Yarmouth Trains

The following tables list the 25s that worked three of the Summer Saturday Yarmouth bound trains in the 70s and 80s. Like Skegness, Yarmouth was a popular sea side resort for people of Manchester and the East Midlands and in addition to these services there would have been extra relief trains running in peak season and on Bank Holidays. It isn't until the mid-70s that comprehensive records start to exist for what was working these trains and many times those records represent just one sighting of the loco(s) on what could have been four trains they were working that that day. So when compiling these listings I have used my own judgment to fill in some gaps on what happened almost fifty years ago now. For example my spotting notes recorded that I had seen a pair of 25s at Birmingham New Street in the morning on an unknown train. When checking these tables for completeness I realised they were probably working the Walsall - Yarmouth which was hitherto unknown. Similar examples exist for Derby where a pair of 25s were seen working a passenger train between Derby and Nottingham whilst the records for that day showed no recording of the Derby - Yarmouth.

Certainly from 1974 onwards and perhaps before that the locos off the Derby - Yarmouth would return with the Yarmouth - Walsall train and vice versa.  In 1977, the departure times of the two return workings were reversed and the locos returned to the same location as their outward workings but the following year it reverted back to the familiar pattern.  One pair of 25s were booked to go through to Yarmouth.  The locos off the first train to arrive at Norwich, generally those from Derby, would go forward to Yarmouth with the stock off the train from Walsall.  At Yarmouth the 25s would run round to form the first Midland bound departure, this being the Derby train (1977 excepted).  The other pair would wait at Norwich to take that train forward.  The 25s working in from Yarmouth then dropped onto the following train, that one heading for Walsall.  Unless there were known difficulties in the train timings en-route these workings have been assumed to operate as booked.  The Walsall - Yarmouth train ceased to run after 1980 and from that year on the Derby - Yarmouth locos returned to Derby.

From 1970 the Manchester - Yarmouth and Yarmouth - Manchester trains reengined at Lincoln Central but prior to that they would have been Class 25s to Sheffield.  This train ceased to be Class 25 hauled in 1979 and details of the locos working this train from then on can be found on the Railgen Archive/Bashing Years websites.

Whilst there are thousands of positively recorded passenger train workings of Class 25 locomotives (as opposed to booked but not confirmed workings) on only a handful of occasions have the diagrammed workings between Norwich and  Yarmouth been noted, usually in railway magazines. As elsewhere on this site I have included these workings from 1972 onwards with their source marked as DIAG on the individual loco and date pages unless there were known problems on that day that would make those planned workings problematical.

I am indebted to Peter Hall for his input and assistance in providing the train diagrams for these services in the early 70s and to Gerald Brown for those in the late 60s.