Photos and History of Q1 Class 0-6-0 Southern Railway Steam Locomotives

Plain, Ugly...But Oh! So Powerful.

Southern Railway Q1 Class Steam Locomotive 0-6-0 C1  33001

How the UK Southern Railway's powerful but austere-looking 0-6-0 Q1 freight steam locomotive came to play an important part in British Railways history.

The illustration above of Q1 Class steam locomotive, 33001, shows that this particular engine has a home loco shed number of 70C.  As recorded in the Ian Allen Locoshed Book of 1952, 70C shed was located at Bordon Guildford, near to the town of Haslemere.

Guildford Loco Shed 1965     Photo: Shed Bash UK - Blogger

Due to the vastly increased amount of railway freight traffic to English Channel ports as a direct result of World War 2, the steam locomotive fleet of the Southern Railway was, even with the best will in the world, basically strained to its limits. The SR was, after all, a regional railway concerned with providing passenger train services as opposed to freight.

Obviously, something had to be done to ease this chronic situation.

Designer Oliver Bulleid, successor to Richard Maunsell, fully recognised the problem and set out to resolve it. The result was that by 1942 he had produced the extraordinary-looking, many would say ugly, Q1 Class 0-6-0 steam locomotive. 

Incidentally, the Q1 would be the last 0-6-0 locomotive to be designed and manufactured for the British railway network.

Bulleid accepted that as a consequence of wartime scarcities he would need to use as little metal as possible in the design of his radical Q1 locomotive.

To this end he did away with fitting wheel splashers and running boards, which up until this point traditionally sat below the boiler casing. In addition to this he incorporated into his construction the use of lightweight, double-disc, American-inspired 'box-pok' wheels. A feature he had fitted to his earlier steam locomotive the Southern Railway 'Merchant Navy Pacific', introduced in June 1941, followed by the 'West Country' class in May 1945.

Q1 Class 0-6-0 33028

In a further effort to reduce overall weight, O.V. Bulleid, employed a totally radical idea in the world of locomotive production, and that was in the area of boiler cladding.

On the Q1 he employed the use of a lightweight fibreglass known as Idaglass, cheap and plentiful during the war years which, instead of being traditionally wrapped around the boiler, was in fact supported by the main frame.

Apart from the 'box-pok' wheels, the Q1 had something else in common with the 4-6-2 'Merchant Navy' and 'West Country' locos; the exterior surfaces could by superficially cleaned simply by running the loco through a carriage cleaning facility.

The first completed Q1 locomotive, numbered C1 (C standing for three axles), later to be renumbered 33001 in November 1950, appeared at London's Charing Cross station on the 6^th May 1942 for inspection by a group of Southern Railway's directors – which no doubt raised a few quizzical eyebrows.

Designer William Stanier of London Midland and Scottish Railway was so amused on seeing a photograph of the Q1 that he asked, "Where do you put the key?"

Soon after its debut at Charing Cross, freight train tests began between Norwood, south London and Chichester in West Sussex.

Within a few months another Q1, C3 (33003), was performing well during comparative trials with Southern Railway steam locomotive Class S15 4-6-0 No 842 between Woking, Surrey and Basingstoke in Hampshire. During this time C1, hauling a mixed freight train of 1,000 tons, easily covered the same 24 miles with a reduction in the scheduled time by 8 minutes.

Brighton and Ashford Works were elected to construct the 40-strong Q1 class. Numbers C1-16 and C37-40 produced at Brighton and the remainder, C17-36, at Ashford – all delivered during 1942.

Generally the Q1s worked the Southern Railway's Western and Central Section, though they were also seen at Tonbridge, Kent; Eastleigh, Hampshire; Three Bridges, Sussex and Hither Green south-east London. However, the largest numbers of the class were to be found at Guildford, Surrey and Feltham, south-west London.

After 21 years of reliable service on the Southern Railway, hauling countless freight and passenger trains and a large number of 'specials', they had earned the nicknames, 'Biscuit Tins', 'Biscuit Barrels', 'Charlies', 'Clockworks', 'Coffee Pots', 'Austerities' and 'Ugly Ducklings' by the train-spotter fraternity.

The first withdrawn locomotive of the class was 33028 in February 1963, with the final trio 33006, 33020 and 33027 taken out of service in January 1966.

