Introduction

'Black Five' no. 44848 withdrawn and stored on Rosegrove (10F) MPD 6 April 1968

There are photographs by the thousand. There are also cine films, now available on video, and tape recordings, now issued on compact disk. Despite the plethora of documentary material from the 1950s and 1960s that has been collected, preserved and reissued, it remains difficult to capture the essence of the steam railway age. It was, of course, a question of at least four senses: to be experienced it had to be seen, heard, smelt and felt (and tasted?--I wonder....). Perhaps we all ought to do more to recapture those impressions. Here are some notes culled from my own memories and reading.

Water, Water Everywhere

The dank, moist climate of Britain in the first half of the 20th century seemed eminently suited to the steam locomotive, with its voracious appetite for water. During the steam age, columns, tanks, towers, troughs and hoses were to be found everywhere that there were lines. Engines could take water once they had brought their trains to a stand at the hydraulic buffers of King's Cross. Many smaller stations had water columns at the end of the platform--a nightmare during the coldest days of winter when coal-fired braziers had to be kept alight by the side of the columns in order to stop the water supply freezing up.

Here are two short anecdotes about locomotives and water--excesses of water, in fact. The first is culled from page 84 of Patrick Whitehouse's and David St John Thomas's LNER 150, while the second comes from Volume 2 of Richard Hardy's reminiscences, Railways in the Blood, page 15.

The renowned Leslie Preston Parker was Divisional Manager of the former GER lines (the Eastern Section) of the LNER during the interwar years and he continued under BR until his retirement in 1953. This formidable man, who never raised his voice but still succeeded in terrorising the workforce, was seldom to be seen in the running shed. However, one day in the 1930s he was making his way in bowler hat and spats, furled brolly in hand, across the Jubilee Shed front at Stratford while one of the depot's hundreds of tank engines (an 'N7', perhaps) was having its side-tanks filled with water. Suddenly, the water cascaded over the side, the motion, the axle-boxes and the tracks. The fireman dashed away from his tea-making to spin the stopcock shut. Parker cast his reptilian eye over the hapless footplateman and said "Tell me, fireman, when you are at home, do you allow your bath to overflow?" The reply, in broadest East-End Cockney, must have been one of the few that got the better of that formidable railway administrator: "Barf, Guv, barf? I ain't got a bleedin' barf!"

In the second instance, an 8A Edge Hill crew were working one of the London to Merseyside expresses one evening with a 'Princess Royal' Pacific, perhaps no. 46201, 46204, 46207 or 46208, all of which were Edge Hill engines. At a set of water troughs on the West Coast main line the fireman let down the scoop but could not wind it out in time. Cascades of water washed lumps of coal across the footplate. Sheets of spray soaked everything, including the driver. He turned around and, with incomparable Scouse irony and timing asked "Did we gerrany?"

Stories also abound of the effect on the first coach of a passenger train when the fireman misjudged the water intake from a set of troughs. It was not an uncommon event and often it washed the grime off the front of the first coach. Passengers were treated to the sight of a small waterfall down the windows. However, the effects were decidedly different on warm days when the windows were open. The filler cap, invariably at the train end of the tender, would fly open and fountains of water would cascade out. If the first coach was a van that housed the guard he would know he had to shut the windows in time, but it was a different matter if it were a passenger coach. The first compartment could fill up and soaked passengers would stagger out into the corridor on a tidal wave of water, waving soggy newspapers and cursing the railway. It is remarkable what passengers put up with during the steam age. They protested, but they seldom demanded compensation and rarely if ever sued. Moreover, sympathy was rationed among the poorly-paid front-line staff of the railways who had to deal with the luckless travellers.

Perhaps the worst such case occurred on the Great Western Railway and involved the company's only Pacific, no.111 Great Bear. Its tender, like the loco larger than life, was a ramshackle contraption of unpredictable gait. Over a set of troughs it directed a jet of water at the first passenger vehicle with such murderous force that it blew a hole in the coachwork and half filled the carriage with water. No doubt the aftermath involved more than a "please explain" notice. Churchward must have had his bad feelings about the Great Bear confirmed by the incident. When Gresley's first 'A1' 4-6-2, no. 1470 Great Northern, was outshopped, Churchward is reputed to have said "What did that young man want to build a Pacific for? We could have sold him ours."

To Hitchin (34D) and Beyond

The years of my childhood awkwardly straddled the end of steam on the East Coast Main Line. I was too young to sample the full flavour, but old enough to get some idea of the momentous changes that were taking place in rail transport.

In 1962 I was nine years old. With one of my school-friends I made my first solo spotter's outing. It involved taking the bus, a green London Transport RT, from Stevenage to Hitchin (fare one shilling and sixpence) and nosing around the railway installations of that town. It was an emotional experience--a taste of (relative) freedom and the chance to start learning the art of how to trespass discretely on railway property.

Architecturally, the station buildings at Hitchin were typically understated in the GNR manner, low-pitched and vaguely Italianate. On the south side, the Hertfordshire clunch had been excavated into chalky cliffs, beneath which there were rows and rows of sidings full of a tantalising array of rolling stock. Indeed, the copious stabling areas on all four sides of the station were jammed full of coaches and wagons. The shear variety was amazing. The propensity to name the types of wagon after creatures of the sea was well in evidence, for there were examples of Catfish, Crocodile, Dogfish, Grampus, Mullet, Plaice, Salmon, Shark and Sturgeon, many of which were used on engineers' trains during weekend possessions of the permanent way.

In 1952 Hitchin (34D) MPD had an allocation of 29 locomotives: eight Thompson 'B1s' (one of which, no. 61105, may have been in its localised role as Departmental no. 27), eight Thompson 'L1s' tank engines, nine Ivatt 0-6-0s of the 'J1', 'J3', 'J5' and 'J6' classes, and a Gresley 'N2/2' non-condensing tank. By 1955 it still had eight 'B1s', six of them unchanged (including Dept no. 27), but the other two substituted by 61027 Madoqua and 61251 Oliver Bury. At that time Kings Cross (34A) had five 'B1s' and New England (34E) had five. These eighteen 4-6-0s were often to be seen rolling along on semi-fast passenger trains and miscellaneous freights, sometimes on the Hertford loop as well as the GNR main line and Cambridge branch. So were Hitchin's six 'J6' 0-6-0s, which worked the dwindling traffic of pick-up freights, Ten further examples of the class were stabled at Hornsey (34B).

