Return to the SVR

Not content just with a visit to Carnforth, we were soon off on our travels again, this time back to the fledgling Severn Valley Railway at Bridgnorth. Until 1974, passenger trains only went as far south as Hampton Loade. Ex-LMS Stanier 2-8-0 Class 8F No. 8233 and Hunslet built ex-Manchester Ship Canal 0-6-0 tank The Lady Armaghdale were both in steam in May 1971.

Steamtown Carnforth

Steamtown Carnforth was the name given to the former LMS and British Railways locomotive depot between 1967 and 1997. It was one of the main railway museum sites in the country during that period, holding open days with engines in steam at a time when they were banned from the national network. As such, it provided a much sought-after location for enthusiasts deprived of steam elsewhere. Today it is the base for the West Coast Railway Company, which runs heritage steam and diesel-hauled trains on the national rail system. 

In its various guises, Carnforth has been an attractive venue for us for over 50 years. We called in a few times to see surviving steam locomotives that were still at work in the north west of England in the mid-1960s, usually on our way to youth hostelling holidays in the Lake District.

We got some of our occasional “steam fixes” from Steamtown during the 1970s. Our first visit, illustrated below, was in April 1971. In more recent times, we have enjoyed the splendid station museum and the Brief Encounters themed tea room, as well as taking part in rail tours behind steam over Shap and Ais Gill provided by the WCRC.

Barclay Industrial Number 1 Horwich at Carnforth, April 1971.

 

Ex-LMS Stanier Black Five No. 45407 in Furness Railway livery, Carnforth, April 1971.

Ex-LMS Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 No. 6441 at Carnforth, April 1971.

A gleaming ex-LMS Black Five 4-6-0 at Carnforth, April 1971.

Narrow Minded

I had virtually ignored the narrow-gauge railways. After all, they were, well, kind of small. Also, their locomotives were generally not listed in my favourite book [my combined volume], although I knew that there were one or two exceptions to that. Nor were they part of the national network that I had devoted my time to, up to that point.

I employed the same rather feeble reasons for ignoring the many industrial networks across the country, which also continued to operate steam locomotives after 1968. The consequence was that we never got further than Birkenhead and Liverpool docks for industrial steam - and even then, it would have been in passing rather than with intent.

However, now that our beloved standard gauge steam had been so cruelly taken away from us, it was time to branch out a bit. In June 1970 and most likely at his instigation, Andy drove us to the Welshpool and Llanfair Railway’s headquarters at Castle Caereinion, in his Ford Cortina OMA259D.

Here, we were re-acquainted with the two 1902-built, ex-WL locomotives that had been taken under BR Western Region control from 1948 until the closure of the line in 1956. We had seen them with their ex-GWR numbers of 822 and 823 on a school railway society visit to Oswestry works. That had been prior to 822’s return to the line after overhaul in 1961, and in preparation for the re-opening of a section of the original route.

1 The Earl at Llanfair Caereinion, Welshpool and Llanfair Railway, June 1970.

No 2. The Countess at Llanfair Caereinion, Welshpool and Llanfair Railway, June 1970.

Ex-Zillertalbahn Railway locomotive on shed at Llanfair Caereinion, W&LR, June 1970, with the Bagnall, Monarch, behind.

No. 2 The Countess at Llanfair Caereinion, Welshpool and Llanfair Railway, June 1970.

April 1970 at the Severn Valley Railway

The embryonic heritage railways were very different then. It’s amazing to think that we have been going there at fairly regular intervals for getting on for fifty years now. The relaxed attitude to visitors wandering over the tracks while steam locomotives were operating has disappeared into the past, with the spread of health and safety legislation. Who would have thought that this young man with his hands in his pockets would end up being entrusted with the lining out of these same carriages today?

Scenes at Bridgnorth in April 1970 of Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 No. 43106 and 2251 Class No. 3205.

What shall we do next?

The end of steam in 1968 left us at a bit of a crossroads. No one else in our group was prepared to go off looking for diesels. The focus of our collective activities had changed. Girls now monopolised our activities as well as our thoughts.

