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The sixties teenage revolution - Railway heritage 1960-64

The same year, as efforts to preserve Britain’s rich steam heritage in the face of a tidal wave of modernisation were stepped up across the country, our first two standard gauge heritage lines opened – the Bluebell and the Middleton railways – both saved not by diehard steam men but by students. Within three years, businessman Alan Pegler, who had revived the Ffestiniog Railway, stepped in to save the world’s most famous steam locomotive, Flying Scotsman. Robin Jones and Brian Sharpe look back at the crucial years of the early 60s.

The Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society kick-started it all, and the saving of the Ffestiniog Railway followed hard on its heels. The volunteers' exploits inspired the 1953 Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt, about a group of villagers who saved their branch line from closure by running it themselves. The difference was that the railway portrayed in the film was standard, not narrow gauge.

There was no direct or immediate threat to main line steam when the Talyllyn takeover took place, but branch line closures were taking place nonetheless, as they had been since the 30s, if only involving the withdrawal of passenger services and leaving rural backwaters open for freight.

All that would change in 1955. Firstly, on 24 January, there was the British Transport Commission report, Modernisation and Re-Equipment of British Railways which proposed the wholesale replacement of the steam locomotive by diesel and electrification. That was inevitable: other countries such as the United States had set off down similar paths two decades before.

As wartime austerity slowly passed into history and ration books were phased out, more people became car owners, and relied less on the train, especially in rural areas. On 29 March 1955, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen called a strike which continued until 14 June, crippling the national network and leading to a state of emergency being declared on 31 May.

People were forced to use the car or bus, and many continued to do so once the strike was over. They had by necessity proved that they could live without the railways – but the railways could not live without them.

From then on, it was inevitable that there would eventually be wholesale closures of unprofitable and sparsely used rural routes – it was just a question of when. Not only that, but numerous classes of steam locomotive would be rendered extinct in the name of progress.

All did not have to be lost – the Welsh narrow gauge revivalists had proved that – but could fiction be turned into fact, and the Titfield Thunderbolt become reality?

In the mid-50s, there was a brief attempt to reopen part of the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway as a narrow gauge line for tourists. Behind the scheme were Bristol railway enthusiasts Mr S Jones-Frank and Major WDI Gunn.

The WCPR was one of the legendary Colonel Stephens lines, an empire which in many ways pre-empted today's preservation portfolio with its use of second-hand locomotives and stock; indeed, after closure in 12940, its two LBSCR 'Terrier' 0-6-0Ts found their way into the GWR fleet.

In March 1955, the British Transport Commission approved the foundation of the North Somerset Light Railway Company. This was the first private railway company to be floated since nationalisation in 1948.

These revivalists planned to run 12 trains a day on a 6½-mile stretch of 2ft 8in gauge track between Clevedon and the outskirts of Weston at Worle. In 1956 they bought Peckett 0-4-2ST No 1808 of 1930 Septimus from the Furzebrook Railway near Swanage which was built to this unusual gauge.

Sadly, the revival did not happen, because of legal difficulties over the ownership of the trackbed. It is believed that Septimus arrived at Peckett's works at Bristol in 1956 and was scrapped six years later.

Despite the building of the M5 in the 70s, the WCPR remains the only direct route linking the three coastal towns from which it takes its name. Travelling between any of them by road today is a meandering exercise, and in many ways a great opportunity was lost.

Enter the battleaxe

In The Titfield Thunderbolt, the villagers set out to save their local transport link, not run steam engines for posterity. That is exactly what Sussex spinster Madge Bessemer, granddaughter of Henry Bessemer, inventor of Bessemer Converter for converting pig iron into steel, aimed to do.

Her father, Henry William Bessemer, a chartered accountant, and his wife Rose lived on the Burchetts estate at North Chailey, a stone's throw from the LBSCR's Lewes-East Grinstead line which opened on 1 August 1882. Their 14-bedroom mansion house was built in 1905 and they bought the freehold of the estate in 1911.

Mrs Bessemer reached an agreement with the railway to have a private gate built to access the footpath alongside Newick and Chailey station, providing a quick access route for the family. In 1924, Mr Bessemer chartered a special free train for parishioners to visit the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.

Madge Bessemer became heavily involved in local community life, teaching at a village school and serving as a parish councillor, a girl guide captain and commandant of the local branch of the Red Cross.

