Last coal train from Silverdale Colliery.mpg

'Mainline' branded 60 078 'Slioch' is seen performing the last rites for rail-bourne coal from North Staffordshire's last deep mine, Silverdale. The colliery closed at the end of 1998, though I've a feeling that I recorded this in the following year as stock-piles were removed. The video is quite considerably edited as the whole performance took some time. Unfortunately, after the '60' had succeeded in lifting the train out of the confines of the loop at the pit, and into the tunnel, it was basically down hill from there on so there's no spectacular sound. The first scenes are in and around the colliery, then the train's seen passing through the long closed Keele station. Later at the former Madeley Road station (where a train crew building was situated) we see the loco run round in preparation for the curving descent of the 'Madeley Chord' line to gain access to the West Coast Main line. The last shot show the train heading North on the down 'slow'. The eagle eyed might spot a class 37 heading south with a Birmingham or Stafford bound regional railways service from the N.Wales coast.