26th October - Classic Diesel and Electric Train Workings at Home and Abroad

Chris Hurricks and Bev Steele - report by David Sparkes

Our booked speaker, Mike Collins, failed a late fitness test, but Chris Hurricks and Bev Steele stepped into the breach at very short notice and provided fine selections of classic railway slides at home and abroad.

Chris started at home with the Great Eastern in the 1960s. This included clean, green diesels at work around Stratford and East Anglia and the last class 306 electric train. Although Chris’s colour slides started in 1963, after the official end of steam on the GE, he still managed to find working steam, such as a grimy Southern Region Q1 towing preserved “Lord Nelson”, M7 and Beattie well tank to Stratford and a Sentinel loco working in the sleeper depot at Lowestoft. Locally there were some excellent photos in Ipswich, with B1 train heating locos 22 (61252) and 17 (61059), the Sproughton sugar factory Peckett no. 2000 (now preserved at Barrow Hill) and the Cranes factory Peckett (now preserved on Jersey). Also in steam was an Armstrong Whitworth road roller at Ipswich Docks (now preserved at East Anglia Transport Museum, Carlton Colville).

The Ipswich (Land) Transport Society docks brakevan tours were featured, with participants having to clear demolition materials from the tracks near the Custom House! Also of note was “Cambria”, the last Thames barge trading entirely under sail. Elsewhere we saw loco hauled trains on the East Suffolk line, Cambridge to Sudbury, a railbus on the Audley End branch, industrials at Rye House power station and Barrington cement works and quarry and the tiny loco sheds at Saffron Walden and Brightlingsea.

For the second half, Bev Steele took up the theme of classic diesel and electric traction at home and abroad. This started with a varied selection of Colour Rail slides around England and Wales, including a Clacton electric (309) train in maroon livery, a line-up of six Deltics, prototype locos “Falcon” and “Kestrel”, new Brush “type 2s” at Stratford and Lowestoft and a Wickham dmu on a Mildenhall train.

Bev’s own slides featured the railways of Holland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany in the 1990s, with several types of diesel and electric locos that now no longer exist in service. Locations included loco sheds, Koln Hbf., the Rhine Bridge and the Mosel and Rhine valleys. The show was rounded off back in Suffolk with a final Colour Rail view of new D200 arriving at Stowmarket in 1958.

Our grateful thanks go to Chris and Bev for saving the day and giving us two excellent presentations.