Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2024 i Steam World

COMMENT It was only while pondering this Comment that I realised that railway photography is an art form in its own right. It still seems strange that it’s taken me so long to realise what must be obvious to the rest of the world and I don’t know why I’d never considered it before. What prompted this revelation was trying to think about what my favourite railway photograph was. Try to nail this down was about as easy as trying to pick my favourite film or TV show (album is easy – Who’s Next by The Who). A great piece of art, be it a painting, a film or a piece of music, will always leave a lasting impression and it’s an impression that can last a lifetime. You can’t…

I’m not sure of the year. It could have been 1956 or ’57– certainly before the railway bug had bitten. But I certainly remember the locomotive. I was at King’s Cross, on the westbound Circle/Metropolitan Line platform, waiting for a train one afternoon when a steam locomotive came rattling quite briskly through with a train of vans. My memory of that moment is still so vivid. What I saw was, without a doubt, an ex-GWR ‘9701’. Meat has been traded at Smithfield Market for 800 years although the market closed in 2023, moving to new premises near Dagenham. Meat trains to GWR’s underground Smithfield Goods Depot joined what’s now the Hammersmith & City Line by a connection at Royal Oak, just outside Paddington station. They ran through Paddington’s Underground platforms…

This long-lived and very useful class of shunting and goods tank engine, built to the design of William Stroudley, first entered service on the London Brighton & South Coast Railway in 1874, two years following the first appearance of his famous ‘Terriers’. They looked like a larger version of the ‘Terrier’ but the ‘E tanks’, as they were originally known, actually shared more in common with Stroudley’s ‘D’ 0-4-2Ts, introduced in 1873. The ‘E Tanks’ eventually numbered 78 engines, built in batches until 1891. The ‘E Tanks’ filled a need for specialist shunting and local goods work. They all originally carried names and, as was common with goods engines on the LBSCR, the names were of places on the Continent. This naming tradition probably reflected the connection with the flow…

Sleeve identification Following the ‘banter’ about post-1960s music in recent issues, I have attached a copy of an album cover by a late 1960s group called Tramline and was wondering whether you or your knowledgable readers can tell the location depicted. They were an English group but I cannot tell if this is a British or overseas location, although to me it looks British. I am sure somebody out there can identify the Location. John Ledward by e-mail (The signalbox looks like one of the GWR wartime austerity ‘ARP’ boxes, while the double telegraph poles suggest Midland Railway. So I suspect somewhere in the Bristol/Gloucester area where GWR and MR lines met.-Ed) Flying Scotsman in Australia I have been inspired by Peter Willis’ letter in SW443 to write about Flying…

It’s Thursday July 28 1960 and my weeklong plan to see as many North Eastern Region locomotives as possible, using a Railrover ticket, has hit a bit of a snag. I’d fallen asleep on an overnight train from York, missed my stop at Newcastle and had ended up in Edinburgh. Now I was trying to get the day back on track with a visit to West Auckland shed. But it just wasn’t my day… The directions in my Shed Directory looked pretty straightforward: “Turn right . . . into the main West Auckland Road. Continue for about 1½ miles and turn left into the main Shildon Road.” From there it would be obvious: “A cinder path leads to the shed from the right-hand side of this road, just before the…

I think it was Great Northern Railway engineer Henry Ivatt who said, “The efficiency and reliability of a locomotive is measured by its capacity to boil water.” Quite. The ability to provide steam by boiling water is fundamental to the working of a steam locomotive. However, the supply of copious amounts of water is an aspect of the steam age that is rarely commented on. ‘Put the bag in’ may be a well-known phrase. Photographs of locomotives taking water are common. But have you ever considered how all that water got to the tanks and columns? Photographs of locomotives taking water are often taken in locations without a domestic water supply. In some cases, the locomotive water supply pre-dated any attempt to supply running water to the railway buildings, be…

Want to see more W.J.V. Anderson images? You can browse the collection at www.rail-online.co.uk and can order copies of your favourites.…

Such is the winding course of both the railway and the river Tamar, that after passing a primary school and leaving Calstock, the line passes close to the river and turns, heading west, to pass St. Andrew’s Church, Calstock, before turning north again to the present terminus at Gunnislake (4½ miles from Bere Alston). Here, the line passed over the A390 main road to reach Gunnislake’s original station, where a loop (the only one on the branch) passed either side of the island platform. Another Colonel Stephens wooden building – but with two canopies – was provided here. After Beeching, it was torn down and replaced with a concrete bus shelter. Gunnislake became the line’s terminus from 1966. It was moved in 1994 to the south side of the road…

One of the LNER’s constituent companies was the North Eastern Railway, which was heavily reliant upon mineral traffic. Its former management team was able to offer its experience on improving the utilisation of the wagon fleet. A Central Wagon (Control) Authority was established at York and arrangements for returning empty, private owner wagons were changed. The Nottinghamshire to London flow of coal more than equalled that from Yorkshire, most of which passed through Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire en route to Temple Mills, in East London. To enable trains of empty wagons to be sent directly to their owning colliery, the LNER decided to sort the wagons at the earliest, rather than latest, stage of their return journey. On the ex-Great Central Railway’s London Extension, this arrangement meant that Woodford Halse assisted…