MY LIFE IN TRAINS
My Life After the Official ‘End of Steam’
Part One
The Preservation Movement
Preserved Steam on the Main Line and Heritage Railways
I had stopped actively watching trains after the forays to the lineside in my first year at Leicester University, and so missed the reality of the run down of steam. I still travelled by train, and bought and read magazines, so I knew what was happening but didn’t take photos.
I spent four years in Leicester – a bad dose of glandular fever meant I had to repeat my final year. Then I spent a year in Oxford as a researcher, a year in Leeds studying for an MSc, and three more years in Leeds as a researcher. After this I started work as a lecturer in a further education college in Leeds, where I spent the rest of my working life in a variety of roles.
Over the years, you would have found me walking in the countryside and on hills and mountains, turning my cameras on the landscape and on wild flowers. After I married, and had children, trips out would occasionally find us near a railway or visiting a railway museum with the inevitable photos.
In the late 1980s I tried to instil the railway bug in my son, and photos followed! I even started frequenting linesides alone around Leeds to document what was happening. Later in life, after our children had flown the nest while touring the country with my wife, as if by accident we would sometimes come across a railway, and I would take a few photos. Many of the film photos have deteriorated over the years, and a lot of them were probably poor from the start. Treat them as a historical record! Amongst this dross are ones that I think are little gems, and I hope you do too.
Considering how addicted to steam I was in my teenage years, I paid little attention to preserved steam and heritage railways. These are the only photos that I have.
The photos from Hellifield and on the Bluebell, Beer Heights, Ffestinog and Middleton Railways were taken on a second hand Zenit SLR on 35mm negative film – the camera I bought with the insurance payout after my Zeiss Contina was stolen: it wasn’t very good. The rest of the photos in this section are digital images from a Canon Powershot S45.
I scanned the negatives using a Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV, and I have cropped and adjusted the film and digital images to get the best I can out of them using Adobe Lightroom.
All Photographs by Alan Lewis Chambers ©
Three photos of SR King Arthur 4-6-0 No 777 'Sir Lamiel' about to head north over the Settle and Carlisle at Hellifield in 1982 or 1983.
I can’t find a record of this working on the Six Bells Junction web site.
LNER A3 4-6-2 No 4472 'Flying Scotsman' with the ‘Cumbrian Mountain Pullman’ headboard at Hellifield in 1982 or 1983.
I can’t find a record of this working on the Six Bells Junction web site.
SR A1 0-6-0T No 72 at Horsted Keynes, I think, on the Bluebell Railway in the mid-1980s.
Beer Heights Light Railway 0-4-2TT No 4 ‘Thomas II’ on the turntable in the mid-1980s.
Built in 1979 by Roger Marsh of Coventry, following the general appearance of a Quarry Hunslet loco.
0-4-0STT ‘Linda’ arrives at Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog Railway some time in the Summer of 1986.
0-4-0STT ‘Linda’ waiting to leave Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog Railway some time in the Summer of 1986.
0-4-0STT ‘Blanche’ arrives at Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog Railway some time in the Summer of 1986.
0-4-0STT ‘Blanche’ waiting to leave Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog Railway some time in the Summer of 1986.
New build Double Fairlie 0-4-4-0 ‘Early of Merioneth at the head of a train about to leave Portmadoc for Blaenau Ffestiniog
on the Ffestiniog Railway in the Summer of 1986.
Quarry Hunslet (873) ‘Una’. built in 1905 for the Pen Yr Orsedd Quarry, poses at the Llanberis Slate Museum with my children in the Summer of 1986.
Peckett 0-4-0ST 2003/1941 ‘John Blenkinsop’ at Middleton on 15 December 1988.
Sentinel LNER Y1/2 0-4-0T No 54 (68153) at Middleton on 15 December 1988.
A view of Wansford Yard on the Nene Valley Railway with Swedish B Class 4-6-0 No 101A in steam on 12 July 2003.
Another view of Wansford Yard on the Nene Valley Railway with Swedish B Class 4-6-0 No 101A in steam on 12 July 2003.
LNER B1 4-6-0 No 1306 ‘Mayflower’ about to leave Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway on 12 July 2003.
SR Unrebuilt Battle of Britain 4-6-2 No 34081 ’92 Squadron’ on the turntable at Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway on 12 July 2003.
Polish Railways Class 52 ‘Kriegslok’ 2-10-0 No Ty2-07173 at Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway on 12 July 2003.
BR 4MT 2-6-4T No 80002 at Ingrow West pauses on a train to Keighley on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway on 11 August 2004.
BR 4MT 2-6-4T No 80002 at Ingrow West pauses on a train to Keighley on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway on 11 August 2004.
