Blyth Cambois TMD

Blyth Cambois TMD was a Traction Maintenance Depot located in Blyth, Northumberland, England. The depot was situated on the west side of the branch line from Bedlington Junction to Blyth Docks.[3]

Blyth Cambois TMD
Location
LocationBlyth, Northumberland
Coordinates55.1513°N 1.5255°W / 55.1513; -1.5255
OS gridNZ303841
Characteristics
Owner(s)British Rail
Depot code(s)BL (1973-1994)[1]
TypeDiesel
History
Opened1968
ClosedSeptember 1994[2]

The depot code, under TOPS, was BL.[4]

History

Coal had been exported from the south side of the River Blyth since before the arrival of the railways in 1845,[5] and had reached over 6,000,000 tonnes (6,600,000 tons) by 1963.[6] The pattern of trains feeding the coal staithes at Blyth from the around the North East required many steam locomotives to enable this operation to happen.[7]

A diesel depot was built and opened in Blyth in 1968; it replaced earlier steam shed at Percy Main, North Blyth and South Blyth, which were all traditional steam sheds.[8][9] Although diesel locomotives had been around since the late 1950s/early 1960s, with the drawdown of steam power on British railways, the steam sheds were closed in favour of a new shed, Cambois pronounced cammers),[6] which was a one mile (1.6 km) to the north.[10] Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, class 20s and class 37s were the staple motive power in the depot, but by 1981, Class 56 locomotives were the standard motive power.[10]

By the middle of the 1980s, nine class 56s and one class 08 shunter were required to service the twenty train diagrams worked per day.[11] However, the effects of the miners' strike and the mass closure of the collieries in the north east in the early 1990s took their toll on the traffic to and from Blyth. By 1987, Blyth was a sub-shed of Toton in Nottinghamshire, but was able to undertake simple examinations on locomotives rather than having to send them elsewhere for maintenance purposes.[12]

The depot was closed in 1994, when Loadhaul, the freight company operating in the area, concentrated their crew signing on point and TMD (Traction Maintenance Depot) at Tyne Yard, south of Newcastle. The shed at Sunderland Dock closed too.[13] The depot building was demolished between 2006 and 2010.[12]

References
  1. "The all-time guide to UK Shed and Depot Codes" (PDF). TheRailwayCentre.com. 5 May 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  2. "Blyth Cambois TMD final day September 1994". British Railways.tv. Archived from the original on 26 November 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  3. Webster, Greengrass & Greaves 1987, p. 12
  4. "TOPS Depot Codes". www.railwaycodes.org.uk. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  5. Tomlinson, William Weaver (1915). The North Eastern Railway; its rise and development. Newcastle: A Reid. p. 479. OCLC 8890833.
  6. "Blyth and tyne branch". infoweb.newsbank.com. 3 February 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  7. Fisher 2020, p. 58.
  8. "Disused Stations:Ashington Station". disused-stations.org.uk. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  9. Hoole, Ken (1986). The North East (3 ed.). Newton Abbot: David St John Thomas. p. 214. ISBN 0-946537-31-3.
  10. Fisher 2020, p. 61.
  11. Fisher 2020, pp. 61–62.
  12. Fisher 2020, p. 62.
  13. Devereux, Nigel (20 January 2017). "'Grid' pattern working". railexpress.co.uk. Retrieved 2 March 2020.

Sources
  • Webster, Neil; Greengrass, Robert; Greaves, Simon (1987). British Rail Depot Directory. Metro Enterprises Ltd. ISBN 9780947773076. OCLC 20420397.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Fisher, Alex (February 2020). "Blyth Cambois Depot". Railways Illustrated. Vol. 18 no. 2. Stamford: Key Publishing. ISSN 1479-2230.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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