Service
A fall in the South Wales coal trade in the 1930s saw many of the class re-allocated to other parts of the system. Due to the stability of the design, many drivers would typically operate the 56xx class down the Welsh valleys in reverse (bunker first). The placement of the trailing wheels helped the engine enter the curves better than if operated in the other direction. Typically, during operation, when pulling a heavy load the tanks were operated bunker first, and then smokebox first on the return trips up the valleys.
All the 56xx/66xx locomotives passed into British Railways ownership at nationalisation in 1948, and all remained in service until 1962, at which time they were withdrawn from service quite rapidly, with the onset of diesel traction on BR gaining momentum. All had been retired by 1965.
Read more about this topic: GWR 5600 Class
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“Finally, your lengthy service ended,
Lay your weariness beneath my laurel tree.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)
“Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)