End of steam era captured (From Bournemouth Echo)

End of steam era captured

7:00pm Monday 11th January 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

NOSTALGIC memories of the days when steam locomotives struggled with heavy trains over the Mendips between Bath Green Park and Bournemouth West stations are evoked in Britain’s Railways in Colour.

Compiler, author and photographer Colin G Maggs MBE has written interesting and informative captions to enlighten and entertain.

A resident of Bath, his section on the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway naturally focuses on the hilly northern section of the line near his home.

While the quality of the S&D pictures taken by Mr Maggs, along with those by RE Toop and RJ Cannon, is excellent, it would have been nice to have seen some from the southern section of the line, though there is one cracking shot of an M7 tank locomotive – 30127 – at the line’s terminus at Bournemouth West station.

And the S&D “branch” to Highbridge and Burnham-on-Sea from Evercreech Junction is not forgotten, with some really atmospheric shots dating from 1959 to 1963.

The Bristol and Bath section includes a photo of the splendid train shed at Green Park Station, which has been preserved as part of a shopping development.

Closer to home, rebuilt West Country class pacific locos Yeovil and Dartmoor are pictured at Bournemouth shed on the last day of steam on the Waterloo to Weymouth line: July 1, 1967.

Southampton Central station’s much-photographed western signal gantry at the western end of the down bay platform makes a perfect frame for Standard class five 73080 Merlin, the fine tracery of the trackwork and distant dockyard cranes.

There are sad end-of-steam shots taken at Eastleigh including DS 233, one of the powerful USA tanks imported by the Southern Railway in 1946 for use in those same docks.

DS 233 and its sisters also saw service at the Southern Region’s permanent way works at Redbridge, Southampton, where sleepers were impregnated with creosote prior to pointwork being manufactured.

Other Eastleigh pictures depict engines minus name and number plates and with rusty tyres through lack of use, prior to scrapping.

• Subtitled BR Steam in the 1950s and 1960s, this Haynes Publishing book (ISBN 978-1-84425-650-1) costs £25.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)