McCormack Kevin - Steam in Scotland

GNSR class V (LNER class D40) 4-4-0 arrives at Craigellachie, Moray, on 2 April 1956 with a Speyside Line train from Boat of Garten. It will now proceed to the small engine shed and use the turntable. (John McCann/Online Transport Archive)

T his colour photograph album covers steam in Scotland from the early 1950s to the end of Scottish steam in the mid-1960s and uses, to the best of my knowledge, images which have not previously appeared in print.

Although I am normally associated with railways around London, particularly the Western Region, since I spent most of the first twenty-five years of my life in Ealing, West London, I was actually born in Edinburgh and lived there in 1952/3 for that academic year. Our bungalow faced Kingsknowe stations level crossing, on the Carstairs-Princes Street line, and this was where my serious interest in trains started. To get to school, part of the journey involved taking local trains between Kingsknowe and Merchiston, usually hauled by a 2-6-4 tank. I was not aware of spotting books with the numbers listed to underline so I made drawings and added the numbers of the locomotives I regularly saw, for example: 42204, 42269-73, 80026 and, on freight trains, 57559. I was very excited when I saw A1 Pacific No. 60152 Holyrood come through Kingsknowe (I have a blurred Box Brownie picture to prove it!) because this would normally be running on a line from Edinburgh Waverley.

After we returned to Ealing, I visited the Scottish capital most summers to stay with my maternal grandmother. This reinforced my liking for locomotives belonging to the Scottish Region of British Railway (BR), in particular the many pre-grouping classes which survived well into the 1960s and which did not normally stray south of the border. I was able to visit a large number of Scottish engine sheds (MPDs), usually with my mother in tow because she could talk her way round shed foremen, since I do not recall ever applying for a shed permit. With mother, we were never refused entry. In fact, on one occasion (at Thornton Junction shed) at the age of thirteen I was invited to drive a locomotive (Class J83 No. 68459) without even asking to go on the footplate. Sometimes we were provided with an escort and I remember that my mother was discomforted at Dawsholm (Glasgow) shed due to our escort taking a particular interest in her (to which I was completely oblivious as I was totally focussed on noting down engine numbers and taking photographs). She was therefore unhappy when I insisted on dragging her back the following year. However, I assured her that the chances of our meeting her unwelcome admirer again and he recognising her after a twelve month gap were minimal, but I was wrong. We were just walking along the road to the shed when we ran in to him, and he remembered her immediately, much to her annoyance!

Our annual visit inevitably meant a visit to my uncles fiance and sister which I always welcomed because they lived close to St Margarets (Edinburgh) MPD which I would visit while they prepared afternoon tea. I can still vividly recall the excitement of copping class K4 2-6-0 No. 61998 Macleod of Macleod in that smoky hole. Sadly, visits during my train spotting days coincided with the increasing proliferation of diesel multiple units (DMUs) replacing steam-hauled local services, many previously hauled in the Edinburgh area by pre-grouping 4-4-0s. Consequently, rows of these veterans could be seen stored at various sheds such as Bathgate, Polmont and Thornton Junction, not forgetting the massive dump of steam locomotives, both old and not so old, at Boness. Many of Scotlands elderly machines carried strange names associated with novels written by Sir Walter Scott and I recall seeing such withdrawn hulks as The Fiery Cross at Thornton Junction, The Lady of the Lake at Haymarket and Laird of Balmawhapple at Boness. Although this book concentrates on images of locomotives in service I have included a few views of named 4-4-0s in store because colour photographs of them are rare. Unfortunately, these do not include perhaps the three strangest named Scottish locomotives: Jingling Geordie, Wandering Willie and Luckie Mucklebackit !

Railway enthusiasts from across Britain flocked to Scotland during the final years of steam to enjoy two particular treats: seven years of main line operation by preserved steam locomotives in historic liveries (19581965) and four years of high-speed running (19621966) using otherwise redundant streamlined A4 pacifics. The latters introduction on 3-hour expresses between Glasgow Buchanan Street and Aberdeen was a fitting swansong for an iconic locomotive class, although the honour of being Scotlands last steam withdrawals fell not to the A4s or the many BR Standard classes built in the 1950s but to two class J36 0-6-0s dating from 1897 and 1900 respectively which remained in capital stock until June 1967.