GWR OLD AND NEW BUILD – A FRESH PERSPECTIVE
May 2021 | £4.90
www.steamdaysmag.co.uk
RETFORD – AN EAST COAST MAIN LINE CROSSROADS CINOLFOUULLR
MAY 2021 £4.90
PLUS ‘BRIEF ENCOUNTER’ AT ACHNASHEEN
LIFE AND TIMES OF ‘N15’ SIR LAMORAK
CHESTERFIELD IN THE STEAM ERA
No 381
Cover: Having just crossed over the GN/GC flat crossing at the south end of Retford station, Gresley ‘V2’ No 60896 nears the River Idle bridge with an afternoon up fitted goods service. Recently transferred to Doncaster shed, on 9 October 1960, the 2-6-2 will soon begin the climb of the 3½ mile-long Gamston bank, 1 in 178/200, past Eaton Wood, Gamston box and through Askham tunnel. Keith Pirt, courtesy Book Law Publishing
May 2021
5
Trains of thought
7
‘Brief Encounter’ at Achnasheen Eric Stuart shines a spotlight on a long-standing restaurant car exchange at an isolated station on the Kyle of Lochalsh route, a very busy 15 minutes.
12 Steam Days at Chesterfield The second largest town in Derbyshire, Stanley C Jenkins MA provides a historical overview of the Midland, Great Central and LD&ECR lines in and around Chesterfield.
32
Rebuilt to ‘O4/8’ in 1955, GCR Robinson ‘8M’ class No 63914 is shunted by another 2-8-0 while at home on Retford’s ex-GCR shed, Thrumpton, in June 1961. Keith Pirt, courtesy Book Law Publications
EDITORIAL & DESIGN Rex Kennedy, Andrew Kennedy, Andrew Wilson, Roger Smith and Ian Kennedy 64 Littledown Drive, Bournemouth BH7 7AH 01202 304849 red.gauntlett@gmail.com ADVERTISING Craig Amess 01507 529537 camess@mortons.co.uk Fiona Leak 01507 529573 fleak@mortons.co.uk Group advertising manager: Sue Keily skeily@mortons.co.uk Publisher: Tim Hartley Publishing director: Dan Savage CUSTOMER SERVICES General Queries & Back Issues 01507 529529 Monday-Friday 8.30am-5pm Answerphone 24H help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk MORTONS MEDIA GROUP LTD Sales and distribution manager: Carl Smith Marketing manager: Charlotte Park Commercial director: Nigel Hole ARCHIVE Enquiries: Jane Skayman 01507 529423 jskayman@mortons.co.uk © Mortons Media Group Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher. We are unable to guarantee the bona fides of any of our advertisers. Readers are strongly recommended to take their own precautions before parting with any information or item of value, including, but not limited to money, manuscripts, photographs or personal information in response to any advertisement within this publication.
Mortons Media Group Ltd, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR.
MAY 2021
30 Steam Days subscriptions 32 STEAM DAYS in Colour 197: Retford – an East Coast main line crossroads Famed for its flat crossing where the Sheffield-Lincoln route crossed the East Coast main line at right angles until 1965, we look at the interaction and we look at the interaction and variety of these two routes in the last years of steam. 42 Old Build – New Build GWR David Bradshaw reveals how arguably ‘forgotten’ locomotives are at the heart of the recreation of GWR types thought to have been lost forever. 54
The life and times of ‘N15’ Sir Lamorak The Urie and Maunsell ‘King Arthur’ class 4-6-0s were a mainstay of Southern passenger services for over three decades. Andrew Wilson uncovers the working life of one of the last at work.
