Heritage Railway – July 27, 2018

THE weeks ahead will see several special events and railtours to mark the 50th anniversary of the last steam train run over the main line by BR, the ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’ on August 11, 1968, and to mark the occasion, our special issue this month contains two features from photographers who were there to witness it.

We also have two feature son the rebirth of steam half a century ago – that magnificent eight-day gala at the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, and the opening in September 1968 of the marvellous main line in miniature system that is the Great Cock crow Railway in leafy Surrey.

Of course celebrating half centenaries is one thing, but September is also set to see a phenomenal part of world railway history being remade. It is then that we are likely to see the rebuilt North Eastern Railway petrol-electric autocar being relaunched.

The body was sold for use as a holiday home near Kirkby moorside on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and was forgotten for decades, its colossal importance in the evolution of railways overlooked.

Yet it is this vehicle and its long-scrapped twin that form the bridge link between the steam era and that of modern traction. They were developed around the same time that other railways were introducing steam rail motors as a means of running branch line trains as economically as possible by eradicating the need for locomotives to run round.