
Time Capsules
Steam locomotive 44466Photo of a steam locomotive, picture titled 'LCGB Wessex Downsman 3-4-65'
Number is 44466, shed 82E.
The Wessex Downsman Rail Tour
Photo © and courtesy of Jim Payne - Through their Eyes
Picture added on 27 January 2012 at 19:34
This picture is in the following groups
Through Their Eyes - Steam Trains Collection
Through Their Eyes - Steam Trains Collection
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Through their Eyes
Through their Eyes
44466 was a Bristol Barrow Road loco, based there in 1948 and at withdrawl at the end of May 1965, a little under two months after this photograph was taken.
The LCGB tour ran from Waterloo via Staines to Reading, then on to Newbury, Devizes, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads. From Temple Meads the train was taken on by 44466 piloted by Hymek D7007. The diesel came off at Mangotsfield, by which time the train was running roughly an hour late and 44466 was left to haul the tourists to Bath Green Park. A Stanier 8F headed the train over the Somerset & Dorset via Radstock and Evercreech Junction to Bournemouth West. The train returned to Waterloo via Southampton Central, Woking and Wimbledon. Unrebuilt Battle of Britain 4-6-2 34051 Winston Churchill took the train back over Southern Region metals.
Apparently Mangotsfield station inspired the creation of 'The Ghost Train', a play by Arnold Ridley. He found himself stranded there one evening. I found myself stranded at Gloucester one evening, trying to get back to Bristol from Liverpool, having missed my train at Birmingham New Street. I managed to persuade the friendly guard of a parcels train to let me travel with him. I sat in his van looking along the line from his ducket window.
Mangotsfield was a good place for steam on a frosty cold February - I still remember filming an 8F storming up the bank from Fishponds and Staple Hill with a heavy freight in tow. The 8mm cine film has long since disappeared