Lineside and Station Sequences
Part Seventeen
An Afternoon at Kenton – 16 April 1960

My spotting on the LNWR main line out of London so far had been mainly at Euston and South Hampstead, with one trip to Watford, all BC: before camera. So, off to pastures new.

On this day, with a friend, we travelled into London and caught a Bakerloo Line train to Kenton station. Walking north we found a good spot by the lineside in Kenton Recreation Ground, with a nearby footbridge for different viewpoints.

We spent six hours there – what stamina – and I took twenty seven photos, all steam and a good variety of classes and types of train. Once again, the camera wasn’t really capable of capturing the fastest expresses, but you can still get a good impression of what we saw on that Spring afternoon.

The tally of classes for the day was eleven, heavily dominated by Stanier designs or rebuilds – one Princess, three Princess Coronations, five Jubilees, six Black Fives, one Mogul, one 2-6-4T, five 8Fs and three Fowler Royal Scots, heavily rebuilt by Stanier. The non-Stanier classes were a Fowler Patriot, which links back to the LNWR as these were nominally rebuilds of the Claughtons, although this was mainly an accountants ‘wheeze’; a Patriot, as rebuilt by Ivatt with Stanier influence; and a BR Standard Riddles 9F. This really shows how much Stanier transformed the LMSR motive power – compare this day to the number  of locomotive designer’s products seen earlier at Coppermill Junction on the ex-GER lines of the LNER.

The next day was a long shed bunking trip using a twin rover. It was amazing how far we could get in a day, and how many hours we devoted to our passion – I have photos from Stratford, Hither Green, Norwood Junction, Bricklayers Arms, Feltham and Cricklewood, with the first taken at 9:40 and the last at 20:04. You can see the photos from that day in my Engine Portraits series.

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All Photographs by Alan Lewis Chambers ©