50 years since end of steam on UK rails
THE END OF THE LINE ... WORDS AND PHOTOS BY TREVOR ERMEL
THE last steam trains in normal service on British Rail’s main lines ran in August 1968. It was an event many people regarded as the end of an era.
At the time I was a schoolboy in Gateshead and I had been madly keen on trains for nearly five years.
Most of the attraction was undoubtedly the steam locomotive – that living, breathing, but oh-sooutdated form of traction which BR was only too keen to eliminate in their plans for a nice, new, modernimage railway.
The writing had been on the wall for steam, of course, ever since the ‘Modernisation Plan’ had been announced in 1955.
Area by area the country had changed over to diesel and electric trains – hadn’t I seen for myself the end of steam in North East England in September 1967, when the final steam-hauled coal trains had rumbled into the Tyneside power stations of Stella and Dunston?
By the summer of 1968 it was Lancashire which had the dubious honour of housing the final three steam locomotive depots, at Carnforth, Lostock Hall ( Preston) and Rose Grove (Burnley).
Like thousands of other likeminded individuals I just had to be there, to witness ‘the end’ for myself.
Happily for me, this coincided with the school summer holidays. So, armed with a camera, notebook, ‘railrover’ ticket and probably the bare minimum of a change of clothes I spent two separate weeks in July and August 1968 based at the Youth Hostel at Arnside, a short train ride away from Carnforth.
(It was only much later that I discovered that the latter station was one of the main locations used in the classic black & white film ‘Brief Encounter’).
Most of the steam activity which I could reach by train was to be found in the Carnforth and Preston areas mainly freight trains, although on July 29, a ’Black Five’ deputising for a failed diesel gave me a ride behind a steam loco on a Windermere to Preston train which I joined at Carnforth.
One of the attractions at Preston was the rather fine array of old semaphore signals still to be found there, which made a good background for photographs.
It was while I was at Preston station one day that I plucked up the courage to visit the nearby Divisional Manager’s Office to see if I could obtain an official permit allowing entry to the loco sheds.
Expecting to be thrown out of the building, I came away with the necessary piece of paper. Brilliant! As they say, “Shy bairns get nowt”! Ironically, as it turned out it was virtually ‘open house’ at the depots in the final week, with photographers and sightseers allowed to wander around and pay their last respects in their hundreds.
Although British Rail’s own official ‘End of Steam’ special train (the so-called ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’, because of its exorbitant ticket price!) ran on August 11, the previous weekend witnessed the end of real, down-to-earth, as-we’d-alwaysknown-it steam workings.
And unbelievably, on Saturday, August 3, the final two passenger trains still scheduled to be pulled by steam locomotives were both due away from the same station - Preston - within 35 minutes of each other.
These were the 20.50 to Blackpool South and the 21.25 to Liverpool Exchange. Due to the logistics of getting back to base that night I had to opt for the former.
Preston station that evening was packed with enthusiasts who outnumbered ‘normal’ passengers who were no doubt curious to know what all the fuss was about. A coffin to mark the passing of ‘steam’ was solemnly paraded along the platform by enthusiasts dressed in mourning suits.
Excitement mounted as the engine for the Blackpool train – another ‘Black Five’ – was coupled up to the coaches which had been detached from a London to Carlisle express and those who were travelling scrambled aboard as best they could.
To say it was packed would be an understatement; there was no room to move, not even in the corridor. (Remember corridors and coaches with compartments? – another link with the steam age which has disappeared from the current railway scene.)
Microphones to record the occasion were thrust from most of the windows as we prepared to set off on this, the penultimate regular steam-hauled passenger train in Britain. Somewhere along the platform the guard’s whistle struggled to make itself heard above the excitement; the familiar whistle of the ‘Black Five’ blasted out in response.
And then ... a dozen flashguns on the platform fired in unison as Preston station echoed to the sound of a steam locomotive slipping momentarily before its wheels
gripped the rails. The noise was almost drowned out by the cheering fans on the platform; no doubt this would be repeated in their send off for the Liverpool train at the south end of the station 35 minutes later.
Then we were away, past a forest of tripods and a frenzied mass of humanity, off into history, off into a glorious sunset.
For as we branched left for Blackpool I saw the setting sun reflect a warm red glow off the side of the locomotive and first coaches. Could we have asked for a better farewell?
On the outskirts of Blackpool we passed row upon row of waving, cheering spectators. On arrival at the station there was a carnival atmosphere. The engine crew joined in, signing autographs; the fireman was even giving away pieces of coal as souvenirs! All too soon it was time to say goodbye and the ‘Black Five’ stormed defiantly away to the sidings with the empty coaches to a spontaneous, emotional, helpless cheering. Steam had, indeed, gone out in style and it had taken a part of my childhood with it.
Yet who among us that night could possibly have imagined that 50 years later there would be hundreds of restored steam locomotives (including number 45212 which had pulled that final train to Blackpool) and dozens of ‘heritage lines’ up and down the country, giving pleasure to thousands?