What we actually did was travel extensively within Britain. Two things made this possible – the Youth Hostel Association and access to cars. This was theoretically a problem, because the YHA was initially opposed to people travelling around by car. I think we were amongst the pioneers, who, by our brazen flouting of their number one rule, eventually encouraged the organisation to change their policy.

To start with, YH holidays were lads only – after all we very much hoped that we would meet new and different girls from those we were already getting to know back home. As we moved towards having steady girlfriends, going away to meet other girls probably became a bit contentious. We relented and went off together thereafter in a mixed crowd - and sometimes quite a large one.

Steam took a back seat, but was not totally overlooked. The KWVR and the SVR were quickly out of the blocks as far as the standard gauge heritage railways were concerned and we visited both early on. In Haworth yard at the KWVR, on a cold bright day in February 1968, ex-LMS Ivatt 2-6-2 tank No. 41241 was complete with crimson livery, tarpaulin and a covering of snow.

  

Bunker Hill

At the top of Cockett Lane and just before the junction with Kirklington Road, there is a bus stop. The bus stop is at least half a mile from the nearest house. From the bus stop, no settlements are visible. I have never seen anyone at the bus stop, nor anyone get on or off a bus there, and we have been passing it regularly since we moved to the village more than 30 years ago.

There is a lay-by near the bus stop, with a few fence posts and a small concrete block at the edge of a field. Previously, there was also a small brick building that looked like a garden shed and one or two metal pipes, all of which disappeared many years ago.

Someone once told me that this was the site of a Cold War nuclear bunker. I imagined, perhaps a little fancifully, that this meant that in the event of a nuclear war, our leaders would hastily turn their backs on pressing matters of the day at County Hall and head for the bunker at the top of the hill. Presumably they would be coming by bus. The Sherwood Arrow Bus service from the city is every two hours, so they could have been waiting nervously for some time, if they thought a nuclear strike was imminent.

Would they have bothered with a return ticket? Would they have asked the driver to “Make it snappy,” whilst maintaining an air of nonchalance, so that they did not arouse the suspicions of their fellow passengers? Would they have a change of clothes with them or were such things taken into account in the nuclear bunker’s inventory?

When the shed was knocked down, the green metal pipe-work was removed from the location and the ground immediately behind the gate post was cleared of any remaining evidence of the formerly disturbed surface. Whatever had been going on there had obviously been abandoned. I had no idea if what was underground was removed, filled in or just covered up and ploughed over. Perhaps there are multiple packs of tinned baked beans and crates of bottled water still down there, past their use-by dates and slowly rotting underground.

It caught my eye in passing once again this week, so I decided to take a closer look. I climbed the hill on my bike to have a nose around. I found that the sole remaining concrete block, also painted in Nottinghamshire County Council green, actually has a small brass plaque on the top, which has already become quite weathered.

IN THIS FIELD STOOD THE

ROYAL OBSERVER CORPS POST OF

B GROUP [COVENTRY] 22 POST FARNSFIELD

RE-SITED HERE IN 1943, FOR REPORTING AIRCRAFT

AND AS A “GRANITE POST” TO AID FRIENDLY A/C

BUILT UNDERGROUND SEPT 1961 FOR NUCLEAR REPORTING ROLE

CORPS STOOD DOWN 30-9-91 POST DEMOLISHED 1992

14 LOYAL VOLUNTEERS MANNED THE POST

LED BY C/OBS P.K.J. ROBINSON B.E.M.

Back home on the computer, as is so often the case these days, reality is laid bare by the internet within minutes. 

 www.subbrit.org.uk/category/nuclear-monitoring-posts was a useful starting point.

No trains this time, but heritage at every turn.   

Return to Selby

Fifty-four years and eighteen days after I stepped down from the all green Trans-Pennine unit from Liverpool to Hull and set foot on Selby station for the first time, I was back on the same platform.

I had just turned 14 years of age and I was on my tod when I made that journey, in a quest to add to my tally of ex-LNER Pacifics and to get one over on my train spotting mates, in a competition that they were not necessarily aware of. I disembarked into freezing fog, which hung on relentlessly all day. 1963, you may remember, was a very bad winter and there were remnants of previous coverings of snow on the ground and more than that in the hills, on the way across.