By 1962 the cramped two-road shed behind the up platform of Hitchin station was reduced to servicing locomotives and stabling three 'B1s' that were used for Departmental work (heating stationary passenger trains, hauling engineers' trains and marshalling stock in the sidings). They were 61314, 61389 and no. 25 (alias 61272). On that day two of them were in steam in the yard, easily visible from the station.

Until 1963 'B1's would occasionally work a late afternoon class 'D' freight in the up direction south of Hitchin. They would bowl steadily along at 35 mph amid clouds of steam with a heterogeneous mixture of trucks behind them, including some vacuum-breaked vans marshalled next to the engine.

Until 1964 a double junction was situated north of Hitchin station. Not only did the line to Cambridge branch off to the northeast, as it still does, but on the other side there was the line from Bedford. This very minor railway connection, little more than 14 miles end to end, was the epitome of the rural branch railway.

The line curved gracefully through the Bedfordshire countryside avoiding the parkland and ancient monuments, which were many and romantic, for exmaple Warden Abbey, Deadman's Cross, Old Warden and Southill Parks, Ickwell and Campton Manor Houses and Meppershall Motte and Bailey. It ran 13.5 miles from Bedford station to the junction with the GNR main line, which was three quarters of a mile north of Hitchin station. Travelling southwards the first mile and a half ran fairly straight through Bedford itself. That this was the Midland Railway's original route to London is testified by the fact that it continues the straight drift of the northerly route, whereas the line to St Pancras, built subsequently, curves off to the southwest. A spur was added to the old LNWR line from Bletchley to Cambridge, which crossed above the Bedford-Hitchin branch.

There were four intermediate stations: Cardington, Southill, Shefford and Henlow (renamed Henlow Camp in 1933 as the nearby Army barracks grew in size). A total of four miles of the route was embanked and two and a half miles were built in cuttings. A half-mile long tunnel was built through the Greensand ridge (not without loss of life among the labourers who worked on it). On top of this local eminence an Ordnance Survey triangulation point is located. From Old Warden, south of the tunnel, to Shefford the line was double tracked for slightly more than two and three-quarter miles.

The MR line to Hitchin was authorised in 1853 and opened on 8 May 1857. At its apogee in 1910 there were six passenger trains each way per day. But it lasted little more than a century. The last passenger train ran on 30 December 1961. It was composed of two auto coaches hauled by the Bedford (15D) standard locomotive no. 84005. Freight traffic ceased in December 1964 and the line was lifted soon afterwards with that peculiarly British zeal to eradicate as many of the traces as possible.

But Old Warden tunnel could not be so easily obliterated. One fresh, warm summer's day when I was about 13 years old a friend and I decided to walk along the trace of the line from Hitchin to Bedford. The tunnel, with its oval opening was completely intact (except for the lack of rails, sleepers and ballast), so in we went. We had no torch and the contrast with the sunlight was intense. At first we were acutely fearful that the shadows on the sandy floor would mask deep holes that we might fall into, but there were none. The sound of dripping water echoed off the walls and the atmosphere was cool and damp. When we had gone a quarter of a mile the light at each end was reduced to a small aperture and we blundered along in terror towards the bright pinpoint ahead of us. But all was well and we emerged unscathed and triumphant. In the tunnel the ghosts of Midland Railway trains seemed all around us: 2-4-0s with shiny brass safety-valve covers and trundling four-wheel coaches with prominent footboards along their sides.

Clearly, the very small number of passengers that used the railway from the four adjacent villages were not enough to keep it going, and neither were the people who travelled between Hitchin and Bedford. A bus service was more economical and the line ended up with negligible freight business. But the Bedford to Hitchin branch was built, in the first instance, as part of a major route from the Midlands to London. It could have been retained, mothballed at insignificant cost, as a diversionary route of some strategic importance. But that would have required long-term foresight, and little or none of that was present in the 1960s' urge to modernise at all costs.

When the last vestiges of steam had finally gone from the East Coast main line, I hung around the diesel depot at 34D. A kindly driver, perhaps remembering his own early passion for trainspotting, gave me a driving lesson on the Type 1 D8028--another emotional moment.

Langley Junction

Langley Junction, where the loop line to Hertford North joined the East Coast main line, was a place of numerous attractions. An ancient iron-plate girder bridge spanned the line. Next to it was a modern concrete bridge carrying a dual carriageway and beside that was a spacious GNR signal box with a frame of about 80 levers. On the other side, next to the road to the coal merchant's sidings was a fence adorned with an old cast-iron sign, thick with innumerable coats of paint that had faded to a pale purple, on which the GNR informed the public that 'Trespassing is prohibited--By Order, 1913'. The message was a stern reminder of Edwardian probity. Towards Hitchin there was a set of water troughs, 594 yards long. They invited one to stand on the oak fence at the side of the lines and throw small stones at the long furrows of water. The plop and clunk when they hit the mark was very satisfying.

In the late 1950s the troughs were still an important installation. On the down side of the main line just after the junction there was a water-softening plant that consisted of a huge cylindrical tower, about 40 feet tall, fed by a pipe from a large open-topped tank located further up the slope on a set of brick arches. The steel-plated side was covered with faded rust-inhibiting paint that had weathered to a matt pinkish-maroon not unlike old Wedgwood china.

A steel staircase ran in a spiral up the side of the tank and someone had written 'Vote Labour' in large letters on it. As an aside, one day in the early 1960s Sir Alec Douglas Home took some time off from huntin', shootin' and fishing on his Scottish estate to address the masses, in his clipped, condescending patrician accent, from a rostrum in the town centre. Nobody actually shouted "Wot abaht the workers?" but he was roundly booed and whistled in that stronghold of support for Wilson's Labour. Simply not done, old boy.

Adventurous children would shin up the metal ladder of the open-topped water tank and jiggle the levers that controlled the water syphon. From that point there was an excellent, if somewhat vertiginous, panorama of the main line with in the foreground an acre of scummy water upon which mats of brilliant green algae floated. Occasionally, the syphon would block and for hours on end water would cascade spectacularly over the side of the tank and down the slope to the lineside, where it would disappear into the cess.

British Railways built a curious structure of yellow London brick and reinforced concrete that straddled the siding by the water tower, apparently so that locomotives could have water-softening powder poured directly into their tanks. On occasion in the late 1950s an ancient 'J6' 0-6-0 from Hitchin 34D shed would be stationed under this building for several hours, hissing gently and waiting its turn on a pick-up freight. It would be given water from the enormous tank that supplied the troughs, which also had a filler pipe complete with the usual leather bag.

