UNDERGROUND, OVERGROUND

30 years of ‘Steam on the Met’

Mind the Gap: Stanmore, Pinner,

Baker Street, Aldgate, Hammersmith… outlandish stations that have been graced by steam over the past 30 years. But now you might never see steam beneath the streets of the capital ever again. NICK BRODRICK traces the unusual and unique renaissance of steam on the London Underground.

In 1989, a pair of tank engines turned heads on the Metropolitan Line by returning steam-hauled trains to the London Underground for the first time since 1971. Last month, one of those locomotives ran into central London with a complete wooden-bodied train.

A lot has happened in the 30 years separating those events, but as ‘Metropolitan 1’ eased out of Kensington High Street for the last time on June 23, there was a palpable melancholy that this alien transposed from the Victorian era would never return to the metropolis.

The march of automatic train operation and a major resignalling project on the Underground system is already squeezing steam out of the capital and back onto the suburbs of Metroland where this unlikely revival began. After 2021, it might never return.

It is therefore an ideal time to reflect on the 15 years of the past 30 in which steam dovetailed with the slug-like trains of the world’s oldest metro system, and look forward to plans for the remaining trains before the final curtain is drawn.

RETURN TO METROLAND

It was over the first two weekends of July 1989 that the last steam locomotive to haul a passenger train on London Transport

in 1961, ‘E’ 0‑4‑4T ‘Met 1’, teamed up with a less obvious companion, Hawksworth ‘94XX’ 0‑6‑0PT No. 9466, for the 100th anniversary of the Chesham branch.

Discussions for the trains first took place between LU and Chesham Town Council in 1985, but it wasn’t until late 1988 that one of the organisers, Roger Paddison, made a formal approach to the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre for the use of its machinery.

Chesham had last hosted steam 29 years before, but with the help of the branch’s once‑regular locomotive, ‘Met 1’ from Quainton Road, and the addition of Dennis Howells’

No. 9466 in lieu of the hoped‑for but incomplete London Transport pannier tank No. L99, the hills surrounding the 1‑in‑66 gradient through the Chilterns once again reverberated to the noisy, two‑cylinder beat of a steam locomotive.

Shuttles were run between the leafy Buckinghamshire town and Watford (the terminus of a separate branch) via the ‘main line’ and Chorleywood. This section of the ‘Met’ historically shared running powers with the Great Central Railway (its last steam locomotives finally surrendered with the closure of the GCR London Extension in 1966).

Passenger stock was formed of a hired Mk 1 EMU from Network SouthEast, while LT’s own wonderfully zany (by modern principles) 1923 Bo‑Bo electric No. 12 Sarah Siddons provided brake power on the opposite end of the train. The vacuum‑only steam locomotives were fitted with through‑pipes and a slave air brake control that regulated the application of the brakes through the train.

Trip cocks were the only other necessary addition to the engines: the safety device at track level that punches the locomotive‑mounted lever if it attempts to pass a red signal and automatically actuates the brake.

‘Met 1’ actually missed the first weekend in July 1989, having run a hot box on its double‑headed night time trial run to Watford during the week prior to the specials.

After frantic work to drop the offending axle at Neasden shed, the axlebox was sent to the Ffestiniog Railway (where Roger Paddison was a volunteer engineman) for re‑metalling, and returned on July 2 to enable ‘Met 1’ to gently shuffle up and down the sidings in the Borough of Brent. Its progress was then only interrupted by Neasden depot’s three‑legged cat, indifferent to the visiting engine’s presence, who would walk over the tracks at leisure.

Fit to run again, the locally built ‘E’ finally made its triumphant home run to Chesham, complete with the unmissable ‘100’ oblong headboard – now on display in Chesham station.

Favourable passenger loadings, with tickets knocked out at a fiver a head, were encouragement enough to repeat the exercise on the ‘Met’ in 1990.

RePeAT ITINeRARY

This time, trains were run over a tweaked route between Harrow‑on‑the‑Hill and Amersham. The duo of tank engines became a trio with the addition of ‘4MT’ 2‑6‑4T No. 80080 from Butterley. The event was another resounding success.

That wasn’t all, however. ‘Met 1’ went back underground for the first time since it hauled a railtour in 1961, running through the night coupled to a battery locomotive, between Neasden and Barking for a series of shuttles on the District Line’s Upminster branch.

