Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från Steam Days

Shrewsbury & Chester No 14: the lost engine and a broad gauge relic or two more Sir: Just a line to say how much I enjoyed Leonard Rogers’ article ‘Before the National Collection – the early years of steam preservation’ – in Steam Days July 2023. May I add one more engine – the elegant Sharp Brothers of Manchester double-framed 2-2-2 ‘Single’ formerly Shrewsbury & Chester Railway No 14, makers number probably 521, delivered in July 1848. This was reported to have been the favourite engine of the independent-minded GWR Northern Division locomotive superintendent George Armstrong during his own locomotive driving days when the engine was new. After the S&CR was amalgamated with the GWR in 1854 it was given new cylinders in April 1867 and officially withdrawn in December…

The primary main lines between London and Kent can be summed up very simply – the London, Chatham & Dover Railway (L&CDR) ran east, more or less following the line of the Thames and terminated at Ramsgate, while the South Eastern Railway (SER) ran almost south from London before turning east through Tonbridge and Ashford to terminate in Dover. In addition, an SER branch ran from Ashford to Ramsgate via Canterbury and Minster, whilst a second route to Minster was built piecemeal from Dover and included an end-on SER/LC&DR junction at Deal – its use enabled through running from London to Margate via Dover, Deal and a reversal at Ramsgate. However, not long after the Grouping the Thanet area was completely remodelled when the line into the former SER terminus…

After 1900 British locomotives rapidly increased in size and diversity, as was reflected in their total working weight and their many varied wheel arrangements respectively. This was particularly true regarding tank locomotives, which for many years until about 1953 consistently accounted overall for about 40% of the total British main line locomotive stock, although the actual proportions on an individual railway company basis varied quite considerably. As of 1900 the heaviest tank engines in Britain were of two very different outside-cylinder 0-8-2T types, a new wheel arrangement, both of them in South Wales. These were six locomotives built in 1896 for the Barry Railway by Sharp, Stewart & Co Ltd in Glasgow, and two others that were most unusually imported from the USA in 1899 by the Port Talbot Railway…

Over the years, the initials of the Somerset & Dorset Railway gave rise to various alternative titles ranging from the flattering ‘Swift & Delightful’ to the critical ‘Slow & Dirty’, but by the time I came to know the line its end was approaching and a more apt title might have been ‘Sadness & Despair’. The line had long held a magical attraction for travellers – reasons included the delightful scenery through which it passed and the rather bucolic names of the attractive Wessex towns and villages served. For the enthusiast, the fascination derived from the range of locomotives employed and the line’s vicious gradients which placed huge demands on those locomotives and their crews. With such thoughts in mind, on a fine May morning in 1961 I set forth…

Proposals for a pedestrian walkway running alongside Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s original single track of broad gauge line on the South Devon coast between Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth had not been universally welcomed when initial plans for the South Devon Railway line were drawn up in the early 1840s, but a walkway was, in fact, incorporated despite continuing local objections from certain quarters. With the first passenger train running from Exeter to Teignmouth on Saturday, 30 May 1846 the die was cast for the path of the line’s accompanying walkway, which today comprises two sections, the first heading westwards from the 1873 built footbridge at Dawlish Warren and Langstone through to Kennaway tunnel within Lea Mount at Dawlish, and the second section running from Smugglers’ Lane at Parson’s tunnel to its…