In the early 1960s these installations were dismantled and demolished. Suddenly the insides of that huge maroon tank, which had seemed so mysterious and so permanent, were laid bare. The central syphon was coated with decades of lime incrustation; the white of the chalk deposits was stained a patchy brown with rust. No one could believe the change in scenery when it was all gone. No more would the East Coast expresses send up that great travelling cloud of spray as they dropped the scoop at 60 mph.

One night I was invited into Langley box by the young signalman. We sat there in the 25-watt glow of his lamps with his tape recorder playing, appropriately, old "Shadows" hits. For a short while it was possible to imagine that the decline of steam had not happened and the 'A3s' and 'A4s' would still be rushing past the home signal outside.

Wellingborough MPD

Rosegrove, 1968

One fine October afternoon in 1966 I visited Wellingborough MPD (15B). It was four months after the last of the steam locos had been withdrawn and hauled away. The shed stood abandoned, untouched since its last days of activity, but now completely empty. Ash and clinker from locomotives lay between the roads, tools were scattered on the brick floor, PWS notices had turned yellow and brittle under the glass of the noticeboard. Several of those ancient and curiously ornate iron wheelbarrows for ash removal lay around. The light of the autumn afternoon streamed through the small windows, with their cobwebbed, sooty panes, curiously like stained glass in a cathedral. Sunrays gilded the dust and etched the shadows. It remains imprinted on my memory all these years later: a silent scene crowded with the ghosts of a century of daily toil amid the vapours, hot oil, grit, ash and coal dust of the steam age.

Having read so much about Willesden shed (1A) I felt I had to go and see it. Finally, on a blustery, overcast day in November 1965 I trod my way cautiously down the cinder path by the Grand Union Canal and was there. It was too late. The cavernous mouth of the running shed was empty, vast, windswept and black with dust. But there was a surprise. In the corner were the last four BR '2MTs', the ones that took the empty stock into and out of Euston until steam finished at the London end of the WCML. There they were, black and oily, but by no means decrepit: nos. 78029, 78032, 78033 and 78043, all withdrawn in October 1965. These serviceable little engines were a mere eleven years old. They were coupled up ready to be hauled off and scrapped at Cashmore's in South Wales. All four would be in pieces within six weeks.

But down at Nine Elms (70A) I did get a ride of a few tens of yards inside the shed on 'West Country' Pacific no. 34005 Barnstaple, thanks to a kindly driver who didn't seem to care much about the rules. It was a place I couldn't bear to visit when steam ended. The description of the final evening in July 1967 was just too poignant: the melodious whistle of the last Pacific on shed echoing in the dark off the nearby blocks of flats until there was no longer enough steam to make it sound.

Last Rites on the Great Central Railway

In early 1966 Aylesbury station became a place of pilgrimage. It was quiet there. The silence was interrupted only by the infrequent arrival of diesel multiple units from Marylebone and the shunting manoeuvres of BR-Sulzer 'type 2s' at the far end of the down platform. To the north, the twin tracks of the old Great Central main line disappeared into the green and mysterious countryside as if Middle England had swallowed them up.

We knew it was about to end and so we memorised the timetable of the semi-fasts to Nottingham, infrequent though they were, and waited patiently for hours until one came along. It was always a Colwick 'Black Five', coated in grease, grimy with coal dust and zebra-striped by priming deposits. It would clank briskly into the station and pull up in a cloud of steam at the water column. Behind it would be a short rake of tatty maroon coaches, the compartment ones with varnished oak rails at the windows. Nos. 44830 and 45324 were often used on these turns. In August they were both transferred to 9F Heaton Mersey. No. 45324 had been at Colwick for only 26 weeks.

The fireman would climb onto the tender, lift the filler cap and insert the bag, while the driver turned the stopcock handle at the base of the cast-iron water column. They would look mutely and gravely at the audience of enthusiasts and spotters who stood there silently drinking in the scene, straining to memorise every last detail. The moment when the streaming bag was flung out of the tender and the black arm of the water column was swung away assumed the level of high drama. Then whistles would shrill, the cylinder drain-cocks would hiss and the train would move slowly and deliberately forward until, with syncopated clanking and gathering momentum, it would be gone, leaving only a slight whiff of steam, coal dust and lubricating oil.

In 1952 the Eastern Region shed 38A Colwick, and its subshed at Derby Friargate, had an allocation of 207 locomotives, 76% of them ex-LNER and the rest 'WD' 2-8-0s. These were the freight engines that handled the Nottinghamshire coal traffic, but there was also one named engine, no. 61657 'Doncaster Rovers'. Renumbered 40E the MPD was transferred to the LMR for slightly less than one year until it closed on 12 December 1966. During this period it had an allocation that peaked at 98 locomotives, but they represented only three classes: 28 were 'Black Fives', 65 were Stanier '8Fs' and the other five were BR moguls. The only exception was 'B1' no. 61264, Departmental no. 29, which was used as a stationary boiler. After 49 weeks as the sole representative of former LNER glory, this engine made it into preservation.

During the final week of Nottingham services, three Colwick 'Black Fives' failed at the London end. The last one diagrammed to make the return trip, no. 44825, failed on shed with injector trouble and had to be replaced by no. 44984, mechanically more reliable but visually scruffy, as they so often were. A wreath adorned its smokebox door. Fortunately, under skilled hands this locomotive put up a valiant show of speed on its last turn to Marylebone and back. After only 65 years the Great Central London extension was gone, an absurd loss considering that its promoter, Sir Edward Watkin, was correct in foreseeing the need for a relief line to connect the Northwest with the Continent, with or without a Channel Tunnel.

As the last 'Black Five' of the day disappeared in the direction of Nottingham Victoria, a kindly driver, who saw how it had depressed me, gave me a short ride in the cab of D5002.

Lyme Regis Branch

46441 stored at Carnforth, April 1968

On 8 September 1962 we set off for a family holiday at Lyme Regis. It needed two taxis to get us and our luggage from Barnsbury, London N1, to Waterloo Station. As we drove around Buckingham Palace a gent came out in full morning dress complete with top hat and, steeped in Rev. W. Awdry lore as I was, I shouted "Look--the Fat Controller!"

The chief attraction of Waterloo was the man in shiny waistcoat and rolled-up shirt sleeves who used a long pole with a hook on the end to change the columns of enamelled destination signs on the huge varnished wooden indicator board. The station was a wonderland of 'M7' tanks and 'King Arthur' 4-6-0s. We set off for the West Country at a sprightly pace behind an unrebuilt Bulleid--no. 34041 'Wilton', if I remember rightly.

