SOUTHERN CLASSICS, BR LIVERIES...

On pages 40-44, you can see photographer Peter Zabek’s showcase of preservation’s finest re-creations of Southern Region steam with pre-Grouping locomotives. Here’s what those stunning images emulate.

First up is a clip showing Beattie well tanks on railtour duties in 1962. These antiquated 2-4-0WTs were originally built to work London suburban services in the mid to late 19th century, so our clip shows two of them back in their old haunts.

The other long-lasting suburban tank engines that survived into the 1960s were William Adams’ ‘Radial’ tanks, three of which were kept to work the Lyme Regis branch. We see No. 30582 back on London suburban lines on the REC’s 1961 ‘South Western Adams Radial Tank Railtour’. We then see the same engine performing its usual duties at Axminster. The Adams ‘O2s’, were also longlasting and we see a pair of them working one of the very last Ryde-Ventnor line trains on the Isle of Wight in December 1966.

We also see one of Adams’ ‘B4’ shunting engines at Eastleigh and a ‘G6’ in the late 1960s at Nine Elms Goods station. Finally, we see the only surviving Adams express locomotive, ‘T3’ No. 563, at Brighton in 1958.

Drummond’s ‘M7s’ then come to the fore, with No. 30108 – a long-term Bournemouth resident – entering Corfe Castle station on the Swanage line. It’s followed by No. 30029 at Eastleigh, where it passes a ‘T9’ waiting in the Up loop platform. Another ‘T9’, No. 30718, is captured on film at Yeovil Junction in 1960, running round the RCTS ‘Greyhound’ railtour.

Robert Urie was the last LSWR locomotive engineer and he is remembered for his series of very successful 4-6-0s. One clip features an ‘H15’ at Clapham Junction on a passenger train. It is followed by two examples of his ‘S15’ goods engines – which were really mixed traffic machines – one near Wimbledon and another leaving Waterloo. Urie’s express passenger ‘N15’ 4-6-0s were further developed by the Southern Railway’s first CME, Richard Maunsell, and we see one of the first of these in Clapham Cutting, still sporting its original Drummond ‘watercart’ tender.