Rare Cornish china clay ‘Grid’

AS a student, and photographer of Cornish Railways for over five decades, information came to hand that a Class 56 was going to be trialled on Cornish china clay workings. The idea was for a single Class 56 to perform the tasks then undertaken by pairs of Class 37s, especially the ‘Silver Bullet’ train of china clay slurry contained in bogie tankers, which ran from English China Clay’s Burngullow site in Cornwall to the Caledonian Paper Company in Irvine, Scotland.

This occasioned a somewhat eccentric overnight drive from West Sussex to Lostwithiel to photograph this unique event. Arrival at Lostwithiel was before 07.00 and, sure enough after a short wait, coal sector-liveried No. 56013 entered the down goods loop at 07.05 heading 11 CDA wagons that it had hauled from Tavistock Junction, east of Plymouth. Attached is the only photograph I have ever seen of the working.

The train would have continued into ‘clay country’, but drama was afoot when the Class 47 heading the overnight sleepers from Paddington to Penzance failed on the climb to Treverrin Tunnel (south-west of Losthwithiel). The Class 56 was detached from the CDAs to provide rear-end assistance to the sleepers to Par, where it then ran round, and a dash to St Austell saw the unique formation departing from the station.

The Class 56 later ran light engine to Burngullow where it traversed the Drinnick Mill freight-only branch line to Parkandillick, and also running down to Nanpean Wharf before returning to Devon.

The event was an interesting experiment, but it never resulted in Class 56 usage on Cornish china clay traffic.

John Vaughan, by email