At Axminster Junction I was off down the platform to see the 'West Country' Pacific depart for Honiton and Exeter. Yellow light from the open firebox door played around the cab and the train left with a thrilling burst of slipping that sent the massive side-rods whirling crazily. Then in came the Lyme train: two green Maunsell composite coaches drawn by 1882-vintage Adams radial tank 4-4-2 no. 30583, the middle one of the three that had been kept on to work the Axminster-Lyme Regis because few other classes of locomotive could negotiate its tight curves. The driver's name was Reuben and his banter with the signalman revealed that they both had thick West Country accents. I still have the ticket for that journey: the fare had just been raised from 1s/4d to 1s/8d, a fact that set the adults in our party muttering. The train trundled sedately around the contours, with the wheel flanges squealing against the rails and the couplings groaning and grating. Cinders and steam mingled with the sea air that streaked through my hair as I stood at the carriage window watching the locomotive do its work. Finally there we were in Lyme station, perched high above the water front and cramped and curved like the rest of the branch line. And a very rural place it was at that point in time.

Staffordshire and Lancashire Steam Sheds

Lostock Hall MPD in April 1968

Stoke (5D) MPD in 1966. There were 46 steam locomotives on shed (8 Ivatt '2MTs', 13 'Black Fives', two 'Jinties' 0-6-0T, 14 Stanier '8Fs' and 9 Standard '5MTs'). Fifteen years previously it had an allocation of almost 100, but the Midland classes, tank engines and 0-6-0s, were gone, except for those last two 'Jinties'. The original allocation was numerous enough to require a capacious shed, and thus it remained, draughty, echoing and periodically blasted by pestilential clouds of coal-dust swept up by the cold Staffordshire winds.

Arnold Bennett's Five Towns had lost their infernal smoking pottery kilns but in other ways they were just the same as ever. People would still walk three miles to save a ha'penny on the daily shopping. Most of the shops in Burslem were gloomy in their poverty, and half of them were permanently closed down.

A young lad showed us around the depot. He was 16 and previously he would have been an engine cleaner, but at this stage no BR employee cleaned engines. He was as thin as a rake and had the wan, pasty complexion of someone who was under-nourished. When he scrambled onto the buffer beam of a 'Black Five' and swung open the door to brush the cinders out I noted how frayed his overalls were and how large the holes were in his shoes. Yet the locomotives looked cared for, at least mechanically. It was a workaday shed and one that went about its business efficiently and without fuss until the end.

Rosegrove (10F) on Saturday 6 April 1968. At the buffers on one of the back roads in the open air Stanier '8F' no. 48375 was stored in piteous condition, having sustained severe front-end damage, including loss of the pony truck, five months previously in a collision with a local goods train. Lying there awaiting the final tow to the cutting yard, it was a reminder of one of the most heart-rending episodes in modern British railway history. At Chapel-en-le-Frith on 9 February 1957 Driver John Axon was in charge of no. 48188 on an unfitted freight from Buxton to Warrington. A faulty braised collar on the steam brake-pipe union left them with no stopping power and a falling gradient towards Chapel station. The '8F' and its train eventually smashed into the preceding train in the station but Axon stayed on board in a final heroic attempt to apply the brakes. He was awarded the George Cross posthumously. Ewan MacColl wrote a ballad about the crash and recorded it on an Argo Transacord EP, with Peter Handford's steam recordings as a background.

St Pancras Midland Grand Hotel

[This was written in early 2004] Mention of St Pancras prompts me to write about the edifice in front of the train shed. As everyone knows, the former Midland Hotel (designed in 1865 by Sir George Gilbert Scott and built from 1867 to 1874) is one of Britain's finest Victorian Gothic monuments. Following external renovation the outside looks fairly pristine, except for some tell-tale signs of decay at ground level. However, how many of the people who see its polychrome façade towering above Euston Road realise that the inside is utterly derelict? Almost none of the original fittings remain, except for some Victorian bathrooms, a pile of carpets, a couple of marble fireplaces and the Italianate fresco in the alcove on the main landing of the grand staircase.

The official line is that the building is too expensive to insure against fire damage. One hopes that it will nevertheless become a hotel again one day if the financial problems can be resolved. Meanwhile, it is scandalous that the crowning glory of Britain's Victorian railway architecture is in a parlous state of abandonment and decay, and right in the middle of the capital city! Ceilings have fallen in, floorboards have rotted away, paint peels off and wallpaper hangs in shreds. Traces of the original gas lighting arrangements remain, but electricity is totally absent from much of the building. The old wooden-box lifts have collapsed in their shafts. Time has even mellowed the terrible official vandalism perpetrated in the 1960s when the hotel rooms were converted into offices. And at any moment the whole building could be totally destroyed by fire!
But there are some positive aspects to this sorry story. The ghosts of the Midland Railway prowl the stairwells of its one-time Grand Hotel en masse. Each floor has a spectacularly long corridor, shrouded in a mysterious penumbra, and the windows of the rooms that flank it give breathtaking views of William H. Barlow's 74-metre wide train-shed arch (from both within and above it), while some look across to the adjacent King's Cross station. There is probably no ambience Britain today that so intensely conveys the physical sensation of experiencing the great Victorian railway. It lacks only the sound, smell and sight of steam.

History and the railway authorities have not been kind to Scott's masterpiece. It is an idiosyncratic building, grand as a fairy castle on the outside and tailored to the humble commercial traveller within. But it is also the consummate monument to the steam age. A unique opportunity exists to preserve a vital piece of the atmosphere of the Railway Age: will it be taken?

Sixteen Short Impressions

(1) A large freight locomotive, probably a New England (34E) 'WD' 2-8-0, is being thrashed hard along the GNR main line at Langley Junction. There is a ringing clang on two distinct notes from the worn big-ends on either side. It syncopates rapidly, indicating just how fast the small, 4 ft 8-1/2 in wheels are turning. Yet the train is probably only travelling at 30 mph. I read that a Britannia once towed a 'WD' 2-8-0 from March to Stratford at 50 mph. The crew of the latter stepped down at the end of the journey white-faced and trembling, muttering about "sparks coming out of the motion"....

