In your hand is the 400th issue of Steam Days magazine. Steam Days started out as a quarterly magazine, dated April-June 1986, becoming a 48-page bi-monthly periodical in June 1990, and eventually a monthly magazine from October 1991. I took up the reins as editor, firstly at Ian Allan in August 1992, and continued from the March 1993 issue under the auspices of my own newly-formed publishing company, Redgauntlet Publications Ltd. The name was taken from the GWR ‘Saint’ class 4-6-0 No 2983 Redgauntlet which was one of the first named locomotives that I saw in the early 1940s, this, coupled with the fact that at school I became interested in the novels of Sir Walter Scott, of which Redgauntlet was one.
Over the years I have had messages from…
