A farewell to steam

PERSONAL COLUMN PETER ALLEN

Sir Peter Allen is Chairman of to.

In this melancholy month of August, which sees the end of steam on British Rail, with one small and honourable exception, I would like to take you round my railway room at home and show you my twenty-one paintings by Hamilton Ellis which were done specially for me by my friend to illustrate incidents and moments in my life.

We start very properly with a Midland and Great Northern train near Sheringham—yellow 44-0 at the head and half a dozen six-wheelers clattering along behind, crossing perhaps the very bridge below which my father held me up in the summer of 1909 to see a train go by with a yellow engine, the first thing in my life which I remember. Later we had a more prolonged acquaintance with the M & GN during the great floods of September 1912, when our train was benighted at Corpusty and Saxthorpe and we finally sought refuge in the village inn.

The next two pictures in order of date also have yellow engines, this time the Stroudley yellow of the Brighton line which still persisted for a few years in my childhood. Ellis has painted for me the D3 0-4-4 tank `St Leonards' in the summer twilight at Dorking in 1910 and the E5 0-6-2 `Freshwater' in the full glare of that blazing summer of 1911 at my home station, Leatherhead.

The Dorking picture is a particular favourite of mine, and Ellis is sometimes inclined to think it is the best picture he ever painted, for it just breathes the air of warm summer nights long ago. The engine, too, is such a graceful, charm- ing machine with Billinton's slender, curving chimney; I like, too, the small Stroudley tanks parked away at the side of the yard and the green headlamps on the train engine.

Next we move to Liverpool Street in 1912 to see the departure of a spanking Great Eastern express for the Norfolk coast behind one of Mr Holden's brand new 4-6-0s, resplendent in polished brass and copper, royal blue paint and scarlet trim. We used to go to the Norfolk coast in the summer in those years and Hassall's posters of lively old salts giving 'A Call to the East Coast' were all over the Great Eastern. Simple, happy holidays they were at Runton, Sheringham, Cromer and Hunstanton, my father golfing and my sister and I happy in blue jerseys and sandshoes on the beach.

Liverpool Street was not a particularly cheer- ful place with its mephitic smoke and panting brake pumps, except for its splendid blue en- gines with their melodious whistles, but there was always another railway spectacle there to keep a look-out for, the North London line on a higher level, running into Broad Street. This would reveal at intervals rather dismal rakes of brown coaches led by cheerful little outside- cylinder 4-4-0 tanks with tall, graceful chim- neys. Ellis has painted one of these at Richmond to remind me of a grim winter Sunday in 1917 with snow on the ground and the leaden sky foretelling more to come; I had taken a solitary bus ride there, which I often did as a boy, and visited the station. This quiet little train crept in, almost empty, and then crept out.

More cheerful is the picture of St Pancras in the winter dusk, the winter that the First World War ended. Here Ellis has done a fine job with the train and station lights against the dark bulk of the gasholder and the light tracery of the station roof. The engine is a spare and graceful Midland 'Single' No. 614 with the clerestory coaches behind, while the station pilot, a 0-4-4 tank, waits in a siding under the gasholder.

To finish our London group, we have the afternoon Sheffield express, the 3.20 from Marylebone, I think it was, headed by a Great Central 'Director' passing above the LNWR line at Kenton in 1922. This is a reminder of March afternoons at Harrow when, exempt from foot- ball, I used to hack a golf ball about on the now defunct Northwick Park course and hoped to see this train before trotting back to Bill (the school roll-call).

We move back now to the spring of 1913 and a Kent Coast express of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, the engine in lined-out green, brass and copper, smart lettering and clean as a whistle. The locomotive is one of Mr Wain- wright's finest, a rebuilt 4-4-0 with extended smokebox to house a superheater. We were going down to Folkestone so that I could re- cover from a bad attack of bronchitis and all that I recall of that visit was a ride in a goat- cart and a day of amazing clarity when all the houses were clearly visible on the French coast, as through a glass, even the shutters on the windows.

