THE glimpse Looking Back gave last year of one of the "fireless" locomotives that until the 1980s hauled wagons of coal to the now-gone Huncoat power station stirred up memories of the small "stud" of conventional steam engines that operated from nearby Huncoat Colliery -- the closure of which occurred 34 years ago next month.
All named after birds, they were the saddle-tank locos Lark, Linnet, Kestrel and Raven and were later joined by a small diesel engine named Merlin.
They not only served the power station but, as Darwen industrial railways enthusiast John Leadley points out, besides shunting in the colliery sidings, they also went along a National Coal Board branch line to the now-vanished Moorfield colliery and coke works at Altham -- an industrial complex pictured (top) in 1960 some 21 years after the closure of the Moorfield pit.
There was also a connection from this line, says Mr Leadley, to the Nori bricks works at Whinney Hill and, as well as the link between the Huncoat colliery and the power station, the line also had exchange sidings with British Railways' tracks behind Huncoat railway station. And Huncoat village historian James Ashton recalls that a prominent feature of this industrial railway was the viaduct that spanned the Tom Brook valley in front of Nearer Holker House Farm, the present-day home of the RSPCA's Altham animal centre.
"As the railway track went through the fields behind the farm, it ran alongside the nine-hole course belonging to the Enfield Golf Club that existed between 1910 and 1945," says Mr Ashton.
"The four steam locos were easily recognised by the brass plates on each side of the saddle tank that had their names in raised letters on a scarlet background."
Pictured here (bottom) in 1968 -- 20 years before the power station's cooling towers in the background were demolished -- is one of the Huncoat colliery's stud, the engine called Raven, with, at the left, one of the power station's fireless locos that ran on fill-ups of steam from the electricity works' boilers. Scrapped in 1986, it was Huncoat No.1 and is distinguished by the vertical pipe behind its cab for venting "spent" steam. The occasion for which the pair were gathered was the closure that week -- on February 9, 1968 -- of Huncoat Colliery, which was axed after it was revealed that it was no longer economic and was losing money at the rate of more than £25,000 a month. The pit, which opened in 1885, had once employed more than 500 men and 200 were made redundant on the day that these miners (middle) were pictured leaving the cage for the last time. Another 200 were redeployed at collieries in the Burnley area while 78 remained at Huncoat to carry out salvage work. On the pit's last day, the two locomotives -- with power station superintendent Geoffrey Garth and colliery manager James Cregg taking a nostalgia trip on their footplates -- hauled a last train-load of coal along the half-mile line from the colliery to the electricity works .
In the 16 years that it was supplied by the pit, the power station consumed some 3.5million tons of Huncoat coal, out of the 4.5million tons that it burned since it was fully commissioned in 1957. The increase in demand for coal that this move brought coincided with the colliery producing a growing proportion of coal that was suitable only for burning in pulverised fuel boilers owing to its high ash content.
The prime coking coal, for which the pit was famous, ran out in 1962, leaving only the Upper Mountain seam which supplied the power station with most of its needs.
Originally, the power plant had been planned to take coal brought by barges on the canal as well as by rail, but because Huncoat colliery was able to supply almost all its needs, the canal equipment was never installed.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article