Innehållsförteckning för January 2023 från Steam World

My daughter has become a commuter. Though based in the East Midlands, she currently has to work in London several days each week. She told me that the other day, as she waited at the London terminus (I’ll spare blushes by not saying which one) for the train home, there was an announcement to the effect that her train was delayed as “the driver was late arriving for work.” In fact, it was his incoming train that was late and he was travelling ‘on the cushions’ on one of his employer’s trains! She said he sprinted down the platform to his cab and her train departed soon after. I think it is unlikely that he heard the announcement. At a time when train operators and unions are at loggerheads, unreasonably…

Camden shed (1B) was closed to steam from September 9 1963 and Willesden (1A) nearby, became the steam depot for power as required for the Western Division and also for the former Great Central line service from Marylebone to Nottingham. Since early spring 1963 Willesden had become the home depot for six ‘Britannia’ 4-6-2s released at last by the Eastern Region (Nos. 70000/1/5/10/2/34) and later in the year the other 15 from that Region were reallocated to Kingmoor (nine) and Upperby (six). Together with the earlier transfers from the Western Region of their locomotives of the class it meant that the LMR then had all 55 ‘Britannias’. During the summer, Willesden had five ‘Royal Scots’ to help out with the reduced number of seasonal extras and Q (ran as required)…

Within the rich and varied tapestry of a century and half or so of steam railway operation, there are a few locations which became iconic in the eyes of those who loved them, generating almost mythical status, thanks to powerful photographs and impressive Stories. The utterly lovely Somerset & Dorset line, from Bath to Bournemouth was one such railway, with a litany of place names of such Englishness they could have come from the pages of Agatha Christie or Enid Blyton Midsomer Norton, Evercreech Junction, Chilcompton, Midford… and so many more… Notwithstanding its great and unquestioned beauty, it’s entirely possible that the S&D might have remained, like countless other rural and cross country railways, relatively obscure and little known, had it not been for the captivating photography of Ivo Peters,…

Ilfracombe - well done! Congratlations on the November issue of Steam World - very nicely written and illustrated! I edit a newsletter devoted to the Ilfracombe line, so it’s always a pleasure to read about it in the railway press. Have you any further information about the 1980s preservation attempt you mentioned? I was aware of the North Devon Railway Co, as wound up in 1978, but I hadn’t heard of any subsequent initiative. As a footnote, Combe Rail (of which I am a trustee) applied to the DfT Restoring Your Railway fund last year, seeking funding for a study to reopen Barnstaple to Braunton as a light railway. Unsurprisingly the DfT opted to support easier projects like the Okehampton branch. A final thought (and you may be perfectly aware…

London Area Until about 1964, LMS steam was a fairly common sight on cross-London wagonload freight onto the Central and the South Eastern sections. Most locomotives were ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0s and ‘8F’ 2-8-0s. However, there were still plenty of exceptions, particularly in the early 1960s. For example, a very unusual visitor to Hither Green in November 1960 was a Caprotti ‘Black Five’, No. 44748, of Longsight shed. Until the mid-1960s, LMS types could be seen on duties extending deep into the SR’s Eastern and Central Sections. Whit Sunday 1961 saw ‘Jubilee’ 4-6-0 No. 45650 Blake arrive at Brighton on an excursion from Leicester, only for it to be discovered (this not for the last time) that ‘Jubilees’ were not passed for operation on the Central Section. Another classic SR incursion…

Easter, Christmas and the summer months brought many extra trains, but the real crescendo seemed to be in the Glasgow holiday fortnight when many trains had a relief. This, incidentally, was about the only time you were ever likely to see a double-header on this line, as locomotives (often a Haymarket ‘B1’ 4-6-0) with an unbalanced working piloted the train engine (usually a ‘Pacific’). So it Was a diet of ‘A4s’, single chimney ‘A3s’, ‘A1s’ galore and occasional ‘A2s’ and ‘V2s’ on the passenger workings. ‘B1s’ on the Berwick, and NER ‘D20’ 4-4-0s on the Alnwick stopping trains. On freight, lined black ‘V2’ 2-6-2s, ‘K3’ 2-6-0s, and occasional ‘B16’ 4-6-0s took on the most important duties. ‘J39’ and ‘J27’ 0-6-0s handled the pick-up freights, and ‘Q6’ 0-8-0s the heavy coal…

Lincoln ‘loco’ shed had been extended and altered by the addition of road Nos. 6-9 by the LNER. The ash pits and the coaling plant as well as the drop pit shops were also added in 1938 in an effort to cope with the work of the three previous sheds - Great Northern Railway, Great Central Railway and Great Eastern Railway - which were then concentrated in the single expanded, GNR shed. From Directory evidence, about 280 drivers and firemen, with their supporting cleaners and shed workers, were employed at the MPD when, some short time later, I became a cleaner there. In those days, to get on the job you had to have relatives as railwaymen. Luckily, father was a guard and my grandfather had been a porter. These…

In the early 1970s, Richard Adams’ book Watership Down was published. The controversial story about a group of rabbits seeking a new home was said to be a children’s story that Adams told his daughters. Its dark, sometimes bloody, storyline led others to suggest it had political undertones, like Animal Farm. Whatever the truth, the rabbits face dangers and obstacles on their journey to the promised land. One of those, is a railway. Watership Down is a real place, close to where Adams lived, at Echinswell, some three miles south of Newbury, in the rolling Berkshire Downs. The railway which Adams invoked in the story was undoubtedly the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line, which despite its piecemeal construction, struck an almost laser-straight route between the Midlands and the south coast…

Sunday April 29 1962 Only minutes into this day and I’m already on the coach leaving Ipswich town centre for an East Midlands area shed bash - including 15 Great Central, London and North Eastern, Midland/London Midland Scottish sheds and Derby Works - visiting Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and what was then the Soke of Peterborough. This was a trip organised jointly by the Ipswich Land Transport Society and the Colchester branch of the Locomotive Club of Great Britain. The first part of the story of this trip appeared in Steam World March 2019 and Part two in December 2022. Suffice to say that this 24 hours brought 548 cops: 345 LMS locomotives, 96 LNER, and 97 BR Standards. These were, of course, predominantly freight locomotives: ‘9F’ 2-10-0s, ‘WD’, ‘8F’…

Living at that time in Surbiton, Surrey, I drove with two colleagues, to Grange Court in time for the 9.48am from Gloucester. While we were waiting, GWR ‘28XX’ 2-8-0 No. 3867 stormed through with a north-bound freight. The branch train then arrived with BR Standard ‘4MT’ 2-6-4T No. 80136 in charge. We then drove to Lea to photograph an unidentified GWR ‘Manor’ 4-6-0 on the 10.25am from Hereford, from the hillside by Lea Line Tunnel. There was then plenty of time to wander round to the opposite hillside for the 12.15pm from Gloucester, with an unidentified GWR ‘large prairie’. Moving on to the other side of Ross-onWye, towards Fawley, we wanted to get shots crossing the River Wye. The first was an unidentified GWR 2-6-2T crossing the viaduct south of…