Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i Steam World

Last month’s photo-feature on the Staines branch included one picture which reminded me of the mass turnout for any railtour over unusual trackage in the 1960s. I was there in that scrum at Staines West, where the narrow platform and confined space could scarcely cope with a train full of passengers and an influx of interested local spectators at the same time. I don’t know if I managed to take many pictures, because the shutter on my camera jammed and the developed film was blank. However, being small in stature, I tended not to be successful among crowds when taking photographs. From the outset, and my first experience of an Ian Allan railtour, I was taught that I should stay out of the way of those who had paid for…

Can you imagine what would have happened if the GWR had said yes? We know what an impact ‘Castle’ No. 4079 Pendennis Castle had on LNER locomotive design. But it’s often forgotten that No. 5000 Launceston Castle had a similar effect on the LMS in 1926. The LMS simply had nothing to match No. 5000 and tried to order 50 ‘Castles’ from Swindon. The request was refused. But just imagine if it hadn’t been. Would these engines simply have been ‘Castles’ with LMS on the side, a bit like the ‘8Fs’ built at Swindon during the war? Or would the styling have been altered to suit Derby’s tastes? In a roundabout way, the rebuilt ‘Royal Scots’ give as good an idea as any. The boiler is an LMS version of…

The enduring popularity of the Great Western Railway ‘Castles’ ensured that they would be employed on railtours and society specials with increasing frequency in their latter years. As 1960 dawned only ten of the 171-strong class had been withdrawn and four of those were rebuilt ‘Stars’ (as well as rebuilt ‘Pacific’ The Great Bear). Great inroads were made into the fleet but, even at the start of 1964, there were some surprising survivors, including the venerable No. 4079 Pendennis Castle, former ‘royal’ engine No. 4082 Windsor Castle (albeit running as No. 7013), No. 5000 Launceston Castle which had given the LMS something to think about in 1925 and at least two that had begun life as ‘Stars’ in the 1920s. Due to their generous dimensions, the vast majority of railtours…

The 49 Peppercorn Als' were T delivered between August 1948 and December 1949, thanks to the fact that both Doncaster and Darlington were building them at the same time. They were divided fairly equally between all the main East Coast sheds between King's Cross and Haymarket: 34A was to have eight, Grantham four, Doncaster five, York six, Gateshead 12, Heaton four and 64B five. Copley Leeds in Leeds was due to receive five. The actual initial distribution didn't quite work out that way because it was deemed unnecessary to base any at Doncaster when there were no available diagrams for them. As it happened, six ‘A1s’ went new to York: Nos. 60121 Silurian, 60129 Guy Mannering, 60138 Boswell, 60140 Balmoral, 60141 Abbotsford and 60153 Flamboyant. Nos. 60129 and 60141 didn’t…

As Chris Leigh recounted in September’s issue (SW447), 2024 Amarks the 60th anniversary of the real Beeching closures. Along with the 1,000-odd miles of railway that were doomed, over 300 stations were planned to be wiped from the railway map. We received office copies of Railway World and it was through this organ that I'd learned about the closures that were to take place in 1963. I made sure that I travelled on the Haywards Heath-Horsted Keynes and Hayling Island branches. 1964 was to bring more closures and soI made arrangements with a far more experienced enthusiast colleague to explore the 42 mile long Neath to Pontypool Road line that March. Mission accomplished, we then headed for Kemble to sample the two railbusoperated branches to Cirencester and Tetbury. Later that…

1964 was the last year of the famous ‘Atlantic Coast Express’, which ran from London Waterloo to Exeter and beyond. This coincided with the transfer of the lines west of Salisbury from the Southern Region to the Western Region. The Western did its best to completely destroy the ex-London& South Western main line by singling most of it and reducing the train service to a minimum. Despite its best efforts, the line survived and sections of double track have been reinstated. The service that became the ‘ACE’ dated back to LSWR days but the title didn’t come into use until 1926. In the 1960s– and for most of the year – the ‘ACE’ ran in one portion. It left Waterloo at 11am, ran fast to Salisbury, then non-stop to Sidmouth…

WIN A PRIZE WORTH £70! For this issue and the January 2025 issue, we will be giving away a special prize worth £70! A copy of Steam Photographer by Gavin Morrison along with a copy of An Illustrated History of Her Majeysty’s Railway Inspectorate from 1840 by Ian Prosser & David Keay will be sent to the sender of the first correct answer opened on December 13, 2024. Answers (with your name and address) to SW450 Crossword, Steam World, 4 Milnyard Square, Orton Southgate, Peterborough PE2 6GX. Photocopies welcome, but please do not enclose correspondence. Crossword compiled by Alan Frost. Clues Across 1 Those in charge of, e.g., WR No. 5091/92 communities in their time (6) 7 Fleet of armed ships giving name to LMR ‘Jubilee’ No. 45679 (6) 8 Machines used…

Looking back, it is clear that by the mid-1960s, with the Staines West and Tetbury branch lines already closed, I was well and truly captivated by branch lines and minor rail routes, particularly those of the former Great Western Railway. My photographs of the stations at Hay-on-Wye and Whitneyon-the-Wye are stamped with an August 1965 date which suggests that I was back in the Wye valley a year after my GloucesterRoss-Hereford trip (Steam World, October 2022). I would have been 18 years old and I wonder if I was accompanied by either my brother or my friends Keith and Paul, as I can find no photographs other than my own. I can’t recall, however, making such a trip unaccompanied. This time, however, my visit was by car, enabling calls at…