What WAS it like travelling on a steam train?

[Howardh]

[youtube]wMLBNheMsd8[/youtube]
is the video that made me wonder. The trains look really grimey, nothing you would associate with the IOW.

When I was a lad I can't ever remember travelling on a steam train. Saw a few, stood over bridges as they passed etc, but my old man - who loved steam, engines, engineering etc - said that the passngers would enter white and emerge black. Was it that bad? Was there any ventilation that could prevent your new suit from changing colour? Was there any way of keeping the soot off the passengers?
I'm probably a philestine, but I reckon even diesel trains are a bit mucky!! Thoughts, anyone of a certain age??

 

[LowLevel]

Take a ride of a steam rail tour or preserved line. They are definitely rather dirty.

 

[Howardh]

Take a ride of a steam rail tour or preserved line. They are definitely rather dirty.

Seeing them on the Bury line, I can appreciate that! Can't see commuters these days being happy if they were re-introduced

 

[Spamcan81]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMLBNheMsd8 is the video that made me wonder. The trains look really grimey, nothing you would associate with the IOW.
When I was a lad I can't ever remember travelling on a steam train. Saw a few, stood over bridges as they passed etc, but my old man - who loved steam, engines, engineering etc - said that the passngers would enter white and emerge black. Was it that bad? Was there any ventilation that could prevent your new suit from changing colour? Was there any way of keeping the soot off the passengers?
I'm probably a philestine, but I reckon even diesel trains are a bit mucky!! Thoughts, anyone of a certain age??

I've travelled behind steam and remained clean. Don't stick your head out of the window for hours on end though or you'll end up looking like a coal miner after a day down the pit. Ash could come in through the windows so the answer was not to open them wide.

 

[AM9]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMLBNheMsd8 is the video that made me wonder. The trains look really grimey, nothing you would associate with the IOW.
When I was a lad I can't ever remember travelling on a steam train. Saw a few, stood over bridges as they passed etc, but my old man - who loved steam, engines, engineering etc - said that the passngers would enter white and emerge black. Was it that bad? Was there any ventilation that could prevent your new suit from changing colour? Was there any way of keeping the soot off the passengers?
I'm probably a philestine, but I reckon even diesel trains are a bit mucky!! Thoughts, anyone of a certain age??

50 years ago is bound to get wrapped-up in nostalgia. My (limited) memories of steam travel were on the the Chingford branch and the LT&S. The coaches were grubby, the seats worn and most journeys would cover light clothes in smuts to some degree. Drop windows would let the smoke in when passing under long overbridges or through tunnels, leaving them open allowed the fresher air to push the smoke out again.
The seats tended to be deep and springy as the leaf spring suspension and jointed track gave a bumpy ride. There was also a lot of forward/aft jerking when starting and stopping as coach couplings were often still manual screw types that were not always fully tightened.
Coach lighting was very dim compared with anything used today so reading was only normally practical if you managed to get a seat right under a lamp.
If all this sounds terrible, it was if you didn't like trains, which is why the railways lost out to buses and then cars in the '60s.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Being born in 1945, steam traction was the norm for me for very many years. I can bear out the fact that steam engines emitted particles of things likely to cause staining to clothes and on the area of the New Allen Street viaduct that took traffic outwards from Manchester Oldham Road goods depot up to Miles Platting, it was said that the local women knew what times of day it was safe to hang out sheets that had been washed.

 

[Abpj17]

I'm only mid-thirties but travelled on steam a fair bit when little (especially Swanage)

To be fair, sometimes the tube can feel pretty dirty because there is no where for all the dirt to escape to.

 

[crewmeal]

In those days no one seemed to be in a rush. Life was at a leisurely pace with no social media. People used to talk and hold decent meaningful conversations. people would say hello. Gentlemen would give up their seats to ladies. Gentlemen would raise their hats in respect. Restaurant cars had proper silver service with meals served by professionals. Coffee seemed to taste like coffee and not chemically induced. Need I go on?

