MY LIFE IN TRAINS
My Story - Part Twenty Eight
Severn Tunnel Junction, Lydney and My Farewell to Steam
The next day I treated myself to a trip to Severn Tunnel Junction, and walked towards the entrance to the tunnel to take a few photos – there were just thirty three minutes between the first and last photos in this sequence.
A week later, just before I returned to home in London and then to the start of my second year in Leicester, I took a couple of photos, east of Lydney again.
I’ve added one final image from my time in Lydney - I think this one sums up the age of steam – the train and railway have blended into the landscape, while the bridge, sadly destroyed in a moment, still stands out as an engineering marvel. And perhaps this image also sums up the end of my photography of the steam age, as I walked away over the hill.
All good things come to an end, and I’m sorry to say that I stopped taking railway photographs after this, until I tried again in the mid 1980s. I’ve no clear idea why I stopped: many conflicting interests at university, maybe thinking that trains were part of my childhood, and I was growing into adulthood – I’d already stopped underlining numbers in my Combined Volume. Maybe I realised that the steam railway was on borrowed time, and I didn’t want to witness the final decline – I did read Modern Railways from cover to cover every month, after all.
Whatever the reasons, I stopped!
I did get my degree, in spite of ducking out towards the end my third year because of glandular fever. Luckily, Essex County Council took pity on me, and funded another year. I left with no job, but fell into a research post in Oxford for a year, before moving to Leeds for an MSc in geochemistry, and then stayed on for three more years of research. I ended up working in a further education college until I retired.
For almost all of the years since 1967 I’ve lived in Leeds, apart from a brief excursion to live in a converted chicken shed in the Pennines. The last working BR steam I remember was a WD 2-8-0 heading a freight over the bridge at the bottom of Briggate, probably late in 1967, and the last working steam of any sort was a little shunter in the scrap yard at Shipley many years later.
I had a few forays back into photographing trains, but I never recaptured the passion of those days when steam still reigned.
All Photographs by Alan Lewis Chambers ©
BR Western No D1058 'Western Nobleman' drifts down from Severn Tunnel Junction to the tunnel with a freight on 28 August 1963.
GWR Hall 4-6-0 No 6945 'Glasfryn Hall' drifts down to the Severn Tunnel on a parcels train on 28 August 1963.
GWR Castle 4-6-0 No 5071 'Spitfire' descends into the tunnel from Severn Tunnel Junction on 28 August 1963.
GWR 5100 2-6-2T No 5191 and Modified Hall 4-6-0 No 6987 'Shevington Hall' descend into the Severn Tunnel on a freight train on 28 August 1963.
GWR 6100 2-6-2T No 6114 pilots BR 9F 2-10-0 No 92225 down from Severn Tunnel Junction into the tunnel on 28 August 1963.
GWR 7200 2-8-2T No 7250 returns light engine towards Severn Tunnel Junction on 28 August 1963.
East of Lydney GWR 1600 0-6-0PT No 1631 heads an eastbound class J freight on 5 September 1963.
East of Lydney GWR Modified Hall 4-6-0 No 6965 'Thirlestaine Hall' heads a westbound class C express freight on 5 September 1963.
Sky, estuary and bridge dominate the view as a GWR 2800 2-8-0 heads a westbound freight near Lydney on 27 August 1963.
I have throughly enjoyed working my way through these pictures, following your early life! Some excellent shots, never to be repeated and thanks for sharing them. You cover all Regions so well. If I have a criticism it's the caption before the picture! One is forced to read the caption before enjoying the picture. I much prefer captions under a picture but hey-ho, it;s a small point. Thanks once again for sharing your memories. Jim R.