Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Steam Days

I can’t recall a time ‘before railways’ in my life; they they have simply always been part of my everyday. I think perhaps it is in the blood. Certainly, I know that I followed in the footsteps of my brother, Ian, quite literally, being in a pram as our mother took him up to Railway Walk, Worcester, to see the locomotives down below us outside the engine shed. Don’t worry, I’m not going to pretend that I can recall those moments. However, I do remember theWorcester Locomotive Society interests of both my father, Rex, now the consultant editor of Steam Days, and Ian. Dad is now 90 years old, and his railway adventures have graced the pages of this magazine ever since he took over as editor on issue number…

Tail Lamp has been busy of late, which is fabulous, thank you, and so certain letters have been delayed through limited space, not least this detailed account of CreweWorks pilot engines by Allan C Baker, which arrived with a handful of photographs, as seen.As Allan requested, it was forwarded to the authors of the article, Roger Griffiths and John Hooper, who found it most interesting. For the record, a follow-up article appeared in the July 2024 Steam Days as ‘CreweWorks’ pilot engines:The‘press ganged,’diesel classes and a timeline of change.’ Crewe Works Pilot Locomotives and some other Crewe Works memories A number of issues having come to mind in reading the interesting article on this subject in the March issue, and I thought I would reflect on some of my own…

The former Midland Railway route from Sheffield to Bristol was something of a backwater in the performance arena, in the post-war era at any rate. One of the disincentives to the timing fraternity was the often lethargic scheduling involved, but there are always a few flashes in the pan meted out by the timing department on selected stretches – the winter 1958/59 London Midland Region timetable is a good example of this. The route boasted a 75mph limit in the post-war steam era, which given a lack of a commercial imperative for cross-country services in this period was creditable. Not so, however, were the journey times, which overall struggled to reach 40mph start-to-stop over the longer sections from Birmingham (New Street) to Bristol (Temple Meads) or Bath (Green Park). O…

Brecon is a historic market town attractively located to the north of the Brecon Beacons, which separate it from the industrial valleys of South Wales. It has a castle, a cathedral, and has long been a major military centre, so despite its modest size it attracted the interest of railway promoters in the mid-19th century. By 1867, four railway lines had converged on Brecon and for almost a century provided a valuable service to the community, but in a rural area with a small population they were all to succumb to harsh economics in the era of the motor car and lorry. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel over all the lines on several occasions in the years preceding their closure in the early 1960s. Historically speaking,…

It is now 70 years since the first ‘9F’ class 2-10-0, No 92000, was put into traffic. Arguably, the 12 British Railways Standard classes, with the possible exception of the ‘2MT’ 2-6-2T and 2-6-0 types, shared characteristically modern looks with a familial pedigree; the front end of the ‘9F’, for instance, showed a remarkable resemblance to the ‘Britannia’ Pacifics. That they shared a design philosophy as distinct as the products of Swindon, Crewe and Doncaster was thanks to Frank Carrier, who was a locomotive designer in the true sense, and the styling of the Standards was his work. Arguably the last Standard to enter traffic in large numbers, the ‘9F’ was the finest of all, despite being the least standard of the Standards. Beyond their remarkable ‘9F’ power classification they…

In setting out to track the story of engine sheds in Fife (see Steam Days, June and August 2024, so far) and particularly the role of Thornton Junction’s sheds, we briefly pass into Perthshire, and indeed reach Perth itself. In the earliest days of public railways in this vicinity, Perth was the north-western outpost of the Edinburgh & Northern Railway (E&NR), which went on to become the Edinburgh, Perth & Dundee Railway (EP&DR) in April 1849, before being absorbed by the North British Railway on Friday, 1 August 1862, which in turn became part of the London & North Eastern Railway at the Grouping. The birth of British Railways saw LNER and LMS assets in Scotland merged as a single region – Perth was in fact first reached by the…