Station Name: YARMOUTH SOUTH TOWN

 

[Source: Darren Kitson]



Complete with side skirts and cowcatchers (or 'pilots' in the USA), here is Drewry Class 04 No.D2212 stabled at Yarmouth Vauxhall on 2 May 1970. She is beneath the trainshed but at a non-platform road on the west side of the station, being photographed from Platform 4. Her purpose at Yarmouth was yard shunting, locomotive release and the quayside tramway but by 1970 her duties were shared with non-skirted members of Class 03 including on the tramway. She is coupled to a Conflat 'runner' used to ensure operation of track circuits and has a BR data sticker on her cabside, these being introduced sometime during the second half of the 1960s. As mentioned in the Yarmouth South Town text, it is regretful that at the time of writing no photographs of diesel shunters at South Town had come to light. This view, however, goes a little way towards remedying the situation as D2212 had been allocated to South Town briefly in 1957 and then from 1958 until 1962. Together with Hunslet D2571 she actually outlived South Town shed, D2212 being transferred to Norwich Thorpe in July 1962 with D2571 moving to Speke, Liverpool. By the time of this photograph, all shunters at Yarmouth were outstationed from Norwich. The quayside tramway was reduced in stature sometime in 1970 with withdrawal of coal traffic from White Swan yard with the remaining section, Vauxhall to Fish Wharf, continuing in use increasingly infrequently until, it is thought, 1973. Most of the tramway's rails were removed during 1985. There is often a misunderstanding concerning products of the Drewry Car Co. Drewry actually constructed very little, if anything, and merely acted as procurement agents. Construction of what became BR Class 04 was split between Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns with D2212 being Vulcan Foundry works number (w/n) D244 of 1954. Products procured through Drewry also carried that company's works number which in this case was 2510. New to traffic as BR No.11113 in October 1954, she spent her entire life in East Anglia being allocated new to Parkeston (Harwich). Renumbered to D2212 in January 1959, she was one of two of the batch fitted with cowcatchers and skirts, the other being No.11111/D2210 (The locomotives skirted for the Wisbech & Upwell Tramway were from an earlier batch which differed in other details). There was a curious anomaly with the numbering of what became Class 04. The last two digits of the 1948 five digit numbers should have corresponded to the last two digits of the later D22xx series numbers. Whilst Nos.11100 - 11103 correctly became Nos.D2200 - D2203, what became No.2204 had been numbered as No.11105 and the anomaly continued up to No.11115 which became D2214. The reason was the Hibberd departmental shunter, later to become No.52, being given, presumably in error, the number 11104. From No.11115 onwards the sequence was broken as locomotives from other builders were numbered in between batches of Drewry arrivals and in any event locomotives from D2260 onwards and inclusive appeared new with D22xx numbers. What became Class 04 comprised D2200 - D2339 of which all were supplied new to BR, plus later additions D2340 and DS1173 which became D2341. Of those two, D2340 had been a hire locomotive, believed new in 1956 and not becoming D2340 apparently until 1962. Prior to this date she seems to have been loaned or hired to BR who used her at West Hartlepool. What became D2341 was an oddity. She harked back to 1947 and was a demonstrator, being trialled in this capacity by the LNER on the Wisbech & Upwell Tramway. Eventually purchased by BR Southern Region, she was given departmental number DS1173 and apparently as late as 1967 the capital stock number D2341. She survived until the end of 1968, outliving several of her newer sisters. BR Class 04, as a whole, were mechanical similar to Class 03 but differed in a number of ways as the type evolved. Main differences were variations in wheel diameter and changes to external appearance; wheel diameter causing variations in tractive effort and maximum speed. D2212 was from what one might call an interim period; she has the original style of cab but with triangular front windows instead of the earlier and rather austere square windows; conical exhaust stack (early examples originally lacked any form of stack and were later given a straight and rather crude piece of pipe); earlier style of radiator grille (later examples had a slightly smaller grille akin to that of Class 03). Electric marker lights were fitted from new and a further refinement was air horns, earlier class members being built new with air whistles. Class 04 were perfectly capable and reliable machines, they simply fell victim to a rapidly reducing need for shunting locomotives. Following withdrawal many found a new life in industry while a few others were exported. Many, however, were scrapped straight out of BR service. The class became extinct on BR during 1972 with the withdrawal from Stratford of D2217. Thankfully due to being sold to industrial users a number have survived into preservation but No.D2212 is not among them. She was withdrawn in November 1970 and scrapped by C. F. Booth the following year.
Photo by Geoffrey Tribe


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