The first production Q1 the most powerful of the 0-6-0 steam locomotive classes, C1 33001, avoided the indignity of ending up in the scrapyard as was the case for all of its stablemates.

It was rightly added to the National Collection at York Railway Museum.

On a purely personal note: 

As a boy I remember 'spotting' a couple of grimy Q1s on the sidings at Ashford while travelling on a train between Dover Priory station and London's Waterloo East in the late 1950s. I thought at the time that they were really ugly and were my least favourite locos.
Sadly, I have no accurate details of this siting as my spotting books from that time have long since disappeared.

 

More steam locomotive 'Photos and History' pages.

 

Photos and History of King Arthur Class 4-6-0 UK Steam Locomotive

Photos and History of GWR 'City' Class 4-4-0 UK Steam Locomotive

Q1 Loco On YouTube:

Q1 Class No. C1 on Bluebell Railway.

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15 Historical UK Railway Facts You May Not Know

Fifteen Historical UK Railway Facts

Southern Railway Steam Locomotive 4-4-0 Schools Class 30904 'Lancing' Basingstoke

Recorded in 1952, Class 30904 carried a home loco shed code of 74E, the location of which was St. Leonards, Sussex.

St. Leonards Loco Shed

Railway Facts & Trivia

Throughout every walk of life, events happen which, when put together, create history.   And so it is with Britain's railway network.

Since George Stephenson's locomotive 'Rocket' rattled along the rails at the Rainhill Trials in October 1829, many of the events occurring on the railways have been recorded.

Here then are fifteen interesting examples that created railway history to a greater or lesser extent.

 

The Duke of Wellington:

Although the Duke of Wellington, 'Iron Duke' - hero of the Battle of Waterloo - officially opened the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830, the 'great man' had a snobbish attitude towards anyone who was not of the British elite and definitely against this new and radical form of travel.

  

He stated publicly that because of the railways, sedition and revolution would easily spread throughout the country by the 'lower orders'.

Never on a Sunday:

The ultra-religious Victorians disagreed strongly with rail travel happening on Sundays. On one particular Sunday in 1883 a group of protesters tried to prevent fish being loaded onto a train. Ten people were arrested during the ensuing skirmish who, when released, were hailed as heroes by their fellow villagers.

By 1889, eight thousand members had joined the 'Anti-Sunday Travel Union', who had nearly sixty branch offices up and down the country.

A Day Out for Everyone:

With the advent of the railways, Victorian working-class families were at last able to take advantage of a cheap one-day holiday. 

Such was the popularity of these inexpensive excursions that, in 1849, around 100,000 thousand people travelled on special trains to Liverpool in order to witness, at first-hand, the public execution outside Kirkdale Prison, Liverpool, on the 15th September 1849 of the infamous murderer, John Gleeson Wilson. 

Letting the Train Take the Strain:

With the coming of the railways the number of people travelling on the network increased to an extent that could never have been imagined. In 1842, over 24 million passengers had used the railways. By 1850 numbers had risen to a staggering 73 million!

Queen Victoria on the Rails:

Although Queen Victoria travelled quite regularly on the railways, she was never completely comfortable with the idea. She much preferred taking a journey in a horse-drawn carriage.

However, her first journey by train, from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace on the 13th June 1842, was not taken through personal choice but as a result of two assassination attempts two weeks earlier. Her advisors believed she would be less vulnerable in a railway.

On the footplate of the locomotive used for this trip was none other than the famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

“Don't encourage the working classes”:

In the early days of rail travel three classes of accommodation developed over time. 

First class travellers enjoyed a good measure of luxury; a glazed door to each compartment, armrests, padded upholstery, oil-lamp lighting etc. Second class passengers were only slightly worse off, but third class passengers were treated no better than animals.

As no railway company provided dedicated third-class carriages, the unfortunate travellers rode in goods wagons completely open to the elements. They sat on backless wooden benches with holes drilled in the floor to allow the rainwater to escape.

If any class of passenger unfortunately needed the toilet during a journey...well that was a totally different matter completely.

Karl Marx didn't get the job:

Described as the father of modern communism, Karl Marx, who famously pronounced that, "the workers have nothing to lose but their chains", failed to get a job on the Great Western Railway - his handwriting was simply not good enough!

The Biggest of the 'Big Four':

In 1923 the London Midland & Scottish Railway was the largest of the 'Big Four' railway companies; the other three contenders to the title being the Great Western, the Southern, and the London & North Eastern.

