Innehållsförteckning för November 2023 från Steam World

Isn’t this just lovely?! I bought it on eBay a while ago and, if I recall correctly, I had to bid quite high to get it. The location is, of course, Oxenhope, the terminus and literal ‘top-end’ of the Worth Valley branch from Keighley. What’s different about it, is that it was taken when the Midland Railway’s 5 mile-long branch line was still owned and operated by British Railways. A mundane Ivatt 2-6-2T No. 41236, built in 1949 at Crewe and withdrawn in 1962, stands at the platform, having arrived with a couple of LMS Stanier coaches. The branch passenger service was withdrawn on and from January 1 1962, so we can’t blame Beeching for this one. Though I don’t have a date for this photograph, it is a graphic…

I was an apprentice - known as a ‘probationer’ - in the Signal Engineer’s Depot at Spital Bridge, Peterborough, between 1960-1964. Over those four years, I spent time with all the signalling departments (mechanical locking, Lineman, Telegraph Gang) and one of these was with the Electrical Lineman at Peterborough East. Our patch was from Turntable Signal Box (at the east end of Peterborough East station) to Thorpe on the Northampton line and Wakeley and Barrowden on the Rugby line, which diverged at Yarwell Junction (now the Nene Valley Railway’s western terminus). Our main work was managing the two station signalbokes. The batteries in the ‘boxes consisted of glass jars filled with sal ammoniac solution and carbon and zinc electrodes inserted in the jars. These had to be washed out and…

I became a fan of the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway mainly thanks to Ivo Peters’ films and photographs. I suspect I’m not alone here. Sadly, I did not get to travel on the line but I have visited many of the places made famous by Ivo and have even enjoyed cab rides on preserved ‘7F’ No. 53808, including one tender-first trip where the crew used me as a shield to protect them from the rain. Think S&D and you’ll imagine ‘9Fs’, Bulleid ‘Pacifics’ and the charismatic ‘7F’ 2-8-0s battling across the Mendips with summer Saturday excursions. Yet the S&D was home to more humble fare, locomotives that didn’t grab the headlines and that kept passengers and goods moving, day in day out. You don’t get a much humbler engine…

1966 will always be remembered as the year that England won the World Cup. For me and many other enthusiasts, it will also be remembered as the last full year of steam departures from London Waterloo. Stand on the platforms here in 1966 and most services to Bournemouth and Weymouth were steam-hauled. You could also find steam in charge of most services to Salisbury and, even, Basingstoke and all the coaching stock moves to Clapham yard had a steam locomotive in charge. I started working for British Railways as a Junior Clerk in the telephone enquiry office at Waterloo on September 7 1964, the Monday after the ‘Atlantic Coast Express’ has been handed over to the Western Region. I was on £260 a year but it was an ideal job…

Even the most ardent of Gresley enthusiasts cannot argue with the logic behind Edward Thompson’s plan to standardise the LNER’s locomotive fleet. Firstly, it was something that the other ‘Big Four’ companies had been doing, to a greater or lesser extent, for years. Secondly, Gresley’s thoroughbreds, with their conjugated Gresley-Holcroft valvegear, were designed for a different era. In pre-war Britain, the railway was still king and time and effort could be devoted to ensuring that these machines were kept in tip-top condition. When Thompson took over the helm after the great man’s death in April 1941, Britain was at war, fighting for its life and any new design had a job to do. The fact that Thompson took function over form to an unprecedented level suggests that he lacked any…

I suspect leaving school and finding a job is a daunting prospect for most youngsters. Today’s school leavers do, however, have it a lot easier than my generation did. Terms such as ‘careers advisor’ and ‘work experience’ were almost unheard of when I was a teenager. Further education was merely a catching up process for those who didn’t do as well as expected in their GCE ‘O’ levels. That’s how it was in a mainstream secondary school in 1960. Of course, if you had been bright enough to pass the 11-plus examination, you went to grammar school and from there, probably to college or university. Ill health meant that I missed a lot of school and was borderline. I took the 11-plus twice but did not get the one remaining…

Anyone with a connection to the Arailway – whether that’s because you work on it or are just interested in it – will generally know a lot of the technical language that leaves the public at large mystified. Why would Bromsgrove be the home of ‘bankers’? Surely, they work in the city of London? How come it’s a ‘light engine’ when clearly it weighs 70 tons or more? ‘Double heading’ is a bit more understandable but hearing a driver ask, “What’s the bobby up to now?” is surely baffling if you don’t know that signalling originated with ‘railway policemen’. I used to know someone who revelled in this jargon and woe betide you if you didn’t keep up. One of his favourites was: “We’re bang road for the setters.” This…

Toaschoolboy enthusiast based on the Southern Region’s South Western main line, we were spoilt for steam workings. Despite this, we’d make regular trips to Reading. It was always something of an adventure. I was fortunate in that it was really easy to get from my home in Farnborough to Reading. Farnborough North was only a short bus ride away or we’d sometimes get a bus direct to Blackwater station, both of which were on the Guildford-Reading line. As Reading wasn’t too far away, our parents would be happy enough to let us go off by ourselves, as long as there was a small group of us. It’s hard to believe now that Reading once boasted two stations (three if you count Reading West), two locomotive sheds, goods depots and even…

1. ‘Hall’ 4-6-0 No. 4900 Number: 4900 Date of rebuilding: 1924 (1) Withdrawn: 1959 Preserved: N/a The ‘43XX’ 2-6-0s were hugely successful mixed traffic engines but limited by their size. Charles Collett thought that a ‘Saint’ with smaller wheels would make a more powerful mixed traffic machine so fitted ‘Saint’ No. 2925 Saint Martin with 6ft diameter wheels and a new cab. Effectively became the prototype of the ‘Halls’, production of which started in 1928. No. 4900 retained its lower pitch boiler, nameplates– and other detail differences. Modifying locomotives to improve them was commonplace. Some changes were seemingly small – double chimneys, smoke deflectors and so forth – yet they could have a dramatic impact on performance and, in some cases, the external appearances. However, some locomotives underwent significant changes.…

Mary Setchfield’s father was a War Graves worker in Ypres and in 1939, the family escaped from the Nazi invasion and, eventually, settled with relatives in Peterborough. After a spell as a cinema usherette and working in a pea factory, she got a job with the LNER in the coal accounts office in 1940 She takes up the story: I was interviewed for the job by Miss Ruby Dent, supervisor for the female staff as typist at the main office, which was a large building at the end of Cowgate, not far from Peterborough North Station. I’d left school at 14. In Ypres, I had attended the British Memorial School [a school founded by former students from Eton for English families of Imperial War Graves Commission workers]. As I had…

Long before he became known for writing the novels that would inspire Hollywood blockbusters such as such Jurassic Park or Twister, Michael Crichton discovered the story of the three boxes of gold bullion stolen from a South Eastern Railway train on May 15 1855. He wrote the novel The Great Train Robbery in 1975, which was turned into a film, the First Great Train Robbery, starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down, in 1978. The film depicts the southeast of England in the Victorian era. However, the railway sequences in this adventure were actually filmed in the Republic of Ireland, on the former Midland & Great Western Railway line between Athlone and Mullingar. This line had the advantage of being lightly trafficked (it now has no traffic, having closed…