From from the surreal experience of steam filling the confines of Baker Street, the stout 0‑4‑4T went for an after‑hours spin round the southerly arc of the Circle Line (rather than the shorter route via Moorgate) owing to tight clearances at Farringdon.

‘Met 1’ gave the leading battery locomotive a mighty shove up the Underground’s steepest gradient of 1‑in‑28, between Bow Road and Bromley‑by‑Bow. It was as if to reassert the engine’s authority over the city’s subterranean railway.

Back above ground, ‘Met’ steam returned in 1992 (‘Amersham 100’) after a year’s break, with new motive power – ‘Black Five’ No. 44932 and LNER suburban ‘N7’ No. 69621 – and a new train. Such was the seriousness and optimism with which LU was now beginning to view the heritage operations that it invested in its own dedicated stock, converted from EMU Mk 1 ‘4‑TCs’ and ‘6‑REPs’, which meant that it didn’t have to rely on hired‑in stock.

1993 brought something special. With the fourth incarnation of preserved steam on the Underground came the sight of not one but two red pannier tanks. Quainton’s No. L99 finally joined the party, having missed out in 1989, while one of Tyseley’s ‘57XXs’, No. 7760 (ex‑L90), was back for the first time since June 1971.

Upon delivery to Ruislip depot for its air brake piping to be plumbed in, fitting staff were disappointed to see that in the 22 years that it had been away, No. L90 had lost its London Transport markings in favour of BR black. But rather than grumble and make do, they volunteered to repaint it into the famous LT red livery – and its owner, Birmingham Railway Museum, duly agreed!

The two red panniers thus worked famously together on their old stamping ground, which included the Watford branch, for the first time since the Seventies. That brought the Collett machines to within a stone’s throw of Croxley Tip – the destination for the sarcastically labelled ‘Watford Pullman’, a former ‘57XX’ duty that brought engineering spoil from Neasden to the Hertfordshire landfill each day.

The excitement grew – aided by the unadvertised return of No. L99 to the Underground proper when it hauled the empty stock between Neasden depot and Ealing Broadway in the early hours of June 5. The pannier crossed paths with the last Underground train of the night, to the bewilderment of its bleary‑eyed passengers.

The clandestine run was in preparation for a series of 14 shuttles over two days between Ealing and West Kensington to mark the 125th anniversary of the District Line.

The pannier crossed paThs wiTh The lasT UndergroUnd Train of The nighT, To The bewildermenT of iTs bleary-eyed passengers

LIGHT AT THe TuNNeL eND

There would be five more years of thrilling events held over the late May bank holiday weekends from 1994 onwards. ‘Steam on the Met’ was now a household name.

There was an appearance by another suburban veteran, GNR ‘N2’ No. 69523, while others were increasingly exotic, such as Peppercorn ‘K1’ 2‑6‑0 No. 62005 and Collett ‘Mogul’ No. 7325.

The attendance of ‘B1’ No. 1264 in 1998 was highly appropriate, given the class’ associations with the old ‘Met & GC Joint’. The visit of ‘U’ No. 31625 in 2000 provided a taste of how their Metropolitan ‘K’ class relatives (being close copies of Maunsell’s SECR ‘N’ class design) would have sounded pounding up the unforgiving 6½‑mile ‘Ricky’ bank during the inter‑war years.

But in any case, ‘Steam on the Met’ was never really about faithful re‑creations – it was about having fun. And what better example of that than the legendary parallel runs?

It all started with an unannounced trial between Harrow and Watford South Junction in May 1994: the ‘N2’ and No. L99 ran side‑by‑side – just as they might have done over the ‘Widened Lines’ between Moorgate and King’s Cross in the 1950s and 1960s. The suitably suburban GNR 0‑6‑2T was in charge of the evening train to Amersham, while the pannier was coupled to a solitary support coach as far as Moor Park.

The experiment worked. And from 1995 onwards the stirring sight of two steam‑hauled passenger trains, charging away from the capital, over eight miles of jointed‑track main line railway, became one of the defining sights of ‘Steam on the Met’.

