Off the Shelf
Latest book and DVD releases.
RARELY is the ongoing construction of the new High Speed 2 rail link between Birmingham and London out of the news, but today’s generation might easily overlook the fact that there was once a fast fourtrack steam highway over an earlier route between Britain’s first and second cities, writes Robin Jones.
Originally built to Brunel’s broad gauge, the GWR line north of Oxford was tailor-made for fast running and in the days of Collett became the territory of Castles and Kings. It was only following the Beeching era rationalisation of lines that the ‘duplicate’ route through Banbury, Leamington Spa and Solihull was downgraded to a secondary route between the cities, the four tracks stripped back to just two and the original Snow Hill station closed from the south, converted to a car park and then flattened.
However, in the halcyon days that came before the demise, summer holidays and every weekend would see groups of schoolchildren gather on every intermediate station platform, armed with their Ian Allan Locospotters volume, to feverishly record every passing locomotive, and the frequency was such back then that they had rarely a dull moment.
This magnificent volume perfectly encapsulates the last years of steam on the route and the rich variety of traction on view. I can personally vouch for that because I was there, along with my elder brother Stewart, at Widney Manor station or Bentley Heath crossing whenever spare time permitted, and it was this same route along with the seaside branch that is now the Dartmouth Steam Railway which kindled my lifelong interest. One picture, taken in 1964 before Tyseley depot became the Birmingham Railway Museum and today’s headquarters of Vintage Trains, shows teenager spotters being allowed the Saturday morning freedom of the shed, climbing on to the footplate of BR 9F No. 92212.
Volume 8 in the British Railway History In Colour series, the author – who lives locally in Warwick – has left no stone unturned in compiling the finest collection of quality steam era pictures ever to cover this line in print.
The volume is split into three distinct sections: the rural Fenny Compton to Warwick, Budbrook to Solihull and the conurbation between Solihull and Snow Hill.
Numerous classes of GWR/WR and BR Standard locomotives are captured in action on passenger services and a wide variety of freight workings, from lengthy box van trains, loaded cement silos and rakes of iron ore mineral wagons to factory-fresh Jaguar cars and Massey Ferguson tractors on flat wagons.
Each inspirational photograph is well presented and accompanied by detailed and informative captions, and as a harbinger of the end of these vibrant times on the horizon, the new Blue Pullman makes its appearance, as does the then oneyear-old ochre-liveried WR diesel hydraulic D1005 Western Explorer on a test run and a Brush Type 4 powering through Tyseley with a Paddington to Birkenhead express in 1965.
Roots of the heritage era are also captured: a view from September 28, 1963 sees Bulleid Battle of Britain Pacific No. 34064 Fighter Command climbing Hatton Bank with the ‘Talyllyn Railway AGM Special’ in 1967; we see immaculately turned-out No. 4079 Pendennis Castle (due to steam again this year at the Didcot Railway Centre) en route to Tyseley shed to pose for a Terence Cuneo painting; and LNER K4 2-6-0 No. 3442 The Great Marquess is also pictured there awaiting the same treatment.
The result of a phenomenal amount of research, it is impossible to better this volume as an in-depth portrait of a busy route at a particular time, and every page opens a fresh window on a beloved era we painstakingly try to replicate and savour again on today’s heritage lines. MASTERPIECE OF PAST RE-CREATION