Eastern Times Issue 2: Summer 2023
With this periodical, we aim to bring you differing and interesting articles from the LNER, the many railway companies that preceded the formation of the LNER in 1923 and similarly the successor to the LNER when the company was divided into the new British Railways’ Eastern Region, North Eastern Region and part of the Scottish Region.
In this edition we have more excellent articles from our contributors starting with the elegant ‘R’ (D20) class 4-4-0 designed by Wilson Wordsell of the North Eastern Railway, the class giving service for over 50 years. This is followed by one man’s tale of how steam lingered on well after official withdrawal dates on his local line. We all have our favourite engines for many varied reasons, the elegant lines of A3 Spearmint are recalled and the reasons why it became a favourite explained.
We then move to a more modern era and a signalman’s recollection of his working life at Broxbourne Junction in the late 70s and early 80s accompanied by excellent photographs of the trains he controlled. Then jumping to something completely different we feature Charlie, ‘The Last Shunting Horse’ who was the last of his kind to work on the railways, appropriately at Newmarket.
Moving to the capital there is a feature of how the LNER were a large part of the modernisation of the transport system needed to meet the demands of long-suffering commuters in an ever expanding metropolis before and after the Second World War.
Most of us would have heard of renowned photographer H. C. Casserley, who would take an annual two-week holiday to travel and photograph the railway system, this usually covered a large area of the country. We follow one such trip he made in 1954 accompanied by many of the photographs taken at various locations throughout the trip, there are so many photos that we have had to split this article in two with the conclusion to appear in issue 3. Finally for this issue we head north and have a pictorial feature of West Hartlepool followed by a trip on ‘The Edinburgh Fast’.
Contents -
- Introduction
- The Class R 4-4-0s of the North Eastern Railway
- Tales of a B17 Spotter
- No. 60100 Spearmint
- Broxbourne Junction Signal Box
- B1 at Banavie
- The Last Shunting Horse
- The 1935 LNER New Works Scheme
- The Man from the Pru – Part 1
- West Hartlepool (51C) in pictures
- The Edinburgh Flyer
- The Headshunt
Magazine, 80 pages, around 90 photographs
ISBN: 9781913251574
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