(2) From Valley Way, Stevenage, outer suburban tank engines are visible outlined against the backdrop of the low Knebworth hills, running up the 1 in 200 gradient towards Woolmer Green and Welwyn. As they exert themselves against the gradient, the matt black of their dirt-covered paintwork contrasts with the white plumes of steam, which extend the length of their trains. They are L-1 tanks, based at Hitchin 34D depot, and they pull double Gresley 'quad-art' (quadruple articulated) sets of carriages, which make a distinctive sound on the rail joints of the poorly aligned local roads. The verdant background is particularly strinking against a passing '9F' 2-10-0, for the sheer massive bulk of these locomotives and the empty space beneath the boiler, which is pitched as high as possible so that the firebox can clear the rear pair of 5 ft driving wheels. Perhaps this is why they are nicknamed 'spaceships'.

(3) Standing on Knebworth station, accessed by platform ticket, on a Saturday afternoon around 1959. The trains from the north come out of the cutting like bullets from a gun, roll sonorously over the crossing at the down end of the platform and hurtle through the station with a gush of smoke. I am only six years old and hide in terror behind the waiting room. One of the locomotives is different to the others: it has black livery, a strongly tapered boiler and a curved name-plate over the central driving wheel splasher, with the name picked out in crimson. It is travelling so fast I am unable to see the name. I presume it was an ex-LMSR 'Jubilee', but what was it doing on an express into Kings Cross?

(4) Standing on the down side of the line at Langley Junction on a cool, humid Saturday afternoon. In front is a substantial rivetted plate-steel girder bridge and the much newer concrete dual-carriageway bridge to the industrial area on the Langley side. Opposite is the water-softening plant for Langley troughs, constructed by the GNR in 1919. Between the road and the line is an old GNR cast-iron sign warning that "Trespassers will be prosecuted". Titanium white letters on dark paint that has faded to Wedgwood blue. Along comes the 1.45 p.m. to Harrogate. It is headed by a '9F' 2-10-0, which is being run flat out down the 1 in 200. A whirlwind, from rail level deeply impressive: the flailing motion and long row of 5ft-diameter driving wheels--90mph?

(5) A New England '9F' bowls past at a steady 30 mph on the down slow. Behind it, 98 coal wagons chatter and groan along like something out of a Rev. W. Awdry tale. They are of many kinds, steel and wooden, rusted and repainted, grey, brown and russet, high-sided and low-sided. Later in the day a '9F' on another long train of coal empties comes to a halt outside the old GNR box with the home signal set against it. When the board is pulled off it starts with a jerk, as they so often did, and a wave of movement runs briskly down the long train of loose-coupled wagons until it slams the guard's van viciously back and forth.

(6) In the signalbox, ting, long pause, ting-ting-ting, short pause, ting: the local train is due. The weather is warm and the wooden sleepers give off a smell of creosote. Now come the slide and decisive clang of the signalman's lever, the metallic rustling of the wire and dry squeak of the small wheels which support it where it runs along beside the line, the soft grating sound of the signal board as it rises, swivelling on its pole. A short wait, and then ting-ting--the train enters section. Here it is: a grubby 'B1', lime incrustations on smokebox and cylinder covers are tell-tale signs of priming. It hauls a rake of Gresley coaches repainted in BR maroon. The rumble of the driving wheels and rhythmic clank of worn-down motion that has acquired too much tolerance. Steel on steel, polishing the surfaces bright. The echoing pulse of the carriage wheels as they clatter noisily over the rail joints, the swaying coach bodies.

(7) A two-cylinder locomotive starts away from the station with a snatch and a rhythmic series of tugs that eventually merge into a steady pull as it gets up speed. The couplings between the carriages grunt and the corridor connection between each pair of coaches grinds as they sway. The maroon plush of the seats is as hard as sandpaper. A layer of grime covers everything and darkens the corners and windowsills. The tables between the bench seats have a reptilian grey surface with scaly brown varnish at their rounded wooden edges. Screwed in over the head-rests there are tarnished mirrors and faded prints of Richmond Castle in Yorkshire. Loopy nets of brown string dangle from the luggage rack above. Outside, the trails of white steam appear to float past the window like a series of streamers waving around in the wind. Every so often they obscure the view, especially when compressed beneath the soot-blackened brick arches of overbridges. The telegraph poles with their rows of horizontal battens appear at the window one after another, and between them the great parallel burden of wires loops down and up, down and up. The sequence is mesmerizing: pole-loop-pole-loop-pole-loop, on and on. Descending the 1 in 200 bank from Woolmer Green to Langley Junction the train sways and rattles. The permanent way is well made on the main, but poor on the local: di-dum di-dum, pause, di-dum di-dum, pause, di-dum di-dum, pause--and so on.

(8) The rhythmic beat of a locomotive exhaust suddenly fades away as the regulator is shut, but comes back as it is opened again. Wagons move slowly with a distinctive high-pitched creak, and the clashing buffers of a long string of loose-coupled 16-ton mineral wagons make a silvery cascade of sound. It starts slowly and accelerates until they have all been touched into motion in a long percussive surge. There is a much harsher wrenching noise as a loose-coupled goods train is abruptly started and wagons are suddenly slammed against one other.

(9) The magmatic hiss of a large express locomotive's safety valves blowing full blast reverberates off the cast iron and glass roof above. The air steadily becomes more humid. Conversation is impossible until it has finished. The sound penetrates the deepest recesses of one's ears, which ring for minutes afterwards. The pacific locomotives at the buffer stops radiate heat as they simmer quietly, elemental symbols of controlled power. The fireman is up on the tender guiding the leather bag of the water crane into the filler opening. Suddenly, behind a row of carriages, steam puffs up in a series of tiny clouds that progress towards the open end of the station: a locomotive, no longer penned in by its coaches, is going on shed.

(10) The Doric arch stands four-square as antiquated London taxis whizz under it one after another like peas out of a pea-shooter. Inside the booking hall, the cream paint peels and yellows high on the coffered ceiling. Shadows darken the arcade of the platforms, with their rows of cast iron columns. There are echoes of the long-departed LNWR. The 'Patriots' and 'Scots' with their big, curved smoke deflectors simmer at the buffer stops, waiting to go off to Camden shed.

(11) An outer suburban train from Baldock creeps through the dank blackness of Copenhagen and Gasworks tunnels and towards the terminus. The ancient gas lamps, long ago converted to electricity, give out a parsimonious glimmer of septic yellow light. They slide past the carriage window one after another, each illuminating a tiny area of damp, soot-blackened tunnel wall: another mesmerising rhythm. How imposing are the long, tall signal boxes and gantries of semaphore signals! Passengers trot across the wooden planks of the triangular extension to the suburban platform. At the end, two 'N7' condensing tanks stand next to one other, each attached to a rake of old LNER quad-art coach sets, with their rectangular observation windows protruding from the side of the guard's compartment and their ribbed coachwork, all beading and hinges.

