Steam Days at Colchester by Dave Goodyear

David Goodyear’s wonderfully illustrated, interesting, well researched show about “Colchester In The Age of Steam 1843-1962” was received to great applause. It embraced both the history and the memories of the railways in and around England’s newest city Colchester,for long Britain’s oldest town, with some historic and unique photographs of the Colchester area all the way through to the end of steam in 1962. Dave grew up in Harwich, where his father worked for the railways marine engineering and travelled to the senior school in in Colchester. He did not work for the railways but later spent a short time at the PAXMANS Britannica Works working on the HST Ventura Engines. These works, sited behind the St. Botolph’s Station with a link onto the St Botolph’s line, had produced crankcases for the D Day Landing Craft and locos for the 15 inch RHDR.

Colchester was where Eastern Counties and Eastern Union Railways originally joined up creating an awkward reverse curve through the station with a 40 mph restriction as illustrated by a photograph from the 1870’s. Sadly there was a tragic accident here on 12th July 1913 when the ‘Norfolk Coast Express’ to Cromer ran into a stationary light engine. The LNER started works to straighten this all out in 1933 and it was only completed by BR when electrification came. It later became the junction station for the Great Eastern Stour Valley Line services and for the Clacton services and others serving Walton On the Naze, Brightlingsea, and Harwich. As we also saw there was the little branch to St. Botolph's in the city centre and the Hythe Tramway serving the river quays and Gas Works. There were three goods yards, three stations, a locomotive  depot serving Colchester, plus the Great Eastern Railway’s main laundry facility. The Colne Valley Line remained independent until the grouping in 1923 which absorbed all into the LNER. Therefore Colchester saw a huge variety of Gt. Eastern, LNER and other locomotives and traffic. Notably featured were a B17 No. 61659 ‘East Anglian’ on a Down Norwich express, WD 2-8-0 No. 90304 seen just before its transfer to March depot in 1951, D16 No. 62618 and J15 No. 65424 on Stour Valley locals, a B2 No. 61615 ‘Culford Hall’ on the Down ‘Day Continental’ and Britannia Class No. 70039 ‘Sir Christopher Wren’ on a Harwich to Liverpool Street working, including a Gresley articulated pair in the formation. In 1948 LNER “Mallard style” Streamlined B17s hauled the East Anglian Express to Norwich. There was also a  Southern streamlined pacific fitted with spoked driving wheels and excursions from the Midlands that ran through to the coast. Britannia Class locos hauled the London – Clacton trains. Electrification at 25KV AC started in 1959 with the Colchester – Clacton/ Walton lines and Derby Lightweight DMUs started to serve Brightlingsea. Electrification through to London was completed in 1962 and diesel locomotives were starting to work the expresses.>>