Tabla de contenidos para January 2025 en Steam World

When you get to my age (I’m a postwar ‘baby-boomer’) you have a lot more life behind you than in front. Consequently, you can tend to harp on about things you did in the dim and distant past, to the probable boredom of those listening! I’m writing this just after Armistice Day, when TV commentators have made much of the fact that the Second World War is passing out of living memory. For anyone to have memories of taking part or living through it, they need to be around 100 years old. There are still a few and their memories and experiences are captivating and well worth listening to. I know that my contribution to the two magazines on which I work, Steam World and Model Rail, are valued because…

Is loyalty to the railway and taking pride in the job a thing of the past? Social media posts by current railway workers suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, standing on Oxenholme station platform on a wet autumn day, it’s hard to imagine that the driver of the southbound Avanti West Coast ‘Pendolino’ takes the same pride in the job as would an aged engine driver on the footplate of a ‘Duchess’. Or is that wishful thinking? The air-conditioned cab and finger-tip controls are a world away from the levers and handles found on a Stanier ‘Pacific’ backplate. And the less said about the wooden tip-down seat that Stanier thoughtfully provided for his enginemen compared to that found inside a Class 390, which has leather and a headrest. Yet the concentration, skill and…

Venice has its famous Bridge of Sighs, built in 1603, that connected the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace to a former prison. The name originates from the sighing of prisoners passing over it. Chester claims one, too, with a late 18th century bridge between a prison anda chapel. St John’s College, Cambridge University also has an elegant version built in 1831. Oxford University, not wanting to be left out, had its built in 1914, resembling Venice’s. No such glamorous thing was built over the Great Western Railway main line at Southall in 1877, but this footbridge certainly accounted for a lot of sighs. To maintain the slightly macabre feeling, this bridge replaced one built in 1838 that took an established footpath, once believed to have been an old coffin…

My father, Leonard Edlington, was a railwayman all his working life. He started as a lamp lad at Grimsby Town station in 1925, following in the footsteps of his father, who was a signalman at the Grimsby Wellowgate ‘box just outside the station. A few years later, Dad was transferred to be a shunter at Sutton-in-Ashfield, before ending up at Nottingham Victoria station. He was a shunter but then became a porter during the war, where he met my mother, who was also porter there. Eventually my father became a passenger guard, which he was until Nottingham Victoria closed on July 4 1967. He then moved to Nottingham Midland where he finished his career as a passenger guard. I came along in March 1948, an only child. At that time,…

It was brought to my attention that in covering the Hereford, Hay and Brecon line in last month’s Steam World, I had only gone as far as Three Cocks Junction (26¾ miles from Hereford station), where the line joined the very rural cross-country route from Moat Lane, on the Cambrian Railways’ main line, to the important county town of Brecon. Recalling that there are some fine colour photographs of the handsome station at Brecon, I was moved to continue the journey. Three Cocks Junction, derelict, on August 3 1966, was my introduction to the rural stations of the Cambrian Railways. The curious name was taken from a nearby hotel, apparently the only habitation near to where the two routes met. By that time all its tracks were long gone and…

As a train mad youngster I was fascinated to learn from my grandfather that there had once been a serious railway accident at our local station, Norwood Junction. Sadly, he was sketchy on the details. He didn’t know when (“About 1890,” he’d say) or what happened. He only knew that it had happened. Even the local library couldn’t shine any light on it. My imagination ran riot. The wreckage of engine and carriages was spread across the four running lines, signal posts were felled and platforms destroyed. Stories of heroic rescue attempts by individuals and medical services would become legion. The investigation would have been lengthy and complicated, the report full of admonitions and filled with recommendations… In the end, it was not until the Central Library was available for…

One of the less romantic sides of footplate life was the Preparation & Disposal Link, which, as its name suggests, dealt with the preparation and disposal of a locomotive before and after a working. This is what life was like in this link at Staveley (18D), later Barrow Hill (41E) and now better known as Barrow Hill Roundhouse Museum. When I started my footplate career, 18D was a purely goods depot, home to about 75 locomotives, comprising ‘8Fs’, ‘4Fs’, ‘3F’ 0-6-0s and ‘3F’ 0-6-0Ts (we called them ‘Jockos’ rather than ‘Jinties’), ‘1F’ 0-6-0Ts and ‘0F’ 0-4-0STs. Later, ‘WD’ 2-8-0s and Ivatt ‘4MTs’ replaced the ‘8Fs’ and ‘4Fs’. The shed was built in 1870 to replace a much smaller structure. It was the expansion of the nearby Staveley Iron& Chemical Company,…

I find myself looking at the former station house at Bare Lane each time I stand at the level crossing. I think of the many station masters and their families who once lived there in the 160 years since the station, on the line from the West Coast Main Line to Morecambe first opened in 1864. Tom Hayman was station master in the early 1930s and Mrs Hayman was instrumental in introducing substantial improvements to the station house, including an additional bedroom extension, refurbishing the kitchen and added a south-facing window in the front room. We know that the children played cricket in the goods yard (now the car park) and were fascinated by the old weighbridge building in the garden (the remains are there still). It was about this…

WIN A PRIZE WORTH £70! Just for this issue, we will be giving away a special prize worth £70! A copy of Steam Photographer by Gavin Morrison along with a copy of An Illustrated History of Her Majeysty’s Railway Inspectorate from 1840 by Ian Prosser & David Keay will be sent to the sender of the first correct answer opened on January 17, 2025. Answers (with your name and address) to SW451 Crossword, Steam World, 4 Milnyard Square, Orton Southgate, Peterborough PE2 6GX. Photocopies welcome, but please do not enclose correspondence. Crossword compiled by Alan Frost. Clues Across 1 LMR No. 45576 being part of ‘Jubilee’ No. 45574! (6) 4 Hall near Wrexham giving name to Collett 4-6-0 No. 4982 (5) 9 ‘--- - --- Wynd’, Peppercorn ‘A1’ No. 60116 (3,1,3) 10 SR…

It was 1958 and I was serving my two year secondment on the Wadkin universal pattern milling machine. This was situated in one corner of the pattern shop because it could be a potentially dangerous machine, with fly cutters revolving at 3,000rpm. The operator required a very high level of concentration to avoid injury. One day, chargehand Bob Miller came over to see how far I had got with an order for machining some driver’s seats from pieces of elm. Bob told me that when I had finished the order, could I go and have a word with Harry Lowe, about machining out a chimney corebox for him. When I walked down the shop to his bench, Harry had already completed the plywood set-out of the Midland Railway chimney for…