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Last Days of British Steam Railways by Garratt w/ dust jacket 1985
Last Days of British Steam Railways by Colin Garratt
DUST JACKET, Copyright 1985, 136 pages, indexed. 8 X 9 inches.
In the autumnal days of working steam in the British Isles, in the late 1950s and '60s, professional photographer Colin Garratt laid the foundations for what has become his life's work - the photographic record of steam railways worldwide.
In this book, for the first time, Colin Garratt has collated some 150 of his previously unpublished pictures showing steam locomotives in Great Britain. These are not the few jealously tended and carefully maintained examples that have survived to the present day but working locomotives in their service liveries and original condition. Many different locomotive types are represented in dozens of locations throughout the country, as they were seen by a young man with a camera and a passion for trains.
Complemented by the author's personal, detailed and informative commentary on each picture, this book is a unique visual record of an era and will be welcomed by all railway enthusiasts.
Colin Garratt's roots remain in Leicestershire although his work now takes him to the remote corners of the world where steam traction continues to operate. He is well known for his many previous books on railways and photography, and through his frequent lecture tours of the British Isles.
Introduction: 'Plain and simple' were the words I used to describe this collection of monochrome prints to the publisher. They were pictures made when I was on my first foot as a photographer and a last ditch attempt to have some personal record of an age which had meant so much to me. Most were made during the mid 1960s, for although I had been closely associated with railways for 15 years before this, I had made the common mistake of taking few photographs - after all steam trains were going to last forever.
The great passion of those early years was train spotting and from 1949 I marvelled at Britain's incredibly rich locomotive history. This was a time when Britain's railways provided an efficient, comprehensive, safe and reliable national transport system. The bulk of the nation's freight and indeed a considerable percentage of passenger journeys were by rail and most trains were steam-hauled by locomotives fired with our own coal. As a transport network it was without parallel; communications were rapid, industries were sited within easy reach of the railway and there was little need either for private cars or juggernaut trucks. Railways are undeniably the most civilised form of land transportation and their destruction over the last 30 years will almost certainly be seen by future generations as one of the most short-sighted acts of the twenty.
Over the years following World War 2, Great Britain had some 30,000 steam locomotives in active service, embracing hundreds of different types, and my lineside vigils by that childhood bridge at Newton Harcourt initiated me into the sheer magnificence of a properly utilized railway. The aim of train spotting was to see all the members of every different class and when a class was completed it was said to be 'cleared'. Some classes consisted of only one or two engines, whilst others ran into hundreds, such as the 842 members of the LMS 'Black 5', examples of which could be seen in most parts of the country from Inverness to Bournemouth. Withdrawn engines not seen were recorded as lost. In railway works or even on scrap lines where locomotives were likely to be found in pieces, frames were countable but interchangeable items like boilers and tenders were not.
For millions, train spotting offered colour, romance and excitement; its greatness far surpassing superficial appearances. With so many locomotives active it offered sport indeed; it opened young eyes to the geography of one's country and gave incentive to travel; it revealed industrial history, developed the eye for detail and aesthetics, the mind for numbers and statistics, and it broadened comprehension of distribution and purpose; cause and effect. He who understood railways had his finger on the nation's pulse.
Train spotting trips to far away places - often at very young ages - will live on in the minds of those privileged enough to have experienced them and it is amazing how similar are the sentiments and emotions expressed today when individuals recall those golden years. The excitement of these trips contrasted with the thrill of the unexpected at our local lineside and certain daily workings brought a possibility of the rare and exotic to otherwise familiar locations. To us in Leicester, certain trains became almost legendary and were the subject of daily observation and comment - trains known to us by such terms as the 'Kingmoor', the '5A', the 'Edge Hill', the 'York Goods', the 'Western' and so many more. 'Shoppers' - engines either en route to or returning from major overhauls - also brought innumerable thrills.
During summer time the familiar train spotting places on main lines would attract hundreds of people; grass was worn off the embankment and we sat on hard dusty patches - a grandstand to one of the finest unfolding dramas of all time. As in great sport, the thrill of the unexpected loomed behind every quiet moment; 30 classes might be seen on one day and from these any rarity could pass. I remember once when a rare Scottish 'Jubilee' complete with huge St Rollox numbers on her cab worked southwards through Rugby; 150 enthusiasts cheered wildly from the tracksides; pens, notebooks and sandwiches flew into the air amid uninhibited enthusiasm.
I did do a little intermittent photography as early as 1952 but the negatives have tragically been lost. During the years that the pictures in this book were made I was in a conventional marketing career and had no aspiration to have the work published; the pictures were, as I said earlier, only for my personal album to complement the wonderful memories I had. They were a 'last testament for I had no idea of what lay ahead for me and my over-riding mood at the time, often to the point of morbidity, was that the two things that I most cared about - steam railways and New Orleans jazz - were on the verge of extinction. The great but aged veteran jazz men of New Orleans were dying throughout the 1960s, almost as quickly as the familiar steam classes were disappearing and the only way that either steam railways or New Orleans jazz could survive would be as tourist revivals with all the inevitable anaesthetism which goes with them.
Little did I realise that once the trauma of steam's extinction in Britain was over, new perspectives would emerge; for not only did most of the railways' romance and atmosphere crumble with the dying steam engine, but a vast reduction in track miles was undertaken; main lines, cross country lines, branch lines, sidings and marshalling yards were abandoned. Engine sheds suffered mass closure (there had been as many as 500 in 1950!) as a road-based economy began to take over - a trend which continues unchecked to this day.
Such decline was not restricted to Britain. All over the world historic locomotives and whole railway networks were under threat and exactly one year after British Railways' last steam train ran in August 1968, I abandoned my promising commercial career to professionally document the last steam locomotives of the world - but that is another story.
And so the pictures between these covers were from my apprenticeship as I blindly groped in an untutored way towards lucid photographic expression. It was a groping that would stand me in good stead over the unimaginable future which lay ahead, for never in my wildest dreams did I visualize that my career was destined to be with steam locomotives, for on that sunny afternoon in August 1968 when BR dropped the last fire to extinguish the industrial revolution's brightest light, I imagined that the happiest part of my life had come to an end.
Intermittently mentioned throughout this volume will be the companions who shared these monochrome years with me; Brian Stafford, David 'Don' Holland, George Brunavs and Judy Maddock. Brian and George also played in Colin Garratt's Superior Jazz Band, Don managed us for a time whilst Judy sang and was without doubt one of the finest Blues' artists Britain has produced.
So here, 'plain and simple', are some pictures and thoughts in the form of a brief personal evocation of happy times gone by.
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