It was a different day out - and I needed the long weekend to recharge batteries.
We went with Thomas (yes, the videographer son) to the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway in, unsurprisingly, mid-Suffolk today.
I have been a railway enthusiast since the age of 13. My interest in economics, accounting, social anthropology, and more is rooted in my fascination with railway history and how railways transformed nearly every aspect of life in the UK during the nineteenth century and beyond.
I have studied the subject in depth for as long as I have been interested in it. I had read just about everything available in Ipswich libraries on the subject by the time I was 16 or 17, and was then doing inter-library loans. My railway history collection contains more than 1,000 volumes.
The Mid-Suffolk line would have terminated within a mile of my home if it had ever reached its destination near Ipswich - but it did not. In fact, it never really reached anywhere and closed in 1952, but that is part of its enigma. A small part is now reopened, and we had a great time there.
I continued taking photos in black and white. The loco in use today was Sir Berkeley. Built in 1891, it was constructed by Manning Wardle, a company for whose products I have a great affection, even though it ceased trading in 1926. The loco is in largely original condition. It did not work the Mid-Suffolk of old, although products from an adjacent company in Hunslet in Leeds (Hudswell Clarke) did.
The train was made up of 1880s coaches built by the Great Eastern Railway, which served this area from 1862 (as a result of a grand merger of other companies) to 1923.
The new extension of the line through some lovely open countryside - which no one but us seemed bothered to walk to visit - and which is very attractive:
I am not sure three footplate crew were needed (two seen here), but I think they were having fun, as well as getting very hot:
And before we left, I paid a visit to the line's excellent second-hand bookshop and added nine more books to the collection, all for under £50:
All will be read. They are perfect end-of-the-day de-stressing material for me, and in fact, de-stressing material if ever stress arises. Jacqueline reckons she can quite accurately monitor my stress levels by the number of railway books open in the house.
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Good man!
Good to hear about your day out, Richard. I can’t say I’d ever want to match you on collecting railway books, but I’ve read a few, and have to say that I really enjoyed Simon Bradley’s ‘The Railways: Nation, Network and People’. Pretty much perfect in my opinion. Also Christian Woolmar’s ‘British Rail’. But the again I’ve a soft spot for my one time employer.
Anyway, I note from you pictures that the loco has an uncovered cab. Huhm! I know lots of railway enthusiasts enthuse about steam locos. But I can confidently say that every driver and second man over a certain age (and most were) that I worked with as a guard at Derby Four Shed hated them. Dirty and dusty. Cold and often wet in winter. And stinking hot in summer. Loads of time to get up to pressure on a coal morning, etc.
They loved their diesels (mainly at Four Shed, Class 20s – double headed for coal trains; 31s, 37s; 40s and 47s). Heated cabs, a small electric ring for making your brew, or cooking the (in)famous onion in tin foil. Easy to start on a cold morning. Sanding systems (for slippery tracks) that actually worked. And, above all, even small diesels, like the 20s were powerful for their size (the 20s made a very distinctive kind of ‘whistling’ sound that meant it was much easier to find one in a packed engine yard if the driver had gone on ahead to get things moving while I got our freight list).
Anyway, enough from me. I’ll be getting all dewy eyed soon 🙂
🙂
I sure that you are right about steam, and we would now need to be rid of it for environmental reasons, as even the preserved railway are finding – but many of those diesels are also now on the scrap heap as well. I did, by the way, edit your references to class 21 and change them to class 20, because I think that is technically correct, but if I have missed something, I apologise.
Correct – Class 20s Type 1 – engine made by English Electric – single cab switcher type freight loco – 1000hp Bo-Bo, usually paired up, some still going strong even today on the mainline. They used to use them on the Skegness specials in summer at Nottingham.
I liked the Class 40 – bigger English Electric engine (2000hp), bigger whistling noise, I can still remember one leaving Crewe to go to Holyhead circa 1983 – I’ll never forget it.
I was only ever hauled by two Class 20’s from York to Leeds in the late 1980’s – the Brush 4 had failed on the cross country train and these two took us down the Leeds line like a bat out of hell to make up time, we passed the Jubilee ‘Bahamas’ I think that was returning home too. I had my head out the window listening to the English Electric music all the way down through Pontefract etc.
Them were’t days!
I never liked the 20s.
I did like the 15s East Anglia had until 1971. Lots of early memories of them for some reason.
And 40s, sometimes on the Harwich – Liverpool boat train which was a Saturday favourite to get to Peterborough to see Deltics.
Class 20s, so thanks for editing (class 21s are ugly beasts). And, as PSR says, formerly known as English Electric Type 1s. I only ever did passenger train work if I worked overtime on a Sunday (usually DMUs) so my main interaction was always with locos used for freight.
I rather like 21s, and the diesel hydraulic version that worked on the Western region, even if both were dire and helped bring about the demise of NBL.
Nice work.
