50 years ago this weekend

[rs1952]

Saturday August 3rd 1968 was the last day that any ordinary railway passenger could walk up to an ordinary booking office and buy an ordinary ticket for an ordinary train hauled by a steam locomotive.

They would have had to have been in Preston at the time, and wanting to go to either Blackpool on the 2050 departure, or Liverpool Exchange on the 2125. I was on the latter with a trainload of railway enthusiasts, together with a few ordinary passengers who no doubt wondered what the devil was going on...

I have an album on Flickr containing some of my photographs of the final days of steam here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93122458@N08/albums/... but here's one to be going on with.

[Condi]

Considering that the Model T was first produced in 1908, its amazing that it took another 50 years for internal combustion engines to take over the railways.

[Neonblau]

Condi said:

Considering that the Model T was first produced in 1908, its amazing that it took another 50 years for internal combustion engines to take over the railways.

Not really, after WW2 Britain was broke and it made economic sense to continue with steam, using a ready supply of domestic coal rather than imported oil which would need to be paid for in hard currency.

The US was well on the road to dieselisation in the late 30s and most western European countries largely missed out large scale dieselisation and went for electric railways. Some of these, such as examples in Germany, Austria and Switzerland go back prior to the First World War.

[P5BNij]

Neonblau said:

Condi said:

Considering that the Model T was first produced in 1908, its amazing that it took another 50 years for internal combustion engines to take over the railways.

Not really, after WW2 Britain was broke and it made economic sense to continue with steam, using a ready supply of domestic coal rather than imported oil which would need to be paid for in hard currency.

The US was well on the road to dieselisation in the late 30s and most western European countries largely missed out large scale dieselisation and went for electric railways. Some of these, such as examples in Germany, Austria and Switzerland go back prior to the First World War.

If the original modernisation plan had been adhered to many of the BR built standards classes such as the 9F would have been working right up until 1980.

[rs1952]

P5BNij said:

If the original modernisation plan had been adhered to many of the BR built standards classes such as the 9F would have been working right up until 1980.

If not longer. Your average steam engine has a design life of between 30 and 40 years, as indeed do more modern stock. Whilst they have of course been re-engined, the HSTs first started to turn wheels in the late 70s and are still going today.

And I am of course talking about average life spans. There were some abject design failures that were quickly and quietly retired or rebuild (LMS "Fury" and Bulleid's "Leader" spring to mind), and some others that fitted a niche and just went on and on (the Beattie Well Tanks and the Stroudley A1 and A1X)

[P5BNij]

Strange to think that my footplate career might have started as a lowly engine cleaner in 1983 if the plan had been followed through...!

[RoverP6B]

As it was, BR really should have kept steam going into the 80s, those early diesels were abject failures. I remember everything from Clayton shunters to Class 40s blowing up, throwing rods and catching fire all over Scotland in the 60s and 70s.

[rs1952]

P5BNij said:

Strange to think that my footplate career might have started as a lowly engine cleaner in 1983 if the plan had been followed through...!

… and…

RoverP6B said:

As it was, BR really should have kept steam going into the 80s, those early diesels were abject failures. I remember everything from Clayton shunters to Class 40s blowing up, throwing rods and catching fire all over Scotland in the 60s and 70s.

One of the prime motivations for accelerating the Modernisation Plan was staff shortages, and one of the areas most affected were motive power depots. Young lads no longer wanted to be paid a pittance as engine cleaners and passed cleaners.

A friend of mine was a case in point – at Bath Green Park as a cleaner then fireman in the late 50s/ early 60s, he tells the tale of finally getting browned off with the job at age 21. It was a Saturday night – all his mates were out pulling women, and here he was firing two trips to and from Westerleigh sidings with unfitted freights, and his mates in factories were earning more than him anyway. He put his notice in on the following Monday morning, and this sort o thing was going on all over the country.

Another fact that rarely gets a mention is the Clean Air Acts of 1955 and 1956, designed in part to abolish the smogs that frequently occurred in London and other large cities. BR steam power was a significant contribution to that problem, and that is the reason why, for example, the first all-diesel depot in the UK was at Devons Road, Bow, in East London.

So there were some good reasons for accelerating the Modernisation Programme, but it nevertheless involved massive waste as virtually new fully-serviceable steam locomotives being sent for scrap after just a few years service, and also resulted in large numbers of first generation diesels being ordered off plan without prior testing, that ended up not being able to do the jobs they were ostensibly designed to do. A typical UK government shambles, of which we have seen many in the past and are living through a couple or three at the moment….

But even if steam had survived into the 80s or 90s in some areas, I don’t think P5Nij would have been given an oily rag and some cotton waste and told to get on with it – indeed, he may not have even applied for the job in the first place if that was what it entailed!. The role of engine cleaner was already an archaic and outdated grade in the 50s, a hangover from the days when labour was plentiful and cheap. Some degree of automation would have been introduced, even as low-tech as a hose pipe (there is plenty of steam and hot water kicking around in an engine shed). You didn’t have to clamber all over diesels cleaning them to find out what bits went where and what they did – you found that out during your Traction Trainee course.

[P5BNij]

Looking back my traction trainee course was a bit of a blur, most of it was spent in the BRSA clubs at Willesden and just down the road at Old Oak!

[rs1952]

P5BNij said:

Looking back my traction trainee course was a bit of a blur, most of it was spent in the BRSA clubs at Willesden and just down the road at Old Oak!

So a "traditional" traction trainee course...

