Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2022 i Steam World

In my youth, railwaymen, like seafarers had a certain weather-beaten look. They were seldom young and when seen at work, they were usually busy. Take a good look at the railwayman in this picture, another of those ‘human interest’ photographs by American visitor, Emery J. Gulash. Caught on camera here, looking smart and well-equipped in his waterproofs, this man is a shunter. We have the date as May 1966 but, sadly, we don’t know who this man was or even where he was working. He is, of course, a shunter carrying his shunter’s pole. I inherited one of those when I bought Barnwell station. I was told that here, it was used to dip a bucket into the well in the days before the station had mains water. It is…

A selection from the archives of Initial Photographics gives glimpses of 63A in 1962, 1965 and 1966. With thanks to Scotrail Driver Gary Straiton for assistance with caption research.…

For fans of Southern steam, there was nothing like seeing a Southern locomotive far from its natural habitat. Equally, the incursions of ‘foreign’ steam power greatly added to the interest in steam on the Southern in its dying years during the early 1960s. During those final years, enthusiasts followed unusual SR workings with roughly the same level of vigour that Jerry Lee Lewis used when playing the piano! This feature looks first at the wanderings of SR steam beyond the regional boundary, from the start of the 1960s until the end of SR steam in July 1967, and the graduallydiminishing appearances of non-SR-based steam traction on the region. The focus is upon ordinary revenue-earning workings, though the occasional enthusiasts’ special or other interesting movement has been included if of particular…

The final death throes of BR main line steam, which culminated in the Fifteen Guinea Special in August 1968, completely passed me by. By 1968 I was coming to the end of my time at university and, anyway, the peak of my childhood railway interest had waned some time before then. All I saw in Britain’s railway system in the second half of the 1960s was the dismal decline which had So absorbed me as a youngster. However, the bug sowed between 1955 and 1963, was sown deep - and it never completely left me. After many dormant years I finally resolved to fill in some winter nights by piecing together, whilst it was still possible, the small pile of personal trivia which resides in my head, some poor quality…

That's me in the cab of 30582, heading for Axminster! Many years ago, in the 1950s, my parents owned a wooden chalet at the west end of Lyme Regis (long since destroyed by the falling cliffs between there and Seaton) and on most Saturdays in August my dad would drive us all down to Lyme for a week or two’s holiday. So it was, in 1956, when I was 11 years old. Two days later, after my mother and father had unpacked and settled in, a day on the beach was proposed. I didn’t fancy that much because it was cloudy and overcast and nothing much else was happening. So I took myself up to the station at the back of the town. Again, there was not much activity there,…

In 1961 Ipswich, at the beating heart of East Anglia, wasn’t the best place for a steam enthusiast. Diesels were everywhere. Our beloved ‘Brits’ were hanging on at Norwich but most had departed for March on their inexorable journey up north by the year end. Our local depot (Ipswich 32B) had been rebuilt ready for diesel traction in 1954 and received its first diesel allocation in 1958. The last steam working from Ipswich shed was in March 1960 when ‘J15’ 0-6-0 No. 65389 worked the last freight train to Snape (a branch off the East Suffolk line that ran from Ipswich to Lowestoft and originally on to Great Yarmouth). The steam locomotive lived and breathed. Each one was different. Two locomotives built at the same time to the same design…

Cullompton In Steam World (September 2021), I recorded how I worked my last shift as a Booking Clerk at Clock House on Saturday February 8 1958 (early turn) and the next day left my digs in Beckenham with grateful thanks to friends, Roger and Wyn with whom I had stayed for the previous 15 months. I caught the 10.30am Paddington-Penzance as far as Exeter, with ‘King’ 4-6-0 No. 6010 King Charles I, a long-term resident of Laira shed. The next day, I reported to Mr King, the Assistant District Commercial Manager for the Exeter Division, to be told that the first four weeks of my management training was to be at Cullompton, an intermediate station between Exeter and Taunton. I travelled to Cullompton on the 10.40am stopping train from Exeter…

1961 A Difficult Transition Continues As winter turned towards spring and the need to provide steam heat for at least the day-time services ceased, if not the sleeping car services, the availability of the Type 4 diesels improved. It was decided to place all of the ‘Princess Royals’ into store, serviceable if required. One reason for that decision may have been the start of the arrival of a further batch of a dozen English Electric Type 4s together with an improvement in availability and reliability of the earlier arrivals. From the end of January ‘The Caledonian’ service in each direction was entrusted to a diesel. All except No. 46204 (May) were stored from early March and all except No 46201 (remained in store until January 1962) and Nos. 46210/12 (condemned…