A lover of wildlife, it has been theorised that while picking spring flowers on the embankment near her estate that she may have herself come up with the nickname of the 'Bluebell Line'. Local vicar the Rev Edwin Matthias said that she "tried to emulate her father with her straightforwardness and bull terrier-like attitude of not letting things go once involved, like a dog with a bone."

Madge Bessemer's greatest hour came when the British Transport Commission posted notices announcing that it would close the lossmaking Lewes-East Grinstead line with effect from 28 May 1955. She was determined from the start to stand in the way.

Studying key documents from the line's history, she reread the small print in the Act of Parliament which had given powers for its building. It required the owners to run four trains each day.

That was the loophole that she needed. Aided by local MP Tufton Beamish, she forced British Railways to reinstate the service – which it very begrudgingly did in August the following year. Historians dubbed it the 'sulky service'. BR had to comply with the law, but blatantly did so begrudgingly. The statutory four services were mostly restricted to just a single coach, and they did not stop at Barcombe or Kingscote, because those two stations did not appear in the original Act.

Also, the restored services appeared to be deliberately timed so that they would be of little use, arriving at East Grinstead after the start of normal working hours and departing before the end of the working day.

Nonetheless, Madge Bessemer had won a reprieve for the line until BR obtained the statutory powers for revoking the terms of the original Act. Services were again withdrawn between Lewes and East Grinstead on 16 March 1958, but this time she could do nothing.

However, her stalwart efforts had attracted national media attention, and when the final train ran, the unduly large numbers of passengers and sightseers proved that the public at large really did care about rail closures.

Such scenes sowed the idea that just maybe, it did not have to be the final word after all.

Student power

On that final day, Madge Bessemer encountered Carshalton Technical College student Chris Campbell, who shared his many recollections of travelling on the line while spending school holidays with relatives. Inspired by her efforts to save the line, Chris, then 18, wondered if it might be possible that he could take up the cudgel.

Meanwhile, Martin Eastland, 19, a telecommunications engineering student of Haywards Heath, David Dallimore, a student at the London School of Economics, from Woodingdean, and Brighton-based Alan Sturt, 19, who was studying at the Regent Street Polytechnic, had mooted the idea of setting up a Lewes and East Grinstead Railway Preservation Society, drawing on the examples of the Welsh narrow gauge lines.

They sent a letter to interested parties highlighting the Bessemer's campaign and the unexpected public support that it had generated.

They initially hoped to save the entire route, reopening it stages at a time, acquiring a GWR railcar for regular use and using steam during the summer months. Incidentally, the preservation of GWR railcar W4W for Swindon Railway Museum in 1958 may be deemed to mark the start of diesel preservation.

In December 1958, Chris told a journalist on the East Grinstead Observer about the possible formation of a preservation society, leading to the headline: 'Bluebell Line Sensation – May Be Run Privately'.

Chris travelled on a rambler's excursion from Victoria to Horsted Keynes on 7 December, two days after the newspaper report was published. At Horsted Keynes, his party of five walked south along the disused track to Newick & Chailey station where they had lunch within the sight of Madge Bessemer who was picking flowers on the lineside opposite. It was then that Chris met Martin for the first time and decided to call a public meeting to officially launch the society.

The founders' meeting was held on 15 March 1959, at the Church Lads' Brigade Hall in Haywards Heath.

It was chaired by Bernard Holden, 51, a signalling assistant in the general manager's office at Liverpool Street, because the students were minors in the eyes of the then law as they were all under 21 and legally barred from holding positions. Bernard had been born in Barcombe station house where his father Charles was stationmaster.

A collection raised £6 for society funds, and a meeting with the assistant general manager of the Southern Region was arranged to take place at Waterloo on 5 April.

The preservationists were hardly taken seriously, probably because of their age if not their lofty ambitions. A price of £55,000 for the purchase of the line between Horsted Keynes (then still in use as the eastern end of the electrified Ardingly branch) and Culver Junction was quoted, and the society was given just a month's option to purchase.

Eventually, however, an affordable £2500 per annum five-year lease on the four-mile Horsted Keynes-Sheffield Park section was agreed. With the Sheffield Park booking office rented for 2s 6d (12½p) per week, the first Bluebell train ran on 7 August 1960. It was hauled by LBSCR 'Terrier' 0-6-0T No 55 Stepney and comprised Maunsell coach No 6575 of 1929 and LSWR coach No 320 of 1900, both painted in 'Bluebell blue' livery. The Bluebell Railway continued to acquire mostly small, and mostly Southern types of locomotive through the early 1960s.

