To sharpness for scrap

This is probably the best of my four pictures from the Cooper’s Metals’ Sharpness site on the evening of 7 May 1964. We are looking south-westwards, and to the distant right is the River Severn, with the tidal basin link to it close by but unseen. Their working lives over, the line up of locomotives is entirely made up of tender engines, with only limited cutting having started on these, perhaps no more than cutting the platework of the tender of a Churchward Mogul at the far end, near the houses on Great Western Road. Stripped of name and numberplates, only chalk markings helped with identification once locomotives reached this site. A process of deduction has identified all of these, but not necessarily which one is where in the line up on this day. Nearest the camera is a ‘Hall’ class 4-6-0 and it has two classmates behind it, whilst ‘Castles’ Nos 5040, 5050 and 4087 are also here. At this stage, all the locomotives are with their tenders, with one ‘Hall’ and one ‘Castle’ coupled to flat-sided Hawksworth variants. P Kerslake/Rail-Online

Aware of my interest in all things steam, a friend of mine in Gloucester whose parents lived in the small Severnside hamlet of Sharpness had, in 1964, made me aware that a number of withdrawn Western Region locomotives were awaiting disposal at the local scrapyard located on the eastern banks of the River Severn, the site being operated by Coopers Metals of Swindon. That company had, unbeknown to myself, this facility at Sharpness, which was served by the Western Region’s branch line from Berkeley Road, itself located on the former LMS/London Midland Region main line between Gloucester and Bristol. My informant, whilst on a recent visit to his parents, had noticed the arrival of a number of locomotives at Sharpness and he promised me that I would not be disappointed in making a trip down to the location.

On the evening of Thursday, 7 May 1964, therefore, the pair of us left our respective wives together at my friend’s home as neither of the young ladies appeared to relish the prospect of an excursion to a locomotive graveyard, particularly on what was, I recall, a damp, dismal and certainly uncharacteristic early May evening. The scene which greeted me at Sharpness was certainly not one which I had expected, with the site being wide open, with no restricted a