BREAKING BR’S STEAM BAN
FIFTY years ago on October 2, 1971, steam officially returned to British Rail metals, after being banned for just over three years since the ‘15 Guinea Special’ of August 11, 1968 marked the official end of mainline steam.
The lifting of the ban was an historic moment as, during the intervening years, the only steam loco permitted to operate on BR had been Alan Pegler’s A3 Flying Scotsman, which had been subject to a three-year agreement from April 1968.
With the expiry of the Pegler contract, the agreement to run that first train from Hereford to Birmingham as part of afourday tour, hauled by GWR 4-6-0 No. 6000 King George V, was in no small part due to the lobbying of BR chairman Richard Marsh by Peter Prior and many others. At the time Mr Prior was the chairman and managing director of Hereford-based cider makers Bulmers, which had custody of the ‘King’.
Just to be factually correct here, BR’s ban had been previously relaxed in July 1969 to allow three steam locomotives – Nos. 5593 Kolhapur, 7029 Clun Castle and 5428 Eric Treacy – to run on a length of track at an open day at Cricklewood depot held on July 12, while anumber of other BR open days around the time also featured steam locos. But nothing other than No. 4472 had hauled a tour under its own steam on the main line.
The ban is broken
October 2, 1971 saw the ‘King’ haul a number of Pullman carriages, owned by Bulmers, and some Mk.1s from Hereford via Severn Tunnel Junction, Swindon and Oxford to Tyseley. The fare was £5 – equivalent to just over £70 in today’s money.
worked the second of the four specials on October 4, returning
