IN retrospect, the summer of 1962 was pivotal in the annals of British locomotive history. The balance between steam and diesel power started to weigh more heavily in favour of modern traction, as ‘Deltics’ held sway on the East Coast Main Line, swathes of the United Kingdom saw steam only infrequently, and the locomotive doyens of the ‘Big Four’ railway companies began their inevitable trudge to the scrapyards. It was to be the last summer of the ‘Kings’ and, while steam was to hang on another six years, each year to 1968 would see fewer strongholds in which refuge could be sought.
One might think this turning point would have been the subject of Practice and Performance articles at the time. Delving into The Railway Magazine archive, O S Nock was concentrating on the new motive power but railing against the fading of the light, saying that his log of ‘Hymek’ Type 3 No. 7009 on a hefty 14-coach Bristol-Paddington express had not started from Bath as briskly as some ‘Castles’. The message was that most steam locos could match the output of their replacement diesels at far less capital expense, and it would have been more effective to develop steam technology until and unless electrification was possible. Who is to say he was wrong, but perhaps that development of steam technology had actually taken place with the Standard locomotives of the early 1950s until the strategy had… run out of steam?
However, the concerns of current commentators that IETs on diesel power scarcely match the IC125s they have replaced is little different from those expressed when English Electric Type 4s ousted ‘Coronations’, or double-chimney ‘A3s’, let alone ‘A4s’. Mr Nock did concede defeat to ‘Deltics’ though, but only on performance, not cost.
Some of my 1962 summer was spent on a wooden fence opposite Huddersfield Hillhouse steam shed. Locals were formed of Metro-Camm DMUs, expresses were formed of smart but soulless Trans-Pennine six-car DMUs or Type 4 diesels. Tank engines still