 

[AM9]

In those days no one seemed to be in a rush. Life was at a leisurely pace with no social media. People used to talk and hold decent meaningful conversations. people would say hello. Gentlemen would give up their seats to ladies. Gentlemen would raise their hats in respect. Restaurant cars had proper silver service with meals served by professionals. Coffee seemed to taste like coffee and not chemically induced. Need I go on?

Restaurant cars, not many could afford those!

And the summers were better!

 

[Welshman]

Restaurant cars, not many could afford those!

Perhaps not for lunch or dinner, but, occasionally, as a little treat, my Mother would buy me afternoon tea.

For 3s.6d you could sit in the restaurant car and enjoy sandwiches with the crusts cut off, Indian or China Tea and cakes - all served very respectfully by a waiter with a starched, white coat. We felt like royalty!

Regarding getting dirty - it was not too bad, provided you did not stick your head out of the window, as has already been said. You had to be careful opening the carriage doors, as the handles tended to get fairly grimy, but the interiors of the coaches were not too bad, if my memory serves me right. Indeed, on a hot day near the engine with the windows wide open, you could get an unexpected cold shower when the train passed over some watertroughs.

 

[AM9]

Perhaps not for lunch or dinner, but, occasionally, as a little treat, my Mother would buy me afternoon tea.

For 3s.6d you could sit in the restaurant car and enjoy sandwiches with the crusts cut off, Indian or China Tea and cakes - all served very respectfully by a waiter with a starched, white coat. We felt like royalty!

Regarding getting dirty - it was not too bad, provided you did not stick your head out of the window, as has already been said. You had to be careful opening the carriage doors, as the handles tended to get fairly grimy, but the interiors of the coaches were not too bad, if my memory serves me right. Indeed, on a hot day near the engine with the windows wide open, you could get an unexpected cold shower when the train passed over some watertroughs.

I was referring to suburban stock, i.e. non-corridor six-a-side seating and doors that were opened at every station. I'm sure that main line stock with a corridor or even SOs/FOs were a lot cleaner, although probably more stuffy.
The standard sliding toplights on fixed windows worked fairly well providing somebody hadn't left them open beyond the arrows on a wet day. Condensation was a major problem on single glazed windows.

 

[Oswyntail]

What we need to remember - especially those of a younger disposition - is that air quality within conurbations has improved beyond recognition in the last 50 years. With homes, factories and offices belching out smoke all around you, the atmosphere on a train was simply what you were used to everywhere.

 

[neilmc]

Only ever rode behind one steam loco, 70023 Venus on the fabled Fridays-only Manchester to York in 1967. This ran to boost the rather poor cross-Pennine service which was offered in those days.

I don't think the loco made any real difference, unless you chose to stick your head out of the window. Being in a "real" carriage with a corridor and compartments just like in the films rather than a DMU was exciting though.

 

[Bevan Price]

It helped to know the location of water troughs, and to be ready to close the windows. If the fireman misjudged the time to raise the scoop, water would overfow out of the tender and "wash" the coaches behind the locomotive.

 

[yorkie]

Thoughts, anyone of a certain age??

Could anyone old enough to be a member of this forum could answer, as steam trains are still running (including on the Isle of Wight)?

 

[30907]

That IoW film tallies with my memory of 1965, the last year of normal service: coaches elderly but clean by the standards of the time and well looked after, locos variable - I dare say depending on how long ago they had been overhauled.
I recall an unexpected trip behind a B1 on a relief from Norwich to London in 1961 and getting caught by Ipswich troughs.

 

[ian1944]

As a child I found tunnels the worst experience, the noise and darkness (with dim lighting) were bad enough but the smoke was worst. I recall Disley, Totley and the Severn Tunnel with particular unfondness.