I did not leave the platform that I had arrived on until it was time to go home again. I had probably thrown in the towel by mid-afternoon. I spent the whole time I was there hopping in and out of the station buffet and treating myself to mugs of hot tea and sausage rolls, my picnic lunch having been devoured, as was usually the case on such occasions, by 11 a.m. at the latest.

Until yesterday, I did not have much of a clue as to what the town itself had to offer, including the impressive 11^th century abbey, some fine old buildings in the central area and the waterside mills. I did not even know what the station façade looked like.

The through tracks between the platform loops are now just an open space. The well-known swing bridge over the Rive Ouse, with its control house perched on the top, is still there, though I could well have missed it completely through poor visibility in February 1963.

The East Coast Main Line has been diverted away from the town altogether in the interim, though there is still a regular train service to a range of predominantly northern destinations advertised on the VDU. The station café is still going strong and appears to be well used.

In my mind’s eye, I could still see Miles Beevor and Edward Thompson, Book Law and King’s Courier bursting out of the mist with their London expresses. Interspersed with them were the Deltics, no doubt the villains of the piece on the day, though appreciated since in their own right.

I stood and thought about all the water that had gone under the bridge since I was last there. The gradual accumulation of qualifications, a whole career that has come and gone, all that energetic scampering around on playing fields and in sports halls, the arrival of children and grandchildren and all those “sliding door” moments where critical choices had to be made. It suddenly felt like it had been no time at all.

The Last Year of Steam

By the beginning of 1968, the steam locomotive was becoming an endangered species, though the surviving examples were still very much concentrated in our neck of the woods, in north west England.

Given that we knew that they were on the way out, we didn’t really bust a gut to see those that remained or try to create meaningful photo records before they all disappeared. Most named engines had already gone and I had seen previously just about all of the steam locomotives that were still around by the turn of the year, 67-68.

While we took our eye off the ball, die-hard enthusiasts were tracking every movement of the surviving steam rosters and photographing anything that moved. Some even volunteered for engine cleaning duties at sheds that still held steam, especially prior to the running of the various special trains.

We knew that there was still the odd steam-hauled passenger train heading for Preston out of Liverpool Exchange and we made an effort, just once, to go and photograph one. We caught up with Stanier Black Five No. 45411 heading north near Ormskirk, on 16/3/68.

We also found live steam on Carnforth sheds later that day, in the form of Black Five No. 44897, seen here emerging from the coaling stage, and Standard Class 9F No. 92077, which sauntered into view from behind the lines of withdrawn engines.

Breakdown

I drove to our local garage, arranged an imminent service and MOT, reversed out of the parking space and stalled the thing. I turned the key. Nothing happened. The battery had died. I left the car there and walked back home. Well, I thought, if you are going to break down what better place to do it than at the garage – unlucky and lucky at the same time.

I got to thinking about the improved general reliability of cars over the years, and my mind - as it has a tendency to do - moved quite quickly from there to trains. The only two occasions that I can remember when trains I have been using on the national network have failed completely were geographically very close together but separated by a few decades. That would still have to qualify as quite a coincidence.

Coming back from a family holiday in the Lake District in 1962, our Stanier Black Five failed just south of Penrith soon after we had got on and before it had worked up the energy to attack Shap. We were rescued by another locomotive of the same class, that had obviously just dawdled down from Carlisle, a couple of hours later.

In April 2004, the lads took a steam special to the same city behind Princess Class No. 46201 Princess Elizabeth. After Penrith - so a little further north along the West Coast Main Line than previously, and going well up to that point - the locomotive failed in rather dramatic fashion.

We were told at the time that she had “popped a cork.” This apparently led to a loss of lubricating oil on a bearing, resulting in over-heating and buckling of a connecting rod that became detached and which dragged over the ballast until she was brought to a halt. Our train was eventually taken on to Citadel station by a diesel locomotive, but the Prinnie obviously required some serious attention.

