9th May 2023 “Aspects of Southern Steam” by Brian Benford

By CBR Cambridge | 2023-05-12
1927-built S15 Class 4-6-0 No. 825 runs round its train at Grosmont on August 14th 2005. The S15 Class was introduced in 1920 as a heavy freight locomotive, designed by Robert Urie of the London & South Western Railway. It was so successful that two further batches were built by the Southern Railway in 1927 and 1936, but to a slightly modified Richard Maunsell design with various detail differences. Photo: Alan Jones
1927-built S15 Class 4-6-0 No. 825 runs round its train at Grosmont on August 14th 2005. The S15 Class was introduced in 1920 as a heavy freight locomotive, designed by Robert Urie of the London & South Western Railway. It was so successful that two further batches were built by the Southern Railway in 1927 and 1936, but to a slightly modified Richard Maunsell design with various detail differences. Photo: Alan Jones

Our final meeting of the 2022/23 season was a particular treat from Brian Benford’s wonderful archive of Southern steam photographs.

The talk focused mainly on 1930s and 1940s scenes across the Southern, including U, N, J and H class locomotives on Ashford shed in 1939, Class A1X 0-6-0T at Havant in 1937, Merchant Navy Class 4-6-2 No. 21C11 ‘General Steam Navigation’ at Clapham Junction on the Devon Belle, Lord Nelson Class No. 852 ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’ at Dover Marine in 1937 and 21C20 “Bibby Line” at Nine Elms depot in 1947.

We saw many views at popular locations such as Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester and Bournemouth. A striking feature of many of the images around these places was just how open these areas were in the 1930s compared with the present-day scenes.

Brian covered a number of the lesser lines in the region, such as the Kent and East Sussex Railway with 1930s views of Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 at Sherpherdswell, the Isle of Wight in the form of a 1938 view of E1 class 0-6-0T No. 2 ‘Yarmouth’ at Newport and the Kent and East Sussex Railway with a charming 1947 view of No.3 at Rolvenden. We were also treated to a rare view of Fort Brockhurst station on the Lee-on-Solent Branch, which apparently made a loss on every single day of its operation from opening in 1894 to the withdrawal of passenger services on 1st January 1931! Further views of unusual workings included Bulleid’s unsuccessful ‘Leander’ class 0-6-0+0-6-0 locomotive No. 36001 at Norwood Junction and LMS Diesel No. 10001 at Basingstoke in 1953.

Brian concluded the evening with a couple of ‘out of area’ photographs from the locomotive exchanges that followed Nationalisation in 1948, including West Country Class Pacific No. 34006 ‘Bude’ at Aylesbury and Merchant Navy Class No. 35017 ‘Belgian Marine’ at Wakefield Westgate.

The meeting closed at 9.47 p.m. with great appreciation from all present to Brian for a wonderful evening of rare images that captured the variety and charm of steam on the Southern.

Posted in CBR Meeting Report