A Brief Encounter with Carnforth

It was a regular port of call for us on our way to youth hostelling holidays in the Lake District in the 60s and 70s. We were attracted to one of the last operating steam depots on BR [below left, 1968] and after that to its reincarnation, keeping the coal burning as Steamtown Carnforth [below right, 1974]. It had been one of the last bastions against the inevitable tide of diesel encroachment. This latest encounter was a last minute choice after the cancellation of our intended steam special.

The station buildings are now born again as a museum of steam railway memorabilia and gift shop, with the adjacent and refurbished 40s style café trading on renewed interest in the film Brief Encounters, in the age of the DVD. Taking a stroll round the back of the currently beleaguered West Coast Railway Company’s establishment, we were hard-pressed to see any evidence of its role as a major provider of steam hauled excursions on the main network, apart from a set of pristine carriage stock, the sheds themselves and the concrete coaling stages. Any steam locomotives present were secreted away well beyond the gaze of the inquisitive and the faithful. The proliferation of diesels that were in view, especially of classes 37, 47 and 57 and most smartly attired in the maroon WCRC house colours, indicated a more recent railway heritage.

After the customary photograph beneath the famous platform clock, we got our feet under the table in the Brief Encounter café and made ourselves at home for the day. Elevenses, a light lunch and afternoon cake followed, all accompanied by numerous substantial pots of un-tea-bagged tea and either side of our tour of the museum and our reflective wanderings around the site. Welcoming staff detailed the link with David Lean’s cinematic masterpiece and speculated over possible future additions to celebrate other examples of his work.

Pendolinos sped by on the main line, where we had once enthused over a handful of surviving Standard 7s, 9Fs, Mickeys and 8Fs, and where, a generation before that, un-rebuilt Scots and Patriots had provided the swirling, steamy backdrop for Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson’s rather agonising “should we or shouldn’t we” deliberations towards the end of those wartime years.

The café staff finally took a break huddled round a corner table, no doubt wondering if we would ever leave. A large bunch of keys already dangling from the door lock provided us with a clue that closing time had already passed so we eventually offered our thanks for their having to put up with us all day, whilst we had rather publicly relived our past. We then re-joined the succession of modern units on today’s railway that would eventually see us returned to the present day.