When was the "golden age of steam"?

[Rup]

People often talk about the "golden age of steam", but when was it?

Thanks.

 

[SquireBev]

From a business point of view, probably the decade preceding the First World War. The pre-grouping companies were at the height of their power and turning a profit. Motorised road transport wasn't yet developed enough to threaten the railways, so even minor branchlines managed to make money.

However, the most commonly evoked image of the Golden Age of Steam would be firmly in the 1930s, with a streamlined Gresley or Stanier Pacific thundering its way northwards, smashing speed records as it went.

 

[WatcherZero]

1860-1939

 

[superkev]

I'd say the late 1930's when both the LNER and LMS introduced there fast London scotish expresses.
K

 

[meridian2]

Not the 1930s. Prestigious trains coincided with the great depression and were irrelevant to most people except as a passing spectacle. I'd go for the immediate pre-WW1 period. Lots of capacity and diversity of stock and routes.

 

[Robin1966]

I would agree with the immediate pre-WW1 period. Lots of companies with lots of different locomotive types, attractive, well-kept stations, a whole load of colourful liveries to gawp at, etc etc.

 

[WatcherZero]

I would disagree, there was still improvement being made and ever grander and faster trains right up to WW2.

The A4 class, the fastest steam train was 1935, the A1, A3 and their contemporaries were all in the 20's.

1920 is when peak passenger was achieved (before today) and there was only a handful of new lines built afterwards but it was still the Golden Age.

Remember those classic 'visit the English Riviera' posters commonly associated with the Golden Age? first published 1927!

 

[Master29]

What was so golden about it? There`s a lot of fake nostalgia concerning halcyon days which were probably never true, certainly to the non enthusiast anyway.

 

[daikilo]

I think the problem is what we mean by "golden age". According to wikipedia:
"The term Golden Age (Greek: χρύσεον γένος[1] chryseon genos) comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five (or more) Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and then the present (Iron), which is a period of decline, sometimes followed by the Leaden Age. By definition, one is never in the Golden Age."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age

Now, how to translate that into steam? If there is nothing before "golden" then obviously the "golden age" started with the first (operational) steam engines then grew.

The question then is "when did it cease to be 'golden" and became "silver" or lower. Presumably when something took its place which, in the case of rail, could be diesel or electric (or both). Certainly electric did make inroads on commuter services from about the 1900s and on expresses in France in the 1930s, but steam was still creating exploits in the UK so I would tend to the idea that the "golden age of steam" only really became silver when it was clear that other motive power could do a better job, which I suggest was around WW2. However, I suppose exploits like Mallard could be considered as already the heroic age as they were one offs.

 

[meridian2]

Most people alive today view railways through a fug of nostalgia, or the frustration of daily use. Enthusiasts have always found something to be optimistic about, some people will even mourn the passing of the Pacer, and trains don't get more quotidian than that. I don't have fond memories of Peaks in their final days, to others it was a golden age.

Read Thomas Hardy's recollections of clearing a graveyard of human jam to create St Pancras station, or the navvie riots which turned towns and villages into no-go areas. The best way to appreciate the railway is with a blind eye, or 1:76 scale. If you were wealthy and had the free time it bought, any time was a good one to travel by rail.

 

[neonison]

The multitude of photographs I've seen suggests that the golden age of railways in Britain was the Edwardian era with immaculately turned out stations with armies of staff. The golden age of steam however would seem to come in a short period of time between the mid-thirties and the commencement of WWII when the emphasis was on power and speed.

 

[Juniper Driver]

1926?

 

[Flying Phil]

I think you could argue that, in a sense, today is the golden age of steam....I was in my teens when BR steam finished and so I only saw dirty clanking worn out engines in filthy surroundings (Except Salisbury where I realised that SR pacifics were green!)
Now we have, in probably 100 preserved railways, about 300+ well looked after, clean and appreciated steam locomotives that are functioning as intended. We also have new builds that fill in gaps of un-preserved classes. We are indeed fortunate.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The multitude of photographs I've seen suggests that the golden age of railways in Britain was the Edwardian era with immaculately turned out stations with armies of staff. The golden age of steam however would seem to come in a short period of time between the mid-thirties and the commencement of WWII when the emphasis was on power and speed.

