Innehållsförteckning för June 2025 från Steam World

I fear I'm going to upset some readers. If you're one of them, I apologise, but ‘Comment’ is much about opinion and though we all love steam and railways, within that context there's much that we're likely to disagree about. This train of thought began when proofreading last Month's Steam World. I'd got as far as page 36 and Peter Cooper's article on the Fowler 2-6-4Ts with its imposing opening photograph. Despite being quite alone at the time, I exclaimed aloud, “Ouch, that's an ugly thing!” The thought process continued: Did Fowler ever produce a good-looking locomotive? Maybe not. The Hughes-Fowler ‘Crab’ 2-6-0 wasn't exactly a thing of beauty, either. We have to remember that locomotives were, and are, designed to do a job and that the performance of that…

Anyone who makes their own meals knows how easy it is to boil the kettle or saucepan dry. You can't allow that to happen with a steam locomotive, yet the same principles are in force. In fact, it's rather more precarious because, in a locomotive, the boiler is managed so that it produces a constant amount of steam at its maximum limitations, yet it must never be allowed to ‘boil dry.’ With the supply of water available from tender or tanks limited by their capacity, it would be necessary, on longer journeys, to stop and top up with water from a lineside supply. Accordingly, stations large and small were provided with water columns and, where necessary, water storage tanks to supply them. On the Midland main line, where slow coal…

The dreaded On His Majesty's Service conscription envelope arrived in the first weeks of 1944. Containing a travel warrant, I was to report to an army depot at Canterbury on January 20. At that time, I little realised that, as some compensation for the tribulations of Army life, the next year would provide opportunities to record the railway scene in parts of the country that I had never previously visited. On that first morning, I made my way to London Victoria, joining more young men clearly heading for the same destination. My mind was definitely on other things but I still noted London Chatham & Dover Railway ‘R’ 0-4-4T No. 1661 at Clapham Junction, working the ‘Winkle’, the shuttle service to Kensington for Post Office workers. ‘N15’ No. 765 Sir…

“How it would have gladdened the heart of Edmund Denison had he known that one day, this part of his ‘direct’ line would become the racing ground of all England.” So wrote O.S. Nock when describing that stretch of the East Coast Main Line that, thanks to the exploits of ‘A4’ Mallard on July 3 1938, everyone has heard of: Stoke Bank. It has even been immortalised in 4mm:1ft scale, thanks to Wolverhampton Model Railway Club. But where, exactly, is it? Nock describes how just to the north of Peterborough, the East Coast Main Line climbs a broad limestone ridge that “extends northwards from the Cotswolds to taper into the narrowing finger of Ermine Street”. You can see this on a gradient profile of the ECML: the climb starts roughly…

Isn't it remarkable that it's now 35 years since the last locomotives left Woodham Brothers’ yard and we could see two of those wrecks make their preservation debuts this year? Two hundred and thirteen locomotives were bought in 22 years and while there are some that have been broken for spares and others that will never steam again, will it be Kent & East Sussex Railway-based ‘42XX’ No. 4253 that becomes the 153rd engine to steam again… or will it be ‘Large Prairie’ No. 4150 at the Severn Valley Railway? Having written a previous feature about locomotives scrapped in the other yards in Barry, I felt I had a good amount of information on file to fulfil the title of this article. I must once again mention my good friend…

The ‘Britannias’ might only have been a Class 7 – and a mixed traffic design to boot – but, as one of the last ‘namers’ in action on BR, often became first choice power for railtours and other special workings. This intensified towards the end of BR steam by which time the class had migrated to the northwest and, arguably, couldn't be classified as ‘namers’ as many had lost their ‘plates! But their popularity for railtour workings meant that they returned to former stamping grounds, such as the Southern Region, which had lost its pair of ‘Britannias’ back in 1958. The first train to be covered in this feature ran over two days, on September 23/24 1961. It was a Norwich to Blackpool Central special, organised by BR, so that…

WIN A PRIZE WORTH £70! Clues Across 1 Steam driven emergency vehicles for breakdowns (6) 7 Lincolnshire shed with 40F code (6) 8 Leave main line and cause discouragement? (4,3) 10 SR Kent shed with 73F code (7) 11 Natural phenomenon that blocks out ER 60515! (7) 13 Airman member of, e.g., SR Bulleid 34071 (5) 15 Sum of the engines of a particular Class (5) 17 Monks with writing skills in heyday of, e.g., WR 7035 (7) 19 Capital city of country of ‘Jubilee’ Class 45636 (7) 21 Village near Ramsgate giving name to Bulleid 34070 (7) 22 A title before a name, e.g. ‘Sir’ (6) 23 Not Napoleon's favourite Saint on nameplate of Stanier 45624! (6) Clues Down 1 Member of ‘Saint’ Class 2919 buried in Durham Cathedral (8) 2 Antenna that sounds like ‘Britannia’ Class 70016 (6) 3 Famous winged…

My earliest railway memory is as spectacularly clear today as it was in 1938. I can still play it in my mind, like a clip on YouTube. It was just after 1.30pm and I was with my father on the left hand side of the top deck of a Glasgow tram, trundling northwards on Eglinton Street. We were south of the Clyde, running right beside the old Caledonian Railway lines, the northern limits of the West Coast Main Line, that feed Glasgow Central. These lines are on a falling gradient after crossing the Clyde and we had just gone under the bridge, which took the former Glasgow & South Western Railway line to St Enoch station. The railway is almost level with Eglinton Street but the top deck of the…

Ipswich, in the early months of 1961, wasn't the best place for a steam enthusiast so Malcolm Bull, Rob Burley, Graham Ford, Graham Scott, Chris Hurrocks, Graham Hardinge and myself decided to stay ahead of modernisation, seeking out the last steam in East Anglia and further afield. We continue with a day out in London… April 22 1961 Thanks to Malcolm Bull's and Graham Ford's growing administrative skills, the six of us went off to London, armed with shed permits, letters from the relevant BR official on BR Form 19141/1, giving us permission to visit ‘the Motive Power Depots listed’ and wishing us ‘an instructive and enjoyable visit’. A visit to Nine Elms was always a must as it had been the haunt of some of the finest steam locomotives…