Recreating BR’s final steam workings
A lone Oliver Cromwell provided a fitting finale to the Great central railway’s ‘50 years since the end of br steam’ event. An ‘8F’ and a ‘standard 5’ put on a fine show with their ‘enthusiast railtour’. but, asks Toby Jennings, for how much longer will these re-creations continue?
August 12 1968. A solitary enthusiast stands beside a double-track main line, camera at the ready for a final ‘master shot’.
Away in the distance, the howl of a ‘Britannia’ chime whistle sounds faintly. Then silence. There it is again, closer now. A quick recheck of the scene for composition and exposure. This will be the last one. Another wail from the chime whistle, one long blast and one short, doubtless for the benefit of a few more spectators at the station just up the line.
An urgent drumbeat of steel wheels on steel rail joints gets louder, nearer. Then the BR ‘Pacific’ appears, running light and making haste as it scurries for shed. Its smokebox numberplate is partially obscured by a board bearing the reporting number ‘0Z00’, but it can be none other than No. 70013. Click! The picture’s in the bag. A swift impression of a hand-painted Oliver Cromwell name, a blur of BR lined green and whirling motion. A cheery wave from one of the footplate crew and then it’s gone. The tattoo of wheels on rail joints quickly recedes, leaving only a faint whiff of coal smoke in the air to mark steam’s passing.
EXTRA MILES
Only one word of the above is inaccurate. This was not 1968, but 2018. Not somewhere between Ely and Norwich, but just north of Quorn & Woodhouse on the last day of the Great Central Railway’s ‘50 years since the end of BR steam’ gala on August 11/12.
For Oliver Cromwell to haul a ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’ at such an event is obligatory. But this simple light engine movement, after
the last trains had run on each day, recreated another piece of the ‘Brit’s’ history – its run from Carlisle to Lostock Hall on August 11 1968 following its starring role on ‘1T57’, then the long trip to Norwich and into preservation the following day.
In 1968, the move was kept under wraps, and 50 years later to the day relatively few people were around to witness it either – for it was arranged on the spur of the moment.
At a time of day when No. 70013’s crew, no doubt, would really have preferred to put the engine to bed and make tracks for the pub, they took the Riddles 4-6-2 to Rothley and back with the correct reporting number on its smokebox, in homage to its epic journey 50 years before. Just because they could… and knew it was the right thing to do.
Last issue, Tony Streeter asked if “the passion had gone” when it came to commemorating 1968. But that’s passion right there. “On Sunday I did rather drop it on Phil Waterfield, the duty traffic manager,” admits event organiser Martyn Ashworth, “and it all hinged on the signalman, Clive Tyler – but he agreed to stay an extra half-hour.
“I was pushing at an open door with Tom [Tighe, No. 70013’s driver on both days] – he loved it.
“Moments like that keep my morale up – it’s the GCR working as a team and doing what it does best.
“We only get this chance once in a lifetime,” he reflects.
“We needed to make the most of it while we had the moment.” Martyn is indeed passionate about recreating history (both on the standard and narrow gauge) and while fire risk thwarted much of his plans on the first weekend, as detailed last issue, this time every cameo came together.
N/S FOR NON-STOP
Thanks to Loughborough shed staff who fitted a spark arrester to ‘8F’ No. 48624 in the week beforehand, the LMS 2-8-0 was able to play the part of scrapped classmate No. 48476, wear a ‘1L50’ reporting number, and double-head with Riddles ‘5MT’ No. 73156 (masquerading as No. 73069) in a re-creation of the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society’s ‘End of Steam Commemorative Railtour’ of August 4 1968.
It was a week late rather than to the day – but that was appropriate in its own way, seeing as the original tour didn’t run to schedule either. This latter-day ‘1L50’ also ‘recreated the
experience’ of the original tour by departing from Loughborough behind time on some of its runs – but, thankfully, it didn’t come close to racking up the full four-hour delay of 1968.
There was little chance of that once it got going, though. The unusual Stanier/Riddles pair put up some spirited running on their non-stop trains, just as the RCTS reported in its Railway Observer of October 1968:
“It was a great sound as the double-headed train climbed past the cotton mills with exhausts slamming back from the tall buildings, the ‘8F’s’ hooter contrasting with the shrill whistle of No. 73069. Sunday afternoon siestas in the sunny back gardens were disturbed and people waved friendly farewells. Games of bowls and tennis were interrupted by the spectacular sight and sound of progress of this long train with its two great engines hammering away up the bank to Oldham.
“At Bolton our special turned north onto the Blackburn line and made another gloriously vociferous climb up to Entwistle, witnessed by about the largest concentration of railway photographers and tape recorders ever assembled on one line of track!”
Those who turned round to watch the recreated Nos. 48476 and 73069 disappearing southwards towards Leicester would have spotted another little touch: a tailboard on the rear of the last coach proclaiming ‘1829-1968, The End’, reproducing one carried by the 1968 train.
