The Great Western Steam Retreat E-Book

Keith Widdowson

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 211

Beschreibung

In mid-1964, Keith Widdowson got wind that the Western Region was hell-bent on being the first to eliminate the steam locomotive on its tracks by December 1965. The 17-year-old hurriedly homed in on train services still in the hands of GWR steam power, aiming to catch runs with the last examples before their premature annihilation. The Great Western Steam Retreat recalls Widdowson's teenage exploits, soundtracked by hits from the Beatles, the Kinks and the Rolling Stones, throughout the Western Region and former Great Western Railway lines. He documents the extreme disorder that resulted from that decision, paying tribute to the train crews who managed to meet demanding timings in the face of declining cleanliness, the poor quality of coal and the major problem of recruiting both footplate and shed staff. This book completes the author's Steam Chase series and provides a snapshot into the comradery that characterised the final years of steam alongside the long-gone journeys that can never be recreated.

Leseprobe

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (GWR) SYSTEM MAP

Front cover image: 7029 Clun Castle at Stourbridge Junction.

Back cover image: 6916 Misterton Hall accelerating through Oxford.

Every effort has been made to source and contact all copyright holders of illustrated material. In case of any omission, please contact the author care of the publishers.

First published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Keith Widdowson, 2022

The right of Keith Widdowson to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9977 9

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed in Turkey by IMAK

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Reading Reminiscences, 1964

2 The First Overnight, 1964

3 Beeching Axe Victims, 1964

4 Withered Arm Wanderings, 1964

5 Varsity Line Visit, 1964

6 A Double Whammy, 1964

7 That Middle England Jaunt, 1964

8 Pastures New, 1964

9 The Cambrian Crusade, 1964

10 Bashing to Banbury, 1965

11 The Inter-Regional Finale, 1965

12 A Saturday Somerset Sojourn, 1965

13 Demise of the Manors, 1965

14 Oxfordshire Outings, 1965

15 Mission Accomplished, 1966

16 Rail Tour Bonanza, 1966

17 The Chester Chronicles, 1966

18 A Fabulous February Frenzy, 1967

19 The Severn & Dee Rail Tour, 1967

20 The Great Western Survivors

21 And Finally: The Last Weekend, 1967

Glossary of Terms

Appendices

Sources

About the Author

Keith Widdowson was born to a pharmacist father and secretarial mother during the calamitous winter of 1947 at St Mary Cray, Kent, and attended the nearby schools of Poverest and Charterhouse. He joined British Railways (BR) in June 1962 as an enquiry clerk at the Waterloo telephone bureau ‘because his mother had noted his obsession with collecting timetables’.

Thus began a forty-five-year career within various train planning departments throughout BR, the bulk of which was at Waterloo but also included locations at Cannon Street, Wimbledon, Crewe, Euston, Blackfriars, Paddington and finally Croydon – specialising in dealing with train crew arrangements.

After spending several years during the 1970s and ’80s in Cheshire, London and Sittingbourne, he returned to his roots in 1985. There he finally met the steadying influence in his life, Joan, with whom he had a daughter, Victoria. In addition to membership of the local residents’ association (St Paul’s Cray), the Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway and the U3A organisation, he keeps busy writing articles for railway magazines and gardening.

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to the many people in my life who have made it one that I have been glad to have participated in – my ever-understanding wife Joan being at the top of the list. Then there is Joe Jolliffee, a lifelong fellow basher, who proofread this tome, and Chris Magner, a member of the Unofficial Volunteer Birkenhead Steam Cleaning gang, who did the same. Also John Bird (ANISTR.com), whose miracles on fifty-year-old-plus negatives have made them worthy of inclusion here. Many thanks also go to The History Press team for putting it all together, and finally there is Steam Days magazine editor Rex Kennedy, who in 2004 published my first article, thus kick-starting a late-life career as an author. You can view all of my photographs on www.mistermixedtraction.smugmug.com, where you can click on any of the galleries, set it up for a slide show, sit back and enjoy.

