.
As the recording begins 62005 is standing in platform 3 ready to depart and as the train gets the 'right away' the safety valves have lifted.
As the K1 begins to climb the gradient one of Virgin Trains new tilting Pendolinos passes with a northbound West Coast service.

An extended stop at Preston where 62005 took water once again enabled us to get back to the field near Gregson Lane level crossing where we had started in the morning.
This time the K1 was being driven somewhat harder and is heard making a fine sound climbing the 1 in 99 gradient before passing heading for the top of the climb not far away.

There was no water stop for 62005 at Cherry Tree this time but with stops at Blackburn, Clitheroe and Hellifield, the later being a water stop, we had plenty of time to get to Giggleswick again.
This time we went to a spot right at the top of the climb where we hoped that the noise from the by-pass, much further away here, would be less.
As the K1 passes and accelerates rapidly on the equally steep falling gradient the trains passage sounds to have disturbed a Curlew perhaps not used to having noisy steam engines passing!