(12) The booking office has a distinctive smell, a heady mixture of steam, coal, lubricating oil, coke, newsprint, pasteboard, floor polish and varnish. Layer upon layer of green, maroon or cream paint are chipped, faded and darkened by time and smoke. The ticket office has cut-glass partitions and pitch-pine divisions worn dark and smooth with decades of sliding. The tiny arched window where tickets are bought: the concealed features of the ticket clerk and the sound of his muffled voice behind the window. The deep clunk as a ticket is inserted into the date-stamping machine. The porter's trolley with its small iron wheels grating over stone thresholds or rumbling over floorboards. The distant thunder of coupled wheels and a quick whiff of smoke as an express train roars along the main-line through the station outside. Cast-iron spandrels, curly lamp brackets on fluted columns, fretted wooden canopies, navy-blue and white enamel signs.

(13) The fog is thick as soup and the quayside glistens, dankly. The train from Cambridge slides in beside the MV Arnhem. On deck the fittings are encrusted with layers of paint, once titanium white but now stained brown with blossoming carbuncles of rust. In the cabin there are slim blankets of oatmeal wool, sharp as sandpaper and such a strong reminder of the 1940s austerity years. A faded diamond LNER monogram is embroidered in the middle of each one and stamped on pillow cases of white hospital cotton, thin as tissue.

(14) Bolton MPD. Dawn has yet to break and the mouth of the shed is in pitch darkness. Black Fives are silhouetted against the weak gleam of the lamps that light the roads outside. An open firebox door paints the inside of the cab a Stanier '8F' a deep, flickering orange, and like a cloud of gold dust the colour reflects off the drifting steam that billows around it. A Black Five rumbles past, hissing rhythmically, its weight sending out tiny seismic shocks through the ballast underfoot as it traverses the poorly-bedded rails of the shed roads.

(15) Edale to Sheffield Midland on 21 August 1966 for 3/6d (17-1/2p) full fare. Most of these services were operated by DMUs but occasionally a Buxton 'Black Five' was used.

(16) August in Derbyshire, 1965. In the dormitory of Ilam Hall Youth Hostel. The window is open and the night air is still and heavy with the day's heat. It is long past midnight. The rhythmic beat of a locomotive exhaust suddenly fades away as the regulator is shut, but comes back as it is opened again. Wagons move slowly with a distinctive high-pitched creak, and the clashing buffers of a long string of loose-coupled 16-ton mineral wagons make a silvery cascade of sound. It starts slowly and accelerates until they have all been touched into motion in a long percussive surge. There is a much harsher wrenching noise as a loose-coupled goods train is abruptly started and wagons are suddenly slammed against one other. It turns into a symphony of sound as the locomotive, probably a Stanier '8F', tries to accelerate against the gradient and slips repeatedly. One can only imagine the battle that is going on in the dark, down in nearby Dovedale.

Edale to Sheffield Midland on 21 August 1966 for 3/6d (17-1/2p) full fare. Most of these services were operated by DMUs but occasionally a Buxton (9D) 'Black Five' was used, agile on the banks and clanking through the Peak District cuttings. No. 44851 was the last of these. The shed, roofless at the end, closed in March 1968.

On the Eve of War

The November 1938 edition of the Great Western Railway Magazine (the fiftieth since its first publication) recorded that for three 12-hour periods in September that year some 170 trains were run each day to evacuate civilians from London. Children from London County Council schools and orphans from Dr Bernardo's homes were carried from Paddington to more than 30 provincial destinations. Forty more trains were held in readiness to start evacuating the civilian population, while similar arrangements were planned for Birmingham, and special trains were formed to evacuate hospital staff and patients from the two cities.

Photographs dated 29 September 1938 show crowds of women and children at Paddington boarding trains for the West of England, the day that Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich pact. The week before that was marked by unusually high numbers of departures from London as people left of their own accord. News of the signing of the pact led to the termination at Bristol of a special train that was to have conveyed naval ratings to Scotland. A 'reverse plan' was implemented to return people to London.

Under the heading "A Splendid Example", the magazine recorded that one of the GWR's auditors, Mr R.J.R. Loxdale, of Llanilar, Cardiganshire, had sent a cheque for £50 to the Railway Benevolent Institution in order to express his "gratitude and appreciation that the horrors of war [had] been averted".

I wonder if he asked for his money back the following year?

1966: The End was Nigh

'Black Five' in the twilight at Edale, 1965

In 1966 some 1281 steam engines were withdrawn from BR service. The average was almost 100 a month, with a peak of 223 in the last month of the year. The rapid pace of redundancies and concentration of survivors on fewer depots had a considerable effect on the geography of sheds. In 1959 there were 57 divisions containing 330 numbered MPDs. There were also 179 listed stabling points and subsheds. Fifty-one sheds were closed in the next three years and a further 87 in the following four years. In addition, those seven years saw the closure of 142 subsheds and stabling points. Many of the remaining sheds were renumbered, either singly by transfer between areas, or as entire areas. The impact was greatest on the Western Region, which in 1959 had 66 numbered locosheds and 62 subsheds or stabling points, but in 1966 had only 27 and 4, respectively (a few, like Weymouth and Birkenhead, had been transferred to other regions or consolidated with other sheds in the same town). At the same time, reorganization brought the number of MPD divisions down to 51 by November 1962 and 42 by August 1966. In 1966 alone, 18 depots closed completely and a further nine closed to steam. And the rhythm of closures and consolidations accelerated progressively until, in August 1968, the last five steam depots, all of them in Lancashire, were shut down.