Introduction

Born at home in the winter of 1947, my childhood during the 1950s was unexceptional. Come school age, with Dad commuting to London, Mum returned to work in a nearby factory and we, my younger brother and I, became what are nowadays known as latchkey children, i.e. we looked after ourselves until a parent returned home. Fortunately, having woods opposite our house (adjacent to the Up Chatham line at St Mary Cray), many an hour was spent exploring or walking our dog (who enjoyed attempting to race London-bound trains just starting out of the station) there. Alternatively, when it was dark or there was inclement weather, there were always comics such as the Dandy, Beano or Beezer to read. On other occasions, we raced each other on our tricycles around the block with the instructions ‘don’t cross any roads’ echoing in our ears – mine had solid tyres while his had the more comfortable pneumatics and a basket on the back to boot. The first born always loses out! Another difference was that, one Christmas, I was given a clockwork Hornby O-gauge model railway set, while he had a more modern Scalextric racing track.

Having failed the eleven-plus, I was dispatched to Charterhouse (Orpington) School, which involved a daily bus journey. With the London Transport services not being as frequent as they are nowadays, it became essential to read a timetable – with hindsight the catalyst that led me into a railway career. More of which later. Other non-school activities experienced were cubs/scouts, paper rounds (both mornings and the Saturday evening Pink Classified), the Youth Hostel Association and days out on the buses with our Green or Red Rovers. At home, using the money from the paper rounds, records by Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Duane Eddy and The Shadows were purchased and played at full volume on my Dansette record player – much to my parents’ annoyance. Listening to Radio Luxembourg on my Pye radio with my earphones under the bedclothes only heightened the ‘illegality’ of it – not forgetting the annoyingly persistent Horace Batchelor (of Keynsham, don’t you know) adverts about his sure-fire method of winning a fortune on the football pools. If the scheme was that good, then why wasn’t he a millionaire?

Educationally I didn’t to do very well and, when I was 15, my father said to me, ‘The RSA certificate, which you might achieve, won’t get you anywhere. You may as well leave and get a job!’ Mum, having noted my obsessive interest in collecting and reading timetables, wrote to the Southern Region (SR) HQ at Waterloo and obtained an interview for me in the telephone enquiry bureau, whose role was to answer enquires from the public by reading timetables. Having successfully passed an entrance exam together with a medical, I commenced what was to turn out to be a forty-five-year career within the railway industry in June 1962.

Doctor Beeching had, in March 1963, published his Reshaping of British Rail proposals – the crux of which foresaw widespread railway line closures and the elimination of the steam locomotive. Although only joining BR during the previous year, I don’t recall having employment concerns that resulted from the report’s recommendations. Perhaps the exuberance and naivety of youth shielded me from any worries regarding possible unemployment. The Southern Region, perhaps the least affected, was essentially a commuter railway and there always seemed to be a shortfall of clerks to man the phones and plenty of overtime on offer – management often called upon retired staff to fill the vacancies. I had originally joined BR ‘just as a job’. However, being an impressionable teenager and urged on by fellow enthusiast clerks, namely the late Bill Sumner, to visit the destinations for which I was forever answering train enquiries, I began to tentatively venture out into the world away from my daily commute. Few records or notes were made during that period, and all I took along with me was a Brownie 127 camera and a fold-out system map (extracted from the rear of an SR timetable) of railway lines, which I coloured in as I travelled over each.

In August 1963, I holidayed with my parents and brother at Woolacombe, but perhaps showing my growing independence (at the age of 16), I travelled to and from there by train. While waiting for my returning London train at Mortehoe, 31-year-old Churchward-designed Mogul 7337, withdrawn thirteen months later at Swindon, arrived there with the 0620 Taunton to Ilfracombe. It was assisted up Mortehoe bank, parts of which were 1 in 40, by N 31842. The poor quality of this photograph can be attributed to the fact that it was taken with my Brownie 127.

The summer 1963 Western Region (WR) timetable.

Our family holidays had nearly always centred on resorts in the west of England. I well remember the traffic queues along the A30 and the notorious Exeter bypass, with I Spy books, usually involving car registrations from across the country, sometimes alleviating the boredom. Perhaps indicative of my growing independence, I journeyed by train in 1963 while my parents drove as usual – my travel perks from my BR employment being an obvious bonus. I have vague recollections of being in a Bulleid compartment side-corridor coach but, as to the motive power on the 223-mile journey from Waterloo to Mortehoe, I didn’t note it. Completing the few miles to Woolacombe by bus, I re-joined my family before returning a week later by the same method.

