TRIBUTE TO JIM SARNEY

Jim sadly passed away on Monday 14 February 2022. Jim’s passion for steam was with him all his life being on the footplate in steam days where his love of GWR locomotives came to the fore, particularly 0-6-0 pannier tanks.

However Jim’s first taste of road steam was at the young age of ten, when Sally Beach brought the gallopers and fair to Flackwell Heath, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in August 1951. The fair was hauled by a Burrell 8nhp showman’s and a Burrell showman’s tractor. The larger Burrell was the first ever engine Jim got to know, Burrell No. 2894 Lord Fisher, built in 1907, formerly named Pride of Worcester, which hauled a powered Beach’s fair and was driven by Bill Stevens, it was while the fair was at Flackwell Heath, where Jim lived, that he was invited to get up on the footplate of the Burrell, so this was his very first taste of being on an engine!

Jim grew up with steam as it