 

[LowLevel]

Funnily enough I love sitting in my cab with all the lights off going through Totley, Cowburn and Disley - there's something surreal about flying along backwards not being able to see anything at all once the signals in the tunnels are out of view!

 

[eastwestdivide]

What WAS it like travelling on a steam train?

Don't forget "slower than trains of today".

...expecting a load of minor exceptions to this general rule.

 

[QJ]

What WAS it like travelling on a steam train?

Awesome. Mind you I had to travel to PR China to experience steam in everyday revenue earning service. Sadly for me tucked away in deepest Devon steam had disappeared in the area I was born long before I became aware of the environment around me. So, to put things right, I had no choice but to visit the Jitong Railway and a few of the local lines linking collieries and workers towns with the national Chinese rail network.

Being lulled to sleep in a hard class sleeper by the sound of the steam loco climbing a 1 in 60 gradient was fantastic. Standing lineside as freight after freight pounded past hauled by pairs of 2-10-2 locos was an experience worth every penny of the cost of the privilege to be there. The steam locos could be heard for minutes before and after passing where I was stood exhaust echoing off the mountainsides.

As for tunnels. Being on the footplate of the second loco of a pair hauling a freight thrashing up the incline with the cab filling with the exhaust of the loco in front as well as the one you are standing in was an experience! My missus and son were with me and I almost achieved the perfect murder.

And yes you do get covered in soot and cinders but that is all part of the fun. It was easier to clean than the film of oil chucked out from the diesels that I spent chasing in my youth.

 

[steamybrian]

Could anyone old enough to be a member of this forum could answer, as steam trains are still running (including on the Isle of Wight)?

Yes-- I am of a certain age.....!!!!!!
I (just) remember travelling on the Isle of Wight in December 1966 in the last month of steam haulage. My vague memories include--
Even then the line was a "heritage" working museum.
Pregrouping carriages containing "sepia" black and white photographs.
Although the staff did their best the (pregrouping) 02 class locos were grimy, oily and wheezing. Brading had gas lighting and unsure of the other stations.
The carriages were swept clean but the seating was grubby and impregnanted with soot particles.
... It may be an unfair comment because it was the last month and it was just being run down...!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

My neighbour travelled St Albans - Moorgate in the 1950's (obv by steam) - she described it as filthy and slow. This would have been in non corridor stock with 80% smoking allowed. Some things do improve.

 

[Busaholic]

My father was a steam fanatic, but unfortunately for him we lived on the Southern Electric. I do remember Sunday trips out to some field near Potters Bar to see 'Mallard' and its ilk pass by, also the platforms of Kings Cross and the prosaically-named Gasworks Tunnel with its pervading smell of both gas and coal dust. Probably what confirmed me in my love of buses and electric vehicles!

 

[341o2]

Yes-- I am of a certain age.....!!!!!!
I (just) remember travelling on the Isle of Wight in December 1966 in the last month of steam haulage. My vague memories include--
Even then the line was a "heritage" working museum.
Pregrouping carriages containing "sepia" black and white photographs.
Although the staff did their best the (pregrouping) 02 class locos were grimy, oily and wheezing. Brading had gas lighting and unsure of the other stations.
The carriages were swept clean but the seating was grubby and impregnanted with soot particles.
... It may be an unfair comment because it was the last month and it was just being run down...!

This arose because of the uncertainty of the future of any of the Islands railways so the 02's were patched up again and again because of costs involved in introducing replacement stock. Beeching recommended complete closure fortunately not implemented

 

[AM9]

My father was a steam fanatic, but unfortunately for him we lived on the Southern Electric. I do remember Sunday trips out to some field near Potters Bar to see 'Mallard' and its ilk pass by, also the platforms of Kings Cross and the prosaically-named Gasworks Tunnel with its pervading smell of both gas and coal dust. Probably what confirmed me in my love of buses and electric vehicles!

