Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: Black 5

Any colour as long as it's Black! Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 Alderman AE Draper arrives in Quorn & Woodhouse station with the 14.00 service to Leicester North. The model T Ford was built in 1924 only 13 years before 45305! HFF to everyone & have a great weekend.

I was asked "..Is your loco as highly polished?". Here's the answer! Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 is coming round on shed. We had signed on to prepare Black 5 45305 for its one trip of the day on the 13.20 diner so had plenty of time.

On a grey rainy day, Black 5 4-6-0 45305 in the Down Through Siding blasts up the 1 in 37 with the returning 14.43 Polar Express to Birmingham Moor Street station. In the right background GWR Castle 4-6-0 Clun Castle is being prepped on the ex-GWR shed for its mainline run to York the following day. HFF and have a good weekend.

Photo by Ken Baker and posted with his permission. Ken has caught me nonchalantly leaning out of the cab of Black 5 4-6-0 45110 double-heading a freight train with 8F 2-8-0 48305 at the GCR's Autumn Gala last year. A perfect example of the Great Central's motto: "Recreating the Experience" on the double track main line at Kinchley Lane. A black and white image is particularly fitting and 45110 had not been cleaned for some time so had a real 1960's look to it. We had both goods rakes behind us for a total of 22 wagons and 4 brakes, I think. A Black 5 or 8F could have handled the train alone but for the spectacle it was double-headed. At Loughborough 48305 let us do the pulling out of the Up through siding which was quite a sight. We briefly slipped, controlled quickly by Dave my driver, but the plume of steam & smoke would have made a fine shot for any lucky photographer on Beeches Road bridge. 45110 was visiting from the Severn Valley Railway and of course, with GCR resident 70013, pulled the very last British Railways steam train on 11th August 1968. The Black 5 actually hauled the final leg back into Liverpool Lime Street so was THE last locomotive on a BR passenger train.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 heads for Quorn in the mist with the 11.20 service to Leicester North. We were trackside as part of the MIC Detonator demonstation. We had arrived on the fireman's training train behind 78018 earlier & run over our dets on the Up line. We had then detrained and were waiting for 78018's return to do the same on the Down.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 heads across Swithland reservoir with the 11.15 service to Leicester North.

Totally rebuilt since this view Manchester Victoria station was an impressive place in 1968. British Railways steam finished in the Manchester area at the end of June 1968 and Black 5 4-6-0 45076, seen here in the banker's road, was sent to the scrapyard.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 in Quorn & Woodhouse station with the 12.15 Loughborough to Leicester North mid-week service.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 44984 returns to Loughborough as train 1B01 at 09.20. It's 50 years to the day that the Great Central route to London Marylebone was severed south of Rugby and the Last Main Line was no longer a main line. The present-day GCR is marking the anniversary by running a timetable as close to that of 3rd September 1966 as possible.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45407 heads out of Fort William with the 10.15 Jacobite service to Mallaig.

LMS Black 5 4-6-0 45428 "Eric Treacy" under the splendid new trainshed roof at Pickering. 45428 is coming off its stock and running round to head the 12.00 service to Whitby.

Preston station & the signals are pulled off for Black 5 4-6-0 45212 heading north with a very short freight train. A gaggle of people on the platform are, myself included, taking in a sight very soon to disappear forever on British Railways. 45212 went on to pull BR's penultimate passenger train three days later from Preston to Liverpool & following the end of steam on British Railways was preserved on the Keighley & Worth Railway later working on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. In February 2016 it was in the last stages of a full overhaul at Riley's in Bury.

Wreathed in steam from the safety valves Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 heads south from Woodthorpe bridge with a service for Leicester.

Mick is at the controls of Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 as it passes the foot crossing at Birstall with the 12.15 from Loughborough on the single line section to Leicester North. This was the last mid-week daily service of the season.

Black 5 4-6-0 45420 bursts from under Cheetham Hill Road overbridge at the east end of Manchester Victoria station drawing a parcels train from platform 4 while acting as station pilot. I only just managed to see and photograph the fag end of British Railways steam in the northwest before it all went in August 1968.

Les & Pete wait on signals at Loughborough station on Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305.

Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 - the fireman's friend.