'Mad as a March Hare'

摘要

Triggered by the news of a further reduction in Southern Region steam-hauled services the following month, resulting from the implementation of partial electric working of services from London to Bournemouth, I made it my mission to extract the most out of my privilege Waterloo/Southampton season ticket during March 1967. Another contributing factor to the change was that the Brush 'Type 4' diagrams were to be further altered to achieve greater utilisation by concentrating them on passenger services east of Bournemouth. It was, therefore, a 'now or never' scenario to maximise my steam mileages before it was too late. Five days leave and eight 'overnights' later, a goal of 5,305 miles was achieved, and here's how I did it. Prior to spending the majority of March 1967 touring Southern Region metals, there was some unfinished business to be completed on the London Midland Region. My first weekend that month was similar to the previous three - see the 'Salopian Steam Swansong' article in the March 2014 issue of Steam Days - my time being spent 'bashing' the steam passenger services out of Shrewsbury, to its north and west. Resulting from the full implementation of the London (Euston) to Birmingham (New Street) electric services, the London (Paddington) to Shrewsbury, Chester (General), and Birkenhead (Woodside) trains would cease completely from Monday, 6 March that year - what a veritable source of steam catches those trains were. Generally by this time diesel-hauled east of Shrewsbury, and with just the occasional appearance of a 'stray' diesel locomotive north of there, one could 'station hop' between locations such as Gobowen, Wrexham (General) and Chester (General) utilising the almost hourly services to catch runs with numerous examples of Stanier and British Railways Standard '5MT' 4-6-0s, and with sometimes the surprise of a BR Standard '4MT' in the mix. As if that wasn't enticing enough, upon the reversal of these trains at Chester (General) - trains from Shrewsbury approach the station from the west/north, and then depart north for Hooton, Rock Ferry and Birkenhead - there was a selection of both Stanier and Fairburn 2-6-4Ts working the northernmost legs of the same express trains, together with the sporadic use of a Chester-based BR Standard '4MT' 2-6-0.