That first train ran little more than five months after British Rail outshopped its last steam locomotive, Standard 9F 2-10-0 No 92220 Evening Star, from Swindon (see News, pages 12 and 13). The entire Lewes-East Grinstead route had not been saved, but something perhaps far more magnificent had begun.

Every Heritage Railway reader has just cause to celebrate the Bluebell Railway's 60th anniversary this year. It is highly probable that standard gauge preservation would have happened anyway: after the closure of the entire Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway system on 28 February 1959, apart from a few odd sections, revivalists similarly expressed an aim to take over the whole lot. Of course they could not manage it, but their dreams eventually led them down a path to saving the most scenic section of the route, in the form of the North Norfolk Railway. Also in 1959, the Railway Preservation Society West Midlands, which eventually set up the Chasewater Railway on a section of former mineral line, was formed at a meeting in Stafford.

Yet what is certain, however, is that had the Bluebell Railway not started in operations in 1960, its shining example of what was possible – it was the first time that a redundant section of the national network had been reopened by volunteers – would not have been there for others to follow. If the preservation movement had taken several more years to reach that stage, how many now-priceless examples of classic locomotives and rolling stock would have been lost forever?

Indeed, it was to be another eight years before the next former BR line to be reopened as a heritage line, the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, would run public trains. By then Dr Beeching had written his report, many more branch lines, and some main lines had closed, and many more would follow.

Another diesel led the way

The Bluebell was not the first private standard gauge railway to run trains. In that respect, it was beaten by several weeks by the Middleton Railway in Leeds, which started operating public services on 20 June 1960 a few weeks earlier. In doing so, it kept alive the Middleton's proud boast that it is the world's oldest railway in continuous operation, having been founded in 1758. The aims of the Bluebell and the Middleton revivals were in many ways poles apart. The Bluebell revivalists had set out to keep a route open, whereas their Middleton counterparts had initially wanted a line on which they could run historic trams, not trains.

Furthermore, the first Middleton heritage era train – and therefore the first in British standard gauge preservation – was hauled not by a steam locomotive, but by a diesel!

Leeds University Union Railway Society had been seeking somewhere to home the historic Leeds street tramcars that they had managed to preserve. In September 1959, it was suggested that a suitable railway should be acquired or even built on which to run them.

The university frowned on the idea of students building and running a tramline on its sports ground at West Park.

One student, Chris Thornburn, then suggested that the Middleton Railway could be instead used for this purpose. The decision by the National Coal Board to switch the bulk of the shipments of coal from Broom Pit, from rail to road left much of the historic line redundant. Because of the university's lack of support, the Middleton Railway Preservation Society was founded in December 1959 as a separate organisation.

The prime mover was lecturer and society president the late Dr Fred Youell, who fought and won a seemingly impossible battle against all odds to make it happen.

He obtained agreements for the use of the line, the majority of which was owned by Clayton, Son & Co Ltd, and by the following June, university rag week, everything was in place.

The first train comprised Hunslet diesel shunter No 1697 (later named John Alcock) which had worked on the LMS in 1932 and was therefore the very first preserved main line diesel locomotive in Britain, hauling Swansea & Mumbles Railway tramcar No. 2, which had been obtained following the controversial closure of what was the world's first public passenger-carrying line on 5 January that year.

That first week of services saw around 7700 passengers carried, showing that a heritage railway could become an attraction.

The society had not set out to run regular services, but its exploits prompted the reinstatenrent of freight traffic on the line.

Two farms, Clayton and Robinson & Birdsell, agreed to use the line, and three months later, it reopened to goods, trains being worked by students between lectures.

It could be argued that the railway was merely carrying on before, and was not 'preservation' in the traditional sense. Yet just like their Talyllyn, Ffestiniog and Bluebell counterparts, the students were not paid.

The dream of a private tram line slowly faded away as the railway carried more than 10,000 tons of freight a year under volunteer auspices. Most of the preserved trams ended up at Derbyshire's Crich Tramway Museum.

