Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: End of Steam

Bolton steam shed, Stanier 8F 48652, 8th June 1968. The engine is fitted with a small buffer beam snow plough. Two Drewry diesel shunters including D2234 alongside. The signals on the far left are on the Manchester to Bolton line.

Burnley Rose Grove, Lancashire outside the steam shed. Stanier 8F 2-8-0 48348 is on a coal train heading west, 1st August 1968. Note the gaggle of enthusiasts on the cutting side in the background enjoying the view before the final end of steam on BR 3 days later when Rose Grove shed (one of the last 3 steam depots - out of sight to the right) closed. Rosebay willowherb is forever associated with August 1968 in my mind and its alternative name of fireweed is very appropriate.

Burnley Rose Grove shed. Various Stanier 8F and Black 5 steam engines including 48237 & 45110 near the pits in front of the shed building, 1st August 1968. A gaggle of spotters observe a white-shirted, and hence not a railwayman, cleaner working on 45110 - now preserved at the SVR - while other engines move about the yard near the shed entrance. The road bridge in the distance spans the Rose Grove station platforms. Only three more days to go before the end of working BR steam but all the atmosphere of a large shed was still there. The motorway now runs through this scene. See where this picture was taken. [?]

The End of Steam on British Railways. A few days before the end at Copy Pit signal box , between Burnley and Todmorden. LMS Stanier 8F 2-8-0 48519 had just banked a diesel hauled freight westwards from Todmorden. There is only one Brownie b/w photo of its progress because my 35mm film had run out. This shot is taken at the summit of the climb after the freight had dropped away down to Burnley off to the right. The mountainous nature of this part of the Pennines is obvious in the background. I had taken a day off from working in the labour pool at Lysaughts steelworks in Scunthorpe, borrowed my dad's car & drove for hours from South Yorkshire over the Pennines - no M62 in those days - & caught this banker before visiting Rose grove and Lostock Hall sheds. A reboot of an early posting to celebrate Happy Fence Friday while we can't upload any new images! Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Manchester Victoria station Platform 17, Stanier LMS Black 5 45202 on a parcels train 4th May 1968. Today the overall roof has gone, this platform is underneath the Manchester Evening News arena and steam a memory! And what is that archaic wheeled contraption on the left? 45202 has a very clean smokebox door compared with the rest of the engine. Maybe some enthusiast got busy with an oily rag because by this late in the steam day cleaners were very thin on the ground. See where this picture was taken. [?]

Carnforth shed, Lancashire. British Railways Britannia Class 4-6-2 70013 Oliver Cromwell & an unidentified Stanier Black 5 in light steam at the north end of the shed blacken the late afternoon atmosphere as they await their next duties. I visited the shed in the evening en route back to Manchester Victoria on a Northern Railfans trip. The tall concrete building is the ash lift, an efficient way to clear away the piles of ash & char from engine disposals which could quickly accumulate in a large shed like Carnforth. Small tubs were filled by hand and then hoist up the tower & tipped into waiting 16 ton wagons for onward disposal. The much larger concrete coaling tower is just out of shot. 70013 has now (May 2008) been restored at the Great Central Railway at Loughborough after spending most of the time since August 1968 at Bressingham in Norfolk. The plan is to run-in the loco on the Great Central ready for main line train duty in 2008 to commemorate 40 years since the end of steam on BR.

Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106 darkens the skies over Lancashire while filling its tender from the archaic looking water column. Her blower is hard on to lift the smoke & get up steam ready to depart the shed for the Severn Valley Railway at Bridgenorth and a new life in preservation. The only life Stanier 8F 48476 can look forward to is a short one before withdrawal in 3 days time & scrapping in December 1968. Although on this day there were two other Ivatt 4s on Lostock Hall shed this is the only one to survive & in fact now is the only one of its class in existence.

Cabside number Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 44845, built at Crewe in 1944. I am contemplating the last day of steam at Newton Heath & the fact that the filthy cab won't ever be cleaned again. I don't think that left hand window has ever been cleaned! This engine still had 50psi of steam in its boiler but by the end of the day would be cold & ready for its last journey to the scrapyard.

Paris Gare du Nord 2-8-2T 141TC12 departs September 1969. A second 141TC simmers in the adjacent platform on the left. All the atmosphere of a main line capital terminus. With the services out of Gare de la Bastille these were the last suburban steam trains in France. Quite a change from the Eurostars that arrive at these platforms today. My girlfriend of the time studied French at Aberystwyth University & was in Paris for an induction course at the Sorbonne to prepare for her year as a teaching assistant in Verdun. While she studied I photographed. She obviously took the course very seriously as she ended up marrying a frenchman! Still I took my photography seriously too & I still have a liking for french steam, paticularly these modern looking tanks.

My first photograph of an operating steam engine out on the line - I had taken one in a scrap line a couple of months earlier and out of steam on shed a week earlier. I came very late to railway enthusiasm, almost too late for British Railways steam! The 1847 Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Mumps station was closed in 2009 and even the Metrolink tram stop on the same location has since closed. The tram now heads down Union Street in the town centre.