The last shed to be transferred was Colwick, which went from the Eastern Region (40E) to the London Midland (16B) effective 1 January 1966 and then closed to steam on 12 December, less than a year later. During almost 12 months as a London Midland Region shed, Colwick received in allocation some 98 steam locomotives from 3 classes: 28 ‘Black Fives’, 65 Stanier ‘8Fs’ and five ‘Standard 4' 2-6-0s. It also stabled ten 0-6-0 diesel shunters and the Thompson ‘B1', Departmental no. 29 (ex-61264), which was used as a stationary boiler. On a typical weekend in 1966 one could find more than 50 steam locomotives on shed, and the depot maintained a complement of 60-70 engines. But only 15 remained allocated there for the whole year. Indeed, the average residence time for all the 98 engines was slightly less than seven months. At the lower end of the scale, seven locos remained less than two months and six less than one month. Twenty-nine were withdrawn during 1966 or at the end of the year, and all of the others were dispersed widely about LMR shed areas 2, 8, 9, 10 and 16--i.e. from Birmingham and Nottingham to north Lancashire. For example, Stanier ‘8F’ no. 48600 arrived at Colwick during the week ending 22 October 1966, was reallocated to Sutton Oak (8G) on 12 November and withdrawn there a few weeks later. Its sister engine, no. 48282, at Colwick since Christmas 1965, was reallocated to Kirkby in Ashfield (16E) on 16 July 1966, sent to Patricroft (9H) on 12 November, and was returned to Kirkby a month later on 17 December 1966. One wonders how the shed staff remembered which locos were at home and which visiting!

While the locomotive allocation situation looked increasingly nightmarish in its complexity, there were also growing problems of locomotive reliability associated with declining standards of maintenance. In the final months of the Great Central main line from London Marylebone to Nottingham Victoria, which closed on 5 September 1966, the run-down state of the Colwick ‘Black Fives’ was more than a mere visual impression. Three of them failed at the southern end during the last fortnight of operations, and the locomotive chosen and cleaned up for the last all-steam return trip, no. 44825, failed on Colwick MPD with injector trouble and had to be replaced at short notice by its grimy sister, no. 44984. Fortunately, under skilled hands this locomotive put up a valiant show of speed on its last turn to Marylebone and back.

In the final months, the sheds located in the more well-heeled towns and cities were successively closed or converted to diesel depots. This relegated steam to places in the north where poverty and deprivation held out. Bolton, Stoke, North Blyth, St Helens--to see their backstreets was an education in social history for a young lad from the relatively affluent south. At St Helens, I recall the brick terraces of back-to-back ‘two-up, two-down’ houses, with their outside privies and washing flapping in the breeze. At Stoke I remember the thin and undernourished young engine cleaners scraping the ash from the bottom of ‘Black Five’ smokeboxes. Their overalls were worn through, their shoes full of holes and their complexions grey. At Bolton the cobbled streets, terraces of working men’s cottages and corner shops on the way to the shed were perfect L.S. Lowry scenes. It was a spontaneous education in geography: who in the South knew that to get from 10F Rosegrove MPD to 10D Lostock Hall one had to change at somewhere with a name as picturesque as Church & Oswaldtwistle?

Even where towns were more prosperous and still had steam, British Railways ran it down so much that it always looked more like an anachronism than a symbol of former glory. In March 1966 Buxton MPD, which was still two years away from closure, had an allocation of two dozen 8Fs, plus some Ivatt 2MTs, ‘Black Fives’ and the three J94s used on the Cromford and High Peak line (nos. 68006, 68012 and 68079), but the roofless shed and grimy engines contrasted starkly with the gentile villas of the spa town. So it was too amid the market-town prosperity of Shrewsbury, another location with a roofless MPD full of unkept locomotives.

By April 1968 Carnforth MPD (10A) still had a complement of 25-30 steam locomotives, augmented by half a dozen more being serviced for return journeys and a dozen stored engines awaiting scrapping or preservation. As usual by then, the main types were ‘Black Fives’ and Stanier ‘8Fs’, with a few ‘Standard 5s’ and ‘9Fs’, for the variety had well and truly gone out of steam and nearly all the more unusual types had already been cut up. Carnforth was a spacious depot and on a fine afternoon it had as much the air of a scenic attraction as that of a working MPD. In sum, it was in transition between BR engine shed and Steamtown visitors’ centre that it later became. Men, women and children milled around and climbed up into the cabs of the locos, especially no. 70013, Oliver Cromwell, which was already accorded preserved status. The movement of a ‘9F’ under the coaling stage, accompanied by the thunderous clang of coal into the tender, was observed as if it were a piece of theatre, a spectacle dreamed up to entertain the watching crowds.

And so ended 140 years of steam traction on Britain’s public railways. The process of doing away with it was termed ‘rationalisation’ though, as the observations reported above show, ‘irrationalisation’ would have been a more apt description. The future looked grim, but we were not then able to predict the extraordinary success of the preservation movement, or that more than 200 locomotives would be brought back from Barry scrapyard. The spectacle was over, but in some ways it was just beginning.

A 1960s Idyll: What it was Like in the Final Years

'B1' at Sheffield Midland station, 1965

By the time I was old enough to travel without my parents, steam was far away from where I lived on the ECML close to London. It meant major overnight trips, but in the mid-1960s this was possible, even for quite young children, without having to take much account of the hazards and restrictions that would now make such adventures out of the question. Although I only had my weekly pocket money, I could still afford the occasional long-distance spotting trip, for train fares had not become as riotously expensive as they were to do in subsequent years: at Paddington ten years later the man in front of me in the ticket queue asked for a first-class return to Penzance and I was hardly surprised when the ticket clerk replied "Do you want a mortgage?"

For an eleven year-old, locospotting trips from southeastern to northwestern England were serious expeditions. They had to be planned meticulously: train times to London, suitable departures from Euston, sheds to be visited and how to get to them on public transport. Lists of allocations and recent reallocations had to be scrutinized, for in those days steam depots were changing by the day. The merits of one shed had to be weighed up against those of another, as there was never enough time and money to visit them all. Thank goodness for that all-important Ian Allan directory, which explained in detail how to get to each shed, right down to the last bus route and backstreet. I wonder, though, whether shedmasters loathed it, for it ensured a constant stream of enthusiasts at the gate.

On each of those epic journeys two or three of us set off on a Friday evening. If we were three, one usually lacked the staying power and before the day was out he began to whine about being tired and wanting to go home early. But we always stayed the course. It began with the bus ride to the station and 50 minutes in a green diesel multiple-unit rattling along in the dark towards Kings Cross. We took a quick look around the Cross and St Pancras and then scurried over to Euston for the 1 a.m. train to the north. Money was always tight. Indeed, Carlisle Kingmoor remained an unattainable goal because it was simply too expensive for my pocket money and too far away. At twelve I became adept at hunching myself up and asking the man in the ticket office for a half-fare return in as high a voice as I could. More than once the response was "My goodness! They make people large where you come from!" But I never failed to get my half-fare, perhaps because I gave up when the pretence started to wear thin.

