by Jeff Treece
Published on 7th July 1948
Cecil J Allen's book 'The Locomotive Exchanges' includes logs of LNER B1 No.61251 running on the 7 July 1948.
For the purpose of the Exchanges, locomotives were divided into 2 categories - 'Express Passenger' and 'General Purpose' with the B1 {incidentally named 'Oliver Bury'} in the latter. From Wikipedia - Oliver Robert Hawke Bury (3 November 1861 London - 21 March 1946 London), was an English railway engineer, chief mechanical engineer on the Great Western Railway, General Manager of the Great Northern Railway in England and Director of the London and North Eastern Railway.
The run on the 7 July 1948 actually started at Plymouth and a table of the runs by the various GP locomotives shows that tests on this route started on 26 April and concluded on 21 July of the same year. Table 30 records the runs from Plymouth to Newton Abbot; Table 31 Exeter to Taunton and Table 32 Taunton to Bristol TM. The route between Newton and Exeter was excluded for some reason. It should also be noted that No.34006 was classified as a ‘general purpose’ loco for these runs. Table 32 provides further reference to a faster B1 run 2 days later from Taunton to Bristol TM - 44.9 miles in 47 mins 32 seconds an average of 0.945 of a mile per minute.
