Innehållsförteckning för May 2021 från Steam World

The LNER’s ‘U1’ 2-8-0+0-8-2 was no normal steam locomotive by any stretch of the imagination. It spent its entire existence engaged in pushing rather than pulling heavy trains and secured a place in the record books as the longest, heaviest and nominally most powerful locomotive ever to run on a British railway. Although built by the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1925, its origins can be traced back a further 45 years to the westward transport of coal from South Yorkshire collieries by the Great Central Railway (GCR). In 1907, the GCR opened anew marshalling yard at Wath on Dearne for distributing coal, handling much of the output of the 45 collieries within a ten-mile radius of Wath. Back then, much coal carried by rail was wagonload ordered…

The trick with ‘Great British Railway Journeys’ is to meander from somewhere to somewhere, preferably with some places of interest along the way. Starting at Eastleigh, a genuine railway town, home to a carriage and wagon works since 1891, and ending at Portsmouth, a naval base that punched its weight from the late 12th century, ticks the boxes. Intermediate stops could be enlivened by radical journalist William Cobbett, the humble brick, a Roman fort cum medieval castle, and 18th and 19th century fortifications, but I digress. The Eastleigh-Portsmouth route saw plenty of steam but would have had a mix of motive power from 1957, when diesel-electric multiple units were also operating on at least part of the journey with Western Region units also working cross country from 1965, by which…

We’re all railway enthusiasts, right? OK, that’s a silly question to readers of a magazine like Steam World... Or maybe not. Think about this for a moment. We can probably agree we’re not ‘locospotters’ - a term that seems to have fallen out of use. And we’re almost certainly not the now too often-derided ‘trainspotters’, even if that’s how many of us may have started. So almost by default, we’re railway enthusiasts. It’s a term that carries a comforting, serious air, and suggests a wider, more mature interest than just underlining numbers in a book; greater knowledge too. Plus, when challenged, it carries the added benefit, if we want it, of being able to say “Oh no, I’m not a trainspotter.” Fine... and as enthusiasts, we all know which railway…

On the Friday night of September 27 1963, I travelled by a late local train from New Malden (where I was living at the time) to Waterloo, where I arrived around midnight and walked round to join the 1.10am newspaper train to the West of England. The train ran in two portions - next to the engine was for Ilfracombe, formed that night of one coach and two bogie vans, followed by the Plymouth coaches and a string of vans, some of which were detached en route. I boarded the front coach and waited for the engine to back on. It appeared in the shape of ‘Merchant Navy’ 4-6-2 No. 35008 Orient Line. As it was dark, and the train didn’t have a particularly fast schedule, I decided not to…

Shap steam sunset. In the late afternoon of March 31 1967, one of Tebay Motive Power Depot’s ‘4MT’ Fairburn 2-6-4Ts slogs away against the rear buffers of a BR Standard 20-ton brake van, as it assists a northbound goods train up Shap Fell, on the four miles of 1-in-75 from Tebay to Shap Summit. The shadows really were lengthening at this time for West Coast Main Line steam: Tebay shed closed its doors on December 31 that year and steam’s day was done in the Westmorland Fells. This picture really conveys the sense of isolation on Shap at that time. A few years later, the M6 motorway pierced the Lune Gorge alongside the railway and climbed over these silent fells, ending this tranquillity for ever. Today’s Pendolino tilting passenger trains…

Always seeking more efficient operation, British Railways built ten Standard ‘9F’ 2-10-0s with Franco-Crosti boilers in 1955. The concept was to pre-heat boiler water by redirecting exhaust gases from the main blastpipe through a secondary pre-heater longitudinal drum underneath the boiler, exhausting them near the firebox on the fireman’s side. By pre-heating the water using hot exhaust gases from fuel already burned, it was expected that coal consumption would be lower as energy wouldn’t need to heat cold water from the tender. In theory, that might have been sound – and results from continental Europe seemed promising. In practice, however, there were serious problems in daily operation. Smoke exhausting just in front of the cab on the fireman’s side hampered visibility and led to smoke entering the cab to the…

Part 1 - Before BTF Seagulls circle a ring of white cottages. Men in caps, carrying bundles, head for the harbour. The breakers rise, the vessels wait in line. Soon the stokers stoke, the captains puff pipes, and vessel and breaker brawl in pursuit of a piscine prize… We’re watching Drifters, a film made by John Grierson in 1929. It’s a lovely slice of stylised realism -you are there on the boat, being tossed like a toy, you are there in the engine room, while the pistons push and pump. This story of the North Sea herring fisheries, filmed in the Shetlands, at Lerwick, Lowestoft and Yarmouth, was the story of work, but also of change -the fisherman may still live as they long had done, but their catch is…

Photography by the author The new year started well with a footplate trip on Tuesday January 3 1967 on snowplough-fitted ‘Black Five’ No. 45126 of Carlisle Kingmoor with Carnforth driver Arnold Hammel and fireman Maurice McCartney. Both were good friends - Arnold’s brother Dick worked in Preston Control as a Traincrew Relief Controller for the Blackburn and Rose Grove section and Maurice had been Ronnie Nelson’s fireman for a good while. We departed on time at 8.27am and arrived in Preston at 8.54am, four minutes early, which included a signal delay of a minute at Preston No 4. I was invited to join them again on the following day which I did. This time the locomotive was ‘Britannia’ No. 70014 Iron Duke with six vehicles. We left Lancaster Castle on…

The approaching demise of steam traction on British Railways in the 1960s engendered an ever increasing number of railtours and enthusiast excursions, which often featured locomotives working over unaccustomed routes, in parts of the country far from their normal sphere of operations. Amongst the most popular classes selected for this purpose were the Bulleid ‘Pacifics’ in ‘Merchant Navy’ and ‘West Country’/’Battle of Britain’ forms. The stage was set on September 20 1958 when ‘The West countryman’ tour ran from London to Plymouth and back. The outward leg was via the Southern Region main line, with the Exeter- Plymouth section entrusted to double-headed ‘T9’ 4-4-0s Nos. 30712/26, while the return leg saw rebuilt ‘Merchant Navy’ No. 35023 Holland-Afrika Line work over the Western Region main line from Plymouth to Paddington. The…

We can all conjure up the names of famous railway photographers whose work has been enjoyed over the decades. From the early 1950s to the 1970s, Sid Rickard could be justifiably ranked along with such names as Henry Casserley, Dick Riley, Ron Buckley and Bob Tuck, just to name a few. Born in 1920, Sid started taking a keen interest in railway photography in 1951 along with Bob Tuck and John Hodge and generally concentrated on the railways of South Wales. His favourite line was the Rhymney Railway line where most of his railway photography was concentrated. However, his activities were not exclusive to the Rhymney: he travelled up to Merthyr, Aberdare, Treherbert, Maerdy and branch lines from Bridgend including Maesteg, Abergwynfi and the Porthcawl branch. He also covered the…