Letters
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Last days of the East Kent Railway
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I was at boarding school at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate in 1951. As a railway enthusiast I was delighted to be in a house whose housemaster had a full bound set of The Railway Magazine in his study, which he lent me one by one. Somehow, I learned that the East Kent Railway was going…
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Our steam odyssey in 1967
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I was interested to read the article by Trevor Gregg about his 1967 camping coach holiday, in issue 251. A friend and I purchased a week’s railrover ticket for the princely sum of £18 and set off from Kent in May 1967, to visit as many of the remaining steam locomotive depots as we could…
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Don’t ruin wonderful Midsomer Norton station
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I had to look twice at the date of the latest issue of Heritage Railway (No. 250 – congratulations), as I thought the article on page 35, about Midsomer Norton must have been an April Fool. As anyone who has been to this station knows, it is a classic small town station, complete with goods…
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Modelling from the female perspective
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As one of the minority lady railway modellers in our hobby, I found your March editorial most enlightening, particularly your first two paragraphs in which you described the broad spectrum of interest among us. Within our own club – West Sussex N Gauge RMC – we have exactly the spread of modellers you described. While…
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Allan ‘did not design Crewe-type’ engines: there’s more to the story
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I enjoyed reading issue 250 of Heritage Railway and was delighted to find an interesting article by Brian Sharpe regarding 1840s locomotive engineers. As a professional railway historian studying and writing about the period 1830-50, it is always nice to see something – anything – from the earlier 19th century. However, I feel I need…
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Steam at St Margarets in the Fifties
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In issue 249, I enjoyed Gavin Morrison’s retro look at Holbeck shed’s last years of service in the 1960s. My memories of this atmospheric Midland Railway ‘Cathedral of Steam’ are from a decade or so earlier when steam ruled the rails and ex-Midland and LMS locomotives dominated. In my school days when I had rare…
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Searching for lost NER network tile maps
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I have been conducting research regarding lost NER network tile maps, which are basically of three types, and am trying to ascertain whether readers of Heritage Railway are aware of the existence of an updated version of the map in any country house which they have visited or even own. The updated versions show, among…
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Stop riveting boilers and run steam on vegetable oils
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AS we look forward to the future of our railway, yet another year has gone by. I feel there are challenges looming on the horizon for us all, as the public, local authorities and politicians are now much more informed on the issues of the environment we live in – global warming is now a…
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No. 10000 and the ‘Royal Wessex’
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The recent photos in The RM of No. 10000 working the ‘Royal Wessex’ (and the Up express at Bournemouth Central) reminded me of the problems associated with the running of this train when it was introduced in 1951. The Up and Down ‘Wessex’ was covered by two separate Bournemouth diagrams; originally light Pacifics were rostered. …
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My BR involvement in early GCR operations
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Graham Oliver’s article (Saving a Main Line Railway) about the early years of today’s Great Central Railway brought back memories, as I was one of those from British Rail charged with supervising operations. At the time I was a divisional inspector at Nottingham, and my involvement started with preparation for the 75th anniversary in March…
