By the 1950s, for more than a century, steam had ruled supreme on the railways of Britain but even before this there were signs that the awesome locomotives that were an everyday part of life and had their roots in the birth of the industrial revolution would not survive for ever.
In Europe nations were progressing with diesel and electric traction and on our own shores experimentation was carried out even before the birth of the nationalised British Railways Company. Europe had been devastated by the ravages of war and the UK’s rail network, in particular, was now in a very run down state, structurally and in terms of rolling stock and motive power. The Government instigated modernisation plans under the auspices of the British Railways Board that had been set up in 1948 and this lead to the total eradication of steam from the national network in little more than a decade and a half .
The practice of saving significant historical railway artifacts, including locomotives, for the national heritage had long applied and eventually led to the establishment of the National Railway Museum in York. Had it not however been for certain quirks of fate, circumstances could have been very different and we may never have experienced the major renaissance of steam power that has ultimately led to today’s thriving preservation movement.
In this programme we take in the final years of steam as it is was replaced by diesel power. The significance of Dai Woodham’s Barry Island scrap yard, which quite by accident provided large numbers of engines that could be rescued and restored to running order, is discussed along with that of the famous Beeching plan, which actually provided the mainstay of our current wealth of preserved lines.
Like a phoenix from the ashes the rise of steam is followed to culminate in the rich wealth of railway history that we can now all enjoy, right the way across the country, and that acts as a major part of the tourist scene in Britain

£17.95

Format: PAL DVD -R 16:9| Region: 0 | Reference No: CMV 8010 | Running Time: Approx. 105 Minutes | View Trailer

Following the publication of the 1955 Modernisation Plan, which set out to establish the future of Britain’s rail network, it seemed that the writing was on the wall for steam traction. With the Beeching Report the pace of change gathered speed, and the move to alternative traction was accompanied by considerable contraction of the network.
The last steam locomotive built for British Railways, aptly named Evening Star, was outshopped from Swindon Works in 1960, and amazingly the last steam locomotives were withdrawn from service in August 1968! This decline from the mid-1950s forms the first part of this book, as hundreds upon hundreds of locomotives were sent to the breaker’s yards. The scrap yards are the sombre location of the second section, which looks at these ‘abattoirs of steam’, where the vast majority of locomotives were despatched by the cutter’s torch all too rapidly.
However, among the scenes of devastation something remarkable was
happening. Enthusiasts noticed that at one yard, old wagons were being cut up but locomotives were not. This was the remarkable yard of Dai Woodham at Barry Docks in South Wales – locomotives were going to Dai, but not to die!
Thanks in large part to this remarkable man we are able to move to our third section, the preservation years, when locomotives were reserved, then purchased (often gradually) and eventually moved to fledgling preserved lines all over the country to be restored. Having been banned seemingly for ever, steam eventually returned to the main line, and we look at today’s thriving heritage railway scene, with more than 8 million visitors a year – a fall and rise indeed!

£30.00

Format: Hardback | ISBN: 978 1 85794 330 6 | Author: John Stretton & Peter Townsend

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