The last timetabled steam train on British Railways ran exactly fifty
years ago, Saturday 3rd August 1968. That evening, Preston station was
packed with enthusiasts and general public alike to witness the
departure of the last two
ordinary, timetabled steam hauled trains. The Blackpool train had
already left at 20.50 behind 45212. Everyone now waited for
the very last one of all, the 21.25 Preston (ex Glasgow) to Liverpool
Exchange
leave with LMS Class 5, 45318 at the head of a packed train. The driver
of the train, Ernie Heyes died on 25th June 2010, aged 75. RIP.
The
following week, Saturday 11th August, ran the famous 15 Guinea special,
and that was the end. British Railways enforced a total ban on steam,
which in the event, and entirely unexpectedly, lasted for only three
years, with the running, in the autumn of 1971, of a special train headed by the Great Western
locomotive King George V.
So disappeared as
characteristic feature of the English landscape as the hedgerow elms.
The demise of steam in Britain was a shameful story of waste and
political interference driven by an absurd concern for ‘image‘, an issue
which continues to get in the way of good decisions in almost every
sphere of business and industry.
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