So that brings us up to 1964 – and I began to document every noncommuting journey undertaken. Rough notes were made in small notebooks, the first few of which were lost in the mists of time – not, fortuitously, before the contents were neatly transferred into A4 desk diaries. All those notebooks from 1965 have survived, the first dozen or so pages being of tidy writing, but both the condition of the book and my writing deteriorated during its usual six-month tenure because of their incessant usage during my travels.

On 1 January 1963, there were 7,074 steam locomotives in BR stock, a decrease of 1,011 since 1962. A year later, this number would be reduced to 4,990. Little did I realise this, and had I done so, I would have travelled far more extensively (funds permitting) to chase after them before it was too late. It would be easy to blame the meagre wages (£2 12s 6d per week, or £2 62½p) for the few journeys made, but in reality, it was my own naivety as to the impending massacre of Britain’s Iron Horses.

The May 1964 Part 1 BR Steam Locomotives ABC.

The lack of funds meant outings were initially confined to the SR – my home region. Gradually, as I progressed up through the clerical ranks, my increased income, coupled with qualification for an escalating number of free passes each year, meant my horizons began to expand. Promotion in 1966 allowed me to afford rail tours. The Saturday visits became overnight Friday – then Friday to Sunday – then Thursday to Sunday – eventually culminating in a five-night bash on the London Midland Region (LMR) in the autumn of 1966 – the year of my greatest ever yearly steam mileage of 35,528.

It would have been so much easier to ‘cop’ locomotives at stations, yards, depots, etc. It was far more difficult, and by default more rewarding, to travel behind them. The satisfaction of ‘clearing’ a class or shed allocation, or getting hauled by one from a predominantly freight depot or a ‘namer’ on an unexpected turn-up, gave teenagers such as myself a thrill and a certain kudos among like-minded contemporaries. Compared with almost completed Bulleid pages and respectable Brit and Black 5 entries, the Great Western Railway (GWR) pages were desperately bare.

Much as I enjoyed the camaraderie of steam-chasing days with fellow enthusiasts, I cherished my solo ventures too. It was just as well because on the majority of expeditions chasing after WR steam, I was on my own! The camaraderie came along upon steam’s contraction to north-west England, the overnight Calder Valley mail train scenario and, of course, the Waterloo to Bournemouth main line. Even so, there were usually identifiable railway followers at the platform ends of most large stations. If information was required of them as to what had been through recently or of anything unusual happening, my questions were usually met with a positive response. Generally, the dress code gave them away – a person with a notebook in hand and with no intention of boarding any train. We came from all walks of life and there was no snobbery; all that mattered was your knowledge of the railway.

I was a child of the interregnum caught up in the uneasy period between the glorious years of the steam age and the cleaned-up Inter-City-branded future. The death of the steam locomotive meant little to us – we were young and we were going to live forever. We were oblivious, ignorant even, to the political skulduggery that was to do away with both the steam locomotive and coal fires. Being a baby boomer, I consider myself privileged to have witnessed, sad though they were, the last few years of steam on the national network. Thereafter, the future looked bleak with steam being banned throughout mainland UK and fast disappearing throughout Europe. The reign of the steam locomotive was thankfully lengthened by the decision in the 1950s to undertake a build of Standard locomotives, culminating with the construction of BR 9F 92220 Evening Star in March 1960 at Swindon.

To me a ‘Western’ was a television show or series that took place in the American old west that involved cowboys, cattle ranchers, miners, farmers, Native Americans, guns and horses. It was the most popular genre of TV show in the 1950s and ’60s, and I grew up on a diet of programmes such as The Adventures of Champion (the wonder horse), The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Rawhide, The Lone Ranger, Laramie and The Roy Rogers Show. However, having become a BR employee, ‘Western’ took on a very different meaning. Reading the office copy of magazines such as Railway World, it slowly dawned on me that, with widespread closures and the hastening approach of the steam locomotives’ demise, the Western Region, with no electrification plans, was selected to be the first to achieve full dieselisation.

It must have been mid-1964 when I first got wind that the WR was hell-bent on eliminating steam within the following eighteen months or so. In January 1965, WR General Manager Gerry Fiennes told Modern Railways he was intent on turning a £30 million loss into a break-even figure that year. He spoke of the savings possible with diesels, with operating costs falling from 4s 2d (21p)/mile to 2s 9d (14p)/mile. As a teenager living in SR territory but close enough to the final workings in the Oxford–Banbury area, I resolved (finances permitting) to record the decline and travel with some GWR examples before it was too late.

