‘Cornwall’ Transition from steam The RC Riley archive: Vol 6

Compiled by Jeremy Clements The Transport Treasury ISBN:978 1 913251 17 8

112 pages softback

273 x 215 mm £14.50

The Western Region enthusiastically adopted diesel traction and this permeated the West Country fairly early on. In this the sixth volume of the RC Riley series attention turns to Cornwall. No-one could have guessed quite how the effects of rail modernisation and reorganisation would change the everyday appearance of the railway but the photographer’s regular summer forays to the Duchy have captured the last of the old way of life and the beginning of the new.

As with previous volumes curator Jeremy Clements has grouped the images into clearly defined themes and this being Cornwall, the subject of viaducts provides the perfect way to open proceedings with Saltash, Moorswater, Treffey and St Pinnock among the large number that are illustrated from an inspired number of viewpoints. Subsequent chapters are grouped into main line, branch line, and goods trains. A rich variety of locomotive types from Hawksworth ‘Counties’ to humble panniers are featured with locations as equally diverse.

There were three sheds and five sub-sheds in Cornwall and they all proved a magnet for the photographer who found a surprising number of interesting viewpoints from grubby back yards to high up on the coaling stage. Such angles were only possible with permission and clearly being adept at befriending those that worked and ran the railway opened up many unique photographic opportunities and in the chapter ‘People’, we see a number of those that facilitated the photography within these pages with foremen, shunters, and steam and diesel drivers at work.

By 1960 it was no longer possible to avoid the intrusion of diesel operation and the volume is brought to a close with a selection of Warship, North British type ‘2’ diesel locomotives and diesel multiple units.