62
Reviews
64
Tail Lamp – readers’ letters www.steamdaysmag.co.uk
3
TRAINS of thought
T
Next month... A 1958 summer’s day at Blackpool Loco profile – LNER ‘B17/6’ class 4-6-0 No 61668 Bradford City Landore engine shed North and east of Maryhill – an NBR perspective Southern Freight in the South West in full colour On sale Thursday, 20 May 2021
his month, in our series of articles profiling specific steam locomotives, we take a look at the life and times of ‘King Arthur’ class ‘N15’ 4-6-0 No 30451 Sir Lamorak. Usurping a lingering Urie plan to rebuild ten Drummond 4-6-0s as mixed traffic ‘H15s’, ‘N15s’ Nos E448-457 were, in fact, Urie-pattern locomotives with Maunsell/Clayton modifications, and Sir Lamorak was one of the first five to be erected. They were built at Eastleigh to the L&SWR loading gauge, their Drummond/Urie cabs restricting them to working the Southern Railway’s Western Section. Of the five engines completed in the late spring and early summer of 1925, Sir Lamorak was the last to be withdrawn, in June 1962. My own memories of the ‘King Arthur’ class 4-6-0s take me back to the 1950s when this particular batch of ‘Arthurs’ was allocated to Salisbury, from where they worked Waterloo-Exeter trains. Sadly, I never saw any of the first five built from 1925 as most of our family holidays in the late 1940s and early 1950s were taken in Bournemouth, where I saw Nos 30736 to 30754 as these were based on the Bournemouth line at that time. In fact, these earlier-built engines (new between August 1918 and February 1923) were modified from 1928 with new reduced diameter cylinders. Both as a young schoolboy and throughout my life, although my family spent many summer holidays in Bournemouth, I was never one for sitting all day on the beach. I preferred to be doing something, like spending time on Bournemouth station or travelling around on trolleybuses. Even now, I find it hard to relax, otherwise why am I still working as many hours as I do at 87? As a young trainspotter I was always fascinated by the names of locomotives and their origins, and Bournemouth was a great place to witness many named locomotives, like ‘King Arthur’ and ‘Lord Nelson’ class 4-6-0s, ‘Schools’ class 4-4-0s and Bulleid Pacifics, and those named after the Knights of the Round Table were no exception. Browsing through my Ian Allan abc at the time, and seeing the list of engines in the class named after Knights of the Round Table, until then I had not realised that there were so many Knights having seen images of the Round Table with limited seating. In his writings, Sir Thomas Mallory only very briefly mentioned some of the names that were selected for use by the Southern Railway for its ‘King Arthur’ class, and some engines of the class even carried the names of ‘Ladies of Legend’, such as Linette, sister of Lady Lyonnese. Of all the ‘Ladies’ that the Southern Railway selected to grace its engines, it is surprising that Morgan le Fay was not chosen, as she was King Arthur’s sister. However, when the names of the ‘King Arthurs’ were later given to the Southern-based BR Riddles ‘5MT’ 4-6-0s, Morgan le Fay was included, on No 73112. Since producing Steam Days magazine over the years since 1993, I have learned a great deal about specific locomotives and the people and places that locomotives were named after in our ‘Locomotive Names & their Origins’ and ‘Life and Times’ articles – a history lesson in themselves – and I hope that all our readers find these features interesting too. Please continue to enjoy your read and recall your own special memories.
Steam Days Magazine Recently paired with the Urie tender from No 30785 Sir Mador de la Porte, Salisbury-based ‘King Arthur’ No 30452 Sir Meliagrance gets underway from Exeter (Central) with the 10.37am local service to Templecombe on 29 June 1957. It wasn’t until a board of directors meeting in December 1924 that a decision was made to name the hitherto anonymous ‘N15’ class as ‘King Arthurs’. The yet to be delivered new locomotives were to be named after Knights of the Round Table, with the pre-grouping order receiving names of persons and places associated with them, including King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. R C Riley
MAY 2021
www.steamdaysmag.co.uk
5
ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW? THE BEST ACTION IN TRIALS AND MOTOCROSS
DIRTb bike ke
VELO MAC MA S SPECIAL PECIAL NORTON RT RTON INTER AJS SCEPTRE SCEP E SPORTS! SCEPTR SPORTS POR ! PORTS
CLASSIC
#48
ISSUE
Forty-eight Autumn 2018
OCTOBER 2018
No. 330 October 2018 £4.30 UK Off-sale date 31/10/2018
MOTO MEMORIES // TECH TALK // MONTESA COTA 200 // BULTACO MATADOR
3.60
Running, Riding & Rebuilding Running, Rebuilding Real RealClassi RealC Classic C lassi Motorcycles
BOXER CKS TRIC
HOW THE LEGEEND BEGAN
SUPERMAC’S TRIUMPH DRAYTON
PRINTED IN THE UK
PLUS MOTO MEMORIES TECH TALK MONTESA COTA 200 BULTACO MATADOR AN HOUR WITH: GERRIT WOLSINK
£3.60 US$9.99 C$10.99 Aus$8.50 NZ$9.99 PRINTED IN THE UK
HOME, JAMES!
UNIVERSITY GRADUATE
#48
001 Cover_OCT.indd 1
AT THE CASTLE
DRUMLANRIG 2018 D 20
WINNER
SUPER PROFILE: ARIEL’S HT3
GREEVES ESSEX TWIN BUYING GUIDE // STRIP YOUR TWOSTROKE // BSA B31 RESTORATION // MALLE MILE // CAFE RACER CUP // SHETLAND CLASSIC // THE CLASSIC TT // MIKE HAILWOOD REPLICA
CLASSICS
65 PRE65 PRE
PRINTED IN THE UK
R 2018 ISSUE 174 OCTOBER
N48 2018 US$15.99 Aus$14.99 NZ$18.99 UK£5.50 UK Off-sale date 15/11/18
BUY SELL RIDE RESTORE
13/09/2018 10:34:50
001 CDB Cover_048.indd 1
02/08/2018 14:53:55
001 Cover_174.indd 1
03/09/2018 10:18:26
•SINGLE ISSUES •SUBSCRIPTIONS
CLICK HERE
www.classicmagazines.co.uk
ENDOFPREVI EW
I fy oul i k ewhaty ou’ v e r eads of ar ,whynot s ubs c r i be,ort r ya s i ngl ei s s uef r om:
www. c l as s i c magaz i nes . c o. uk