Steamtown.

Chairman and Yorkshire businessman, David Smith acquired the controlling shares in Steamtown Railway Museum from Bill McAlpine in 1990. Carnforth Railway Restoration & Engineering Services (a subsidiary of SRM) has been operating at the southern end of the site since 1984, its first contract being the restoration of the VSOE Pullmans. It maintains David Smith's two steam locos, 8F No.48151 and "Hall" No.5972 "Olton Hall" (aka "Hogwarts Castle") and newly-acquired "Jubilee" No.45699 "Galatea".

In addition to steam loco work, Carnforth Railway Restoration & Engineering Services also maintains some 65 Railtrack-registered Mk1 and Mk2 coaches (including the 1965-built former Manchester Pullman set) for operation on WCR trains. Contract work is also carried our for other loco and stock owners.

A number of withdrawn diesel locomotives are also stored on site, for future rebuild and use.

West Coast Railway Company was set up in 1994 as the trading name for most of the activities carried out by the group of companies, including the Fort William - Mallaig "Jacobite" Steam Train, which it took over in 1995. WCRC became a Train Operating Company in its own right in 1998, the first privately-owned company to do so. In addition to "The Jacobite", WCRC has also operated regular services this summer between York and Scarborough, which it intends to repeat in 2003. Additionally it operates frequent "one-off" charters for a wide variety of charterers, both steam and diesel, including the scenic Cumbrian Coast route. It has also supplied loco and coaches for the first two "Harry Potter" films.

Because of the increased commercial activity and regular movements on and off the site, public access was discontinued in 1997.

The major features of the site are still in place, such as the turntable, the ash plant and the Coaling tower. The turntable is boarded over, and the Ash Plant and the Coaling Tower are in a poor state of repair.

The 15" gauge miniature railway stayed operation for some time after the closure of the main museum, but was sold  by "private tender". The track and rolling stock have now all been moved from the Steamtown site, and have gone abroad.

Steamtown Miniature Railway
(15" gauge)

A loss to the world of miniature railways

Most railway enthusiasts will remember Steamtown Carnforth, a former locomotive depot about six miles to the north of Lancaster on the West Coast mainline, for its big engines. It has played host over more than thirty years to mainline locos; like 4472 Flying Scotsman, 850 Lord Nelson and latterly 48151 a Stanier '8F'. At one time, during my first visit in 1968 there were at least two 'Black 5's, a 'B1' Mayflower, a Class 2 Ivatt, a huge French pacific and a collection of twenty industrial tank engines in the former LMS 'straight through' shed.

My first visit with a video camera was in 1985 when I watched Lord Nelson being turned on the seventy foot turntable before leaving for Hellifield to relieve Sir Nigel Gresley on the Settle & Carlisle runs. Besides spending a couple of hours talking railways with Dr. Peter Beet who needed little encouragement to talk about his railway locomotives, I discovered that there was more to Steamtown than standard gauge locos.

Running along the western edge of the site I discovered a 15 inch gauge railway. It was about a mile long and gave visitors to the site a pleasant ride, with the opportunity to disembark at various points along its length. The minimum gauge railway was opened in 1980, and began at North Gate station, close to the entrance to the site. Running southwards actually through the main engine shed, it emerged in the area where the main line engines were (and still are) serviced, and soon reached Steamtown Central, where the 15 inch loco shed sits behind the platform. Nearby is a 75,000 gallon water tower and across the yard, examples of the very few remaining coaling and ash disposal stages. Wending its way behind the carriage sidings and workshops, outside which until the end stood a pair of 2 ft 2 inch gauge Hunslet industrial diesels, with a tree growing through one of the cabs!

The next station was Green Ayre, disembarking point for the Lancaster & Morecambe Model Engineers' mixed-gauge live steam layout, and finally, Crag Bank, at the southern end of the site. Here there was an interchange with the standard gauge line. One could travel down on the standard gauge train, hauled by a small tank engine such as Jane Derbyshire, and transfer to the fifteen inch gauge for the return trip.