The Middleton did not initially go in for main line engines, but in September 1961 did acquire LNER Sentinel Y1 4wVBT Departmental No 54. The following year, Fred Youell bought GER N7 0-6-2T No 69621, the intention being to use it to haul coal trains on the line. This never happened and the engine remained in store at nearby Neville Hill shed.

By 1969, however, the days of wagonload traffic on BR were over, and the Middleton looked again towards passenger trains as a means of generating revenue as goods traffic went into terminal decline (finally ending in 1983). That August, the line's first regular passenger services were started, at weekends only, using either Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0ST Henry de Lacy or LNER Sentinel No 54.

Very regrettably, one of preservation's biggest own goals was scored by the Middleton in 1969, with the scrapping of the Mumbles tramcar, a sole survivor, after it was declared unsafe and no other home could be found for it.

A major threat to the railway's future was overcome in 1971 with the construction of a 100-yard tunnel under the South Leeds Urban Motorway (now M621, formerly M1) despite opposition from the Department of Transport. Like Madge Bessemer before him, Fred Youell drew on the original Act of Parliament to get his way, and the DoT saw it was cheaper to build the tunnel than get the Act specially repealed.

What is particularly inspiring about the Middleton Railway is that it effectively started industrial standard gauge preservation, and was later followed by outfits like the Foxfield and Tanfield railways, very different from the Bluebell Railway and its main line steam types.

A third Welsh line saved

In the wake of the saving of the Talylyn and Ffestiniog railways, moves began to save a third line, the 2ft 6in gauge Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, which had lost its passenger services on 7 February 1931.

After nationalisation in 1948, it seemed just a matter of time before the line was closed by BR, just as the Corris Railway had been that year.

In 1952, the Narrow Gauge Railway Society asked the Western Region about the possibility of saving one of the three classic Welsh narrow gauge lines that it had inherited from the GWR, the others being the Corris and the Vale of Rheidol. Society founder secretary Eric G Cope suggested a national appeal or the launch of a private company to save the WLLR.

He was pleasantly surprised to be told that if the line were closed, the British Transport Commission would not object to its sale, and a price of £6000 for the line and £300 for its two original Beyer Peacock 0-6-0Ts The Earl and Countess (Nos 822/3) was discussed. In July 1956, Llanfair Parish Council invited approaches from enthusiasts who might be interested in taking over the line, at a time when closure was all but a certainty.

BR finally announced that services would be withdrawn from 5 November that year. The last freight train ran three days earlier, while the Festiniog Railway Society had run a farewell trip the month before.

On 15 September 1956, London printer William Morris had also run a special over the line in a bid to engender support, and afterwards held a public meeting in the town, inviting people to join a new preservation society. This was the turning point. The society held its first general meeting in London on 23 November 1956 with William Morris as secretary and Stanley H Keyse as its legal advisor.

Society members became disappointed and then angered by a British Railways claim that the Light Railway Order insisted that the WLLR should be run by an existing company, and the revivalists threatened to take their case to the Ministry of Transport, while Welshpool Town Council said that it wanted rid of the tram-like urban section between Welshpool's main line station and Raven Square halt, so that slum cleaance could take place and the nuisance to traffic presented to trains could be eradicated. The possibility of leasing the line from BR was proposed, but because of the council's objections, only the line west of Raven Square would be offered to the revivalists.

In early 1959, BR offered terms for a 42-year lease, with the engines and rolling stock acquired by hire purchase over a 10-year period.

So July 1959 saw the first working parties descend on the line to clear vegetation.

January 4 1960 saw the incorporation of the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway Preservation Company Ltd, with its first meeting taking place at a pub in Paddington five days later. On 11 March 1961, the preservation society was wound up and its assets transferred to the new company.

It became clear that the new headquarters of the line would have to be at Llanfair rather than Welshpool because the town section would be lost, and the Ministry of Transport ruled that the preservationists would not be allowed to run trains across the A458 at Raven Square.

Just as a World War One Simplex petrol tractor had hauled the first trains on the revived Ffestiniog, and a Hunslet diesel headed the first Middleton heritage trains, so the first operational motive power at Welshpool under the revivalists was Ruston & Hornsby fourwheeled diesel No 17037 of 1934. It had been supplied new for the Mid Lincolnshire Ironstone Company and was donated to the preservationists by John Lysaght Scunthorpe Works Ltd, arriving on 28 March 1961 and named Raven after the pub at the new western terminus.

