Innehållsförteckning för August 2023 från Steam World

As I write this, I have just returned Afrom a few days break, staying in the beautiful Grade ll listed Bucknell station on the Heart of Wales line, just a few miles from the Welsh border. The Shrewsbury-Swansea Central Wales Line is a lengthy railway, 115 miles from end to end. Bucknell is just 28 miles from Shrewsbury, making the BucknellSwansea journey which I was contemplating, some 87 miles. Today, one goes on-line and consults National Rail Enquiries. I've just done that, as an experiment on Sunday, April 30, posing an imaginary enquiry for a train at 9.00am from Bucknell to Swansea next day. The first offering involves two changes of train, at Craven Arms and Newport because the direct train closest to my 9.00am departure (9.39am) is cancelled due…

few years before the event described Ain this article, I was travelling with my parents from the Isle of Wight towards London, on the Portsmouth direct line, when I noticeda line of stored locomotives on a siding near what I later discovered was Liss station in Hampshire. This siding hosted a couple of former London Brighton& South Coast Railway 4-4-2Ts, the only ones of that genre I ever saw. The benefit of hindsight, and modern access to the internet, tells me that these were formerly LBSCR class I2 442Ts Nos. 2013 and 2019, which the Longmoor Military Railway had once numbered 2400 and 2401, then 72400 and 72401 before discarding them in 1947, which may well have been the yearI saw them. By September 1953, I was sufficiently aware to…

Part two Part one was published in Steam World July 2023 Onset of war and the REC he next logical step up the promotion Tladder for Barrington-Ward would have been to the post of General Manager for the entire Southern Area of the LNER, but during 1937 he had seen H. Maudlin (his opposite number as Superintendent for the Eastern Area) appointed to that role. However, he did become Superintendent for the entire Southern Area and, close to the outbreak of war, was appointed by Wedgwood to be Assistant General Manager (Operating). With the railways again returning to government control, the shortly-to-retire Wedgwood (succeeded by Sir Charles Newton) wanted someone who could co-ordinate and communicate with the wartime Railway Executive Committee (REC) on behalf of the entire LNER. That role would…

In a recent conversation an archaeologist asked me whether it would be possible to find someone who had a portable railway such as featured in ‘digs’ of the inter-war period. Whether he was thinking of Howard Carter or Indiana Jones was not clear, but the gentleman concerned was astonished nonetheless to learn that there were enthusiasts for narrow gauge industrial railways of this kind. Indeed, there have been enthusiasts for the quirks and oddities of the industrial narrow gauge from the start of the railways and one of the earliest known organised rail tours was around Beckton Gas Works (part of the route of the tour is now the Docklands Light Railway). Interest in main line locomotives with all their magisterial good looks; often made more handsome with a decent…

Steam to Lymington Pier Being local,I was most interested in Keith Widdowson's article ‘Last Days of Steam to Lymington’ (Steam World, June) and perhaps you will permit me to makea couple of comments. The caption to the lower photograph on page 62 states that Lymington Town was the only intermediate stop, which is only partially correct. From opening in 1956, until its closure in 1989, there was another station, albeit with a very limited workman's service, as its name ‘Ampress Works Halt’ suggests. This was opened to serve the adjacent Wellworthy factory, however the factory has since closed but whether the station closure pre-dated this I'm unable to remember. The site has been re-developed, partly industrial, but is also the site of the ‘new’ Lymington Hospital close by and when…

Chris: When Nigel Harris first suggested the theme for this article – ‘Summertime'– my mind went immediately to the next line of that great Gershwin song from Porgy and Bess, ‘and the living is easy’. Whether I was linesiding, or going to visit some picturesque branch line or station, the summers of the mid-1960s were easy. Yes, even the summer of 1963 involving GCE ‘O’ levels and looking fora job to do once I left school. For me, there was no prospect of further education. I was tired of school and I needed to contribute to the household income. True, eight years later I tooka City & Guilds Design for Printing course at Twickenham ‘Tech’, but I was out of the habit of studying (the history of typefaces nowadays incorrectly…

Back, ten or a dozen years ago, I researched and wrote a series of articles for RAIL magazine, looking at journeys which could once have been made easily by rail but which now require a ridiculous commitment of time and money if one persists in using only rail transport. For instance, I live in a former station on what was the Northampton to Peterborough line. The journey from Barnwell to Northampton, 28 miles, took around one hour by train. My journey for the RAIL article, involved driving to Peterborough (the bus service that replaced the train no longer serves Barnwell) taking the train from Peterborough to King's Cross, walking up Euston Road to Euston station and taking the train from there to Northampton. It was, frankly, absurd, and the only…

Bon Poynter continues the story of his early BR career. Part four The previous instalments were in Steam World, September 2021, December 2022 and April 2023 Bristol Temple Meads In Steam World No.430 I described my Itraining in the Exeter District and the many opportunities for travel behind steam locomotives and concluded by saying which my next training was to be based in the Bristol area. On Monday June2 1958,I set offon the 6.50am Paignton to Bristol,a train booked to be worked bya Newton Abbot-based ‘Castle’ 4-6-0, this time No. 7029 Clun Castle. On arrival,I reported to Charlie Rust, the Station Master who left me in no doubt about the task ahead of me. Temple Meads alone isa complicated station to operate and with the signalboxes and carriage sidings as…

Part two When I worked my ‘second stint’ at Ian Allan Ltd from 1977-92 I was involved with magazines covering the BR steam era, the current railway scene world-wide, and model railways. We used the work of a large number of top-notch photographers but we had one or two whom we also commissioned to cover specific jobs in connection with books as well as the monthly magazines. Of these, chosen because they could be relied upon to deliver without fuss or disappointment, Brian Morrison was the first choice every time. Our books department liked to be inventive with nicknames for these regulars, particularly if there was risk of confusion, as there was with the two Morrisons, Gavin and Brian, who became known among us, as Gavmo and Brimo. I'm not…

Part one appeared in Steam World December 2022, part two in January 2023, part three in February 2023 and part four in May 2023. ‘Nelsons’ and ‘Arthurs’ The 16 ‘Lord Nelson’ 4-6-0s, 74 Urie and Maunsell ‘King Arthur’ 4-6-0s and 40 ‘Schools’ 4-4-0s formed the backbone of SR steam power until the arrival of the Bulleid ‘Pacifics’, but even afterwards, the three types seemed to rarely stray from the SR other than on the Oxford route. Our 1960s review is of course severely limited by the very early withdrawal of the three Maunsell classes by 1962, the Urie variants having already gone by the end of the 1950s. An interesting sighting of a Lord Nelson was No. 30862 Lord Collingwood, seen at Westbury in December 1961 on Fawley oil traffic.…