The Book of the B17 4-6-0s; 61600-61672

published before. The inside cover photograph instantly offers memories of a Colonel Stephens line: it is of S&MR favourite loco No1 Gazelle in modified form, with converted tramcar for a passenger carriage. The locomotive is now in the Colonel Stephens Museum.

There are picture of every station on the line, including those along the quarry branch lines, as well as pictures of tickets, signs, posters and maps.

The photographs will evoke memories of a typical Colonel Stephens line with small station platforms, often with only a hut for a waiting room; some halt stations were even under bridges so that no cover had to be added to the platform to save costs. Of course, the S&MR owes its survival until the 1960s to the fact that it became a military line.

At the end of the book, coloured photographs taken in the 1980s show some surviving line items, including Shrewsbury Abbey station which has since been renovated and is now the headquarters of the Shrewsbury Railway Heritage Trust.

EVOKING HAPPY MEMORIES

Engineering Richborough

By Colin Varrall (softback, selfpublished, Addelambooks@outlook. com, 178pp, £20 plus £3 p&p). WHILE this fascinating volume is not directly a railway book, it covers full details of how Richborough Port was built by the Royal Engineers and how it grew in importance during the First World War, becoming a major supply line for troops on the Western Front.

It was run with a large railway infrastructure, so will be of interest to both railway and engineering enthusiasts.

To give an idea of how large an operation it was, it covered 2162 acres. At its peak there were about 18,000 soldiers billeted there, supported by 800 civilian workers. During this period the Royal Engineers built 600 railway wagons and repaired more than 10,000. These were moved by numerous locomotives that had been commandeered by the War Office for use in the port. It also became the UK’s first train ferry terminal. At that time there were two connecting stations, one at Richborough Military Halt and Richborough Castle Halt (both closed in 1939).

Following the conflict, operations were run down by the War Office, although a Light Railways Act was passed in 1923 for an extension and a bridge to allow the Kent Colliery line – the East Kent Light Railway – to connect to the port via Eastry and Sandwich Halt stations. This was completed in 1929, with a small halt platform built and called Richborough Port. It is thought that it was never used by passengers, whether due to there being very few local residents or safety fears over the bridge.

However, trains did run down into the port, transporting coal and bricks for export, and it connected to the Dover to London line at Shepherdswell for anything being transported the other way. The connection continued to be used during the Second World War but afterwards services slowly ground to a halt and it was closed in 1949.

Good value for money, the volume also gives a history of the area before the port was built and what is left there now.

One locomotive survives from the Richborough Port service: Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T No. 1243 of 1917 Richboro. It worked at various collieries until 1969 and has now been restored and runs at the Aln Valley Railway.

SPLENDID LOCAL HISTORY

Central Division Miscellany – BR Days:

A Portrait of the L&Y’s Lines and Property in the British Railways Period 1947-1966

By Noel Coates (hardback, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Society, www. lyrs.org.uk, 194pp, £18, ISBN 9781916255111).

THIS book will appeal to many – from the L&Y enthusiasts through to the modellers who require clear pictures showing liveries and detail differences displayed by individual locomotives over several years.

Illustrated with more than 550 evocative photographs of ex-L&Y rolling stock during the BR era, their design and usage is well addressed with extensive and highly informative captions.

The quality of the print reproduction is very good given the age of the material, and the publishers are to be congratulated for the quality of reproduction.

L&Y INFORMATION GOLDMINE

By Peter J Coster (hardback, Irwell Press, 200pp, £29.95, ISBN 9781911262312).

HERE is a superb, highly-readable and thought-provoking history of one of the greatest classes designed by Nigel Gresley that did not make it into preservation.

The LNER B17s were designed to replace the GER B12s which, by the mid-1920s, could no longer cope with the heaviest express passenger trains on the Great Eastern Main Line between London and Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich, yet severe weight restrictions on the route prohibited Gresley from bringing in his larger classes.

Doncaster Works struggled to provide a blueprint for a lightweight yet powerful 4-6-0 to Gresley’s specification, so both the detailed design and building of the B17s was handed to the North British Locomotive Company in 1927. The outcome was a type of hybrid design, using some features from Gresley’s A1 Pacifics such as the cab, cylinders, and motion, with the boiler features largely copied from the LNER K3 2-6-0s and O2 2-8-0s.

The first B17, No. 2800 Sandringham, which started a series named after English country houses, was delivered on November 30, 1928, and was followed by another nine from North British. Darlington Works turned out 52 between 1930 and 1936, and the last batch of 11 was built by Robert Stephenson & Co in 1937.

Beginning with No. 2848, some B17s were named after Football Association clubs and became known as ‘Footballers.’

The first three B17s were withdrawn between 1952 and 1953 and the last in 1960.

Coster has produced an accessible account of the class which is probably as exhaustive as you might ever need. Chapters cover the background as to the need for the class, its design and delivery, civil engineering considerations, history and work, and the individual history of each locomotive, complete with archive black-and-white pictures and a complete repair log.

Accordingly, to the class summary in the appendices, the last to be withdrawn was No. 61668 Bradford City, which was condemned on August 22, 1960, having run an estimated 806,000 miles. However, that is not the end of the story.

In his summary chapter, the author concludes that the B17s were a design born of necessity, subject to a tight weight restriction, and were delivered in haste. The engine was mounted on a vehicle that was insufficiently robust with inadequate lateral control; at best it was a lively ride, and at worst, “fairly unspeakable” in terms of its ride qualities.

As reported in News, page 13, a milestone has just been passed with the B17 Steam Locomotive Trust project to build a new, 74th example, No. 61673 Spirit of Sandringham, with the casting of the first driving wheel. DEFINITIVE READY REFERENCE GUIDE