The only derailment that I can remember witnessing was while we were on holiday in France. The leading bogies of SNCF diesel No. 67480 had left the rails when running around the coaching stock at St Gilles-Croix-de Ville station, in the Vendee. A crowd of holiday-makers gathered to watch as the engineers endeavoured to re-rail her, as illustrated in the photographs below.

The Footy

An extract about 5-a-side football from a new book, Above Head Height, by James Brown [Quercus, £13.99] caught my eye in the Guardian last Saturday [4/3/17]. “Five-a-side players are the true footballers….We play for love, not money. We play it for life….Our warm up is non-existent and involves a few seconds of a stretch that was in fashion 15 years before…. Our performance is patchy and not what it used to be….. It’s sporting karaoke, a time and place to live out our dreams. We are amateur footballers. We are the game…..[It’s] the humour and the goals, saves and passes that make our day. The moments you dwell on when you leave.”

I can identify with all of that. There is a picture of James alongside the article. He looks a bit younger than me, but I’m also still turning out on a Thursday evening and I share all of these emotions. I know exactly how I should approach these games but I rarely follow my own advice. I get carried away with the occasion. I start imagining that I can still do things that I know - thinking about it at any other time of the week - are beyond me now. This includes repeatedly getting up the pitch and then back again, in time to defend effectively.

My stints in goal are getting longer, not because my reactions as a goal-keeper are any better, but others are not always so keen to play in that position and their contribution to the team as outfield players is likely to be greater than mine these days. Also, in a kind of “meant to be” gesture from well-meaning friends, I was given some goal-keeping gloves as a recent birthday present. They are still very clean. That is because to make a save the ball has to hit me somewhere on my body [but not usually, as it happens, on my hands], or be coming at me from such a distance that I can get a foot to it in time to divert it. I don’t do diving any more. I can remember the Weetabix advert.

When I’m released from the nets, I should be content with sitting in as a sweeper, either “getting a foot in” or forcing opposing forwards to go wider to take their shots at our goal from a narrower angle, but, of course, I want to score goals, because that is what I did when I played 11-a-side. Given that my “career” peaked in 1977, when [I think] I was top scorer for the season with 26 goals, the assumption that I might still have something to offer up front is a bit far-fetched, but try telling that to me at 7.30 on a Thursday evening.

I scored a goal last time out. Hardly note-worthy when we won 19-10 and some of my team-mates were bagging double hat-tricks. My goal went to my head, though, as it always does, and I immediately tried another long-range effort when others around me were better placed to shoot. I’m not finished yet. I’ll know it’s time to go when they stop sending me the emails each week. Then, the comparative contribution that the railways make to my general well-being may increase a notch, though obviously not my fitness levels.

Old Wallaseyans first team, Liverpool and District Old Boys Amateur League First Division Champions, 1976/7. [Photo taken somewhat after the event, from memory, at some time in the late 1970s]

The writing is on the wall

Whenever we arrive in a town that is new to us, we park up and make our way, with a spring in our step, to the tourist information office. We obtain a town walking trail and set forth to familiarise ourselves with our surroundings. “Is the station marked on there?” I ask, before we start, because regardless of whether the station is pointed out as a “must see” feature or not, I will certainly want to include it in our itinerary.

In Chesterfield, the modern and functional station building is rescued by the presence of a statue of George Stephenson, which stands alongside its main entrance. Stephenson spent the last ten years of his life in Chesterfield, and the sculpture to commemorate his immense contribution to the railways was unveiled in 2005.

Who could fail to be impressed by the approach to Bristol Temple Meads via that triangular wedge of a car park that faces the main station entrance? It feels like you are being funnelled into a church. The sheer scale of the interior of the station and the dramatic curve of its platforms is never a let-down, either. This is one of the true “cathedrals of steam.”

Is there another station anywhere that fits so perfectly into its city - like a foot into a comfy slipper - than Edinburgh Waverley? It occupies the valley floor parallel to the famous thoroughfare of Princes Street, dominated at each end by two fine old railway hotels, representing the former North British and Caledonian companies.

What were they thinking of at Fort William when they decided to evacuate the old station that overlooked the loch and take the opportunity to separate the town from the splendid views over to Mull by constructing a busy ring-road in between, instead of incorporating the frontage and using it to good effect, as waterside gardens, for example. Instead, the nearby main street literally turns its back on the town’s main asset.