The 'LMS' employed a quarter of a million people; operated across 7,000 miles of track, had 3,000 goods depots and 2,000 stations. Before the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, it was the biggest private transport company in the world moving 85 million tons of coal a year.

"Good Morning Campers":

Camping railway coaches were a popular form of holiday accommodation in the 1930's, with the railway companies placing old vehicles on disused sidings in attractive places and equipping them with kitchens, toilets and washing facilities.

The peak weekly rental charged by the London & North Eastern Railway (L&NER) was around £2. Since its coaches could take up to six holiday-makers, this was a bargain price when the cost was shared between individuals.

On one particular occasion the company was quick to make a profit.

During 'Coronation Week' in 1937 - when London was invaded by sightseers - the LNER placed 52 camping coaches at various sites around London, charging £10 per coach - five times the normal rent!

A Grave Incident Indeed:

When the plans for London's St. Pancras station were drawn up, it emerged that the approach lines would pass right through an old cemetery. As nothing could stop the rapid advance of the railways, it meant that the area had to be completely cleared.

Reports in newspapers soon reached the general public that gravestones were being ripped up and placed in piles; the bones of the dead being scattered on the ground. Perhaps the most deplorable act perpetrated by the railways builders was that others were being sold to local bone-mills to be ground up for fertilizer.

The slum dwellings that were on the site - where the station now stands - were demolished. The inhabitants were simply evicted - all 10,000 of them!

One Drink Coming Up Sir!:

When the railway companies built their lines they invariably constructed a large number of railway hotels near to their stations in the larger towns and cities. The first, a very basic establishment known as the 'Victoria' close to Euston station, opened in 1839.

One of the most popular railway hotels was the 'Queen's' in Birmingham, opened by the London & North Western Railway in 1854. Some of the guests that came through its doors included Queen Victoria, General de Gaulle and Roy Rogers accompanied by his horse 'Trigger'.

Many people visited the hotel not only to spot the rich and famous, but to witness the hotel's famous barman, 'Flash' Battersby, at work. It was claimed that Battersby was able to slide a drink along 6 metres (20ft) of bar top, bringing it to a stop directly in front of the customer in question!

Railway Station of the Stars:

Due to its location at the London end of the railway line from Southampton, Waterloo station was ideally situated to bask in the publicity generated by the numerous celebrities visiting Britain from America.

When the famous piano-playing entertainer Liberace arrived at Waterloo in 1956, he was met by thousands of fans who had laid a carpet of pink paper rose petals along the platform in his honour.

The Railways Go To the Movies:

It was inevitable that the railways would in time attract the attention of movie-makers.

In 1895 the French Lumiere brothers made the first railway film; a 15-minute film of a bustling station and the arrival of a steam train pulling four coaches. The film was screened in Paris on 28th December 1895 as part of the world's first public cinema show. The railway movie was born!

Britain's First Railway Murder:

On the 9th July 1864, elderly London bank clerk, Thomas Briggs, boarded a train at Fenchurch Street station bound for Hackney.

Sadly he never reached his destination. He was found at the side of the railway tracks between the two stations by the locomotive crew of a train heading into London, and died the following day from the massive head wounds he had received.

Following information received, Inspector Tanner of Scotland Yard quickly established robbery as the motive for the murder, and a likely suspect was named - Franz Muller.

Before the murderer could be apprehended he left England for America aboard a sailing ship. However, his escape plan failed when he was arrested in New York.

Returned to England, Franz Muller stood trial at the Old Bailey on 27th October 1864 for the murder of Thomas Briggs. Found guilty, Muller was publicly hanged on 14th November 1864 outside the walls of London's Newgate Prison, in front of an estimated crowd of 50,000 people.

Women on the Railways:

Up until 1914, fewer than 5,000 women worked within the British Railway network. Those that did were employed in the more traditional female roles of the time such as in refreshment rooms, railway company laundries etc.

However, with the outbreak of WW1, this situation changed drastically. 

To offset the shortage of men, women were employed to undertake jobs previously denied to them.

They loaded heavy mail bags onto trains, acted as porters, collected tickets, served as dining-car attendants and undertook many dirty jobs such as carriage and locomotive cleaning, while others laboured in the coal yards.

By the end of WW1 there were no fewer than 55,000 women working on therailways.

The role of women in the workplace had changed forever!

