Your memories of Live Steam please.

Ok, I don't make model steam engines, currently pursuing other interests but if i make it through to retirement maybe i'll have learnt enough & have time to dabble.

As a small boy I was steam train mad, born in the time of dirty diesels but still steam train mad.

Not sure where that came from?

My great uncle worked for B.R. & my father always had a soft spot for steam.

He grew up in the GWR region and seemed to suscribe to the (somewhat snobbish IMO) notion that GWR was the best railway in the world.

We used to live near Dinting. derbyshire~ long since vanished as a steam enthusiasts haven i believe.

I remember visiting a few times, this is all pre school age, feeling somewhat saddened seeing the once great engines sitting there awaiting restoration.

Anyway, one Saturday..must have been a Saturday, my Father took me down there & The Flying Scotsman was visiting. (I had a photograph of it on my bedroom wall at the time)

Not only that, but you could get to ride on the footplate!

It wasn't far, only up the siding & back, but it's etched in my memory, the heat for instance.

This just wouldn't happen nowadays~ Heath & Safety wood have a screaming fit, pre school boy in such a dangerous place.

But I was there....I'll never forget.

Please share your Live Steam memories, maybe you're old enough to remember Steam on the rail network?

I used to walk over a railway bridge on the way to school when I was under eleven years old. The line was electrified for the local trains but occasionally there was a steamer going under and you got the smoke and steam all around you. An unforgettable smell. On one side of the bridge was the local station and I when I was very young, just past being a toddler, I was on the platform with my dad when an express steamed through on the near line. I was terrified.

Martin C

I travelled the Cape Town to Johannesburg train trip many times around 1969 on trains with steam locomotive traction through the Karoo. The railway electrification was already progressively replacing steam, but the larger Karoo lines were the last to be electrified. The steam engines used on the Karoo sections often had condenser units to save on precious water.

Romantic memories remain, the dirt long forgotten. The total distance would have been pushing 1000 miles (1600 km) but I stand to be corrected. Towns like Touwsriver and De Aar were still thriving, stations clean and running like clockwork.

Shunting noises and bumps to split and join trains particularly at night.

Seeing the countryside going by for hours on end and once a flash flood starting to come down a dry riverbed as a rolling wall of water.

Those were the days.

Regards.

I and a school friend Michael about 13 year old, used to sit at local small station,train spoting, which only had goods delivery and no passenger service except for special trips etc. We were on summer holiday and an engine used to come through to collect wagons of coal from your local colliery and take them to a local concentration sidings now long gone. Anyway on one trip he slowed down and shouted would we like to have a ride and we didn't need a second asking. We jumped at the chance and he showed us to drive and fire the engine and made a few runs with collected trucks from local colliery to concentration sidings. We did this for a few days and after a few days were taking a packed lunch and doing most of the work with just either the fireman or Ray the driver to watch us whilst the other was in the guards van with the shunter drinking tea. We spent a couple of weeks like this only to having to stop when a trial, a new diesel loco engine began on the track we were on, with inspectors and trainers on board. We were great friends with the driver and wife who met our family's and were long time friends.

David

Where to begin. Lived in Birmingham as a young lad so spoilt for choice. Spent hours on New Street or Snow Hill stations spotting and trying my best to get a driver to allow me to 'cab' the engine, with occasional success. Standing on the bridge over Tyseley station for hours getting a face full of steam as a GWR King or the like shot by. Sneaking into Tyseley sheds and being chased out by the foreman. Coming home, and underlining all the trains seen in my Ian Allen trainspotters book. In trouble again for being late for dinner.

One rather strange memory...

Our home for years had a view, especially from upstairs, across a large public-park, the rooves of a housing-estate in a valley, to Portland and its Royal Navy base (now a commercial port).

The near "edge" of the oggin was a railway embankment carrying the branch from Weymouth to Portland. This had private sidings into Whiteheads torpedo factory at Wyke Regis (gone), the Naval Base, masonry works up on "Tophill", and finally ended in a coal and stone stock yard just beyond Easton Station.

Passenger services ceased apart from the occasional "special" in the 1950s but it still handled goods until final closure in (I think) 1965; one hundred years after it had opened as an SR / GWR Joint. That was unusual for two companies normally bitter rivals; c.f. the SR / LMS, Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway.