West along the road and the railway, Glenfinnan has much more to offer. Apart from the breathtaking views of the viaduct in one direction and the Bonnie Prince Charlie memorial at the head of Loch Shiel in the other, the station is delightful, with a second platform to serve the passing loop, a signal box, museum and other station buildings all carefully maintained.

Tenby station in Pembrokeshire was built of Bath stone in 1871 and still retains its cast iron canopies. Tenby itself is obviously a big believer in blue plaques in order to plug its historical attractions. “It is said that Henry VII fled through a tunnel here on his way to France.” Just a minute. “It is said that..?”  Since when has “It is said that..” been a justification for a blue plaque? Who said it, anyway, the bloke in the pub down the road? I thought blue plaques were statements of fact about who had actually lived in a particular house and usually went on to tell you exactly when, as well. This dented my belief in blue plaques a bit, especially on this particular town trail. What next, I thought, “They do say in these parts…ooh, argh” or “Some folks do think, ‘appen, ‘appen…”

Blue plaque number two, at East Rock House, claims it as a fact, but our accompanying town trail gives the game away again. “In 1802 Sir William and Lady Hamilton....may well have stayed at this family house.” Oh, yes, are you sure? By the time we had passed the pub where Dylan Thomas “was said to have” got so drunk that he left behind the manuscript for Under Milk Wood, and an advert for a local restaurant claiming the best pizzas in the world, we had just about suspended belief in signage of all description.

By then [and, in fact, carefully planned in advance by those with alternative motives], we were ready for concentrating on the important business of a live, televised football match between Everton and Arsenal, for which we would require a hostelry with a TV. Conveniently for us, it seemed, set into the town walls is Tenby Rugby Club, advertising “the biggest screen in Tenby.” Less fortunately, our visit coincided with two stag parties, which eventually led to some angry exchanges between the two well-oiled rival factions, all set to a background of complete disinterest in association football that I had already half expected, given the likely clientele, but which was also accompanied by intermittent barracking of “soft” soccer players, whenever any of them hit the turf. My wife and daughter joined us from their look around the shops just in time for the simulated sex acts involving the blow-up doll. To put the icing on the two imminent wedding cakes, Everton meekly surrendered a two-goal lead in the last few minutes to draw a game they should have won comfortably, by which time everything that could have gone wrong with the afternoon had probably done so, apart from ultimate defeat. Oh, I almost forgot. My daughter’s partner supports Arsenal………I’m an Evertonian. Get me out of here.

Type 2 diesel No. D5405 leaves the old Fort William station on 1/5/72.

[Adapted from an article of the same title in the current edition of the Railway Antiques Gazette and with thanks to the editor, Tim Petchey]

The Sherwood Forest Railway

As a life-long train man, I feel a little ashamed to admit that I had never previously visited the nearest regular steam venue to home. It opened in 2000 on the site of a farm park which has since closed, leaving the railway to continue alone. Sherwood Forest Railway has a very peaceful setting in farm land between Edwinstowe and Clipstone, in Nottinghamshire. It is adjacent to the remaining section of the old Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, which is now used only as a test track.

The 15 inch, narrow gauge railway has two diesel and two steam locomotives, and No. 2 Pet is pictured below. The railway is open daily from 11.00 am until 4.30 pm, is reasonably priced at just two quid a head and has its own website at www.sherwoodforestrailway.com

We visited on a cool March afternoon and were the only passengers on our train. The return journey between the two stations, named Loxley and Welldale, only takes a few minutes to complete. There were good views provided from the platform at the other end of the line, as Pet ran around the two-coach train on the passing loop.

We found the experience most enjoyable, though our two-year old grandson was not quite so sure about the sudden darkness in the tunnel, which luckily [for all of us] was very short. We can hopefully work on that one. The welcome we all received was very friendly and the staff were happy to chat about the history and development of the line to date.