The Western Region (née Great Western Railway) was always a thorn in the side of British Railways’ attempts to standardise the regions with the same lacklustre brand. The Western’s history was one of past glories and lengthy family allegiances. Britain’s railways had been nationalised, yet remained a loose affiliation of small republics, each one with their own identity and history. This ‘loyalty’ filtered down to us enthusiasts: each one of us had our favourites and we would argue their merits during the increasingly lengthy waits between steam trains.

The British Railways Board (BRB) was determined to squash this. No one had a job for life any more, and while grumbling was always part of a railwayman’s resolve, at least he knew that it would blow over and, providing he kept his nose clean, there would be a pension at the end of it. Of all the pre-grouping companies, GWR remained the most geographically intact, and indeed stayed so up to and after the 1948 nationalisation. Their locomotive fleet had also been standardised since the middle of the twentieth century under the guidance of Churchward, and this was continued by his successors, Collett and Hawksworth.

There’s something about the smell of coal, together with any great exhalation of steam from a locomotive, which is instantly relaxing – it is a living and breathing machine. The magical rhythmic beat of an approaching loco’s exhaust sound always gave a steam follower a tingle down the back of their neck. Sheds were atmospheric cathedrals of steam and smoke – the air heavy with smoke, dust and the smell of sulphur. The ground was littered with oil-splashed puddles of black water and potential danger for those who weren’t looking where they were going. We weren’t bothered – it was all part and parcel of our chosen hobby. On the trains themselves, the steam heating saturated our bodies, whereas electric heating dried the back of our throats. However, now the steam locomotive, which had opened up the country during the nineteenth century, had become the victim of the relentless but necessary march of progress. To quote the prolific railway author Mike Hedderly: ‘No generation of railway enthusiasts had to cram in so much in such a short time. It was a race against time.’

Self-confidence grows with age and nowadays I have no problem with declaring myself to be a railway enthusiast. Sure, I am still labelled, by some, as an anorak – so what: a hobby is a hobby and if pleasure and interest can be gained from it, so be it! These days the trainspotter has become a more acceptable persona – less marginalised because of the resurgence of interest in the steam locomotive courtesy of the Flying Scotsman and Tornado. Celebrity train enthusiasts Michael Portillo, Dan Snow and Chris Tarrant have each played their part. Spending vast amounts on photographic equipment, together with the range of mobile phones, cameras and GPS paraphernalia available to today’s enthusiasts, would be beyond the understanding of those following the hobby in the 1960s.

Not discovering steam until 1964 (having had the opportunity from June 1962), I am seriously envious of those older and wiser who went before me. Even though I caught the last four years, it was the mid-1950s, the heyday of British steam, that I would have really liked to experience. If the Second World War hadn’t happened (my father having been corralled in a POW camp for five years), my parents might well have processed me up to eight years earlier, so I can genuinely blame Hitler for my late arrival on the scene. It was like someone who arrives late at a party and is told that they should have seen what happened earlier – surveying the party food table, they are then left feeding off the leftovers.

Even these days, when the relatively rare incidence of a new haulage occurs, the hairs on the back on my neck stand up and my eyes glisten with tears at still having the ability, courtesy of hundreds of dedicated volunteers, to continue to enjoy what has been a lifetime addiction – that of journeying behind a steam locomotive I have never travelled with before, whether on a preserved line or on the national network. The thrill of underlining (or scoring through) a locomotive that I have been hauled by has never left me. When travelling the country these days and sometimes chancing on locations that once were stations or railway lines but are long since deceased, I remark that ‘once upon a time’ I had travelled over that line or visited the station. My wife, bless her, feigns polite interest but with disbelief that anyone can eulogise so fervently over travels made in the past.

As readers will come to appreciate in the following pages, my greatest financial outlay was on travel costs and photographs were (regrettably) of secondary importance. Thus, the majority of photos included here were taken within station limits. In this book the reader will find a series of adventures undertaken in the search for steam over routes, some of which have long gone, throughout both the former Western Region and Great Western Railway. Sit back and join me on journeys that can never be recreated.

