Steam Around The Hampshire & Dorset Coast by Mike Arlett & David Lockett Hard Co
Steam Around The Hampshire & Dorset Coast by Mike Arlett & David Lockett
Hard cover
Copyright Mike Arlett & David Lockett 2001
80 pages
Introduction
David Lockett has explained to me that, when it came to railway enthusiasm, his father was, first and foremost, very much a Great Western man. It therefore came as some surprise to see just how much Norman Lockett photographed, in colour, the Southern Region from the late 1950s until the demise of Southern steam in July 1967! However, colour photography, certainly in the late 1950s, was considered by Norman Lockett (and indeed by some other leading exponents of railway photography of that same era) as 'experimental' or, as Norman wrote in one of his notebooks, 'not to be taken seriously'! Thank goodness, during that period, some persevered with this medium; none more so than Dick (R. C.) Riley and Peter Gray, and a few others whose splendid efforts preceded the start of the 1960s, which proved to be the 'threshold' after which colour film gained rapidly in popularity amongst railway photographers.
Norman Lockett's colour transparencies featuring Southern Region steam range far and wide, but this book concentrates mostly on a number of lines (both major and minor) which led to the sea or, in some cases, were surrounded by it! It covers an area from Hayling Island, on the South Coast, westwards through Southampton and Bournemouth to Weymouth. On the way, we have taken in brief diversions to a southern remnant of the Meon Valley line, the motive power depot and 'scrap lines' at Eastleigh, and a trip across the Solent to visit the Isle of Wight. Further westwards, the locations visited include the Lymington and Swanage branch lines whilst, at Weymouth, no visit would be complete without a quick foray along that unique stretch of rails leading to the quay (albeit that the motive power was still ex-Great Western!). We finish with just one view of the line to Portland. So, in effect, this album starts with an 'island' (at Hayling), visits a real one (the Isle of Wight) and a near-one (the 'Isle' of Purbeck) and concludes with another, at Portland!
With the approval of our publisher, David Lockett and I have given deliberate emphasis to those branch lines which Norman visited on a number of occasions. Thus the Havant to Hayling Island and the Isle of Wight (featuring all but exclusively the section between Ryde Pier Head and Smallbrook Junction) are given due prominence in the knowledge that none of the colour pictures illustrating these lines has previously appeared within the covers of a book. Indeed, we are confident that very nearly all of the pictures contained in the following pages have never previously been published.
We have also tried to balance the number of pictures between Bulleid Pacifics and other classes of motive power! So many books which feature former Southern Region steam appear to consist of page after page of these (splendid) locomotives. Even so, by the early 1960s, it was becoming ever more difficult to photograph anything else, particularly on the main lines of the `Southern'! Of course, if one travelled the Hayling branch, one could photograph nothing other than the delightful little `A1 X' class 0-6-0s, whilst, on the Isle of Wight, by this period, it was 'Class 02 0-4-4Ts or nothing'. So we have to advise you in advance that these two classes feature prominently in this book!
Little attempt has been made to provide detailed histories of the lines or, in most cases, the locomotives featured in the following pages; these subjects have already been covered in other publications. This book is intended to portray, in colour, what (with but a few notable exceptions) were once everyday scenes; perhaps many were so 'everyday' that we took them far too much for granted. Only, as a railway enthusiast, if you can recall that era are you able to understand fully the excitement of a holiday which started and ended by steam train - an event which, at that time, seemed like a major adventure into the unknown but which, today, would be seen as no more than 'a trip down the road'! Any and every excursion to a destination, however close or far but which happened to lie within a different Region of British Railways, was exciting because of the `foreign' motive power and the differences in railway infrastructure and atmosphere. The younger railway enthusiasts of the 1950s (that golden postwar era of the `trainspotter), many requiring no more for a day's entertainment than an Ian Allan abc, a penny platform ticket and a bottle of Tizer', were, I feel, a very different breed from those who followed later and helped spawn the legend of the railway 'anorak'. Most from that earlier era grew up to appreciate that there was much more of interest to railways than taking locomotive numbers. Sadly, however, it was all but too late: steam was on the way out, Dr Beeching was on the way in, and branch and cross-country railway lines everywhere were under increasing threat of closure.
Hopefully, this book will evoke more than a few happy memories for those who can still recall at least some of the locations featured in its pages. Many of the lines included still exist, of course, but when one compares what is left today with the system of but 35 to 40 years ago, one realizes just how much has been lost. Thankfully, sections of two of the branch lines featured are the subject of successful and still-developing restoration schemes. The Isle of Wight Steam Railway, with its unique collection of coaching stock may, one day, again reach Ryde or, perhaps, even the outskirts of Newport (or both!). In these days of Heritage Lottery funding, schemes which just a few years ago seemed but 'pipe dreams' may now be just possible. The other restored line is, of course, the Swanage Railway - a marvelous line which, under a sound management, is working towards the objective of restoring a link with the main-line system. Indeed, even as this introduction is penned (or word-processed!), the gap between the Swanage Railway and the Railtrack railhead at Furzebrook grows ever smaller. So here, as at the sites of other preservation schemes (not least the Mid-Hants, the Bluebell and the Kent & East Sussex railways, all of which lie outside the area covered by this book), it is still possible for today's generation to savour, in a small way, something of what Southern steam was all about! Long may they all prosper.
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