Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Steam Days

In the year 1964 the town of Alnwick in Northumberland was one of the few remaining outposts of steam passenger operation in the North Eastern Region of British Railways. At least five times each day, except on Sundays when no trains ran, the handsome Victorian station saw the arrival and departure of an almost extinct type of train, usually consisting of two former LNER non-corridor coaches hauled by a Peppercorn ‘K1’ class 2-6-0. In the same year I was a student at Reading University, far away from my home in Newcastle upon Tyne. In April I sat, and passed, my first university examination and, as a result, was admitted to the Honours course (BA) in geography. Among the lectures I attended during the summer term was a short series on…

ABSc pass at University of Sheffield saw Chris Forrest gain employment near Chester in autumn 1955, and thus his established affection for the city’s railways and the routes beyond passed from occasional, to everyday, observation, in time thanks to a Saltney-Capenhurst commute through to August 1957. A s the gateway to Wales, Chester had always been one of my favourite railway places, so I was highly delighted when in the spring of 1955 I was offered a job in the area. However, there was one small condition – I must first pass my final BSc (Bachelor of Science) exams! My total reliance on rail travel now caused a problem. I spent the spring bank holiday at home in Lancashire and the exams began on the following Wednesday in Sheffield, but ASLEF had…

The history of engine sheds at Thornton Junction had its beginnings in the 31 July 1845 Act of Incorporation of the Edinburgh & Northern Railway (E&NR). The Act empowered construction of a double-track line from Burntisland to Perth, with a branch to Cupar; in addition, a later extension to the Act authorised the building of a branch line from Thornton through to Dunfermline – all were fully open by the end of 1849. Leaving Burntisland, the main E&NR route went via a coal-mining hamlet called Thornton and on to Ladybank, where it divided, one line going east to Cupar, while that to the west headed to Perth. These railways opened in stages, as follows: Friday, 17 September 1847: Burntisland to Cupar, 24½ miles (temporary railhead), and Ladybank to Lindores, 4½…

We all make wrong decisions in life, and it could be argued that it was probably a major error of judgement by the local businessmen who set up the Hundred of Hoo Railway Company in 1879 and then persuaded the South Eastern Railway (SER) to absorb it and start to build the proposed line. The SER saw this as a way to compete with bitter rival the London, Chatham & Dover Railway (LC&DR), who had already, in 1863, opened a line on the nearby Isle of Sheppey – immediately on the other side of the River Medway estuary from Grain – and built a station and port at Queenborough at the mouth of the River Swale; from there the company was able to run a freight service across the water…