Liverpool Lime Street

I have a special affection for Liverpool Lime Street station. It was the departure point for so many of our train spotting adventures in the 1960s. We witnessed the official end of BR steam there in August 1968, yet within weeks of that event we welcomed the Flying Scotsman to the terminus on a special train.

As schoolboys, we even had a guided tour of the signal box, which was perched on the cliff wall at the tunnel mouth and towered above the platform ends. This trip was courtesy of Ray Smith, father of our friends, John and Tony. Ray’s role with the Post Office was sufficient to swing it for us. It was a generous thought on his part - the kind of thing you never forget.

We watched as the Princess and Coronation Pacifics heading the Merseyside Express and the Red Rose began their assault on the steep climb through the tunnels to Edge Hill, the bark of the engine echoing off the walls long after the train had actually left the station.

On one occasion, we even helped the members of the Scaffold pop group clamber aboard the last carriage of our London-bound express, with the departure whistle already poised and the green flag in hand.

Lime Street has become a meeting point for friends arriving from different parts, most recently, in our case, on the weekend before the tunnel wall collapsed. A convenient focal point has been erected on the concourse to facilitate such rendezvous, in the contrasting forms of Sir Ken Dodd and Bessie Braddock.

It is with some surprise, therefore, that I can find little photographic evidence of my many visits over the years. Perhaps it seemed to be such an unremarkable part of the local scene in the early days that we overlooked it.

Anyway, welcome back, Lime Street station. You were very nearly up and running at the start of it all, with getting on for two centuries of useful service achieved already. I bet you have been much missed, even if it was just for a few days.

English Electric Type Four No. D277 is hiding behind assorted structures at Liverpool Lime Street on 11/3/67. The signal box we visited was perched on the back wall to the left of the locomotive.

“Mind yer car, mister?”

Parking your car within easy walking distance of Goodison Park used to be a breeze. The area was strewn with odd patches of wasteland that had been laid bare by the Luftwaffe. Redevelopment got going in the 1960s and freed up even more gaps for parking between those houses still standing.

Before you had a chance to open the car door, however, a cheeky chappie would be welcoming you with, “Mind yer car, mister?” We complied, of course, part reward for entrepreneurial enterprise, part concern for the vehicle on our return.

We were under no illusions as to how the youngsters spent the intervening couple of hours. Standing on sentry duty, they were not.

We preferred to regard it as innocent opportunism rather than blatant begging or an informal protection racket. If our minder was there when we got back, we handed over a silver coin and he moved on to another customer/sucker.

Fast forward a few decades and parking the car has become more of an issue generally - and for obvious reasons. Recently, one of our local railway stations has become a cause for concern.

Improvements to the service between Nottingham, Newark and Lincoln have apparently led to an increase in the number of passengers travelling to Lowdham and Fiskerton stations by car. The Nottingham Evening News drew attention to it on Monday 27/2/17, under the headline, “Station with no car park brings village headache.” Some local people were complaining that commuters are clogging up nearby streets with their cars and causing inconvenience for residents and small business owners. The problem is apparently that Lowdham has no official station car parking spaces, nor are there any public car parks anywhere nearby.  

Maybe the residents are missing a trick. They could take a leaf out of the book of the enterprising house holders that I noticed on my way to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and to Twickenham stadium, who were charging visitors for parking on their driveways. They could take it a step further by setting up fast food breakfast bars selling coffee and bacon baps from their front gardens.

If someone parks a little too close to the front of the property for comfort, try “Could I possibly look after your car for you while you are away today, sir/madam?” There’s probably a few bob to be made.

The old gates and signal box at Fiskerton Junction have been decommissioned as part of the upgrade that has contributed to the alleged parking problems near Lowdham station. This signal box formerly controlled the spur to the Southwell line, long since removed. The level crossing here was unusual in that it was operated by turning a large wheel in the signal box.

The Fish

At our monthly railway club meeting in Southwell last week, the legendary fish trains were mentioned in passing, yet again. I grew up in almost complete ignorance of the fish trains, but over here in the East Midlands they have become part of the local folklore.

Firstly - though unsurprisingly - the fish trains stank of fish and they announced their passing in that way throughout their journey. Secondly, the fish trains had some interesting locomotive haulage, especially over some lines in Nottinghamshire that were generally occupied by [arguably] more mundane types of power.

