HERITAGE RAILWAY MILESTONE 300 NOT OUT!
Heritage Railway is celebrating its 300th issue of providing a comprehensive new coverage of the complete preservation scene. Founding editor Robin Jones looks back at that first issue in May 1999 and the developments it predicted.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has just given the green light for the rebuilding of the original Welsh Highland Railway from Dinas to Porthmadog. Across the border in England, the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway has permission from the HM Railway Inspectorate to go ahead with its £1 million extension from Gotherington to Cheltenham Racecourse.
In the South West, officials of the South Devon Railway have begun a fresh bid to buy the freehold of its line from Dart Valley Railway plc – which has just made preservation sector history by buying five pleasure cruisers and two river ferries. The Swanage Railway has launched a £122,000 appeal to rebuild the missing mile of track to link its station at Norden to main line operator metals at Catseyes bridge half a mile from Furzebrook sidings.
Taff Vale Railway 02 0-6-2T No. 85 is preparing to mark its centenary by entering traffic on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, 29 years after arriving there. PastTime Rail’s ‘Dawlish Donkey’ steam trips between Exeter and Newton Abbot are hailed as “fantastic” successes.
And last but certainly no means least, Flying Scotsman is set to reappear in traffic in apple green livery and with a double chimney – but no smoke deflectors – following a £750,000 rebuild, and it will head a comeback trip from King’s Cross to York on July 4.
No – we have not switched the thrust of our magazine to what now seems ancient history. We are looking at the headlines dominating the first issue of Heritage Railway, which appeared on the shelves in May 1999.
It was in early January that year that I met with a group of fellow enthusiasts, and we hit upon the idea of launching a new railway magazine to suit the needs of the preservation sector in the 21st century. Steam was, and still is, the predominant image of the sector, but there was a strong opinion that younger potential readers would also relate to the traction of their childhood, in the form of first-generation diesels and electrics and green-liveried DMUs – which was their nostalgia.
As a former newsdesk editor on an evening newspaper, I was always amazed by the sheer volume of breaking news in the railway preservation world – far more, it still seems, that in most, if not all, other heritage areas. We decided to structure a magazine that would comprehensively cover all aspects of the movement, from steam and modern traction right across the board to horse-drawn tramways and funicular railways as and when their news broke, too. Our key focus would be all forms heritage on steel wheels, hence the title. A keynote of our editorial approach from the outset was to pro-actively support all our heritage lines and museums, big and small, and this very much is still the case today.
The magazine’s founders knew we would be entering a congested niche market, but we were convinced that there was a public demand for what we were going to offer – and more than 23 years later, we are now on our 300th issue.
Of course, there are heritage schemes we have reported on but which have either failed to take off or faltered at a later stage. Many were condemned at the outset as Missions Impossible, but I have found that one principle underlines a movement that is largely reliant on an army of passionate volunteer enthusiasts: railway preservation is the art of the possible. It has proved so time and time again and continues to do so.
Mulling over those issue one headlines, I remember as a teenage enthusiast accepting as fact that we would never see the Welsh Highland Railway rebuilt. I was wrong, big time. What seemed a distant dream became reality, with the railway that closed in 1937 reopened throughout 2011. It, along with sister line the Ffestiniog Railway, now provides a 40-mile trans-Snowdonian steam highway from Blaenau Ffestiniog to
Caernarfon via the Porthmadog Harbour station interchange, one of the finest scenic railways in Europe, if not the world. Today, the Ff&WHR serves the North Wales slate country UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway went on not only to reach the racecourse station, but later pushed north from its Toddington base to the tourist magnet of Broadway. We all now look forward to the Cotswold line being extended a further six miles north to Honeybourne, where an interchange platform is already waiting at the main line station.
Imagine the enormous boost to the local tourist economy if main line charters could decant 500 visitors a time into Broadway and Winchcombe; district councillors and local MPs, please take note!
The South Devon Railway succeeded in its bid to buy the Buckfastleigh operation from Dart Valley Railway plc, which had previously run it under that name. Dart Valley’s boat fleet purchase rekindled memories of the GWR and other pre-nationalisation railways which ran their own boat services; what is now the Dartmouth Steam Railway launched the successful ‘Round Robin’ trips, in which a steam train trip to Kingswear was followed by a boat up the River Dart to Totnes, and a bus trip from there back to the Paignton starting point.
