E. D. Hamer examines some of the pitfalls involved in investigating and recording railway history. Drawing on his study of Rhodesia Railways, he considers conflicting recollections, incomplete company records, photographs and the importance of presenting history accurately and readably.
Investigating railway history
E. D. HAMER EXAMINES SOME OF THE PITFALLS OF RECORDING PAST EVENTS
ONE might assume that, with the wealth of railway literature on the market these days, it would present no problem to investigate the history of a particular topic. Practically every engine in the world seems to have been described, dissected, and photographed, and the most ancient of negatives with the slightest hint of railway interest has been restored, touched-up, and reproduced. Even the internal records of the old railway companies and locomotive builders are no longer sacrosanct, and have been gleaned to the extent that every scrap of knowledge about every engine in the world apparently is secure and recorded for ever.
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I was under this happy illusion when I commenced collecting data for a study of the steam locomotives of Rhodesia Railways. One would imagine that the railways of the former British Colonies, being comparative babes compared to, say, the Great Western, would prove reasonably easy to research. After all, a steam only just over eighty years of age couldn’t have all that much history!
Conflicting accounts
As a first step I read the available books on the subject—first-class histories, some of them, but the deeper I delved the more alarming became the inconsistencies. A well-meaning author would assert that the first engine to cross the Victoria Falls bridge was so-and-so; another would dogmatically quote a different number, while a third writer would be diplomatically non-committal. Eventually I threw all the books to one side and decided to start from scratch!
As an employee of Rhodesia Railways I had a distinct advantage, and was able to gain access to documents and records not normally accessible. I made friends with the RR photographer, a fellow enthusiast, and would regularly pore over his albums of steam train pictures, ancient and modern. I was also fortunate that my job often entailed travelling to various railway centres in Rhodesia, and I made the most of the opportunity to investigate fully the present-day fleet of steam engines. However, when I returned to UK last year and began to sift and sort my accumulated knowledge I was amazed at the number of questions that still remained unanswered.
The limits of memory
There was nothing for it but to painstakingly find out the answers, and one might expect this to be a reasonably simple exercise. Huh! Try asking three different eye-witnesses what colour a particular locomotive was, and I can assure you you’ll likely receive three different answers! I wanted to know the colour of the “15th” class Beyer-Garratts that pulled the Royal Train in 1947. I had a monochrome photograph, but that obviously wasn’t much help as far as the colours were concerned. Someone told me the engines had been painted a deep blue, but another source swore blind that they were light blue; a third version, for good measure, was “blackberry black”. I still don’t know the answer, so I suppose I’ll have to drop a line to Buckingham Palace to see if anyone there can remember.
Museum records and personal recollections
In Bulawayo there is a fine railway museum, administered by the RR Historical Association—an extremely able body which takes great pains to ensure the historical accuracy of the exhibits. However, it is the first to admit that there is an alarming shortage of knowledge concerning the early days of RR. It frequently publishes old photographs in its house journal, with appeals for further information. I found the back issues of the RR Magazine fairly helpful, but rapidly learned to be wary of personal reminiscences! An old retired driver will recall the good old days in 1926 when he had charge of a particular locomotive, and the sad fact that the engine in question was not actually built until 1930 hardly seems relevant.
Incomplete company records
Even the internal records of a railway company are not always above suspicion. I discovered an imposing leather-bound tome containing a wealth of detail of the Rhodesian locomotive stock from the turn of the century until the early ’fifties. I hopefully expected such an eminent volume to be the epitome of accuracy—not a bit of it! I found alarming errors, particularly with certain builders’ numbers, and obviously some of the clerks who had so painstakingly filled in the details over the years had not been over-conscientious. I also discovered that when RR says an engine has been “scrapped”, it does not necessarily mean “cut-up”. I have a photograph taken in 1946 of an engine that was “scrapped” in 1938! Likewise, several “scrapped” locomotives are today happily intact inside the railway museum.
Photographic evidence
I have come to the conclusion that the only historical evidence one can really trust is the evidence of one’s own eyes, reinforced by photographic records. It is amazing just how much hard fact can be gleaned from an old photograph with the aid of a magnifying glass.
Unlikely sources
I learned not to neglect the unlikely sources, and have unearthed a surprising amount of Rhodesian history from archives, libraries, and enthusiasts in South Africa and Britain. I found it quite amazing just how many old Rhodesian photographs, for example, were languishing in certain British libraries, and in this respect I must pay tribute to the assistance and long-suffering of the staff concerned. Likewise, the archives of the various locomotive builders are often worth consulting, wherever available.
Writing railway history
Finally, I must mention the most annoying aspect of the whole business of writing a locomotive history. Just as you think that the study of a particular engine or class is complete, with all loose ends tied up neatly, some well-meaning but exasperating enthusiast will produce some delightful titbit of information that destroys the whole picture—just like Huxley’s “Beautiful hypothesis destroyed by an ugly fact”!
Should one ever manage to amass enough information, the problem still remains of setting it out in a readable form. So many railway books today seem as dry as stone ballast, and in a vain attempt to list every single detail the writers often lose sight of that essential element—readability. If only a few of today’s railway writers had that human touch, so typical of such masters as Hamilton Ellis and the late great Cecil J. Allen, then our shelves would be so much richer!
