The combination of a visit to the Swindon Works heart of the former GWR and enjoying haulage behind hand-picked motive power in the twilight of its years proved a winning formula for the SLS across 14 years.Richard Garland travelled on the majority of these outings from Birmingham, and reflects on the 1960-64 tours, which said farewell to the ‘Kings’, ‘Counties’ and even the M&SWJ line.
With just one exception, the years 1951-64 saw the Stephenson Locomotive Society’s Midlands Area group involved in the organisation of at least one railtour from Birmingham to Swindon Works and back. Generally speaking, a singular annual trip ran for the membership, but two additional trips were run for the wider public when City of Truro was first returned to the main line and, as we will see, another railtour ran as a British Railways operation when the ‘King’ class 4-6-0s bowed out of use on the Birmingham main line, the format of this trip being a variation of that established by the SLS Midlands Area and was adopted with the society’s blessing. Despite the destination remaining the same, each visit was one of contrasts at Swindon, with locomotives of outgoing designs found on the scrap lines, the so-called ‘Dump’ proving to be something of a last chance location to see some pre-Grouping era engines before they were lost forever, and then there was the everyday routine of ongoing locomotive overhauls to witness, as well as some new building, and even the opportunity to walk around the nearby engine shed (82C). Of course, as the years passed by, change within the Western Region locomotive fleet was ever more apparent.
Across the period, Great W
