Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2022 i Steam Days

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In terms of administration and services, across the timeline of Britain’s railway history there are a number of noteworthy eras. These include the creation of a public railway network from circa 1830; the growth of expansionist companies that took this forward in the era of the first ‘Railway Mania’ and beyond; the Grouping of 1921-23; and nationalization on New Year’s Day 1948. Beyond that, perhaps the losses of the Beeching era mark the moment of widespread recognition that railways had lost their prime foothold as the unchallenged, go-to movers of people and goods; the end of an epoch. Subsequently, we have privatisation from the mid-1990s and a renewed status for the railways that survive, which is largely beyond the remit of Steam Days. All of the above evolution was mirrored…

Whit Monday, 11 June 1962 was one of those strange days when British Railways put the clock back. For that day the ‘old order’ of non-corridor trains, hauled mainly by steam engines, returned in force to the lines of County Durham. My main aim was to travel from Sunderland to Middleton-in-Teesdale as BR was running several excursion trains over this route, as it had done the previous year. However, I was more ambitious this time and planned to make use of steam services which I knew would have replaced the usual diesel-unit services out of Darlington. Arriving at Newcastle (Central) station at 8am, I purchased a ‘Day Line Diesel Ticket’, which gave freedom of travel over the area I planned to travel through, all for a fare of 20 shillings!…

Whilst accompanying my mother on a week’s visit to her sister in Saltford, near Bristol, they were both probably pleased that I wanted to go out to photograph railway subjects each day. Being a mere 18-year-old, I was dependent on catching a train to wherever I wanted to go to photograph railway scenes, and on the Thursday I found myself at Gloucester (Central) station. I spent mid-day exploring the line to Lydney, and in the late afternoon I crammed in a quick visit to the first station west of Gloucester on the ex-GWR main line to Newport and South Wales, which served a village called Oakle Street. With no internet in those days, I had no idea what I would find when I alighted at this wayside station, and in…

In November 1958 Bristol’s Barrow Road engine shed still had a strong Midland Railway feel despite its location in the heart of former GWR territory. The engine shed was located on the west side of the main line, half a mile north of Temple Meads station, and beyond the shed were carriage sidings and St Philip’s goods yard. The shed’s 1874-built roundhouse contained 24 roads radiating around a 60ft Cowans’ turntable, part of a 1927 depot upgrade. The yard contained a 1936/37-built concrete mechanical coaling tower and mechanical ash disposal plant. Rail nationalisation had left this projecting cross-country route under London Midland Region control and it was only in February 1958, nine months before our story begins, that Bristol (Barrow Road), Gloucester (Barnwood) and Bromsgrove sheds all passed to Western…