The low price of domestic coal after the second world war meant that steam trains continued to operate in the UK for two decades, but when the price of oil started to fall in the 1960s, and so-called ‘dieselisation’ began, it marked the beginning of the end for steam. Diesel engines were faster, easier to maintain, and cleaner. 12th August 1968 saw the State owned British Railways impose a ban on all mainline steam traffic.
It was the end of over 138 years of British steam powered locomotive history.
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| Shiny train thingy |
I did of course have a train set and very happy memories of playing with it. It was a large loop of single track, tacked down onto a very large sheet of chipboard that had to be man-handled by me and at least three friends onto the surface of the best family table in order to be used. I seem to recall that it was a second hand purchase, possibly from an auction, of two small locomotives, a mixture of freight wagons and passenger carriages, one in very posh Pullman dining car livery.
The strongest memory that I associate with the train set was a worrying smell of scorching and burning from the electrical transformer that powered the motors in the workhorse engines.
As with most toys bought for children the motivation is that of the parents to re-enact their own childhoods and it was no different with my own Father.
He grew up with first hand experience of, and stories from, the halcyon days of steam trains.
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| More complicated things |
I can well imagine my Father revelling in the prospect of a steam train journey as a child and keen for us to experience the same sort of emotions he took us all in August 1975 to sit in a field in County Durham.
It was not just any field but one that sloped away gently to the south towards a railway line.
We spent the whole of that summers day watching a procession of slow moving trains marking the 150th Anniversary of Railways. The Cavalcade started with a replica of George Stephensons Rocket at walking pace to the revelation at the time of the APT or Advanced Passenger Train which could do over 150mph but came past us also at little more than a toddle.
Try this link to an official film of the 1975 Steam Cavalcade . It is 12 minutes long.
I must have been a disappointment to my Father as although it was a one-off , never to be repeated special event it did nothing to engender in me a lifelong interest in any type of trains.
I did once find in my later teenage years, in one of those clearance baskets in a bookshop, a pocket sized Train Spotters guide which I bought and did feel compelled to fill in.
We lived in the 1970's just a couple of cornfields away from a busy railway line to and from a Seaport and this provided a source of engine numbers to tick off on the pages of many, many such numbers.
I gave that up quite quickly as it was a bit boring.
As a parent myself the resurgence of Thomas the Tank Engine did find us, as a family, at railway themed events. We did the usual touristy activity of taking the steam train across the North Yorkshire Moors but as my wife said, it was probably more exciting watching from the hillsides above the dramatic cuttings and curves than looking out from the carriage.
I do feel like apologising to those who maintain a love and enthusiasm for steam trains for my lack of interest .
I admit to being a little bit intrigued by the sight of grown men with telephoto lenses standing on railway bridges, embankments or otherwise in the middle of nowhere awaiting a brief glimpse of polished metal, a plume of vapour and a distinctive coal tar infused rush of air.
(Photos taken by me yesterday in The National Railway Museum, York.)
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