For passengers, there were further ecstasies as the two drivers would deliberately accelerate and ease off in turn to enable the unusual spectacle of watching and listening to a locomotive running at 50mph, stride for stride, at close quarters.

Simply put, steam in London and its outer reaches put smiles on faces. The atmosphere was likened to that of a carnival. Vintage buses connected with the specials. Road steam engines were displayed on station forecourts, there were narrowboat festivals on the Grand Union Canal, morris dancers, music and more.

There was an additional buzz when ‘Steam on the Met’ coincided with major football finals at Wembley, and hordes of colour‑clad supporters would provide an unusually appreciative audience of the to‑ing and fro‑ing of the steam trains.

GOING uNDeRGROuND

And like half of the football teams who played those dates, ‘Steam on the Met’ was also faced with defeat.

Despite more well‑run events in 1999 and 2000, topped off by the display of out‑of‑ticket ‘Met 1’ with two of the Bluebell Railway’s freshly restored Ashbury coaches at Rickmansworth, the

winds of change were blowing through the Underground. Senior management were becoming increasingly sidetracked by the impending partial-privatisation of the network and the bureaucratic knot that would have to be untangled in order to run steam again. In any case, people had, in the words of co-organiser Andy Barr, become “bored with the whole set-up”. Despite that, more than 10,000 people travelled over the five days of running in 2000.

Steam’s 11-year flirtation with the world’s oldest underground railway system was kicked into the long grass and all but forgotten about.

Someone who hadn’t forgotten though, even ten years later, was former Transport for London Commissioner Sir Peter Hendy, CBE.

“I asked [LU Chief Operating Officer] Howard Collins what he was planning to do for the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Underground,” recalls Sir Peter, now the chairman of Network Rail. “He said, ‘we’ve thought of a few things, including sending an engine in light steam to Baker Street’.”

Sir Peter was impressed with the imagination, if not the scale of ambition.

“I said, ‘no, it’s our railway, we can do it properly’.”

And with that, a £250,000 deal was eventually struck in which ‘Met 1’ would be put back into working order for the first time since 2010 as part of a financial partnership between London Transport Museum and LU. Bill Parker’s Flour Mill workshops in the Forest of Dean would tackle the overhaul, having previously overhauled the engine in Bream a decade earlier.

With so many more health and safety elements to consider, as well as the faded collective memory of the LU workforce, there were plenty of hoops to jump through.

In preparation for the runs, and with ‘Met 1’ in pieces 120 miles away, the National Railway Museum’s Beattie well tank No. 30587 – originally built for LSWR suburban trains – was recalled to the capital to test the fire alarms in Baker Street station.

The ancient 2-4-0WT didn’t haul a train, but it did assist

Sarah Siddons on a number of runpasts, as well as deliberately blowing off, to see what effect the steam and smoke had. The eccentric trials were deemed a success, to the satisfaction of the Office of Rail and Road, LUL, unions, the London Fire Brigade and other important stakeholders.

“Everybody was fabulous,” Sir Peter told Steam Railway. “We took them all to Baker Street to see the well tank in steam. Everybody – the railway inspector, the health and safety executive, environmental inspectors, trade unions, the fire brigade and others – they all came to inspect it. And they were all captivated – even taking pictures!

“It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.”

MET ITS MATCH

Because LTM and LU wanted the train to be period, it took a similarly ambitious leap of imagination to incorporate the Bluebell’s now four-strong set of Metropolitan carriages to form the bulk of the passenger-carrying capacity. In addition, LTM was successful in its application to what was then the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore its unique surviving Metropolitan Railway First Class ‘Jubilee’ coach No. 353. The Ffestiniog Railway turned its skeletal remains (it hadn’t run since 1940) into a functioning masterpiece.

The Covent Garden museum’s other four-wheel gem, its 1896 milk van, was also overhauled and added to the mix to create a remarkable six-vehicle train of wooden-bodied stock. Its role

was more than just decorative – it was to hold the emergency water supply plastic tanks in a manner that wouldn’t spoil the Edwardian ambience.

‘Met 1’ was ready in time to haul No. 353 and a ballast wagon, conveying additional water supplies, on a clandestine trial run through the famous old tunnels in December 2012. This was swiftly followed by a second, non-public run, this time with the complete train, and the ‘E’ now finished in its 1910-1930s livery.