The daily Grimsby to South Wales fish trains passed through the county using the Great Central route from Lincoln to Mansfield and on to Nottingham Victoria. They were hauled in the 1950s by ex-LNER classes such as the K2, K3 and B1s and in the early 1960s by Immingham-based Britannia Pacifics. We were doing our spotting on Merseyside at that time and so the “Eastern” Brits were like gold dust to us, though we caught up with them eventually as they moved westwards towards the end of their, all too short, working lives.  

To my knowledge, the fish trains never brought that particular commodity to Southwell directly. Today, the fish is brought to town by Vincent Fowler, a mobile fishmonger who is based in Mapperley, a northern suburb of Nottingham, and who trades under the name of Vincent van Cod.

Britannia Class No. 70040 Clive of India, with a painted-on replacement nameplate, at Carlisle Kingmoor sheds on 24/3/67. She had been transferred from Norwich Thorpe to Immingham in 1961 after the dieselisation of the Norwich to London Liverpool Street expresses, and she would no doubt have found herself at the head of a fish train or two thereafter. She was stone cold and had no noticeable odour about her at all when we came across her at Kingmoor, and she was officially withdrawn from service the following month.

Barry

I went there three times, though once might have been enough because the residents weren’t exactly going anywhere in a hurry and were largely unchanged between visits. I suppose it ended up as a sort of pilgrimage, really. As a 60s spotter, there was almost an expectation that you would go to pay your respects to the age of steam in that way.

The first time that I went there, on 31/7/64, I copped a lot of withdrawn engines that I had never seen before, including a number of ex-GWR tanks, many of them having worked out their existence in the valleys of South Wales, far from our normal hunting grounds in north west England. Our return as part of an organised shed bash on 24/6/65 yielded a few more casualties from the Southern Region.

The last of these visits was on the 31/12/67. We left home on the Wirral the day before in Andy’s Hillman Minx, on loan from his parents, and he had driven us down through Central Wales at the time of a major foot and mouth outbreak. Beds of straw soaked in disinfectant had been strewn across the roads to minimise the spread of the disease.

We aimed first for Newport, and in particular Cashmore’s scrap yard, where some ex-SR Bulleids had been acquired. It was dark by the time we made it to our bed and breakfast in Barry. When we drew back the curtains in the morning, we could see the assembled rows of engines immediately below us, lined up on the curved sidings near the old docks.

Breakfast probably never seemed so incidental, before or since. It was near freezing, with a sharp wind blowing in occasional sharp showers. With the sun shining and in clear air, however, I was able to record the scene, though the resulting images of decaying hulks are probably not everyone’s idea of a good steam photo. It appears that I didn’t even bother writing down any numbers this time.

Nevertheless, I’m glad I went, partly so that every now and then I can brandish my credentials as a committed spotter going way back, and partly because, as we all know, a major story unfolded in the years to come, and this accident of history would end up providing sustenance - life blood, no less - to our railway heritage movement well into the future. Life on the private railways today would be a great deal different had it all not happened in the way that it did.   

Chester Castles

50 years ago this weekend, two steam-hauled special trains marked the end of the GWR through route from London Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside, via Birmingham Snow Hill, Wolverhampton Low Level, Shrewsbury and Chester, although the Castles themselves had long been replaced by Western diesels. On 4/3/67, we were at Chester to witness the event and these are some of the photos that I took on that day.

Stanier Class 4 2-6-4 tank No. 42613 simmers in the bay platform at Chester General station. Paddington expresses reversed here before completing their journey to Birkenhead. The ex-LMS tanks often putting in spirited performances on the final Wirral section. These two platform roads had been the preserve of services arriving on the ex-GWR lines into Chester. By this time, the central locomotive release line had already been taken out.

Castle Class No. 7029 Clun Castle stands at Chester General station after arrival with one of the special trains.

Castle Class No. 4079 Pendennis Castle receives visitors on Chester sheds.

Former Crosti-boilered Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 No. 92026 pulls away from Chester General station with one of the special trains.