Next we move to the South Western, for from 1913 onwards for several years that was the holiday line for us. The painting shows one of those strange Double-Singles,' which showed that Mr Drummond could sometimes err in design, on a semi-fast train near Winchester taking us down for a blissful three weeks at Milford-on-Sea or the Isle of Wight. I especially remember the journey of 1914, a few days after the war broke out, with my father leaning out of the window to throw newspapers to the soldiers guarding the bridges.

And now let us come to the feast of pictures in my best-beloved Isle of Wight, five in all. First we see a representative of each of the island railways in its 1920 style, the little red Beyer-Peacock tank engine, 'Ventnor,' simmer- ing in the yard under St Boniface Down; then there is pride of the Isle of Wight Central, the big 4-4-0 tank engine No. 6 coming into Whit- well at dusk on a summer evening with the last light of the sunset throwing up darkly the curve of St Catherine's Down with its slender monument. Lastly, we have 'Terrier' No. 2 of the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Rail- way in that improvised wooden station at New- port, resplendent in her new grass-green paint and red side rods. This engine now rests in honourable retirement outside a pub on Hayling Island.

We then come to a panel which shows a brief but fascinating period in 1923 when the engines of all three of the island railways, in their original colours, could be seen together in New- port Station.

Lastly from the island we have a 1947 scene when for a brief flickering moment the little Adams 0-4-4 tanks were back to their prewar glory in lined-out malachite green and brass nameplates with a red ground; this one shows `Chale' on Ryde Pier and a paddle steamer leaving.

Now we are out of the realms of boyhood; gone, too, are the splendid liveries of the pre- grouping British railway companies. Some rail- way highlights nevertheless remain.

The year 1925 saw us at Broadstone—golf had by then reached a more advanced stage— and a round on that splendid course gave a fine show of the egregious blue stock of the Somer- set and Dorset joint railway. Here we have one of the big Derby 4-4-0s passing the course, north-bound with a red Midland brake van at the tail of her blue train.

My interest had by this time become more concentrated on narrow-gauge railways, and Ireland just after the Second World War had a rare collection of these. Ellis has done me proud with three, the first, dear 'Alice' of the County Donegal, lightening the grim pass of the Barnes- more Gap with her cherry red paint. `Alice' was the first Donegal tank I ever saw, late one rainy night at Strabane in 1946, clacking about the yard there with that peculiar unique narrow- gauge sound. 1 have loved her ever since and am delighted to own one of her nameplates.

`Blanche,' her sister, I knew, too, and once was on her footplate. So my friend has painted her also, coming down into Strabane from Derry in 1950, just as the bright blue Great Northern 4-4-0 `Slieve Donard' brings her broad gauge train in, too. My other Irish picture shows that colossus of the Lough Swilly, 4-8-4 tank engine No. 6 on its way from Buncrana with a couple of battleship-grey coaches and a narrow-gauge tank car, thus reminding me of a footplate pass in,1947.

Now we are in the British Railways era and already the days of steam are running low. Here is a Great Western scene, Cheddar Station. Cheddar is not of any particular poignancy for me, but look for a moment at the engine, the light 2-6-2 tank No. 4555. That evokes a memory, of coming back from Stratford to Bir- mingham one autumn night on the footplate, the green lights beckoning us through the dark countryside and local stations. That was 1964 and it's good to know that this engine will sur- vive on the Dart Valley line.

Next we have an Isle of Man scene, 2-4-0 tank `Fenella' at St Johns in rr week in 1965.

We had gone over to see the races and the rail- way and came on this engine in steam with a rather grim coach in tow. This is the ambulance coach, for parts of the rr course cannot be reached by road while racing is going on.

Now we are at the end, and a fine end it is—the Bournemouth Pullman in the summer of 1966 with rebuilt 'Merchant Navy,' Pacific,' `Blue Funnel Line' at the head and Allen on the footplate, my last footplate run on express steam in Britain.

So this makes a big part of my life and won- derfully do these pictures awake far memories of all but sixty years. 'Oh, the great days in the distance enchanted, days of fresh air in the rain and the sun.'