Taff Vale No. 85 became a popular performer both on the KWVR and the other lines it visited, most recently the North Yorkshire Moors Railway for its autumn steam gala, as featured last issue.
The Swanage Railway completed that link and has long since been able to accept incoming main line charter and stock movements, while planning for the day when regular services to Wareham become a permanent part of the timetable.
Sadly, Past-Time Rail is no longer with us, but steam excursions regularly run over the Dawlish sea wall en route to south Devon and Cornwall.
Happily, the legend that is Flying Scotsman continues to add chapters to its illustrious history, as highlighted in News, pages 14/15.
Landmarks in the third century of railways
Subsequent issues of Heritage Railway continued to provide a running commentary
on these and countless other headlinegrabbing developments.
Among the movement’s 21st century peaks are the new-build projects that filled gaps in the heritage steam fleet.
A classic example are the two new Lynton & Barnstaple ‘replica’ locomotives built – Manning Wardle-type 2-6-2T Lyd, built for the Ff&WHR at Boston Works but which has visited North Devon several times, and Baldwin 2-4-2T No. 762 Lyn, which is based at Woody Bay.
Then there’s Ffestiniog Railway single Fairlie 0-4-4T Taliesin, which debuted in our first year, and more recently replica Sharp Stewart 2-4-0T No. 5 for the Southwold Railway, a product of Darlington-based North Bay Engineering Services Ltd which has become as close to a new-build steam production line as one might reasonably wish for.
There are also the ‘halfway house’ newbuild projects, such as the West Somerset Railway conversion of GWR 2-6-2T No. 5193 into a very useful 2-6-0 tender engine, representing a ‘might have been’ once considered by the Swindon empire, and a new Churchward Saint, No. 2999 Lady of Legend,
retro-converted from ex-Barry scrapyard GWR 4-6-0 No. 4942 Maindy Hall.
The pinnacle must be the construction and successful of a 21st-century equivalent of Flying Scotsman in terms of public profile and appeal – Peppercorn A1 Pacific No. 60163 Tornado.
The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust and its project to build the 50th example of the extinct class launched on November 11, 1990, and was 50% complete within the first year of Heritage Railway magazine’s existence. Tornado was publicly launched at Darlington Locomotive Works on August 1, 2008, and hauled its first passenger train on the Great Central Railway on September 21 that year.
Main line test runs were undertaken between November 4-19, 2008, and on January 31, 2009, Tornado hauled ‘The Peppercorn Pioneer’, its first passenger journey on the national network. February 19, 2009, saw Tornado officially named by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall at York.
Many adventures later, early on April 21, 2017, I joined invited guests for to ride on a test run behind Tornado on the East Coast Main Line between Doncaster and Newcastle. It was held in connection with raising Tornado’s permitted maximum speed, so it would be allowed to operate at 90mph on future trips. It had to operate at 10% above its planned maximum speed to demonstrate a sufficient margin of safety. On the return leg to Doncaster, speedometers registered 101.6mph, making Tornado the first steam locomotive run on the national network at 100mph since 1968.
The bedrock of the success of Tornado’s
owning group has been its ability to raise sizeable amounts of money, by inviting supporters to contribute to specific clubs which sponsor individual components. The same pathway was followed by the trust’s subsequent project to build the seventh Gresley P2 2-8-2, No. 2007 Prince of Wales.
The P2s were the most powerful express passenger locomotives ever to operate in the UK, and its debut will no doubt inspire a new generation of railfans.
An amazing autocar
One of the most remarkable achievements in the sector so far this century has been the restoration of 1903-built NER petrol electric autocar No. 3170. One of two vehicles built at York’s carriage works, they were powered by petrol engines that generated power for two traction motors mounted on the bogie underneath.
A first in railways, this arrangement would be developed into the diesel-electric technology that would power modern trains worldwide, and as such, the railcar was the ancestor of DMUs.
Following its withdrawal, the body of
No. 3170 was adapted for use as a holiday home at Keldholme, in North Yorkshire, for more than 70 years until it was bought by ace coach restorer Stephen Middleton, who had the vision of rebuilding it to working order, with a new chassis and Cummins diesel engine. No. 3170 officially re-entered service on October 19, 2018, and is based at the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway.
