line staff for the section, but he did not have it and the train was involved in a head-on accident with a light locomotive coming in the opposite direction. The two coaches were so badly damaged that they were replaced with a rake, bought second-hand, from the Great Northern Railway. "Didn't we have a lovely day....." The Paddy Mails were not the only passenger trains to use the branch. On an annual basis, from the mid-1890s to the outbreak of the First World War, the branch was used by the "Pitmen's Family Outing" – a trip, on which the workers voted for the destination from a selection of seaside resorts. The workers contributed 2d (less than 1p) per week to the 'trip fund'. The trains were run on Saturdays and started as early as 3.00 a.m. from the colliery yard, passengers boarding by ladder into coaches which could only be described as 'basic' – compartment stock with no toilets. The return train, depending on destination, could arrive back well into the early hours of the Sunday morning. On 15 June 1907, three trains were run, in the working timetable, No.15 from Beighton at 5.00 a.m., No.14 and No.16 from Birley Colliery yard at 4.35 a.m. and 5.10 a.m. to Bridlington and Scarborough. All trains also called at Woodhouse. The trains arrived back just after midnight. In total these trains were shown as carrying 50 committee members, 2,500 adults and 350 children. In 1913, the excursion ran to Blackpool with a departure time from the colliery yard around 3.00 a.m. and an arrival back at 5.00 a.m. on the Sunday. Locomotives All the locomotives, except those shown, passed to the National Coal Board on nationalisation. The locomotives could be found working at either Birley or Brookhouse collieries as required, although some were allocated specific workings. Abbreviations: Cylinders: IC:Inside Frames OC:Outside Frames. Builders: AB:Andrew Barclay & Sons Co. HC:Hudswell Clarke & Co MW:Manning Wardle & Co. P :Peckett & Sons, Bristol References "East of Sheffield", by Roger Milnes, Forward – The Journal of the Great Central Railway Society, No.16, March 1978. ISSN 0141-4488. Great Central Railway – original working timetables. "The Birley Vale Colliery Explosion". Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 28 June 1876 "Fire at a Yorkshire Colliery". Tamworth Herald, 30 January 1904. "Report On the Causes of and Circumstances attending the Explosion which occurred in the East Pit of the Birley Colliery, Beighton,