Most of the rakes of mineral-wagons and vans were drawn by an ex-GWR pannier-tank based in Weymouth's sizeable sheds. So the distinctive "clank-clank-clank-clank" of 4-wheel short-wheelbase stock on fish-plated track was as familiar in our home as the radio's rhythmic "buzz......buzz" from warships' radar.

A day of no less than three special last passenger trains all the way to Easton (I was one of them), then shortly after that last train ambled across Radipole Lake viaduct and into Weymouth's quite extensive sidings and sheds.

The rails lay slowly rusting for months....

In that time, one still night, in bed, I heard... "clank-clank-clank-clank"......

What? No exhaust beats, so coasting down from the Rodwell summit to near seal-level? Some ad-hoc special, presumably RN goods? Emergency ship-repair parts or ammunition normally carried by RN(Sto) lorries?

I leapt to the window and stared at the embankment, half a mile or so away. Nothing.....

Eerie.

Dad supplied the explanation. A ship moored in mid-Harbour, winding its anchor-chain aboard.

As a little boy the family moved into a new house on a new road in Northern Ireland. The road bed, running up a moderately steep hill, had been laid but not tarmacked. One day, to great excitement, a steam roller arrived on a low-loader, fired up and reversed off, all very thrilling because the ramp bent alarmingly. They'd built a kind of support wall out of breeze blocks underneath the ramp and one end sank into the ground.

Whilst this was going on lorries full of hot tarmac were arriving, and men in flat caps were shovelling it out. Behind them the steam-roller flattened the road out neatly. They finished the flat stretch at the bottom OK, and then tried to run the steam-roller up and down the hill, presumably to compact the stone bedding chips.

The engine couldn't get up the hill! Clouds of steam and loud clanking whilst it took a run at the slope, but no joy - it stalled. After a few hours of trying the workmen and a lorry full of tarmac was sent away. The steamroller was parked off-road and abandoned. Felt like we played on it forever, but it disappeared one day whilst I was at school.

A diesel roller arrived a few days later and finished the road without fuss. Dead boring in comparison.

With hindsight, I still don't know why the steam engine failed. They're famously high torque, and I expect them to be good at hills: perhaps not?

Maybe trying to crush stones created a sort of bow-wave in front of the roller that was too much resistance for the engine in combination with the slope. Possibly the elderly beast was in poor condition; filthy peeling black paint, suggesting it was uncared for. No idea who made it or when, but it could have been 80 years old.

The other memory of this incident was an officious little dumper truck thump-thumping around. A bit smaller than a mini, on four big wheels, with the driver and engine exposed behind a tipping container. Very agricultural, and from the noise it made I guess the engine was single cylinder. Exhaust, great puffs of stinking black smoke. Never seen anything like it since!

Dave

My father used to work for BR parcels and had free travel for our family, we were often going on day trips to places like Rhyll in the 1950's. I remember vividly waiting on New Street station in B,ham and constantly looking up the line waiting for the engine to appear. Then it would come thundering in belching steam and smoke and everyone would step back and then run forward to try and get an empty compartment.

During school holidays I often used to go with him to Curzon street goods depot. While he sorted out the order of the parcels alongside the goods wagons I used to wander around the huge gloomy building which dated from 1838, I remember gigantic curtains that were used to block out the weather on the huge doorways, some let the daylight through and others were solid old tarpaulins.

I remember one foggy winter morning at Curzon street I wandered further than usual and vividly remember looking through a gap in the curtains and seeing a whole row of ghostly looking disused steam engines with cow scoops on the front, like the wild west engines, maybe used for clearing heavy snow off the tracks? That's the most vivid memory for me.

Edited By vic newey on 11/01/2023 10:05:11

The Very Last Train To Blandford forum

By the mid 1960s it was clear to even us teenagers that Britains railways were in deep trouble and closures would come no matter what people said !

Even the brief stay of execution could not save the Somerset & Dorset. It was decreed that the last workings would be over the weekend of the 5/6 March 1966.

