Innehållsförteckning för June 2021 från Steam World

Back in the 1950s, the number one aim of the average locospotter on the Western Region was to see inside Swindon works, and fair play to that region, free visits were allowed on Wednesday afternoons. However, for me, with my age in single figures and an only child, the chances of actually going were always going to be nil. True, once every two months, father would visit his customers in Swindon and if it were holiday time, I would go with him and get a bit of time on the station collecting numbers - but it was always on a Monday and Tuesday. The Works open afternoon was always on a Wednesday and by then father had moved on to Wootton Bassett and Chippenham. By the time I was 12,…

I wonder if the sweet, yeasty smell from Guinness was wafting over Park Royal goods depot on the day they pulled Caerphilly Castle out? It seems likely. The aroma of thousands of gallons of the ‘black stuff’ being brewed would drift across NW10 and, with the right breeze, deep into neighbouring Middlesex too. Turn under the ‘Tube’s’ Piccadilly Line and into Coronation Road – and your nostrils warned you about the brewery long before you saw it. Guinness, whose trio of red-brick Gilbert Scott towers blocked the horizon from the 1930s until around 15 years ago, had its own private railway; the spot where that joined the New North Main Line was also the access for Park Royal ‘Goods’. Drive along Coronation Road and for decades the brewery, the goods…

In autumn 1964, I had been called for interview at university. I took the train from Margate up to Victoria and then from Paddington to Oxford. The ticket must have been paid for out of public funds by the Kent Education Committee – can such largesse still exist? En route, I looked down into the now vanished Reading South shed to see a black steam locomotive being serviced. I knew that I had never seen this particular engine during my number-taking period from 1958 to 1962. I committed Maunsell ‘U’ 2-6-0 No. 31639 to memory rather than being seen to note it down, lest the very young man opposite me in the compartment considered me a true ‘nerd’. Such was my fear! I stole a glance to see he was…

Plaistow was where Roy’s railway magic started in the 1940s You recently asked for memories where and when steam first worked its magic. In 1949 at the age of seven, I was living in Plaistow, East London, close to the station and the MPD. One day I was walking along the famous sewage outfall where a small marshalling yard ran alongside the footpath and there I encountered ‘Jinty’ 0-6-0T No. 47328 at rest. Its crew noted my interest and invited me onto the footplate. I remember the driver had an enormous grey ‘Walrus moustache’. Having talked to me about their duties, I was invited to move the reversing lever for them to continue their work, I still remember straining for all I was worth as a puny seven-year-old with no…

When main line steam finished in 1968, few people can have envisaged that steam-hauled charter trains would be regularly running 50 years on. That this should have come about is due in no small measure to the determination and persistence of a few enlightened souls – the preservationists themselves and their volunteer bodies, plus luminaries such as David Ward, the late Bernard Staite, Mel Chamberlain and many others in the ranks of British Rail and its successors. However, the climate in which steam operates in the modern age is very different to that of the 1960s. The aim of this article is to explore the differences which have evolved in steam performance over this time. Many technical and safety improvements have had to be incorporated to allow steam to operate…

With spring in full bloom, thoughts naturally turn to holidays and time to get away (which, as I write, is now allowed again in the UK). It is possible, given all that has gone on in 2020, that we will see a surge in holidays in the UK in the long term, doing what the Great Western Railway once exhorted us to do – ‘see your own country first.’ The recent withdrawal from service of the 1938 London Underground stock on the Isle of Wight reminded me of this as the island has been a popular destination for tourists since at least Victorian times and these days it also has an excellent heritage railway. The popularity of the island for tourists grew throughout the 19th century, no doubt helped by…

Part 1: Early days In Steam World December 2020, I recorded how at 5.45am on Monday November 11 1956, I left my digs and walked at 6.00am with my landlord and future tutor, Roger Larg, to Beckenham Junction, to start my career as a trainee Booking Clerk in the Up side booking office. It was a culture shock! Roger was an excellent Booking Clerk, very methodical and organised and an excellent teacher. He started off by telling me that 7.32am was a key time on the early shift as it was the last departure that passengers could catch to London to arrive before 8.00am as required to travel on a workman’s ticket. He then showed me how he set up two cash floats, one to be using before 7.32am and…

In the years leading to the electrification of the Waterloo to Bournemouth line, details of drivers’ rosters were widely known and the enthusiasts who travelled regularly soon became aware of which individuals were prepared to ‘have a go’. For the stopwatch fraternity, this provided an obvious attraction as they spent most of their time following a few such drivers, who quickly became very well known. Stories emerged of ‘Pacifics’ tearing along, often with lightly-loaded trains, dubiously timed after dark. Personally, I felt this gave a rather one-sided view of performance and preferred to select trains at random, irrespective of driver. However, I decided to make an exception to the rule after hearing that Driver Saunders of Nine Elms (of whom I’d learned so much) was working the 5.30pm Waterloo to…