The original two locomotives were overhauled at Oswestry and The Earl arrived back on 28 July 1961, steaming in Welshpool yard. Four bogie 'toastrack' coaches from the Royal Navy's closed Chattenden & Upnor Light Railway in Kent along with a bogie combination coach were obtained.

Two months later, the first steam trips in five years were run from Welshpool to Llanfair, but Raven was called upon to give assistance because of the problem with tackling the notorious Golfa Bank.

Sixty years to the day after the first opening ceremony on 6 April 1903, The Earl hauled a two-coach special from Welshpool yard to Llanfair, marking the official reopening of the line.

It was the same week that Dr Beeching's report on the future of BR, in which mass closures far and wide were announced, was published, and yet just over the Welsh border, the little revived railway found itself in the spotlight as the latest torchbearer for the survival of steam.

Two days earlier, the town council completed the purchase of the town section, and banned the running of trains over it after 17 August 1963. That day, the final through train from Welshpool's main line station to Raven Square and beyond was doubleheaded by Nos 1 and 2 on 17 August 1963, and two days later tracklifting commenced. It was a classic case of preservation in retreat: in the 21st century, with most of the route still unblocked, the town council decided that it would like to see the town section relaid – if someone could provide the colossal amount of money to do so… On 12 March 1974, the purchase of the freehold of the line from BR for £8000 was completed.

With the revivalists relocating the line's headquarters by necessity to Llanfair Caereinion and rebuilding eastwards, it was not until 18 July 1981 that public services were extended from Sylvaen back to Welshpool (Raven Square), which has been extensively developed as a new terminus.

The saving of La'al Ratty

While the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway in its 15in gauge form had been set up by Wenman Joseph Bassett Lowke in 1915 as a tourist concern, running on the trackbed of the closed 3ft gauge original line, it could not as such be classified as preservation, or even heritage. Such outfits, the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch and the Fairbourne railways being the two other main examples, were far more akin to the seaside miniature railways of the 20th century, which reflected the main line scene of the day.

However, that all changed in 1960, when La'al Ratty, as the line is affectionately known, was taken over with the formation of a preservation society.

After World War Two, the railway was acquired by the Keswick Granite Company who closed the quarries served by a mixed standard/narrow gauge section.When the passenger services continued to lose money, the firm decided to auction the railway in 1960.

Local parish councillors mustered support from enthusiasts who saved the line.

Colin Gilbert, Douglas Robinson and Sir Wavell Wakefield formed a new railway company to operate the trains, with a preservation society for the line's supporters.

Because there were only two steam locomotives, the new society responded by raising funds for a new steam engine, 2-8-2 River Mite in 1966.

The late Lord Wakefield of Kendal became chairman of the railway after Colin Gilbert. The society reached a working agreement supporting the company, which endures today because his family wished the railway to continue to operate exactly as it did before his death. Under that arrangement, the line has gone from strength to strength and is now one of the Lake District's principal manmade tourist attractions.

Private preservation

Continuing a trend started in 1959, a few engines continued to be purchased by private individuals for static preservation.

In August 1960, a second Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 0-6-0 was purchased, No 52322, but although it was LYR No 1300, it was restored as No 1122, at White Bear station, Adlington, Lancashire.

In 1961, Ian Fraser bought LNER 4-4-0 No 62712 Morayshire and had it externally restored at Inverurie works.

In February 1964, Lord Montagu bought SR 4-4-0 No 30928 Stowe, which was exhibited at his motor museum at Beaulieu with three Pullman cars.

GWR 0-4-0ST No 1338 formed the centrepiece of a small but now long-gone museum at Bleadon & Uphill station in Somerset, while NBR 0-4-0ST No 68095 was preserved in a yard at Shettleston in Scotland.

Increasingly, some individuals though, wanted to run their expensive new acquisitions. Captain Smith's GNR J52 0-6-0ST No 1247 was first into railtour service, on 17 June 1961, with a brakevan tour from Hatfield to St Albans. The little 0-6-0ST even hauled six coaches from London Bridge to the Bluebell Railway on 1 April 1962.

The first big engines privately preserved for railtour service were both Gresley engines, Viscount Garnock's LNER K4 2-6-0 No 3442 The Great Marquess (BR No 61994), overhauled at Cowlairs, but based at Leeds Neville Hill shed, returned to service on 4 May 1963 with the RCTS 'Dalesman' tour on a complex route from Bradford.

