[Master Cutler]

Chatting with some friends about class 20 workings the consensus was that most duties if not all were carried out coupled in pairs and only on very rare and exceptional occasions would they be rostered single loco into long distance freight work.
However, we had a regular single 20 working back in the 70's as I recall.
This was from Westhouses shed, when every morning a single 20 would arrive light engine at Teversal colliery to shunt rakes of wagons from Silver Hill colliery onto the Teversal sidings ready for collection by two 20's or a 47 for onward dispatch down the Pleasley colliery branch to the Midland Main line.
This shunting was necessary following the closure of the Skegby Teversal branch post Beeching which cut off the Silver Hill rail link with the Central line.
However, the reason the 20 was employed was because the work of moving full rakes of coal wagons was far too arduous for the Hunslet shunters up and down the gradients they had in the colliery yard and splitting the loads into smaller rakes would have been too time consuming.
Therefore, would this work that the single 20's were doing be classed as shunting?
Secondly, were the 20's ever employed single to perform main line duties?
These days preserved single 20's can often be seen pulling some quite hefty rail tours.