The only cause for concern was the downdraft of steam from the tunnel roofs when the engine was working hard. The solution? To fit CCTV to the bufferbeam with an in-cab TV monitor for signal sighting in adverse conditions.

The stage for the 150th anniversary was now set – and tickets, at a premium (£150 for Third and £180 for First class) were sold out for the eight-mile return trips between Edgware Road and Moorgate.

BACKED BY BORIS

There was worldwide media attention as the 0-4-4T, together with its faithful partner ‘Sarah’, stepped out of Kensington Olympia on January 13 2013 – 150 years after the first Underground railway was inaugurated – with a special for VIPs and the press.

For Andy Barr, who had taken a lead role for LU in the planning and execution of the heritage train, it was the astonished look on unsuspecting people’s faces – seen from the footplate – that is etched on his memory. The last thing that those stood on the platforms of King’s Cross St Pancras expected to see was a living ghost from the early 20th century powering through, hooter wailing as it passed. There must have been hundreds of conversations that night that began with the words “you’ll never guess what I saw on the Tube today…”

Reflecting on the events of 2013, did Sir Peter, then responsible for the millions of people who travel on the Underground each day, ever think that he was putting his reputation on the line by actively encouraging the operation of a Victorian locomotive and wooden-bodied coaches on the system?

“I always thought we could do it. I never had any doubts we could do it properly.”

“We got messages from a sympathetic public who gave us credit for having spirit, feeling and sentiment. The expressions of people on platforms – they were completely astonished by it.”

Potential future Prime Minister, then London Mayor Boris Johnson, who travelled on the VIP train, was equally impressed.

“The mayor was fantastic,” Sir Peter enthuses. “We left the window open through the tunnels, which naturally let the steam in. Boris was suddenly in a world of Sherlock Holmes and Charles Dickens; he was absolutely captivated.

“Even after the [successful delivery of transport for the] 2012 Olympics, there wasn’t a speech that Boris made about TfL in which he didn’t say we couldn’t do things better, or for less money. But he made a speech later that day where he said nothing critical at all.

“I turned to Mike Brown [LU managing director] who was standing next to me and I said to him: ‘this has had an effect on his soul’. Boris was completely astonished.”

Boris went on to say that the runs “defied health and safety fanatics”.

Sir Peter adds: “You don’t get much good publicity from running public transport – all you can do is get it wrong. One of the ways of making people feel good is by showing a bit of nostalgia.”

‘Met 1’ starred in similarly enterprising exploits over the Hammersmith & City Line in 2014 and marked the 90th anniversary of the Watford branch in 2015.

However, one of the most fitting runs was back to Chesham for its 125th anniversary. This time, the veteran machine was paired with the very same train that it had hauled in Metropolitan and LT days.

There were repeat performances from Dennis Howells’ No. 9466 and a debut for Bill Parker’s ‘Small Prairie’ No. 5521, fitted with a lowered cab to fit the LU gauging and turned out in imitation London Transport red, on a variety of ‘Steam on the Met’ repeats

Boris was suddenly in a world of sherlock holmes and charles dickens; he was aBsolutely captivated SIR PETER HENDY, CHAIRMAN, NETWORK RAIL

to Amersham. The 2-6-2T also stood in when the ‘Met tank’ failed ahead of the ‘Uxbridge 150’ specials in December 2013, adding the Underground to its unusual list of exploits in which it previously hauled the ‘Orient Express’ in Hungary and commuter trains in Poland.

TUBULAR BELLS

Today, the wheel has turned full circle and the ambitious Underground runs of recent years are being gradually scaled back.

Andy Barr pinpoints 2021 as the year in which the Underground renaissance will end, because it will be somewhere between impractical and impossible to make steam compatible with the upgraded line between Ruislip depot and Harrow-on-the-Hill, which it would need to run over in order to start and finish each day of running over the ‘Met’ (see News).

And with ‘District 150’ done and dusted, thoughts have already turned to next year’s runs, which will focus on the unmodified line between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Amersham – classic ‘Steam on the Met’ territory.

