The End of Steam in the North West of England

By Steve Heginbotham (softback, Amberley Publishing, 96pp, £14.99, ISBN 978-1-4456-9034-6)

IN A WAY it is quite remarkable that three young steam enthusiasts who were living in the Manchester area in the mid to late 1960s should, half a century later, as Bodmin & Wenford Railway volunteers (Steve Heginbotham, Andy Darby, Jimmy James), pool their memories to produce this book.

The railway revolution had started in the north west of England with the opening in 1830 of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Was it just a coincidence that the last bastion of BR steam ended 138 years later in the same area, and on the same tracks?

There was Patricroft Shed in Eccles, with its stud of BR 5MT Caprotti 4-6-0s, and just a few miles away was Trafford Park and its collection of Stanier 8Fs, always a good shed to bunk before assembling on the adjacent Stretford End terrace for Manchester United’s next match.

Momentous changes were taking place on the railway, and two more current Bodmin luminaries (David Ford, Maurice Dart) were also visitors to the area to witness and record the end of the era. Unseen and almost forgotten, these original and remarkably preserved images are truly evocative of those halcyon days. It’s well worth the cover price.

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