Evening Star at the NRM York

The detail for modellers

A forbearing wife

I am very lucky to have a wife who does not mind trailing around after me photographing locomotives. Thank you Helen.

The jewel in our crown

The National Railway Museum has to be the jewel in our crown. It is the largest and most comprehensive in the world and visisted by millions

A1 Tornado at the NRM York

An incredible achievement the first steam locomotive built in the UK for fifty years. The first of a few as other new builds come off the drawing board and into the workshops. Thanks to the archivist at the NRM and other places we still have all the old drawings from Crewe, Doncaster, Derby, Swindon and many others from which to build classes not saved during the rape of steam in the fifties and sixties. Now the preservationists have turned their attention to these missing locomotives. Our deepest thanks to the A1 society for having the courage and forsight to build Tornado and kick start the new build programme. Tornado should be with us for many many years to come and show comming generations the glory of steam and the revolution which advanced the wold with such speed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

NRM York

A few more from that visit six or so years ago.

A good overview of how the main exhibition hall was and I hope soon will be again

Stephensons Rocket

Where it all began back in 1829 and the Rainhill trials. This was of course only some fourteen years after Waterloo

The recreated rocket and it's carriage set beautifully looked after and a great history lesson for the kids.

Stirling single and Hardwick at the NRM

Stirling single. These were taken some five or six years ago now and are first published here.

Hardwick rekindles memories of the race to the North

Mallard and it's works at the NRM

GWR Workings at the NRM

Internals of a Merchant Navy at the NRM

More Patriots

Patriots

The LMS/LNWR Patriots were always favourites

Busy station

Once again stations were busy places, before the car.

How it was

41241 with the refurbished Bullied coaches at Ingrow.

Bradford Exchange the old station from within

The concourse housed the buffet and booking hall and a few other now forgotten treasures

Those old roller signs which told us of which trains departed from this or that platform

That magnificent roof worthy of the capital of wool 'Worsteadopolis'

Bradford Exchange old and new

Back in the early seventies the old station was demolished and a new one situated to the south west of the old one. It was modern and comfortable and shared land with the bus station which of course made life a lot easier but it never had the character of the old station

Bradford Exchange during demolition

The new Bradford Exchnge

At just over 120 years old the LNWR Coal Tank is back. After a complete heavy rebuild by the custodians, the Bahamas society, it is back in steam. It is the oldest working locomotive in the national collection. Much work on the boiler including new side sheets and a complete new cylinder block replacing the cracked one. Should be in stem at the Feb steam festival at Keighley Worth Valley, then out to tour the country on various preserved lines.

My thanks to Geoff Cryer for this picture of the coal tank in time past

City of Wells at Haworth

Simering nicely outside Haworth shed back in the eighties

LMS Scots Guardsman 6115

At Dinting back in the eighties

Haworth Yard in the late eighties

City of Wells simmers

Stanier and Big Jim

Not mine but a fine picture of the yard

Old pictures from Dinting

Bahamas under overhaul back in the late Eighties

Dinting Yard

Dinting shed

Bradford Bristol serving the south west

Up express approaching Chesterfield (Midland) Station

View northward, towards Sheffield, Leeds etc., from just north of Chesterfield Midland Station, with LMS 'Jubilee' 6P 4-6-0 No. 45651 'Shovell' on the 16.45 Bradford (

Forster Square

) to Bristol express. This four-track section of the Midland Main Line between Tapton Junction and Clay Cross was immensely busy, as all north-south main line passenger and freight traffic was funnelled through. Goods and mineral trains ran under Permissive Block on the two tracks behind the station: here can be seen a Down iron-ore train, following a light engine following another Down freight.

And again very pleasurable memories

The 'Devonian' at Gloucester Eastgate 1953

View westward at Gloucester Eastgate - over 20 years before the Station was obliterated, with the Up 'Devonian' (09.15 Paignton to

Bradford Forster Square

) leaving, behind LMS 'Jubilee' 6P 4-6-0 No. 45651 'Shovell'.

The Devonian as I remember it

The northbound 'Devonian' pounding through Lawrence Hill Station

View southward, towards central Bristol. This was a Summer Saturday, when this express and many others took the ex-GW route - the route still in use - out of Bristol via Filton Junction and Westerleigh West Junction to reach the ex-Midland main line to the North at Yate. It was a stiff climb, mostly at 1-in-75, up to Filton Junction, so LMS 'Jubilee' 6P 4-6-0 No. 5651 'Shovell' is going flat-out here - and making a splendid noise - on the 'Devonian' (09.15 Paignton to Bradford Forster Square), which she has just taken over at Bristol Temple Meads.

The Devonian

THE "DEVONIAN," a daily express operating between Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Torquay, Paignton, and Kingswear (Devon). The 206 miles between Leeds and Bristol are covered in four hours forty minutes. The above illustration shows the train near Breadsall (Derby), hauled by a four-cylinder L.M.S. locomotive of the "Claughton" class, formerly of the London and North Western Railway.

Between Leeds, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, and Bristol the "Devonian" is the fastest train of the day. It begins its journey in Forster Square Station at Bradford at 10.25, makes the short run into the Wellington Station at Leeds, and is there reversed. Notwithstanding some severe gradients, especially between Sheffield and Chesterfield, Birmingham and Bromsgrove, and Gloucester and Bristol, and stops at Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Cheltenham, and Gloucester, the "Devonian" covers the 206 miles from Leeds to Bristol in the excellent time of four hours forty minutes, arriving in Temple Meads Station at 3.32 p.m. At Bristol the Great Western Railway takes charge, and some leisurely progress follows over the remainder of the course to Exeter, Torquay, Paignton, and Kingswear, which is reached at 7.19 p.m. The entire journey of 330 miles from— Bradford to Kingswear has thus occupied six minutes under nine hours.
In the reverse direction the "Devonian" starts its daily journey at Paignton at 9.15 a.m., reaching Bristol, 104 miles away, at 12.11 p.m. Again the running over the L.M.S. line is, for a cross-country journey, very fast, and includes a mile-a-minute booking, the thirty-one miles from Cheltenham to Bromsgrove (where a service stop is made to attach the "banker" for the ascent of the Lickey Incline) being allowed only thirty-one minutes start-to-stop.
Leeds is reached at 5.24 p.m., after a run of four hours forty-nine minutes from Bristol, and Bradford at 5.56 p.m., eight hours forty-one minutes after leaving Paignton. A distinction of the "Devonian," other than speed, is that of connecting five such important centres of population as Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Bristol with one through service.

Giants simmer

York Shed