Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Steam World

I bought this picture because I like it and because I thought it would be a nice illustration to be used some time in Steam World. After all, who wouldn't love a ‘Collett Goods’ 0-6-0 shunting at some wayside station in the Forest of Dean? It was an eBay auction and I had to bid £18.50 to win it. The description did quote ‘Sudbrook’ but the name did not really register with me at the time. Of course, it should have done. When I started looking for a ‘Comment’ picture for this issue, the picture of No. 2231 caught my eye. But what on Earth could I say about the picture, however much I liked it? Having decided that I would use the digital scan which had recently been made…

Back in 1962, you could leave London Waterloo at 1.10am (yes, ten past one at night) and, with a change at Plymouth and another at Bere Alston, you could be in Callington, Cornwall, at 9.09am. You would, however, have taken 45minutes to cover the last 9½ miles but what a splendid nine and half miles they were! Beeching, of course, slated the Bere Alston to Callington branch for closure. It's hardly surprising, as the line served only small villages and, apart from Calstock, they were all a good distance from their railway station. However, the Callington branch did not go down without a fight, and indeed, the first 4½ miles of it didn't hit the canvas at all. At Calstock, the line crosses the river Tamar – the Devon/Cornwall border…

Charles Collett and his team were surely confident that fitting a ‘Saint’ with 6ft diameter driving wheels would create a superlative mixed traffic locomotive. But would they have had any clue that the design would be so good that over 300 would be built? And that they'd run out of suitable stately homes on GWR territory so much so that they'd have to turn to halls hundreds of miles away for names? Swindon built 257 production ‘Halls’ between December 1928 and April 1943. Only 1932 and 1934 didn't feature ‘Hall’ construction, which is a testament not only to Collett's decision but to the design's Churchward origins. Lot number 340 covered locomotives Nos. 6916-6958 and the first emerged from Swindon in June 1941. The last ‘Hall’ of the batch, No. 6958,…

It's Tuesday July 26 1960 and the fourth day of my quest to see as many North Eastern Region steam locomotives as possible, using one of British Railways’ new Railrover tickets. I'd started in East Anglia and made my way north - via Carlisle. Overnight East Coast Main Line trains provided a place to sleep. I had managed to keep most of my shed visits ‘legal’ because a friend's father had organised permits. At the end of Part 1 (SW443), I'd just been around York shed and was now at Doncaster where I had more than two hours before my next train. There was plenty of time to wash and eat. My supper in the station buffet consisted of a pork pie and a Lyons fruit pie, my two staple…

The origins of nickname ‘Super D’ remains unclear but the term ‘Superheated D’ dates from a London& North Western Railway classification scheme from 1905, whereby any simple (ie, not compound) 0-8-0 was described as a ‘D’. But the nickname persisted throughout LMS days and into the British Railways era. Well known to their crews and enthusiasts for wheezing sounds and front-end steam leaks, these LNWR 0-8-0s hada complicated history, involving numerous conversions, upgrades and re-boilerings. British Railways inherited 523 ‘Super Ds’ in 1948, one of the biggest classes ofa pre-Grouping design that passed into BR ownership. It actually comprised 123 ‘G1s’, 81 ‘G2s’ and 319 ‘G2as’. All received the addition of 40,000 to their LMS numbers. So what were the differences? The LNWR's first 0-8-0 was built in 1892 to…

The Annesley that many Steam World readers will remember was heavily influenced by its role in the movement of coal. Therefore, it is logical to start with a summary of how that coal traffic originated. The Midland Counties Railway had built the first railway to Nottingham in 1839 and it was the MCR's successor, the Midland Railway, to first lay tracks through the area of Annesley, to the north of the city in 1848, when it opened the Nottingham-Kirkby railway. At that time, the MR did not have a direct line to London and, until 1868, relied upon running agreements to use the London & North Western Railway from Rugby. Later, it would access the Great Northern Railway at Hitchin. North Nottinghamshire and north Derbyshire were situated on a large…

Much has changed on Britain's rail network since the days of steam but there are one or two places where you still feel that the railway is still doing the work for which it was built. Chapel Milton is one such place. This Peak District tiny hamlet is dominated by two great stone viaducts. Both carry heavy stone trains from the quarries that scar the landscape between Buxton and Sheffield. Although diesel engines now rumble across the valley, there's still a ‘bobby’ in the signalbox controlling the trains. Somehow, the essence of the place hasn't changed. It's not exactly the same, however, since that bobby was allowing ‘8Fs’ to clank past. The signalbox is a 1980s BR creation; the viaduct that once carried the Midland Railway's London-Manchester main line is…

Mucking about at Crewe I was fascinated by Terry Barber's account of life at Crewe Works in the 1950s, but I was also extremely puzzled by his reference to working practices in relation to tank locomotive repairs and the risk of injuries involved. He wrote: “We put manure in the tanks to stop any leaks.” But this doesn't really explain how and why this procedure came about, or why it was a necessary part of the repair process? If you could persuade him to expand and explain a little further, I and (I'm sure). other readers, would be appreciative.” Peter Sharples, Stockport. Summer Saturday 1963 Don's notes (Steam World, April) are impressive and should make some significant additions/corrections to the West Coast Sightings sheets records we have already created for…

As a now retired ex-British Railways platelayer, I have watched, with much sadness, all that has happened to the country's railway system in recent years in regards to track maintenance. However, I am in no position to pass judgement on those responsible for today's problems, simply because I do not fully understand the rules under which modern trackworkers earn their crust. All I can offer by way of comparison is some idea of the rules under which my generation toiled in the days of British Railways. I transferred from the Motive Power Department at Balloch, Dunbartonshire, to the Permanent Way Department in 1954. The career change was no great ordeal–I simply left one job on Friday evening and started the new one on Monday morning. I was first assigned to…