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Photo The Southern Railway Tavern That Travelled On Rails

Southern Railway Tavern Coach, Waterloo Station

Tavern Coach at Waterloo With Exterior 'Brickwork'

A bar serving alcohol on a train has, in some guise or other, been a feature of railway travel for countless decades. But, imagine if it were possible to have not only a mere bar on your train – but a tavern! 

A real pub that ran on rails providing the same amenities as your local – beer, wine, spirits, bar snacks or a meal. Somewhere to relax, chat with friends or a work colleague in a convivial atmosphere while enjoying a drink on the way home after a hard day at the office.

Well, the notion of such a scheme is not as far-fetched as one might imagine. In fact, more than simply a fanciful idea, it was a reality for a time on the Southern Railway during what is now regarded by many as the 'golden age of steam'.

During the 1930's, New Zealand-born Oliver Bulleid was Chief Mechanical Engineer on the Southern Railway; during which time he designed such steam locomotives as the 'Merchant Navy Class', the 'West CountryClass', the 'Battle of Britain Class' and the somewhat ugly wartime austerity class of 'Q1's', in addition to two double-decker electrictrains and the ill-fated 'Leader' locomotive.

West Country Class Locomotive 34016 'Bodmin' Designed by Oliver Bulleid

Photo: Charles Moorhen

 

In addition to steam locomotives, he also designed coaches for the Southern Railway. And in 1949 he hit upon the radical idea of providing a better, classier refreshment car than those in use at the time.

Oliver Bulleid's idea was to create a tavern.

Between 1949 and 1951, Bulleid took the standard buffet/refreshment car and gutted the whole interior. He then furnished the entire carriage in a style similar to that of a typical English country tavern. It is believed that he modelled his 'tavern' on The Chequers Inn at Pulborough, Sussex.

Interior and Bar of a Bulleid Tavern car

Internally, the 'tavern' compartment consisted of a low ceiling with the addition of fake oak beams. Settles and benches abutted onto panelled or rough-rendered walls.

Long narrow leaded windows were set high up in the carriage sides and illumination came from miniatures of the carriage- lamp type; beloved of the 'semi-detached' middle classes of the time.

The bar, solely made from wood, provided everything a tavern, or inn, would offer; including draught and bottled beer.

All that was missing were the horse brasses and a blazing log fire in an open hearth.

Scale Model of a Bulleid Tavern Car Showing 'Brickwork', Leaded Windows and Pub Sign

The external decoration was a joy to behold. The usual Southern Railway paintwork was removed and replaced with a totally unique design. The outside of the coach was divided horizontally. The bottom half looked like brickwork, while the top half was coloured cream intersected by black timbering (much like that seen on the old wood panelled shooting-brake cars).

To top everything off, the cream and timber section displayed a pictorial pub sign panel with lettering saying, 'At the sign of the Jolly Jack Tar', (or 'At the sign of the White Horse/George and Dragon/Red Lion' etc.).

Four of 'Bulleid's Taverns' became a reality and were subsequently put into service.

On the whole the public enjoyed travelling and drinking in a 'pub-on-wheels'; however, there were dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

The 'Bulleid Taverns' became a hot topic for debate in the House ofCommons, where the majority of MPs denounced the unusual coaches as nothing more than “shoddy Tudoresque monstrosities”. A letter of protest, published in The Times, was signed by heads of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal College of Art, the Council of Industrial Design and the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

JamesCallaghan MP, who was at the time Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, went on to say that “nobody likes these tavern cars except for the public”. (A rather pompous remark when one considers that it was the public that were using them).

Regardless of the opinions of those in power, who had totally misjudged the popular mood, the taverns remained in service for around ten years with their interiors intact before being returned to the standard design of the time. The highly controversial 'brickwork' however was removed within a couple of years of entering service. (Pressure from above, maybe?).

Bulleid's Taverns may have been a bit outlandish, some may even say tacky; but they came at a time when Britain was devoid of colour and originality as it struggled to recover from the deprivation of the war years.

It seems a shame that no examples of the Bulleid Tavern survived to the present day. Perhaps our modern railways could have learned a thing or two about pleasing the public.

 

Bulleid Railway Tavern Coach on YouTube:

Tavern On The Train (1949). British Pathe.