My recollections of Euston before modernization are vague as they predate my spotting years. I can still visualize those last traces of LNWR grandeur, the soot-blackened Doric arch four-square at the entrance and the high coffered ceiling of the booking hall, with its yellowed cream paintwork. But when we were off on our juvenile expeditions Euston was already a soulless modern station, cowering behind that deserted, windswept corporate plaza, and antiseptic in the cold gleam of a thousand fluorescent lights. Yet there was something ineffably romantic about those blue and white electric locomotives, the E3000 and E3100 series, as they hummed softly at the end of their trains and their silver badges glinted in the lamplight. By the standards of the day they were extremely powerful engines and I always loved the sense of effortless acceleration as they took the bank out of Euston and span rapidly along the new all-welded rails.

The train arrived at Crewe before dawn, and we tumbled out sleepily into the cold darkness. By then Crewe North had become a diesel stabling point and all the steam locomotives were concentrated at Crewe South shed. In the 1960s, ‘bunking’ Crewe South was a rite of passage for any locospotter from the South of England, but the operation required discretion and judgement, as the presence of small boys was naturally frowned upon by the shed authorities. Having once been issued a peremptory order to quit the premises, the next time my companions and I approached the place with more circumspection. Before dawn we crept behind some mineral wagons and made our way along the back wall of the shed. At a certain point a beam of light streamed out of the window of the shedmaster’s office. Peeping cautiously in we glimpsed him very nearby in conversation with one of his staff. So we flattened ourselves out and wormed our way along the cindery ground under the window sill. I wonder if he would have been surprised had he suddenly decided to open the window only to find us prostrate in the darkness beneath it!

At the end of the wall there was the cavernous mouth of the shed with its collection of ‘Black Fives’ and Stanier ‘8Fs’. Even as late as mid-1966 one could find as many as 70 locomotives on shed: my visit in August of that year turned up 2 Ivatt 4MTs, 20 ‘Black Fives’, 1 Ivatt ‘2MT’, 1 ‘Jinty’, 17 Stanier ‘8Fs’, 4 ‘Britannias’, 2 BR ‘5MT’ 4-6-0s, 1 BR ‘4MT’ 4-6-0, 3 Standard ‘2MT’ 2-6-0s, 8 ‘9Fs’ and preserved ‘A4' no. 4498, Sir Nigel Gresley, a healthy number and surprising variety for the period. But by August 1967 its allocation was down to 23 steam (and up to 21 diesels), and in November 1967 it closed, though diesels and a few preserved steam were still stabled there in 1968.

I wonder how many other lads held a special place in their affections for Crewe South? It was the first major steam shed that I ever visited and the sight of many locomotives, perhaps 55 at the start of an average working day in the mid-1960s, profoundly overawed me. The front ones would be in steam, hissing gently and emanating that potent smell of water, coal and oil that was such a fundamental part of the steam railway experience. Behind them in the depths of the shed there would be ranks of locomotives, uniformly black with dirt, some with their motion in pieces next to their huge driving wheels, massive rods of forged steel, straw-yellow with innumerable coats of oil.

In 1966 it was of course still possible to go south instead of north in order to see steam. On Monday, 31 October of that year a friend and I travelled down to Winchester at a leisurely pace on the 08.35 semi-fast from Waterloo, hauled by no. 34040 Crewkerne. After a brief local journey on a diesel-electric multiple unit, we went straight into the shed at Eastleigh. Among 31 steam locomotives there were three Bulleid light pacifics, two USA tanks (no. 30073 was in green livery) and two named ‘Standard 5s’. Flushed with success, my companion and I decided to ‘bunk’ the works. It required almost more nerve than a timid 13-year-old like me could muster. The front entrance was guarded by a reception building, so we slipped in discretely through a narrow gap in the perimeter fence.

Amazingly, the works was deserted and we tiptoed around it without meeting anyone. Chuchward 2-8-0 No. 2818 and ‘Schools’ class no. 928 Repton were there, just restored and gleaming in their new paint. Later in the day, we saw one of the USAs tow in a dilapidated 34051 Sir Winston Churchill to take their place. Among the BRCW Type 3s and electro-diesels there were two that bodywork repairs had deprived of their numbers, a most frustrating sight for spotters like us. Having seen it all we marched out of the main entrance, provoking some amazement when we passed the uniformed character on the gate. Once on the street we cut and ran for fear he would take it upon himself to chase us!

At school it was a mark of prestige to have ‘bunked’ a works, but there was always someone with a better tale to tell: my geography teacher admitted that as a lad he had ‘bunked’ Stewart’s Lane depot and been chased out by two men in uniform, who covered up their eyes when they saw him hop across the lines with the 750-volt third rails!

As the mass extinction of steam locomotives gathered pace it engendered a rising tide of disappointment and nostalgia for classes that were no more. I still find it hard to believe that so many and so substantial pieces of engineering wrought with such skill by designers and artisans could have been so quickly and ruthlessly reduced to formless piles of scrap.

For a century, 1850-1950, or more, the railway was one of the great socializing forces. Surely it diffused the benefits of civilization much more readily than it spread the drawbacks. Whether or not they were an anachronism, in the 1960s, steam locomotives were a source of continuity with those historical forces that shaped society and commerce in the regions of Britain during this remarkable period. The motive power design practices of the ‘Big Four’ companies had created parallel traditions made up of thousands of accumulated refinements, each referring to a distinct historical period. The substitution of diesel and electric traction abruptly cut off those traditions in a way that few comparable inventions have suffered.

In Britain, government transport policy propelled the steam engine into decline. Rather than allowing locomotives to finish their working lives, they were summarily culled, first monthly, then weekly, and finally daily. In that last agonizing period, those of us born too late to become familiar with regular steam working in our own local areas, and who therefore went looking for steam far from home, frantically tried to keep up with which locos were where and which MPDs still had significant allocations. It was an increasingly frenetic danse macabre that no logic could predict.

Beside the rather artificial running down of Britain’s steam locomotives through shear neglect, their rapid elimination was defended on the grounds that the huge infrastructure needed to maintain and operate them was uneconomic. Yet other countries, even some that had no indigenous fuel reserves, kept their steam locos going for longer by concentrating them on particular depots and routes, a strategy that could have been used much more effectively in the UK with good results in terms of economy and efficiency.

What has been so striking about the decline of Britain’s railways is the strong polarization between official disdain for rail transport and public affection for the country’s railway heritage. There has been no middle ground between running railways as a visitor attraction and running them down as a public service.