In terms of its importance to railway history, the autocar sits comfortably alongside the likes of Richard Trevithick’s Penydarren engine of 1804 and George Stephenson’s Rocket in 1829, the first modern steam locomotive. In its recreation it from a longredundant coach body, the autocar has also become a pinnacle of the preservation movement.
Biggest event of them all
Another of the biggest highlights of our first 300 issues came in the summer of 2012, when I was relaxing on the beach in the afternoon sun at Wells-next-the-Sea with two of our advertising representatives following a visit to the North Norfolk Railway.
My mobile telephone rang, and the caller confirmed that the ‘wild’ rumours I had heard and asked about were true... the National Railway Museum was indeed going to temporarily repatriate the two A4s exiled in North American museums so that all surviving class members could be reunited to mark the 75th anniversary of No. 4468 Mallard’s 126mph world steam speed record run of July 3, 1938.
The Great Gathering, the architect of which was the York museum’s then director, Steve Davies, saw Nos. 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower and 60010 Dominion of Canada make the 2500-mile journey from their museum homes – their movements being a remarkable heritage-era story in itself – to take their places around the turntable in The Great Hall alongside Mallard, No. 4464 Bittern, No. 4498 Sir Nigel Gresley and No. 60009 Union of South Africa at a series of events.
The first opened at York on the exact anniversary of the run in 2013 and lasted until July 17. The Autumn Great Gathering ran from October 26 to November 8, and the final event, the Great Goodbye, was held at the Locomotion museum in Shildon from February 15-23, after which the two ex-pats went back across the Atlantic.
The event was a dazzling success. Queues formed outside the museum entrance as about 10,000 visitors came every day, with about 500,000 coming to see the six together.
So, not only has the railway heritage sector acquired a proven track record of making Missions Impossible happen, but it has so often been the master of innovation.
In December 2018, the Dartmouth Steam Railway ran its first Train of Lights, a concept that had proved popular in North America but never tried in Britain until then. The success of that first year’s venture led to lines big and small throughout Britain also draping their locomotive and carriages with lights to create another profit-making Christmas venture.
Survival instinct
However, for me, the biggest success story of all is the survival of heritage railways, largely thanks to the unpaid volunteer labour that goes a long way towards balancing the books when times get difficult and in prosperous periods leave profits to be diverted to new projects.
The National Heritage Lottery Fund has, during our first 300 issues, made many restoration projects possible, through grant aid funding which would not have been available in much earlier times.
During our 23 years, I have also noticed a marked and positive sea change by the powers that be towards the railway heritage sector, while remembering the times decades ago when revivalist schemes were often dismissed as the domain of enthusiasts undeserving of help from local councils. In contrast, it is now widely recognised that heritage railways and museums play a key part in local tourist economies.
The Severn Valley Railway was hit by a freak thunderstorm on June 19, 2007, which led to it being closed for nearly a year, while the bill to repair the storm damage was just under £4 million. The loss of revenue from visitors impacted hard on businesses in places like Bridgnorth – a lesson that would not be forgotten lightly.
The Government’s Culture Recovery Fund grant threw lifelines to many railways in their hours of need during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, when income streams were curtailed, yet bills still had to be met.
The value of heritage railways to their locality is often far above the benefit that the venue itself derives from passenger income or spending in its shop or cafe.
There are those visitors who are attracted to an area simply to look at the railway or to photograph trains from vantage points without spending money on it, yet will then patronise nearby facilities like shops, restaurants, pubs, and accommodation.
There are, of course, educational and cultural benefits of any heritage asset, railway or otherwise, and an increasing awareness of the need to protect what we have – or we lose it forever, to our detriment.
Following the acquisition of Heritage Railway in 2001, Mortons Ltd began to acquire other railway titles: Rail Express, The Railway Magazine, Steam Days and Railways Illustrated, along with railway book publisher Silver Link. Mortons now has the biggest railway magazine portfolio in the UK, and we at Heritage Railway are proud to be part of it.
My very grateful thanks must be extended to the lineside photographers and contributors who have come on board and supported us over the years.