Because these specials will be expected to weave between Metropolitan line and Chiltern Trains services, it is essential to use the 50mph-rated ‘4-TC’ set. It means that the Bluebell’s 25mph-limited Ashbury carriages are now permanently consigned to Sussex, unlikely to return to their home turf, while you will also have to travel elsewhere to enjoy the four-wheeler No. 353. Happily, ‘Met 1’ will again be the slated motive power for a series of trips, with a pair of as yet unidentified substitute locomotives waiting in the wings in case the 0-4-4T is unavailable. But if there’s to be any optimism, then perhaps Hendy, who inspired this latest renaissance, can provide it.

“You do have to move with the times. The signalling upgrade on the sub-surface lines is long overdue and if it is the last in London, then so be it,” he says, “but the sentiment is such that it would be hard not to do it again. I’m sure LTM and LU will be keen to carry on. “On the national railway, we are looking at ways of making steam locomotives comply with the obligation to fit ETCS. I rather hope that in due course we will be able to keep running the [electrified] 1938 stock on the Tube, and who knows what technology might bring? It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, so maybe we will see steam on the Tube again.”

Yet, if 2021 does have to be the end of steam in Metroland then it would be a most fitting year in which to bow out. That’s because it will be exactly half a century since GWR pannier tank No. L94 hauled the ‘Last Steam on the Underground Special’ on June 6 1971, from Moorgate to Neasden.

What does Sir Peter, now a trustee of LTM, think of the idea of a red pannier back on LT metals for the occasion? “It depends on what’s available, although for me the real authenticity is ‘Met 1’, the Cheshams and Sarah Siddons all put together. It looks absolutely the part.

“I’m sure the 50th anniversary is an opportunity, if something appropriate could be done, and it would be good to do.”

PETER ZABEK GEOFF SILCOCK Metropolitan ‘E’ 0-4-4T No. 1 draws its wooden-bodied train away from Kensington High Street on June 22, bound for Ealing Broadway.

Do not rub your eyes! ‘Met 1’, marshalled at the rear of the top-and-tail train for the Barking to Upminster shuttles, pauses at St James’ Park on the Southern arc of the Circle Line during a scarcely believable empty stock move from Neasden in the small hours of July 31 1990. Sadly, the locomotive set off a number of fires, destroying at least one garden shed on August 5, resulting in the second day of District Line specials being cancelled.

DAVID BRABHAM Red reunion: Pannier tank No. L99 shunts an original LT brake van at Neasden, while classmate No. L90 is repainted by LU staff in May 1993.

EDDIE BOBROWSKI Popular pannier No. 9466 hurries away from Watford on May 20 2000, crossing the Grand Union Canal.

MIKE WALKER Parallel running is traditionally the preserve of foreign countries, but it was tried on the Underground for the first time, unannounced, on a May 1994 evening when ‘N2’ No. 69523 was paced by No. L99 from Harrow-on-the-Hill.

JASON CROSS ‘Steam on the Met’ events truly pushed the boundaries. The crew training run on ‘B12’ No. 61572 turned into a glorified engineers’ train for photographers. The North Norfolk Railway-based Holden 4-6-0 drifts downhill at Chorleywood on May 14 2000.

JASON CROSS ‘4MT’ 4-6-0 No. 75014 and Sarah Siddons roll into Northwood with a local train from Wembley Park to Watford on May 21 1995.

JOHN HUNT A view over Neasden that has changed almost beyond recognition with the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium (and the loss of the iconic twin towers) and the demolition of the former steam shed. ‘K1’ No. 62005, ‘B12’ No. 61572 and ‘2MT’ No. 41312 bask in the morning May sun during the final ‘Steam on the Met’ event in 2000.

LEON DANIELS/TfL Beattie at Baker Street! No. 30587 makes a bizarre sight on the Metropolitan and Circle Line in the early hours of February 26 2012, sandwiched between Sarah Siddons and a battery locomotive.

ROBIN COOMBES ‘Met 1’ gives Sarah Siddons a nudge through Baker Street on the tail end of the ‘Underground Pioneer’ on January 13 2013.

JASON CROSS Steam returned to the Chesham branch for a second and final time in September 2015, necessitating the replacement of the service train with buses so that ‘Met 1’, Sarah Siddons, vintage stock and No. 5521 could top-and-tail a train over the 3¾-mile line. The ensemble climb past Quill Hill Farm towards the Underground’s furthest station from central London.