[Neonblau]

RoverP6B said:

As it was, BR really should have kept steam going into the 80s, those early diesels were abject failures. I remember everything from Clayton shunters to Class 40s blowing up, throwing rods and catching fire all over Scotland in the 60s and 70s.

Licence built EMD F Units such as used in Belgium, Netherlands and Norway would have been a better bet, but the "Buy British" trumped common sense.

50 years later and along come the 59s and 66s.

[RoverP6B]

I think that option was investigated but GM didn't want to know about adapting to the British loading-gauge. Didn't help that their attempts to sell domestic appliances here under the Frigidaire brand had flopped due to size/complexity/cost - aside from Vauxhall/Opel cars, they weren't really much interested in the European market - and from what I've heard, the American diesels suffered all the same maladies as ours, it wasn't uncommon for an old K4S Pacific to take over from a diesel on the Pennsylvania system...

[P5BNij]

Neonblau said:

RoverP6B said:

As it was, BR really should have kept steam going into the 80s, those early diesels were abject failures. I remember everything from Clayton shunters to Class 40s blowing up, throwing rods and catching fire all over Scotland in the 60s and 70s.

Licence built EMD F Units such as used in Belgium, Netherlands and Norway would have been a better bet, but the "Buy British" trumped common sense.

50 years later and along come the 59s and 66s.

It struck me while reading this post this morning that the 66 I was sat on at DIRFT is almost twenty years old. Although ruggedly built many haven't aged well at all, in BR days the equivalent loco would have been through works overhaul three or four times in that twenty year period, with unscheduled repairs also seeing them enter the works between main overhauls, if need be.

[DeejRC]

And stood on a platform at Preston 50yrs ago would have been just as cold and depressing as standing there today! Never once have I stood at Preston train station and not been cold and depressed - and I’ve had to catch many trains from there!!!

[rs1952]

DeejRC said:

And stood on a platform at Preston 50yrs ago would have been just as cold and depressing as standing there today! Never once have I stood at Preston train station and not been cold and depressed - and I’ve had to catch many trains from there!!!

Each unto his own as they say

I was on one of the 50th anniversary rail tours yesterday (this one: http://www.uksteam.info/tours/t18/t0811a.htm ) and was at Preston between 0915 and 1015. sitting outside in shirtsleeves. It wasn't too bad under the station roof either

And I can't remember it being cold and depressing 50 years ago either - mind you, as a 16-year-old at the time I was probably more immune to cold weather than I am now...

[Neonblau]

P5BNij said:

It struck me while reading this post this morning that the 66 I was sat on at DIRFT is almost twenty years old. Although ruggedly built many haven't aged well at all, in BR days the equivalent loco would have been through works overhaul three or four times in that twenty year period, with unscheduled repairs also seeing them enter the works between main overhauls, if need be.

Until I read your post I hadn't realised how old the 66s were - a sobering thought. What is their anticipated service life - another 5 or 10 years? Weren't the power units reconditiioned units from SD45s?

[P5BNij]

Neonblau said:

P5BNij said:

It struck me while reading this post this morning that the 66 I was sat on at DIRFT is almost twenty years old. Although ruggedly built many haven't aged well at all, in BR days the equivalent loco would have been through works overhaul three or four times in that twenty year period, with unscheduled repairs also seeing them enter the works between main overhauls, if need be.

Until I read your post I hadn't realised how old the 66s were - a sobering thought. What is their anticipated service life - another 5 or 10 years? Weren't the power units reconditiioned units from SD45s?

I'm not sure what their projected lifespan is but some of them look and feel as though they won't last the week, never mind another five or ten years!

[Gandahar]

rs1952 said:

Saturday August 3rd 1968 was the last day that any ordinary railway passenger could walk up to an ordinary booking office and buy an ordinary ticket for an ordinary train hauled by a steam locomotive.

They would have had to have been in Preston at the time, and wanting to go to either Blackpool on the 2050 departure, or Liverpool Exchange on the 2125. I was on the latter with a trainload of railway enthusiasts, together with a few ordinary passengers who no doubt wondered what the devil was going on...

I have an album on Flickr containing some of my photographs of the final days of steam here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93122458@N08/albums/... but here's one to be going on with.

Thanks for that, book marked your flickr and will look through it tonight when have more time.

I was born in 1968 so missed the steam age, the closest i got was an LP of train sounds that I loved to listen to. I do remember those big diesel engines though which looked like a Mac truck. We used to go visit my old relations in Colwyn Bay, travelling from Manchester Victoria. I believe they came from Scarborough and so went all across our little island. They were very impressive for a small boy. Forget aerodynamics !

Are there any left still being operated like steam trains are?

We went from steam to the British Rail pork pie.....

[RemyMartin81D]

With the huge exception of the A4 Pacifics. Steam isn't my favourite bag. I get to drive a 43 most days so that's pretty cool. But I fantasize about driving a 370 full whack.

If only. Thank god for Crewe.

[rs1952]

RemyMartin81D said:

With the huge exception of the A4 Pacifics. Steam isn't my favourite bag. I get to drive a 43 most days so that's pretty cool. But I fantasize about driving a 370 full whack.

If only. Thank god for Crewe.

Here's one to be going on with - Appleby last Saturday, 11th August, on one of the three trains to mark the 50th anniversary of the 15 Guinea Special that ran on that day. On this train, according to the announcement on the on-train PA system, there were three passengers who were also on that train 50 years ago on 11th August 1968. Me - with only income from paper rounds back then, I couldn't afford 15 bleedin' guineas, and that was the end of the matter. My "end of steam" came with the specials on Sunday 4th August 1968.

Edited by rs1952 on Monday 13th August 20:40