Innehållsförteckning för February 2024 från Steam Days

This edition of Steam Days includes Peter Kerslake’s ‘East Anglian portfolio’. He remembers the heavy snows that lay on the ground for months when he was based in King’s Lynn from January 1955. Peter had arrived less than two years after a much more serious weather event – the East Coast floods of 1953 – that was to change the railway map in that part of the world. A spring tide and storm on the night of 31 January 1953 combined to create this country’s worst flooding of the 20th century resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives along the East Coast. Hunstanton was badly hit, with the South Beach part of town inundated. US airmen Reis Leming and Freeman A Kilpatrick were awarded George Medals for their part…

I have been a railway enthusiast since 1942, and together with my two sons, Ian and Andrew, since March 1993 have provided a record of Britain’s railway scene when steam ruled supreme, from the 1800s until the end of steam in 1968. With a focus on line histories, train spotters’ memories, technical information, railwaymen’s reminiscences and nostalgic photo-features, our purpose is to bring back those halcyon days. With our subscriptions you can get your magazine delivered straight to your door every month, with a superb saving on the cover price. We hope to welcome you soon to the Steam Days family. Call 01507 529529 and quote SDDPS Online: www.classicmagazines.co.uk/SDDPS or scan the QR code to go straight to our secure online store CHOOSE WHICH STEAM DAYS SUBSCRIPTION SUITS YOU BEST…

The 1947/48 step from ‘Big Four’ to nationalisation was by no means simple – so imagine the complexity if a single move to a publicowned railway had been taken in 1921-23, as had once been proposed – and thus tracking the first year of British Railways has proved to be a fascinating path, even with us concentrating on rail activities and with limited chance to delve into the myriad of other facets of ‘Big Four’ operations, for example the integrated road services, hotels, canals, and shipping. Across this four-part work (see ‘Further reading’) consideration has been given to management changes, early staffing concerns in terms of job security and pensions, the need to merge four locomotive fleets into one for easy identification, the creation of a new public image and…

In attempting to portray some of the better efforts from my enforced period spent in East Anglia from August 1954 to December 1955 I have set out the circumstances by which I was fortunate enough to capture on film just a few scenes from those days when steam reigned supreme on Eastern metals, as I think we tend to overlook that every picture in today’s journals has been secured by the efforts of the cameraman concerned, and with a story to be told, often dating many years previously. My leaving school in Plymouth in 1954 heralded the start of a 37 year long career in the courts service, but immediately took me far from my familiar West Country lineside haunts, as I was told at short notice to report for…

It’s a new year, and what you really need is a brilliant rail read or something great to watch. Well, we’ve got some superb prizes which must be won… to stand a chance of scooping one or some of them, simply find the words hidden in our grid… On this page you’ll see our wordsearch grid… while on the page opposite are 14 adverts. Underneath those adverts you’ll notice 14 questions, each one relating to one of those ads. The answers are then sneakily hidden in our wordsearch grid! Mark those answers on the grid – they could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally or vertically. Once completed please send the answer form (photocopies are accepted) to Steam Days, Wordsearch Competition, Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JZ.…

Salisbury inter-regional services Sir: I thoroughly enjoyed the Salisbury inter-regional services article in the December 2023 issue, particularly as it identified a service which I thought started from Cardiff or Bristol. I was on a photographic trip to Weymouth, Yeovil, Templecombe and Salisbury having taken the newspaper and mail train in the early hours of Saturday, 10 August. There had been a fire near Vauxhall or Queens Road and trains were delayed departing Waterloo, which played into my hands as arrival at Weymouth was at a more suitable time for me and not the unearthly hour as per timetable. The train 1O91 (7.35am Nottingham Midland to Bournemouth West) arrived behind No 6814 Enborne Grange, then allocated to 82B, St Philips Marsh, displaying head code O91 was replaced by No 76064…

I had been a very active trainspotter through the late 1950s right up until I started work in 1960. For the next few years, trains took rather a back seat, to be replaced by cars, motorcycles and other more social activities involving the opposite sex. Then I saw that Ian Allan was arranging a special high speed train to Plymouth to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the record run of City of Truro on 9 May 1904, hauled by ‘Castle’ class locomotives. As it happened, in 1964 the anniversary fell conveniently on a Saturday, although tickets at £6/12s/6d were a bit expensive to someone on an apprentice engineer’s wages, albeit this did include lunch and high tea, and really this was just too good an opportunity to miss. The train…

If I may, I’d like to break with convention and start at the end, the end of timetabled passenger services that is. The line in the spotlight here is the former Arbroath & Forfar Railway, which on Saturday, 3 December 1955 found itself unable to retain a foothold on the British Railways (Scottish Region) passenger network and thus the ‘last rites’ in terms of passenger services were at hand – it was a case of catch a train that day or miss the chance. I have a long association with this ancient route and a fondness gained from first travelling this way sometime in mid-1943 – you may recall my article ‘Boyhood journeys between Arbroath and Kirriemuir’ in the October 2012 issue of Steam Days. It is with that in…