Oliver Cromwell also hauled the original RCTS tour later in its journey (from Lostock Hall to Stockport Edgeley) and 50 years and one week later, each time ‘1L50’ arrived at Leicester North, the Riddles ‘Pacific’ was waiting to take over for the return leg. This, however, was the all-important ‘Fifteen Guinea’ re-creation with the famous ‘1T57’ reporting number adorning No. 70013’s smokebox five decades later to the day.
RARE COPS
Even the police were present – entirely in the interests of authenticity, you understand.
On August 11 1968, the British Transport Police were in attendance to control the crowds jostling to catch a glimpse of the ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’, and to replicate such scenes, Kirt Tabberer and Phil Kendrick – both Severn Valley Railway volunteers and RAF re-enactors – turned out in full 1960s police uniform.
It wasn’t the usual re-creation you’d find at a steam gala, but it brought back many happy memories for older visitors who fondly remembered the days when you saw the village bobby on the beat. Despite such attention to detail, it wasn’t perfect. One glaring difference from 1968 was the GCR’s rake of chocolate and cream Mk 1s that formed the ‘1L50’ and ‘1T57’ workings, and there was a glaring gap too – no ‘Black Five’.
No 1968-themed event is complete without one of the signature Stanier 4-6-0s, but boiler repairs to Lostock Hall engine No. 45305 could not be completed in time, nor could the overhaul of ‘8F’ No. 48305 – which Martyn had designs on renumbering as SVRbased No. 48773 to replicate more of the last enthusiast railtours. He had also looked at hiring another ‘Black Five’, a ‘Standard 4’
4-6-0 and even the last surviving ‘Clayton’ diesel. But in truth, none of these were the most important absentees.
Harold Bolton and John Burnett, the Lostock Hall drivers of Nos. 48476 and 73069 respectively on the August 4 1968 tour, were both invited to the event for a ‘reunion’ with their engines – but now aged 90 and 85 respectively, neither was able to attend. Locomotives can be overhauled, repaired, renumbered, transported to galas and will hopefully all still be with us many years from now. But those who were around in 1968 won’t be here forever.
THEY THINK IT’S ALL OVER…
Which perhaps sums this gala up. As far as it went, it was a fine tribute to 1968 – yet as ‘Cromwell’s’ light engine run proved, even 50 years on there are still many more historic moments for us to recreate.
But will we continue to do so?
What will happen for the 60th anniversary in 2028? The 75th in 2043? Even, looking what seems impossibly far ahead, the centenary in 2068? Will anybody care? It’s understandable to think not, as 1968 recedes further into history and the memories fade. But we can take heart from some of the things that were done for this event. For one train on the Sunday, No. 70013’s ‘1T57’ board was the genuine article carried by ‘Black Five’ No. 44871 on the Carlisle-Manchester leg of the tour in 1968, and now owned by James Shuttleworth of West Coast Railways. The previous day, it had been back over the ‘Settle & Carlisle’ on the front of ‘Jubilee’ No. 45690 Leander (see News). This was not the only relic of 1968 to be reunited with ‘Cromwell’ around the event. The ‘0Z00’ number carried for the light engine moves on Saturday and Sunday was a reproduction – but Chris Fernihough owns the original item. Other commitments prevented him from staying for the gala – yet on the Friday evening, he travelled at short notice from his home in Cornwall to place the board on No. 70013’s smokebox for the first time in 50 years.
…IS IT NOW?
Why would you do that? Why would you make sure a mere headboard is traversing the S&C on a certain date, but then cart it 150 miles south to hang it on Oliver Cromwell the following day? Why would you undertake an even greater trek of nearly 300 miles from the far South West just to put a metal board with some pasted letters and numbers on the front of a steam engine? Why? Because we care, that’s why.
Fifty years after the end of steam, we still care enough to get such details right – even if it’s a logistical nightmare. And even if we don’t remember 1968 ourselves.
Says Martyn: “This event was a very special and personal one for me – I was at Hellifield on August 11 1968, aged 12, with my late father watching No. 70013 taking water (and stood next to Bishop Eric Treacy!) little realising that 50 years later I would be organising the anniversary event.
“I have organised countless railway events in those 50 years, but this was one I looked forward to doing for a very long time.”
Chris, on the other hand, is far too young to remember BR steam at just 27 – but enthuses: “It was worth every second of being in that terrible traffic en route from Redruth – you couldn’t put a price on it. “The moment the ‘0Z00’ board was placed back on 70013, 50 years of waiting was over, but for me it was also 12 years of waiting over. Tears filled my eyes and a lump appeared in my throat at the thought of how much my dad would have loved this moment.
“He bought the board at auction in 2006 and loved the fact that he had a great piece from the end of the steam era. Sadly, he passed away in 2007, but he always said: ‘One day we’ll get it back on 70013.’
“It was a truly special occasion – thank you to all who were involved in making this happen.”
Writing to Steam Railway this month to confirm a few details of which engines did what on the last day of timetabled BR steam, August 3 1968, Philip Jenkinson wryly observed: “Funny how this all seems to matter to us 50 years later!”
But of course it matters. It’s history. It’s our passion. Just as long as we keep that passion alive, we can keep recreating it.