Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i Steam Days

Welcome to another varied issue: we enter the country at Newport, South Wales, with the USATC in wartime, and follow the life of one of its S100 ‘Yankee Tanks’ into preservation; take a look at now lost Glasgow suburban lines; wonder if C B Collett really had his heart in the experiment to fit a Saint with rotary cam valve gear; find ourselves at a Suffolk country junction; and travel to the seaside in North Wales – well, the warmer weather is coming, so the bucket and spade need looking out! As many of you will recall, in steam days the BR regions used to issue two full public timetables a year, one running from September to June and the other for about 13 weeks of the summer, a mass…

CHOOSE WHICH STEAM DAYS SUBSCRIPTION SUITS YOU BEST 1: 12-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION BEST VALUE 12 print issues for £49 Direct Debit 12 print issues for £54 SAVE £15.80 2: SIX-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION 6 print issues for £26 Direct Debit 6 print issues for £28 credit/debit card SAVE £6.40 WHAT OUR READERS SAY ABOUT STEAM DAYS An excellent historical magazine with good articles and production values. ALAN NICHOLSON Go-to magazine for deep understanding of heritage railway network! SIMON POTTER A goldmine of fascinating interest from a bygone railway age. JAMES CROWE WELCOME ABOARD THE BIGGEST RAILWAY COMMUNITY As railway enthusiasts we understand how to get the best out of a journey, and that same thought goes into each magazine as we travel around Britain through the pages of every issue of Steam Days.…

At the time of writing, the western world has been thrown into some disarray by the radical policies of President Donald Trump. Although the United States twice came to the rescue of a valiant Britain in the 20th century as it struggled virtually alone against an aggressive Germany, the old assumptions about the American alliance have become less certain during 2025; many in Europe are no longer sure that we are safe under an umbrella of American protection. Of course, ever since the Pilgrim Fathers left Southampton in 1620 and began the European settlement of the continent’s north-east coast, our attitude to our American cousins has been somewhat ambiguous, and indeed vice versa. At first the USA proclaimed neutrality in the Second World War, but after the Japanese attack on…

The evolution and development of the classic GWR two-cylinder 4-6-0 began in 1902 when George Jackson Churchward replaced William Dean as the GWR’s Locomotive Superintendent at Swindon Works. Dean’s two 4-6-0s, Nos. 36 and 2601, proved to be developmental dead ends, indicating that a more radical approach was needed. As Dean’s health began to fail, Churchward had taken on more and more responsibility and was able to develop his own ideas as to the direction in which modern locomotives and boilers should take. As an innovator, he was influenced by the best practices in the USA and France and recognised the need to standardise construction and improve the efficiency of day-to-day running – having begun to develop his ideas under Dean, the first tangible evidence of change was the use…

In the summer of 1954 I agreed to spend a Saturday at Chester station recording the traffic on the North Wales coast main line as part of a survey being carried out by the Manchester Locomotive Society. This made use of 25 observers stationed at strategic points, both along the coast and at places inland, nearer to the points of origin and the return destinations of the trains – the detailed progress of trains from as far afield as Newcastle-upon-Tyne was thus followed and a fascinating document produced. So, on Saturday, July 31, 1954, having just returned from two weeks of observation at Carlisle, I arrived at Chester (General) station at 10am, prepared for the busiest Saturday of the year. In the accompanying tables I have detailed my own observations…

It is axiomatic that where you have a junction, the branch line will be subordinate to the main in terms of train movements, and while this was generally the case, Haughley, 14 miles north of Ipswich on the Liverpool Street-Norwich main line, was an interesting exception. The branch which diverged from the Norwich main line at Haughley was the cross-country route to Cambridge and Ely, March and the north and carried almost twice as many trains as did the main line. The Norwich expresses – a British Railways Britannia Pacific at the head of nine coaches – may have been impressive but it was the seemingly endless stream of goods trains that ran to and from the branch which made the money. The ratio of branch to main line trains…