Coalville Mantle Lane Open Day 1989
From David Hughes.
Coalville’s Mantle Lane motive power depot was located on the freight only Burton to Leicester line and was in its later years a stabling point for coal trains and locomotives. It closed in 1990. There was an open day on 11 June 1989, to celebrate the Midland Counties Railway’s 150 anniversary, when a number of railtours visited the site . There were also special shuttle trains during the day to Derby, Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham utilising some of the visiting diesels. 45596 Bahamas was working shuttles up and down the yard. The line from Burton to Leicester is known as the Ivanhoe line and there have been various schemes mooted over the years to reopen the line to passengers, but so far it is just talk.
20186 & 20103 on a railtour shuttle at Coalville Open Day 11th June 1989
33058 with the ‘Coalville Cobbler’ headboard. This railtour originated in Euston and ran to the open day.
47522 ‘Doncaster Enterprise’. This was formerly D1105
Deltic D9000 ‘Royal Scots Grey’ in BR two tone green livery. It was renumbered as 55022 in 1974. Withdrawn in 1982, the locomotive had covered 3,250,000 miles in service.
37511 ‘Stockton Haulage’ with its Railfreight Sector ‘Metals’ identity livery
Class 31 as Departmental 97204. This was formerly 31970.
31456 in blue livery
Steam representation was by the appearance of 45596 ‘Bahamas’ that worked shuttles in the depot yard
Another view of Bahamas clearly showing its double chimney
The Class 40 Appeal’s 40012 ‘Aureol’
37504 ‘British Steel Corby’
97561 in Departmental Loco livery. This was formerly 47034, then 47561 and carried the name ‘Midlands Counties 150 – 1839 to 1989’. It was later renumbered to 47973 with the name ‘Derby Evening Telegraph’.