Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2025 i Steam World

This railtour of Sussex branch lines, organised by the Locomotive Club of Great Britain, took place on a rare hot and sunny day in that generally dreary summer of 1962. By then, I was mainly photographing the steam scene on the Southern Region, particularly the Central and Western divisions. Although I was working, money was tight and I made good use of rail rover tickets to get about. However, when I saw this tour advertised, I booked a place on it straight away. It offered a great selection of locomotives, plus some very rare track. Sunday, June 24 1962, dawned with anticipation. I caught an ‘EPB’ electric from Elmers End to Waterloo East and walked over to the main station (where I would later work). The stock for the ‘Sussex…

I was particularly attracted to the ‘Princess Royal’ 4-6-2s, despite being primarily a GWR enthusiast. They seemed to me, in many ways, what a GWR 4-6-2 might have looked like. I remember seeing No. 46203 Princess Margaret Rose on the buffer stops at Euston on an early train spotting trip around 1952. It was fresh from repair at Derby, unique for this class, in dark blue livery and I was most impressed. Then, a couple of years later, as a young Chairman of the Charterhouse Railway Society (railway enthusiasm was not the most popular hobby at most public schools), I led a small party doing a couple of shed visits (with permits) and remember us standing in the shadow of No. 46207 Princess Arthur of Connaught at Camden shed. It…

There’s something wonderful about discovering historic documents. It’s the feeling of actually touching history. And that’s before you get on to the feel of the paper. Or the smell. Clipped together with a rusting staple in the collection of former Steam World archivist, the late Richard Strange, is correspondence between the District Motive Power Superintendent at Rugby, the Divisional Manager in Birmingham and a Mr Coe of Woodford Halse. The letters concern the actions of Woodford Halse driver T.S. Harris, who, according to a letter of May 14 1963, passed the Woodford Halse Goods Road signal at danger while working the 10.10am Nottingham-Marylebone with ‘Jubilee’ No. 45579 Punjab on February 28 1963. Passing the signal at danger resulted in a derailment although what came off the rails was not recorded.…

Thursby collection-sheer brilliance! Paul Cooper is to be applauded for his efforts to preserve the images captured in the ‘Thursby Collection’ (SW459). The identification of locations based only on locomotive classes and, sometimes imprecise, train descriptions is a big ask. Regarding the very dynamic shot of an North British Railway ‘Atlantic’ on p62, despite running for 57 miles on NBR tracks, Anglo-Scottish expresses north of Newcastle were worked throughout by the North Eastern Railway. So, an NBR ‘Atlantic’ would not normally have been seen on the East Coast Main Line in pre-Grouping days. Before the First World War, there was a 9.30am departure from Edinburgh to London St. Pancras via the Waverley Route. The only location I can identify where the line ran in the required relationship to a major…

• Part 1 was published in SW460 The imminent closure of the Somerset & Dorset led to plenty of specials over the weekend of January ½ 1966. The Locomotive Club of Great Britain organised the ‘Mendip Merchantman’ on the 1st, which was supposed to feature ‘9F’ No. 92243 from Highbridge to Bath Green Park (via the Western Region main line, not the S&D!). However, the 2-10-0 failed at Warmley. ‘8F’ No. 48760 helped No. 92243 to Bath and then it and classmate No. 48309 took the train to Templecombe. No. 48309 was in action the following day, hauling the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society’s ‘Somerset & Dorset Rail Tour’ from Bath to Highbridge West via Bristol. The ‘S15’ was now the last pre-war Southern goods class left in service and…

I was brought up with my only knowledge of the two great universities, Oxford and Cambridge, being the annual boat race which took place on the Thames not so far from where I lived. Linking their two rival cities by rail was something which happened piecemeal in the 19th century. The result was very much a railway ‘backwater’ which, hardly surprisingly, was destroyed by Beeching and which successive governments have long wished to see restored. I travelled on the Bletchley-Bedford section a couple of times in the 1980s in order to ride the Class 121 ‘bubble cars’ that were working the route. I also visited several of the stations on this section by car, finding some lived-in as private dwellings and others derelict. In her autumn 2024 budget, Chancellor Rachel…

WIN A PRIZE WORTH £70! This month 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 to the sender of the first correct answer opened on November 21, 2025. Answers (with your name and address) to SW461 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 35012 (7) 45600 (7) 60535 (5) 45732 literally without equal (10) 6946 (10) one (5) and former Railway Centre (7) 60135 (5) Clues Down C.’s ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (5) 61008 (4) ------ Castle’, name of WR…

We all know a steam locomotive requires fire, except, of course, that weird Swiss ‘steam electric’ that was built during a coal shortage. However, we also know how easy it is to be generous with all that combustion – full forward gear and an open regulator should do it. However, that’s not what to do in most summers and certainly not in the 21st Century. A dry spell and the ability for a locomotive to throw sparks has always been a disaster waiting to happen. That is particularly troublesome if the neighbouring farm has crops that are nearly ready for harvesting. This was recognised as far back as 1832 when the law came down on the side of the railways. They were not liable for harms that were unavoidable as…

What would be considered the greatest Great Western Railway design? The ‘Kings’, perhaps? Surely the ‘Castles’? One contender has to be the 342 2-6-0s built between 1911 and 1932, that are often simply referred to as the ‘43XXs’, even though their numbers included the 43XX, 53XX, 63XX, 73XX, 83XX, and 93XX number series. What makes them great? Well, they were the first true mixed traffic locomotive design built for use in Britain. They did not form part of George Jackson Churchward’s range of standard locomotive and yet the GWR soon found that it couldn’t do without them. They dated from that period just before the First World War when the GWR was at the pinnacle of locomotive development and despite best efforts to replace them by larger 4-6-0s, the last…