50 Years on ...........

[TBirdFrank]

since the end of Steam on BR, and where are the commemorative threads, the similar railtours, etc, as this is probably the last "big" anniversary when many who were there when we had a real railway will be around to remember or in a fit condition to do so!

This last weekend was the fiftieth anniversary of the end of steam in the Peak - so what did we get - a red jubilee skirting the northern edge of the Peak District shoved by a box - for which the fare was around a hundred quid and for which people tell me we should be grateful! Sorry but that's like paying to see Fleetwood Mac and getting Rumours!

The real thing - 48744 stands at Hindlow - the first steam since is due in a couple of weeks



48744 crosses Dukes Drive



48775 Turns at Great Rocks for the last time



and thunders past Topley Pike Box back to Buxton

 

[GusB]

The end of steam happened a few years before I was born. Less than a decade, I'll grant you, but I can't get misty-eyed over something I didn't experience in everyday life. I've visited a couple of preserved railways in my life, and I did a Jacobite trip behind 2005, but that's about it. If I was to froth about anything it's more likely to be over a class 26 or 27.

I would imagine that a sizeable percentage of the forum membership have never experienced loco haulage at all, at least not in regular service.

Sorry, but steam just doesn't do it for me

 

[TBirdFrank]

Which is conversely why I have no enthusiasm whatever for what passes for a railway in mainland Britain nowadays.

 

[crosscity]

There is plenty of steam running on the main line nowadays, so there must be the demand. In the last couple of years there has also been the excitement of 'Flying Scotsman' and 'Tornado'. There was also a few days of the Plandampf service on the Settle-Carlisle where dmu's were replaced by steam trains and normal National Rail fares with orange tickets were all that were needed.

My formative years were in the seventies which, of course, was after steam. The railway then, of course, was diesel and electrically operated, but in essence was still run like a steam railway with some pretty quirky workings. I loved the seventies railway, but I treasured the glimpses of steam I remember from when I was very young in the sixties. Your pictures remind me of that time - dirty engines on their last legs but exciting and atmospheric all the same.

Perhaps it is just too difficult to re-enact the last days of steam. I would loved to see a steam-hauled passenger train from Liverpool to Preston, but I presume it would be quite difficult for the current steam operators to arrange.

Wasn't the last scheduled steam-hauled passenger train in August, not March?

 

[muddythefish]

Sorry, but steam just doesn't do it for me

You've got no soul