I spent most of that weekend in early March 1966 at Shillingstone station watching the comings and goings of the last trains. It was like the funeral of a much loved local, many turned out, tales were swapped of a life well spent and sadness at the loss. The stations supply of fog detonators was slowly used up to announce the arrival of various trains. Any thoughts of running to timetable were futile as good byes and fare wells lengthened each stop. The Saturday came – and went, so on the Sunday morn it was a quick breakfast, on the bicycle and down to Shillingstone again. It should be pointed out that the station was packed, a considerable crowd had gathered on both days and due to the number of people, the locomotives entered the station area very slowly. This resulted in quite a few of the detonators, only held on the rail head by two small lead straps being pushed off the track rather than being hit at speed and exploding. I spotted these and gathered them up for later mischief.

The Sunday passed much the way the Saturday had and with the dusk falling the very last train had disappeared down the line towards Blandford. The crowd started to drift away ! A few stayed, may be to be alone with their thoughts !!!!

The sun may have set on Shillingstone Station, but for those who stayed there was to be one last fare well ! Word drifted through those stalwarts left that there was to be one more train movement that night. I for one was not going to miss this and hung around. It was probably sevenish or a little later that word came from the signal box that there was to be one more train and shortly after the sound could be heard of a distant steam whistle – the train was at Sturminster Newton. It wasn't long before the sound of an approaching train could be heard and very much in the vein of a funeral cortège not one but three engines pulled into the station. The leading engine was in steam but it was towing two dead engines with their rods off. This leading engine of course had a crew BUT the two dead engines had empty footplates, this situation could not be allowed to continue, so I and several others saw to it !!!!! The station staff like grieving relatives stood by and did nothing to stop those without tickets from having the ride of a lifetime. I cared not, where this train would next stop, or how I was to get home that night. With much whistling and the blasts of detonators, the very, very last steam train to pass through Shillingstone Station was departing. Slowly we picked up speed, over a small bridge, into the cutting and under the bridge by Gains Cross, then the echoing rattle as we passed over the steel bridge over the river Stour, through the short tunnel under the shaftesbury road at stourpaine, the line meandered past France Farm and all to soon, to another round of whistling and detonators we were in Blandford.

With my short ride over it was time to return to the real world and how I was to get home. I had considered walking back down the line as the shortest route, when one of my fellow passengers asked how I was returning to Shillingstone, and said a friend of his was picking him up and would I like a lift. In no time at all I had returned to the station, now almost deserted, collected my bicycle and rode home. It really was all over !

This train movement is recorded in Tim Deacons book, Somerset and Dorset, aftermath of the Beeching axe. It lists the locomotive numbers.

Noel Shelley 29/6/2020

A Single To Shillingstone

The last time I came to Shillingstone by rail was in late June or early July of 1966. The much beloved Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway had finally closed on the 7th March 1966. The stations closed, the infrastructure was removed with indecent haste lest like the phoenix it should try to rise again. Apart from the buildings & the track little remained, but gossip had it that there was a gangers trolley left behind at Sturminster station. The story was true, & it didn't take long to find it! So one afternoon instead of taking the school bus home to Childe Okeford, myself, Jamie Hobson and three school friends from Stur school re railed the trolley . We trundled out of the station on a beautiful warm afternoon, three riding whilst two pushed. Gliding along past the sewage works we soon crossed the river Stour. Our progress so far had been almost effortless as we took turns to ride or push. Fiddleford was across the meadows basking in late afternoon sun as we entered the small cutting and echoed under the humped back bridge that carried the road to Hammoon. Swinging round by Tan Hill copse another small cutting brought us out near the river as we headed for the bridge over the Childe Okeford road past the signal box and into Shillingstone Station.

Jamie Hobson carried on walking down the line home whilst I cut down the bank, over Haywards bridge heading for Childe Okeford and home, leaving the remaining three to push the trolley back. I was later told it proved to be quite a struggle to return to Sturminster for reasons that only became clear to me when over forty years later when I saw a profile of the line and the 80/1 gradient up from the river into the station.

It might have all ended there, an unusual way to get home and a harmless bit of fun BUT officialdom didn't see it that way. As our three musketeers rolled breathlessly into the station yard there was a reception committee waiting, and it wasn't a welcoming one ! Names and addresses were taken and admonishment for their foolishness was laid heavily upon them.