The line had at one time three steam engines, No. 18 King George V (seen above), a 4-4-2 built by Bassett-Lowke (a class '30') to a design by Henry Greenly in 1911 , which came to Carnforth via the Southport Miniature Railway. No. 22 Princess Elizabeth, another 4-4-2 (a class '20') , also came from Southport. This loco had been built in 1914 and was slightly larger than George V, being rebuilt in the 1930s after a serious fire. She can haul four fully-laden coaches, and is a little more powerful than her fellow engine. The steam locomotive which hauled our train in 1985, was called Prince William, and was originally built by Trevor Guest to an LMS 'Black 5' 4-6-0 design in 1949. Steaming was poor, and during the 1950s it was rebuilt as a 4-6-2 and became the strongest loco on the line.
There were also diesels, Dr. Diesel was a diesel electric named after the inventor of the diesel engine, and was built in 1938. What happened to this is not clear. Royal Anchor is a diesel hydraulic loco similar in design to BR's 'Warship' class of early diesel days. It was built in 1956 for the Liphook Railway in Hampshire (see note), but then put in many years of sterling service not far from Carnforth, on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway, before coming here in 1977.

Latterly, Prince William moved to the East Lancs. Railway at Bury, later moving to Windmill Farm Railway, Burscough, Lancs. where it is in regular use (see below). A diesel D6353 Beaver moved also moved to the WFR (see on the R&ER below) while another, D5902 moved to Markeaton Park Railway in Derbyshire via the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway. Some of the carriages in which the visitors rode were German and thought to have been built for an exhibition in Cologne in the period between the two World Wars. Each car could carry 16 passengers, and when full weighed about 1.75 tons. There was a small collection of wagons, used for maintenance of the line and for demonstration goods trains on special occasions.

The Steamtown centre gradually deteriorated as a visitor centre and closed to the public a couple of years ago, shortly after the Lancaster & Morecambe Model Engineers had been evicted. The miniature railway continued for a time, opening at weekends but was finally closed down in early 2000. The centre is still in use for carriage and wagon storage, loco maintenance and repairs, but is no longer on the tourist map.

Following a 'last fling' open day in July 2000 the railway, the two remaining steam locos and the remaining diesel, Royal Anchor, were sold by sealed bid auction for an alleged sum of �117,000 to a buyer in the U.S.A. A sad loss to the British miniature railway scene - two historic engines gone through lack of interest in our 15 inch heritage.
However the railway can still be seen on a video Coast to coast on the Fifteen Inch and the final day will also appear soon in a video about Lancashire lines.

Carnforth

(West Coast Railway Company formerly Steamtown) - (22nd July) - (Lancashire)

After touring the delights of Manchester City Centre, last seen on a pre-motorway trip to North Wales in 1971, I arrived at the former steam centre to find both 4-4-2 Bassett Lowke 'Little Giants' in steam and hauling passenger trains which passed at the platform adjacent to the sheds. This visit was tinged with the sadness that the railway would "shortly be lifted and sold, not necessarily to the highest bidder", I was told, via an interpreter. Both locos looked to be in good condition; the brilliant blue No. 18 King George V built 1911 (photo - right) and the smart green liveried No. 22 Princess Elizabeth built 1914 (photo - miniature lines page) were the only locos seen, I believe the diesel went to Windmill Farm.

I saw at least one well known face from the miniature railway world, no doubt there had been others during the weekend weather, which on that side of the country had been warm sunshine. I had time to ride behind No. 22 which I had not seen in steam before, along with a few of the 'lads', ["David Smith is not here", I was told by a man who should have known better!]. 4472 Flying Scotsman (with apple green LNER livery and BR German type deflectors) was seen being pushed into the shed, while the '8F' 48151 seen recently at Barrow Hill, stood near the old ash hoist. Also Black '5' 45110, last seen at Lincoln Christmas market also stood by in light steam.

Greetings Ferroequinologists my name is Alex - a railway enthusiast and a video producer, with broad tastes regarding railways. On the left is a recent shot of me at work on the Middleton railway. [Photo: K. Hartley] The photos and descriptions on these pages portray some of the locos seen while touring preserved railways in this country and elsewhere, while the text tells its own story.

All photographs and text in these articles are copyright PM Video.

Reproduced here by kind permission of Alex Hurd.
PM Video - Pleasant House, 30 Station Road, Reepham, Lincs. LN3 4DN.
01522 750057
http://www.pmvideo.co.uk/

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