I remember making a weekly visit to Earlsfield in '66/7 when the Weymouth trains were still pulled by modified West Country's. That was unusual as all other travel was either by tube or GE electrics. In those days, there were still a few steam locos based at Nine Elms which could be seen when passing.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

We have to think of coal-fired locomotives in the context of the era. Most city buildings would have had a fireplace in every room, not just burning coal, but having coal carried up the stairs and shoveled into the fires, and then the ashes shoveled back out and carried back down the stairs - every day. Coal was carried through the streets and and dropped in sacks, coal dust was stirred up by every passing person, animal or vehicle. Industry consumed great qualtities of coal, much of it carried by mechanical conveyors which dropped lots of coal dust. Even the clean water heated to wash people and clothes was often heated on coal stoves. And that's without even thinking of the environment in mining coal and then in transporting the stuff, which was predominantly done by rail.

By comparison with most daily activity, passenger travel by rails was clean!

. . . . non corridor stock with 80% smoking allowed. Some things do improve.

Yes, if the coal fumes didn't get you then the tobacco would!

 

[yorksrob]

We have to think of coal-fired locomotives in the context of the era. Most city buildings would have had a fireplace in every room, not just burning coal, but having coal carried up the stairs and shoveled into the fires, and then the ashes shoveled back out and carried back down the stairs - every day. Coal was carried through the streets and and dropped in sacks, coal dust was stirred up by every passing person, animal or vehicle. Industry consumed great qualtities of coal, much of it carried by mechanical conveyors which dropped lots of coal dust. Even the clean water heated to wash people and clothes was often heated on coal stoves. And that's without even thinking of the environment in mining coal and then in transporting the stuff, which was predominantly done by rail.

By comparison with most daily activity, passenger travel by rails was clean!Yes, if the coal fumes didn't get you then the tobacco would!

Ah, but even in the 90's, the smoking carriage was the one part of the train you were guaranteed a seat (and its not as though it made any difference as I spent a lot of time in smokey pubs anyway

 

[krus_aragon]

Don't forget "slower than trains of today".

...expecting a load of minor exceptions to this general rule.

Well yes and no, depending on how you read it:

Steam trains in the 60s were generally slower than the diesel/electric trains of today, but they were also faster than most of the steam trains operated today, as they are now largely run on speed-limited heritage railways.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Well yes and no, depending on how you read it:

Steam trains in the 60s were generally slower than the diesel/electric trains of today, but they were also faster than most of the steam trains operated today, as they are now largely run on speed-limited heritage railways.

Fair enough, but I think that counts as one of my "minor exceptions", as steam trains make up a minute fraction of the trains of today.

 

[Taunton]

I've read these notes, but having experienced steam, and the changeover to diesel, the answer to what was different is "not a lot".

Given that passengers were sat back in the hauled carriages, I presume that many didn't even know what power was on the front. The initial diesels didn't have much of a performance difference to the steam they replaced, and timings often stayed the same. A Duchess 4-6-2 might be down to 30 mph over the top of Shap, but I assure you with a Class 40 on a typical express load it was no better.

The dirt issue is overdone. Sure the locomotives looked grimy, this was more due to a shortage of cleaners in the 1950s-60s rather than any inherent aspect, diesels at the time were the same.

DMUs were a significant difference, more than anything else due to the view out of the front which was unprecedented. It's a shame that modern generation ones did not continue this.

Another difference was electrification, on those lines which had this, especially 25 Kv on the WCML or Great Eastern as it came on stream. Although a number of the new electric vehicles still had traditional compartments and thus little change in ambience, they were driven in a far speedier way that passengers really noticed. Going north of Crewe towards Liverpool, in the early 25 Kv days it always seemed to be a point of honour for electric locos to reach 100 mph within about 3 miles of the start (yes, even with pre-Nationalisation stock), something unprecedented. In all truth, I sometimes think that some of the speeds got up to on the WCML were better in those early days than now, even more noticeable comparing the Class 304s in their early days with current suburban EMUs there.