Even then it was still not quite over ! The following morning in assembly at what is now the High School Mr Tozer the headmaster drew the attention of the 400 or so students to the foolishness of Certain Boys in the fifth year !

We felt honoured as only school boys can !!!!

Noel Shelley

Noel, that was a wonderful reminisce that brought a combination of happiness and sadness to me. Thanks for sharing.
James

I have as a steam nut many wonderful memories to many to list here one I will share is that in my easy teens we had a caravan at Towyn (North wales) and late evening I would sit on the sea wall and wait for the Irish Mail it would come round an headland somewhere by Colwyn Bay and you could see a tiny red glow with would get bigger and bigger until it went roaring past it was always double headed and it was some train. Another without wishing to bore was visiting Swindon Works and standing in the cab of Evening Star the day before she was pulled out and a fire put in her.

H

My best experience was on the Delta Queen stern wheel river boat. I was able to spend some time in the engine room. The cylinders had a 10 foot stroke. As I remember (after 50 or more years) the HP cylinder had a 24" bore and the LP maybe 48 inches, It was equipped with variable cutoff but that was not being used. The output was controlled by manual throttle valve. Unusual on river boats itcwas a condensing engine. The boiler was a water tube boiler made by Murray Iron Works in Burliington Iowa. I suspect it was a surplus WW1 cargo ship boiler. The hull was fabricated in Scotland and knocked down and shipped to California for assembly. There was an identical sister ship called Delta King. They ran passenger service between Sacramento California and San Francisco. During WW2 they were used by the US navy as yard ferry boats.

Using the shower in the state room was interesting. Hot and cold water supplies were furnished by separate reciprocating steam pumps. As a result the shower was alternating too hot and too cold.

If you have read my 2 earlier posts then to put the following into context, this is early March 1966 ! Read on ! On the Monday evening I returned to the station ! With the engines entering the station very slowly due to the large crowds, rather than thundering through, quite a few of the detonators rather than being run over by the wheels and exploding had been pushed off the line (they were held on the line by two small lead straps)and laid by the track. These were gathered up for attention later. We had a large garden and two corrugated iron pig styes with a sloping roof, the unexploded detonators were placed on a brick behind the sty, one then climbed onto the roof and hurled another brick down and persuaded the detonator to fulfill it's roll in life by making a loud bang !!!! It seemed like fun, we had for several years enjoyed mixing weed killer and icing sugar !

I was at an auction at Fakenham in Norfolk some 40 years later Talking to a lady who's father had many steam vehicles ! The subject of Shillingstone and it's Station came up ! I was told that The Antell Brothers( I was at school with some of them) had got all the station name plates ! To which I replied"OH NO THEY DIDN'T"

It was a few days after the station had closed that I once again returned ! Quite why I had an adjustable spanner in my pocket I don't remember unless I had already formulated a plan. But never the less I proceeded to climb one of the canopy supports, shuffle along the longitudinal beam and remove the coach screw that held the name plate(totem) to the beam ! Bearing in mind the preceding and what follows I hope you will understand why this is one of my most treasured possessions - I still have it ! Another treasured possession is the guards lamp ! Several months after the line had closed, on a warm sunny day I and a couple of friends were walking up the track when something in the middle of a large bramble bush caught my eye ! I was to be handsomely rewarded for being torn to pieces by finding a guards lamp, complete and almost intact, but most important was that it had a small oval plate stating" Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway" and it's inventory number. It has it's three coloured lenses and for the sake of a drop of paraffin still works - even the wick is original.

By now(May/June) the station and more so the signal box were starting to show real signs of dilapidation, the buildings had been entered and all sorts of the paraphernalia were laying about, Track pads, and under the signal box I remember many glass leclanche cells and the zinc rods they used. Without signals and telecommunications a railway cannot run - so the telephone wires were the first thing to be scrapped, lest like the Phoenix it should try to rise again.

It would be around this time that I was to arrive once again at Shillingstone Station by rail, as told by one of my previous posts above.

By the early 1970s I was living in Ringstead in Norfolk but still returned not only to North Dorset but also to Shillingstone Station when ever I could, watching it be an engineering workshop then the awful prospect it might be demolished ! Numerous friends would keep me abreast of developments and phoenix like It rose thankfully not from ashes.

