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

East Anglia portfolio • Photographic recollections from Peter Kerslake from his time spent working in East Anglia between August 1954 and December 1955.

1964 – A year to remember • A mix of some ‘not to miss’ tours on the Western and Eastern Regions, plus experiencing everyday steam on both the Southern and London Midland regions, has Peter Chatman recalling some highlights of rail travels 60 years ago.

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STEAM DAYS In Colour 230: GWR eight-coupled tank engines: Cardiff and beyond • The South Wales main line and Swansea District line provide a core route for a photographic appreciation of Churchward and Collett 2-8-0T and 2-8-2T activities west of Cardiff. Nominally, there were just three types, led by the Churchward ‘4200’ 2-8-0T, evolved by Charles Collett as the ‘5205’, and then donors from those fleets became ‘7200’ 2-8-2Ts for longer distance work, but as we will see, even within the remaining fleet of 2-8-0Ts, some 151 locos, there were many detail differences.

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Last rites on the Colliston branch • Opened as the Arbroath & Forfar Railway, John Macnab picks up the story of this byway in 1955 when it first became a branch line, but especially recalls its post-1959 time and the occasions when passenger stock could be found on what had become the goods-only Colliston branch.

British Railways: 1948 – winter conclusions • Andrew Kennedy offers an account of BR matters evolved from the news of the last three months of 1948, but also including something of an overview at the first year-end of the nationalised railway.

Tail Lamp • Readers’ Letters