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Southern Railways Double Decker EMU Train Mystery Lasting 40 Years Photos/Story

Photos and True Mystery Story of Southern Railway Double-Decker EMU Train

8-Car Southern Railway Double Decker Electric Multiple Unit

  Childhood Memories Of A Strange Train

Little did I realise, as I waited on a platform at London’s Waterloo East station on a particular day in the late 1950’s, that I was about to witness purely by chance one of Britain’s railway experiments that far from living up to its expectations, turned out to be a ghastly and expensive failure. 

 

It was a brief encounter that created in its wake a mystery which would remain unsolved for almost forty years.

It was a warm afternoon in early September.  I was on the ‘Down’ platform waiting for the train that would take me home to Dover, dressed in my school uniform complete with cap and short trousers which my grandmother insisted I travel in because ‘it made me look neat and tidy’.  

To say that I was feeling pretty miserable that day was an understatement.  I had recently spent six glorious week’s holiday at my grandmother’s home in Basingstoke, where endless  carefree days trainspotting had been spent. 


As I sat on a wooden platform seat, idly watching a bored Southern Railway porter wearily pushing a squeaky barrow, piled high with wicker baskets of fluttering racing-pigeons along the platform, a crackling, popping sound caught my attention.  

Looking away from the porter and his barrow, I noticed an electric train approaching the railway station.  Its power shoes sending out bright blue sparks as they made intermittent contact with the electrified ‘third rail’.  

Assuming that it was just another electric train, I was only interested in Southern Railway steam locomotives, I was about to turn my attention back to the pigeon porter when I noticed that there was something distinctly odd about the shape of the approaching electric multiple unit.

With the reflexes of a seasoned ‘train-spotter’, I pulled the dog-eared notebook from my inside jacket pocket kept solely for recording train numbers, and scribbled down the number on the cab front – 4002.  As the train squealed to a halt my eyes nearly popped out of my head - it was a ‘double-decker’!  

8-Car Southern Railway Double Decker Electric Train 4002

In green Southern Railway livery the train was four carriages long with a strange configuration of doors and windows unlike anything I had ever seen before.  Where the usual row of ‘slam doors’ would have been every other door was missing, replaced by a body panel above which a curved window overlapped the roof area.

It was an unusual-looking machine indeed.  

 

The faces of bored passengers peered out through the windows on two levels, and I wondered how on earth the top tier of travellers gained access to their seats.  But, as the doors were opening on the ‘blind’ side from where I stood, it was impossible to see.

Author's '8-Shot' Kodak Brownie 127 Camera

Not wishing to miss an opportunity such as this I took hold of the Brownie 127 camera that hung around my neck by a thin black cord and raised it to my eye.  I was so preoccupied with trying to fit the long train, into the tiny little viewfinder, I failed to notice my train was puffing into the station from Charing Cross, with the result that at the precise time I pressed the shutter button my train entered the viewfinder.  

I would not have a perfect photograph, I thought, but at least I would have some kind of record of this unusual sighting.

Struggling aboard the Dover train as quickly as I could, holding the camera in one hand and my little brown suitcase in the other, I found an empty compartment and dived onto a seat near the window to get a closer view of the double-decker.  

 

To my horror its tail-end was heading towards the end of the platform.  It had gone in the time it had taken me to find a seat.  In the vain hope of perhaps seeing it disappearing out of the station I jumped to my feet and frantically fumbled with the catches to open the narrow sliding windows, in order to poke my head through.  

As I did so my train lurched forward and I fell back onto my seat.  My camera hit me in the chest, the suitcase that had been perched precariously on the edge of the opposite seat fell to the floor, spilling the well-folded contents onto the floor amongst the cigarette ends and the little piles of ash.  

The platforms of Waterloo East slipped out of sight as the River Thames came in to view and the train soon began to meander through the suburbs of south London.  All I could do now was to sit and wonder about what I had seen.  

Arriving at my prefab home a couple of hours later my father, who was no doubt overjoyed to see me home again after six weeks of peace and quiet, gave me an old fashioned look as I told him the story of the unusual train.  

“Sorry son I’ve never heard of that train”, he said.  Perhaps he regarded my tale as yet another product of my active imagination.  “I’ll ask at work" he said.  

He worked for British Railways at Dover Marine station.  "I'll see if anybody knows anything about it”.  As it turned out nobody had heard of my mystery train...or perhaps he had simply forgotten to ask. 

The years rolled by, I grew up, started work, took up smoking ‘to be a man’, learned to drink beer, did a spell in the Army and got married.  