Its preservation was quickly followed by no less than Ffestiniog Railway saviour's Alan Pegler's latest purchase…LNER 4-6-2 No 4472 Flying Scotsman (BR No 60103), overhauled at Doncaster and based at Doncaster shed. Why this machine, which in 1934 became the first steam locomotive in the world to officially break the 100mph barrier, was not included in the National Collection list has left everyone baffled.

Alan launched his apple green Pacific into railtour service on 20 April 1963 on the Ffestiniog Railway AGM special from Paddington to Ruabon.

In 1964, Mike Higson purchased GWR 4-6-0 No 4079 Pendennis Castle on withdrawal, and based it at Southall shed. Its first railtours were not until 1965 though.

In the south, SER 0-6-0 No 65 (BR No 31065) at Ashford, and one of the last active LBSCR 'Terriers', No 32646 on the Meon Valley line at Droxford, were bought with the aim of future operation.

The Meon Valley, and another line at Westerham, were unsuccessful preservation attempts, although the volunteers from the latter scheme eventually helped save what is now the Kent & East Sussex Railway. Meanwhile, four main line engines, two big and two small, crossed the Atlantic after being sold to private buyers: LBSCR 0-6-0T No 54 Waddon (BR No 32654) and LNER 4-6-2 No 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower to the USA, and SR 4-4-0 No 926 Repton (BR No 30926) and LSWR 0-4-4T No 30053 to Canada. In addition, several of the Quarry Hunslet locomotives from the slate quarries in north Wales were bought by enthusiasts in North America, and still remain there today.

Preservation societies

There was an explosion of preservation societies in the early 1960s, some as previously mentioned, hoped to reopen entire railways, while others had more modest aspirations, aiming to save one historic engine, with sometimes little idea of what to do with it. The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway Society, formed in 1959, acquired two historic East Anglian engines after a momentous struggle to raise funds, LNER B12 4-6-0 No 61572 and GER 0-6-0 No 65462. The society still had not succeeded in terms of saving part of the M&GN, but was looking at the branch west from Sheringham towards Melton Constable, which closed in 1964.

The Gresley Society bought GNRN2 0-6-2T No 69523 from the scrapline at Doncaster works, and commenced restoration on National Coal Board premises, while at the other end of the scale, the first society acquisition of a big main line express engine was LMS Princess Royal Pacific No 46201 Princess Elizabeth by the Princess Elizabeth Locomotive Society in 1963, and which was returned to steam in 1965.

The London Railway Preservation Society met with some success and found itself the proud owners of Metropolitan 0-4-4T No L44, L&Y 'Pug' 0-4-0ST No 11243 and LSWR Beattie 2-4-0WT No 30585, as well as industrial tanks engines and vintage rolling stock.

More industrials preserved

In addition, of course, many societies were purchasing industrial locomotives, and these numbers were swelled by locomotives being donated to local preservation societies.

Also of note, was the repainting by the NCB of North Staffordshire Railway 0-6-2T No 2, for display at an exhibition at Stoke-on-Trent in 1960. It duly returned to its colliery in Lancashire and sported its fine livery until eventual withdrawal. Another 0-6-2T, Taff Vale No 28, was donated to the National Collection by the NCB.

Industrial saddle tanks may not have hauled passenger trains in their working life, but were to become a backbone of preservation, with many heritage lines which were launched in the decades following the Bluebell and Middleton railways using them as staple motive power until more authentic main line types became available. There was even a museum opened dedicated mainly to the preservation of industrial locomotives, at Penrhyn Castle in North Wales. Representing the main line though, was LNWR Coal Tank No 1054, privately preserved in 1959 and which had been externally restored at Crewe works.

Between 1960 and 1964, BR's steam fleet had been decimated, the GW Kings had all been withdrawn, although a handful of Castles survived, the LMS Pacifics all retired by October 1964, LNER Pacifics were down to single figures in England, with just a few more hanging on in Scotland, and only the Southern still had significant numbers of express steam engines, in the shape of the relatively modern Bulleid Pacifics.

There were still 19th century veterans on BR's books though; there was plenty more that would be worthy of preservation before BR steam ended. An excellent start had been made in preserving Britain's steam heritage by a combination of 'official' preservation and the efforts of what had become thousands of volunteers.