I would make regular pilgrimages to sit on the platform, look up at Hambledon hill and relive my youth. Not long after the 9F 92207 arrived I was asked if I would be prepared to lead the rebuilding project and met with Brian Bottomley, and those who had shown an interest. It was obvious that this task could NOT be undertaken without specialised equipment and any building work to erect a heavy engineering workshop was many years away. Also such labour as there was at that time had no experience of steam or heavy engineering, this would be a problem. Whilst very flattered to have been asked I felt that as things stood it would be very difficult to make much progress and reluctantly declined the invitation.

When a DS88 shunter arrived I was asked about repairing or running it ? I requested the manuals Etc and was told there were none ! It had come from the North Norfolk railway, a quick phone call and a ride over to their workshops at Weybourne resulted in my delivering all the technical manuals to the new owners !

Needless to say I was at the 50th aniversary of the closure !!! Only as I was returning on the Sunday to the friends house I was staying with did I realise that I had NOT signed the visitors book on this most important day. So on the Monday, on the off chance there might be someone about I came back to the station,and indeed there were staff about and I was allowed to sign the book. I was the last person to sign that weekend, it meant more to me than anyone can imagine !!!!!

They were for me good times ! Noel.

Edited By noel shelley on 21/01/2023 15:20:54

Again as a little boy, I was in a steam train smash! Not serious fortunately, but I remember a sudden stop sending people sprawling.

The family were in a train arriving in Dublin that bumped into the buffers instead of stopping short as usual. Dad explained later that the rails immediately in front of the buffers had rusted because trains are supposed to stop before getting close to them. Our train got a little too close and slid on the rust. Now I'm older, I think this was an excuse because the whole train is braked, not just the engine. I think the driver misjudged his speed slightly, and skidded whilst attempting an emergency stop.

Can't have been going at any speed because it was a jolt rather than a bang. Since then at Paddington, I've always wondered how much energy the hydraulic buffers would absorb before serious damage ensued. I guess anything over 1mph would break stuff.

Paddington:

Spain:

England:

France:

USA:

Dave

My Grandad used to come and get me from Norwood on his bike (about 1950) and we always stopped to watch the trains go under the bridge. I was very sure that I knew where that 'bridge' was - and prompted by this thread, went to look for it on Google Maps. There is a tunnel entrance near where I thought we watched but clearly it's not the bridge that I remember. So I 'walked' the route and I think I've found that bridge but it's not where I've believed it to be for all these years.

My Nan was not too happy with him when I turned up with soot all over my face and clothes either but he always let me wait for a train. Never saw that much of the engines but I still remember the smell and sound of them (and the smoke of course). Still reminds me of him

Regards,

IanT

The house I lived in from the age of five, 1956, had the main LMS line running in a cut at the end of it. My dad built a platform about three feet high that I could stand on to watch the trains go by. He was into photography so I have a few picture taken just up the end of the raod which was farming land in those days. One of my mothers uncles was an engine driver but by the time I knew him he had retired. Like most of us on here we witnessed the demise of the system, closure of lines, removal f stations which eventually got built over. Now we are seeing the loss of petrol stations and pubs.

WW2 time 1973, as a 7 year old, my friend live at the bottom of the embankment just west of Layton (Blackpool) station. We used to climb up the bank and put a penny on the line and wait for it to be squashed. Later (1950) used to go to Old Oak Common and wander around the yards.

Hopefully not all the petrol stations Howard. I've just got a new motor and I intend to take good care of it and keep her going for a long time. Well long enough anyway.

As for Pubs, I've been in several recently that don't actually sell Beer ( ?? ) . Just that pale yellow stuff (reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it off-hand) that my sons drink. No wonder they are going out of business.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 21/01/2023 18:33:04

In the late 50's I used to take my fathers lunch to the loco.He would meet me at the gate and we sometimes got a ride on the back of a shunter up the yard to where the coach and wagon fitters shed was.This was at Grantham yard where mainline loco's would change ,at this time over a thousand men worked on the yard.There were stand by drivers and firemen and a card game called crash was running continualy in there shed.As the pacific loco's were too big for the turntables they had a triangle to turn them round and sometimes the crew would let us hang on the back as they navigated the angle.Many happy memories of those days.