Eastern

As I was born in Eastern England, it seems only natural to have a bias in that direction.

Mind you, photographs of trains on the line closest to my birthplace are rarer than hens’ teeth, as it closed to passengers in the 1930s. Photographs of services west of Spalding are also uncommon; and would be out of my price range if an original one came up on Ebay.

So, I will have to content myself with some more main line images from the region; plus this screen grab of the west end of Bourne station taken from a train in the 1950s.

 

 

 

A little further afield was/is Peterborough, which two stations imaginately named North and East. Here is B1 4-6-0 at East station in September 1960.

 

 

On the East Coast Main Line (ECML) a wide variety of locos could be seen. V2 2-6-2 60800 ‘Green Arrow’ passes High Dyke, south of Grantham, with a passenger train on 20th August 1960.

 

 

Climbing up the gradient towards Stoke Tunnel (which appears to have been named after its relative proximity to the parish of Stoke Rochford) is A1/1 pacific ‘Great Northern’ on the 18th July 1959.

 

Moving further south we see 60504 ‘Mons Meg’ passing Potters Bar on 14th May 1960. This loco was only 8 months away from withdrawal at this time. Originally a 2-8-2 it was butchered (aka ‘rebuilt’) by Edward Thompson in 1944.

 

Fortunately, Thompson never attempted to ‘rebuild’ an A4, so he must have had a modicum of intelligence. Here we see 60026 passing New Southgate with the Tees-Tyne Pullman in July 1961.