As my childhood stretched a long way behind me, the encounter with the double-decker became nothing more than a fading boyhood memory.  

However, unexpectedly in 1995 all that was to change! 

During that year I happened to be visiting the Northampton & Lamport Railway, (N&LR), following an article that I had read in my local newspaper about their latest acquisition - a Belgian steam tram named Yvonne.

After spending a pleasant and productive afternoon photographing the unusual tram, and hearing from its driver the story of how he had rescued the locomotive from a scrap-yard in Belgium, and brought it back to England, I struck up a conversation with one of the N&LR volunteers.  

We talked about the various items of rolling stock and locomotives that the railway had accumulated over the years, when for no apparent reason the ‘double-decker EMU’ came to mind.  I mentioned what I had seen as a boy and waited for the inevitable blank look that would say, “I don’t know what you are talking about”.

To my great surprise I was wrong about his response.  “Oh yes”, he said, nodding knowingly.  “I can tell you a bit about that train”.

Sitting in the volunteers’ canteen drinking tea from the inevitable chipped mug, I learned that two experimental 4-car sets, numbers 4001 and 4002, had been built in the late 1940’s to help alleviate the chronic overcrowding on the Charing Cross – Gravesend line in Kent.  

Designed by Oliver Bullied, who was also responsible for designing the steam locomotives that would often be seen hauling the 'Golden Arrow’ Pullman train between Dover and London’s Victoria station in the 1950’s, the double-decker was able to carry up to 552 passengers.  

“This was quite an astonishing feat”, the volunteer went on to tell me, puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette, “bearing in mind that the conventional electric trains of the time only had a maximum capacity of 400”.   I was impressed.

But, as I soon learned, the venture was doomed from the outset.

"Apart from the numerous teething troubles after entering service on 2 November 1949", he went on to tell me, "when it was withdrawn twice in the first month, it proved to be extremely unpopular with the travelling public.  Also, it took up twice as much loading time at stations and cost 50% more to build.  Despite these problems however, the two trains soldiered on in service until October 1971 when they were finally withdrawn."  

I couldn’t believe my luck.  My mystery had been solved at last!

“What became of them?" I asked.

Before he could answer we were interrupted by the driver-owner of Yvonne, offering me a footplate ride on the tram which was about to leave the station.  I didn’t need to be asked twice, this was too good an opportunity to miss.  

Thanking the volunteer, and promising to meet him after the ride to find out what happened to the ‘double-decker’, I left the canteen and climbed aboard the simmering locomotive.   

Soon we were rattling and swaying along the track.  I was in my element.  I had never been in the cab of a steam locomotive and now I was living every schoolboy’s dream.

Double-Decker at Lamport Railway, Northampton

All too soon the ride was over.  I climbed down from the cab intending to take a few photographs as the driver prepared to make the return trip, but as I turned this way and that to get a proper reading from my camera’s light meter an astonishing sight grabbed my attention.  I couldn’t believe what it was I was looking at.  Standing against a set of buffers, vandalised and neglected, was the ‘double-decker’ from my childhood – number 4002!  Or at least the driving-trailer carriage of it.

The body panels were rusted, virtually every window had been smashed and the once pristine livery had faded considerably.  It was difficult for me to accept that this unique example of railway history could end up in such a pitiful state, so far from its Southern Region home.  While at the same time I was delighted to know that it had survived the years, and was ‘over the moon’ to see it once again.

Double-Decker Train Compartment in dilapidated condition

On my return to the station I was disappointed to hear that my helpful friend had, by this time, gone home; and no-one else could shed any further light on the fate of the other train. I was now left with more questions than answers.

What had become of sister train 4001?  Where were the other carriages from 4002?  Are they lying somewhere abandoned and forgotten?  Did they fall prey to the scrapyard cutting torch, or were any of them rescued and returned to their former glory?  

 

In my heart of hearts I would like to believe that it was the latter.

Just as those two trains were doomed to failure, so unfortunately was my childhood snap of 4002 taken on that Waterloo East platform all those years ago.  

When I collected my prints from the chemist a few weeks later, that particular image turned out to be, ironically, a double exposure.  I had forgotten to wind on the film after my previous snap!

Double-Decker EMU Train on YouTube:

 

Southern Railway Double-Decker Train at Waterloo.

 
Double-Decker Train at Marylebone station.

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