This week's screenshot competition theme is infrastucture, so I went with my camera over to Slaithwaite Viaduct on NTP to see if I could get a good photograph. Amazingly, while I was there, two trains came along at once: 45137 on the 09:12 Leeds-Manchester express and a 4-car 101 DMU on the 09:14 Manchester-Leeds stopping service: I hung around for a bit, and then the morning TEA train came through, with 40181 and 40069 on the front drawing 18 loaded TEA tankers for the cotton mills of Manchester. TEA trains are history now, but they are well featured in the BR Heavy Freight add-on, so I thought people might like to learn a little more about them. The mods discourage chat in the very very serious Screenshot Competition thread, so I thought I'd post my own thread here. At one time, Yorkshire had a thriving tea industry, mostly centered on Harrogate, but Tetley had a brewery in Leeds, eventually closing in 2011 after decades of decline. Tea is of course the national drink of England and TEA wagons used to be a familiar sight up and down the country, their sides streaked brown from the tannins. Several TEA trains ran across the Pennines every day from the Yorkshire tea urns to refresh the workers and housewives of Manchester. This train in the photograph was to supply Manchester's cotton mills for their morning tea break. However it is the early morning "Breakfast Tea" and the four o'clock "Afternoon Tea" trains which have entered popular culture, and these are as familiar terms in England today as "Flying Scotsman". As the 1970s and 80s progressed, Manchester's cotton mills went into decline and the English tea market became flooded with cheaper imports from India and China, devastating the Yorkshire tea industry. Milk trains stopped running in 1981, and since few people in England wanted their tea without milk, it was clear that the days of the TEA train were numbered. The last one ran in 1991. However, all is not doom, gloom and nostalgia. Following the recent general election in Britain, the government is keen to invest in railway projects in the north of England, and the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, is known to be very much a fan of Yorkshire Tea, so I for one am quietly hoping that TEA trains may soon once again cross the Pennines.
Wow! I remember seeing these impressive wagons during the 1980's. I always thought they were carrying oil, rather than tea, but your argument makes great sense. I remember seeing a fellow spotter running his finger through the brown sludge on a tanker side at Leeds station and wondering what he was doing. I guess he must have been a tea afficionado, as he then licked his finger and nodded in admiration to his mate just as the tea train moved off towards Manchester. My concern is that this government is more likely to introduce coffee tankers instead of tea. That would be a tragedy, especially for Taylors of Harrogate. Incidentally, I was always amazed at how long the fish and marine foods trains have been running in this country, although the tastes of the British public has changed greatly over the years. We used to have Shark, Dogfish and Catfish but Breem and Walrus and various others seem to have taken over. I never did find out what a Coalfish tasted like, they didn't sell it at our local Sainsburys.
As you can see in the second picture, this tea inside TEA-waggons was very flammable http://www.health-safety-signs.uk.com/cgi/hazchem.pl?signs=hazchem_detail&id=565&un=UN1223