1

Reading Reminiscences

In 1964, the world was there for a 17-year-old full of wanderlust and youthful vigour to explore. Released from the parental imposition of short back and sides, and obviously influenced by the pop groups of the day, collar-length hair and large sideboards were grown. That February, having dominated the top spot for six weeks, the Searchers’ ‘Needles & Pins’ was finally dethroned by the Bachelors’ ‘Diane’ – only for them to be ousted a week later by Cilla Black (on whom I had a serious crush!) singing ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’.

In my wage packet, having worked overtime during the Christmas period, I received one of the new £10 notes. With their white predecessors having been withdrawn in 1945 (to combat forgery), the new ones were not only coloured (brown) but for the first time featured a portrait of the monarch.

On Tuesday, 11 February, having taken half a day of annual leave from my workplace at Waterloo, I made my first investigative journey away from SR metals – all of 36 miles away to Reading. After crossing London on the Bakerloo line, I caught the 1230 Torbay Express departure out of Paddington, powered that day by Hydraulic D1051 Western Ambassador, window leaning en route in order to drink in the atmosphere of a non-electrified railway. After passing Old Oak Common and Southall depots, however, the wind resistance, together with the cold, forced me to take refuge in a window seat.

In my notebook I penned at the time, ‘Steam locomotives (predominantly Halls and Granges) were liable to work the Paddington to Worcester trains due to a series of Western diesel failures on the West of England line resulting in the transfer of Hymeks from the Worcester line.’ How accurate these facts were I couldn’t say; perhaps I had read them in the office copy of Railway World. In reality, during the time I was there the only passenger train steam substitution I witnessed was Worcester’s 6856 Stowe Grange on the 1205 Hereford to Paddington – the same locomotive powering the 1115 out of Paddington on 8 April 1965: allegedly the final substitution.

It was, however, an interesting two-hour sojourn on the London end of Reading station and with my Brownie 127 I took some (passable?) photographs of copper-domed steam locomotives from classes never seen before. Another unique feature, witnessed for the first time, was the semaphore signals dropping (rather than raising) to indicate a clear road. This further demonstrated to a young fledgling enthusiast WR’s (i.e. former GWR’s) exclusivity in being different.

Guildford-allocated (although displaying a 71A Eastleigh shed code plate) Standard 4MT 80095 at Reading (Southern) in July 1963. As no notes of my pre-1964 travels have survived the years, I am unable to ascertain how I came to be there at all!

Oh what a fool I was! Instead of photographing Worcester’s 6856 Stowe Grange departing Reading General with the 1205 Hereford to Paddington, I should have travelled with her. The Golden Valley trains were the last main-line services sporadically steam-hauled due to diesel locomotive (DL) shortages, predominantly Hymek.

Reading General station pilot that day was home-allocated Modified Hall 6991 Acton Burnell Hall. Subsequently transferred to Oxford, she made it to the bitter end in December 1965.

As per Otis Redding’s 1967 hit, sitting on the dock of the bay that day was 4-6-0 7817 Garsington Manor on milk monitoring duties. This 25-year-old Reading-allocated Manor was named after a Tudor building 5 miles south-east of Oxford, Garsington Manor, being restored in the 1920s after a period of disrepair after having been used as a farmhouse. This milk dock was extended and became part of the terminal platform for SR services upon closure to passengers of Reading (Southern) in September 1965.

Bulleid-designed 0-6-0 Q1 33040 is seen passing through with inter-regional transfer freight to its home depot of Feltham. Shorn of all non-essentials, such as running plates, splashes and conventional boiler cladding, to save metal during their wartime construction, forty of these unique-looking 5F-classified machines were built during 1942, this one being withdrawn in June 1964.

Reading General, as it was named at the time of my visit, was opened from London in 1840. The line was extended through to Bristol the following year and routes to Hungerford and Basingstoke were added in 1847 and 1848 respectively. The station has been redeveloped on several occasions over the intermediate years and nowadays is a far cry from the one I first visited. Renamed Reading General in 1949 to distinguish it from the SR-operated Reading Southern, perhaps the most significant rebuild in the 1960s was in September 1965 when Reading Southern was closed and the SR EMU (electric multiple unit) trains from Waterloo and DEMUs (diesel–electric multiple units) from what is now marketed as the North Downs line were diverted into a new platform, 4A. Over the intervening years, however, it became a major bottleneck and, as a precursor to the planned electrification, it received an £897 million rebuild that included five new platforms and an additional flying crossover. It was perhaps a justifiable expense on a station that is the ninth busiest outside London. The Queen reopened the station in July 2014.