Steam Days

Steam Days is a monthly magazine dedicated to all steam railway enthusiasts. Each issue covers the six regions of British Railways: Western, Southern, London, Midland, Eastern, and Scottish, with the occasional article on Irish railways and the industrial scene. These well illustrated articles in the magazine cover the history of the railways of Britain from the early days of the 1800s through to the end of steam on British Railways in August 1968.

Steam Days

TRAINS of thought

George Davidson CBE: The man behind the centenary celebrations • Keith Jones tracks the career of the last general manager of the GNSR, a post-Grouping promotion taking him to York and his work to mark the centenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway leading to him being honoured by King George V.

Stockton &Darlington routes beyond roots • Opened in 1825 as the first public railway, largely to transport coal to the Tees for onward movement by sea, the independent S&DR lasted until July 1863. Centring on its Durham coalfield domain, Maurice Hawthorne looks at some of the ex-S&DR lines (and remains) post-Grouping and considers their evolved place within the railways of the area.

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London Victoria – Gateway to the continent • Andrew Britton recalls the atmosphere and operations of this Southern Region terminus and his particular fondness for its elite services.

A great British summer … so get out & about!

Tracking the 1828-32 ‘pioneer engine’ names of the Royal Scots • David Anderson presents a story of four elements: loco names from the earliest days of LMS-aligned railways that saw use on Royal Scots for a limited time, the ‘pioneer’ Royal Scots themselves, other LMS-owned locomotives that already carried some of these names, and the reuse of the discarded Royal Scot names on subsequent LMS engines.

BUSY BR DAYS ON THE CALNE BRANCH • A line known well for incoming pigs and outgoing pork products, from wartime days and throughout the 1950s its passenger revenue was massively boosted by the travel needs of thousands of RAF personnel based at nearbyYatesbury and Compton Bassett. Chris Gordon Watford travelled in spring 1952 and thus witnessed the Chippenham-Calne line prior to its decline; it closed completely in September 1965, 60 years ago.

Tail Lamp • Readers Letters