Steam Days

Steam Days is a monthly magazine dedicated to all steam railway enthusiasts. Each issue covers the six regions of British Railways: Western, Southern, London, Midland, Eastern, and Scottish, with the occasional article on Irish railways and the industrial scene. These well illustrated articles in the magazine cover the history of the railways of Britain from the early days of the 1800s through to the end of steam on British Railways in August 1968.

Steam Days

TRAINS of thought

Talyllyn transition From obscurity to world fame • Rescued at a time when taking over a railway to preserve its charm was a world first, Andrew Kennedy considers how a woebegone and ramshackle line was rejuvenated and history was made in May1951.

A chapter of accidents on the Alnwick lines • Shining a spotlight on the two railways that served this Northumberland market town, Roger Jermy delves through the archives to reveal decades of railway mishaps, some of them tragic.

Castlethorpe’s railway story: investment and loss • The 1960s saw widespread change across the railway network and Castlethorpe, on the West Coast main line, found itself in the midst of modernisation. While the water troughs were destined to fall out of use in such times, there was a threat too that the station might go. From a speeding express, this community might be missed in the blink of an eye, but it did not give up its station without a fight. The London & North Western Railway Society’s Ian Hopkins and Richard Foster tell the story of its final years, and beyond.

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Treasured times at Laira • On site unofficially, like so many railway enthusiasts in the early to mid-1950s, this ex-GWR main line engine shed was a regular haunt for Peter Kerslake in his teenage years, with his visits particularly fruitful for photography in 1956, the year he turned 20.

Bournemouth’s steam visitors • Colin Boocock reminisces about the locomotive visitors that excited observers at Bournemouth Central in the 1950s.

Readers Letters • As something different, all of letters for this issue of Tail Lamp have a link to Scottish subjects that have been covered in recent times.