I got into railways as a boy – ‘left me with a love of systems – well, an appreciation of them – good and bad. Living in London for 6 years in the mid to late 1990s got me interested in the Southern Railway too which was quite a surprise for this LMS fan – I recently managed to get two good books on the Southern Moguls (2-6-0) – handsome and very capable machines made more so by the smoke deflectors fitted them – for a good price and a history of the Bullied Q1 0-6-0 tender locos too (very interesting). It’s lovely to lose yourself in this stuff – rolling stock too – but I reckon I have only 10% of your collection.
Those coaches are amazing!
I recently ordered the David Maidment history of the Bulleid Q1s, but the price of it being so cheap was that it seems to have taken forever to arrive, and so it will be added to the growing pile of unread books, both on economics and railways, which clutter the house. Mind you, I think having a pile of unread books is an expression of hope.
I can beat you there! My dad bought me my first Hornby Dublo set (The Talisman A4 Pacific) when I was born. However, you need to visit the Isle of Man – There is the steam railway to Port Erin, The Manx Electric Railway to Ramsey, the Snaefell Mountain Railway and the Horse Trams in Douglas. Not to forget the Groudle Glen very narrow gauge railway. Apart from the Groudle one they are all state owned and in far better condition now than they ever were in the 1960s/70s when I was growing up. Ferries, electricity, gas and post office are all state owned too.
It is many years since I have been to the Isle of Man, but I much enjoyed the railways when I last did. The Groudle Glen is a particular favourite.
Cracking stuff. Railway history is quite the tribute to State planning before the neoliberals got hold of it .
A necessary break me thinks. I’m not a railway enthusiast per se but have always found sitting on a train just watching the countryside ramble by, very relaxing. Luckily I can do it until my heart’s content in Germany for €58 a month (all and anywhere public transport other than the ICE – Intercity Express)
Great value.
I wish we had such a thing.
People tend to equate Suffolk with rural scenes, farming etc. But in fact there was a lot of heavy industry here. People think that Ford created the moving assembly line but it was Richard Garrett at Leiston who did this in 1852 with horses drawing platforms on which boilers were assembled as they went through the ‘long shop’. And in Ipswich you had two Quaker firms Ransomes, Sims and Jeffries, once the largest agricultural implement firm in the world and Ransome and Rapier a world class firm building bridges and giant cranes for use all over the world.
I know. I was brought up in Ipswich. And I like the writings of Robert Ashton, and he talks about Leiston a lot, as he lives there.
This is getting to be silly, Richard, but my grandfather (on my mothers side) was an apprentice at the Leiston Works. I still has his engineers ball hammer, large screwdrivers and various other stuff, including a what he always referred to as a “rat gun” – a .22 rifle that he had to make as part of his apprenticeship.
🙂
Have you been to the Long Shop Museum? It is good.
I have much affection for the “Middy” as we used to live in Wetheringsett and would often walk there with the kids. We’re still quite close. My only involvement with preserved railways was at the Bluebell and occasionally with the Lynton and Barnstaple. The rebuild of Brighton Atlantic “Beachy Head” was fascinating, although my involvement was limited to bit of fundraising. Like you, I think, I find railways fascinating and an example of sound human endeavour.
Thanks
Brockford is Wetheringsett really, isn’t it?
Pretty much. But don’t say that to people who live in Brockford!
🙂
My oldest son’s great grandmother lived in Mendlesham a village served by the Mid Suffolk or Middy
So I to have visited the line several times
Then I discovered that Hornby made a model of the station building at Mendlesham which I was able to pick up much reduced and I also got a J15 (locomotive that used to work the line) so this winter I feel a model coming on
Really? I can’t find that….
R9821 Wayside Halt building
So it is….
Have to add to this thread. You will probably guess from my pseudonym that I love Deltics, and which of them is my favourite. English Electric built the finest diesels known to man, and some damned good planes too.
Alas, we don’t seem to make either in these islands any more…
I see you bought a book about the north east.
Spoilt for choice up here, we are, with the 200th anniversary of the railways, with an 1820s waggonway at Beamish Museum, ten minutes drive away, and Tanfield Railway, the world’s oldest railway, built 1725, to haul coal, only five minutes further away. A lot of the railway history up here was about coals to Newcastle. Then it could be shipped to London.
Then there is Shildon’s Locomotion, built in the first railway town which had the first railway station, and still has Timothy Hackworth’s house in the museum, just half an hour in the opposite direction.
When I was home tutoring my grandson I bought him a book showing the history of the railways in maps. One afternoon a week we would go and sit on different train stations and watch the trains go past, then go home and find out if the station was in the book, work out how far we had driven, and see which lines had been closed down. The one in this village is now a cycle track. He’s grown out of it now, except that he has to go to the railway museum in York whenever we go there.
I suspect he will never really grow out of it. What starts young becomes a pleasurable memory to repeat. And thanks for sharing.
Visit the West Somerset Railway, steam and diesel, Britain’s longest heritage railway (Bishops Lydeard to Minehead). Wonderful locos, landscape, stations, attractions, walks, and a big bookstall on Minehead station.
I’ve been!
Oh good! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we always do!
We did.