Retro fashion
Isn’t it funny how you can feel nostalgic for something you never saw for real? If that doesn’t appear to make sense, perhaps some explanation is required.
For many readers, the epitome of preservation is the re-creation of their 1950s-60s childhood. In essence, this means lined black and one of the variants of passenger green, with the odd red or blue engine thrown in for good measure.
But what if you don’t remember 1958? What if your steam experiences were formed in 1978? That era of preservation was something of a reaction to the decades of nationalised steam that had preceded it, so restored locomotives were usually deployed in their most colourful pre-Grouping and ‘Big Four’ liveries. Sometimes, these machines hadn’t even actually carried anything other than BR black, but that didn’t stop the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway, for instance, from famously turning one of its Fairburn tanks out in ‘Caley’ blue!
In the Eighties, there was a counterresponse to this Seventies psychedelia as influence from the generation that ended with the Baby Boomers started to increase – as did the market for replica smokebox numberplates and ‘cycling lion’ transfers.
But we’re now in a third generation of preservationists who were born too late for real steam, mixed with the nostalgists. This mix is manifested in the resurgence of pre-1948 colours in recent years.
The recent returns of Bo’ness’ ‘Caley’ tank in Perth blue and Duchess of Sutherland in Crimson Lake are topical examples of the retro fashion.
A similar pattern is emerging in the world of new-builds… You can’t have failed to notice the extraordinary 1930s vision on our cover.
The dream to construct a Gresley ‘P2’ from scratch existed in paper form only until February 2013, when TV presenter James May fashioned the smokebox door dart for the nascent No. 2007.
Nearly six years later, his historic component forms part of the complete face of the LNER ‘Mikado’ that is rapidly coming together in Darlington. An engine that, historically, can only wear Apple Green.
Clearly, the majority who have already donated and pledged £3.1 million towards the £5m project aren’t supporting Prince of Wales because it’s something they remember. Rather, it’s because it’s something that they were never able to experience and want to see in the flesh for the first time.
Target for completion is 2021. If you want to see that dream realised in just three years – and you’re not already on board – then you know what to do…