1914: a golden age for photographers and shareholders maybe, and for the sheer diversity of steam operations and reach of the network.
But the railway ran pretty much on slave labour, and the business model was not commercially sustainable long term.
Nobody cared about the environmental or social issues of railways in the community (noise, dirt, emissions, working hours etc).
Safety was very suspect, still with wooden vehicle bodies and gas lighting.
As largely a monopoly provider, the railway was unprepared for competition first from road and then air.
Some timetables didn't change significantly between 1914 and Beeching in 1963.

I'd say 1914 was the peak.
The 1920s/30s were glitzy in places but this only applied to a small fraction of highly publicised services.
Of the Big Four, only Southern really got to grips with modernisation.
The LMS and LNER were still struggling with internal amalgamations in 1939, and the GWR was still stuck in 1914.
BR was the (clapped out) Big Four around the one table (sometimes), until Beeching.
There:take that! wink:

 

[WatcherZero]

It was 1967? that the last steam service operated so no one is suggesting the Golden age lasted right till the end.

 

[AndrewE]

I think you could argue that, in a sense, today is the golden age of steam....I was in my teens when BR steam finished and so I only saw dirty clanking worn out engines in filthy surroundings (Except Salisbury where I realised that SR pacifics were green!)
Now we have, in probably 100 preserved railways, about 300+ well looked after, clean and appreciated steam locomotives that are functioning as intended. We also have new builds that fill in gaps of un-preserved classes. We are indeed fortunate.

I think I agree, although today's electric railway (when it works and before the de-staffing wrecked failure response times) may turn out to have been the Golden Age of rail...

 

[meridian2]

A golden age is the one immediately preceding ones own recall.

 

[Rup]

Some really interesting answers here. Great to hear differing viewpoints, all with valid observations.

I do have a sense we are entering another golden age of the railways and particularly of preservation.

I'm very proud of our country's railway heritage.

 

[ac6000cw]

I'd go with the pre-1914 'golden age' too - once electric traction became a viable option for the mainline railway (as it did in the early 20th century), steam was doomed in the long run. When railway internal combustion power arrived in the late 1920s and became a serious alternative in the 1930s for non-electrified routes it drove the other nails into the steam coffin.

It was mostly lack of investment money that kept steam alive after that - if the LNER had had the money, it would probably have electrified its mainlines (and it did look at buying some streamlined high-speed diesel trains in the 1930s - the A4s were the poor man's alternative).

 

[Master29]

The multitude of photographs I've seen suggests that the golden age of railways in Britain was the Edwardian era with immaculately turned out stations with armies of staff. The golden age of steam however would seem to come in a short period of time between the mid-thirties and the commencement of WWII when the emphasis was on power and speed.

But no one who used the railways then is alive to make that call though are they. Clappers makes the best point when he says it`s relative to the individual.

 

[Flying Phil]

It was mostly lack of investment money that kept steam alive after that - if the LNER had had the money, it would probably have electrified its mainlines (and it did look at buying some streamlined high-speed diesel trains in the 1930s - the A4s were the poor man's alternative).[/QUOTE]

I thought the LNER went with the A4s because the high speed diesel *Flying Hamburger?) did not offer the number of seats/range/speed and "extras" that they wanted......

 

[ac6000cw]

I thought the LNER went with the A4s because the high speed diesel *Flying Hamburger?) did not offer the number of seats/range/speed and "extras" that they wanted......

That was true, but they were also too expensive for it (the LNER was not in as good shape financially as some of the other 'Big Four') - it along with the Southern were forward-thinking, but it didn't have the money in the 1930s to realise its ideas.

I think that if they had really wanted to make a splash with streamlined diesel trains they could have - by 1935 the predecessor of EMD was building 1800 hp diesel locomotives/power cars. On a good day with a good crew an A4 could produce somewhat more power than that, but the diesel can maintain that power output for hours on end with no effort from the crew (and doesn't shower your shiny new train and upmarket passengers with soot and ash).

 

[shredder1]

The 1930`s has always been known as the Golden Age of railways and then WW2 kicked in

 

[30907]

The OP asked about the Golden Age of steam, so speed, performance, train frequency must all be factors, rather than staffing levels and wages. The 30s must be the prime candidate, but I think there's a case for what G F Heiron called the "Indian Summer" of the late 50s - just before my time, but looking at logs published by Nock, Allen and co (and learning train timing from my uncle...) I see the point.

 

[Taunton]

I thought the LNER went with the A4s because the high speed diesel *Flying Hamburger?) did not offer the number of seats/range/speed and "extras" that they wanted......

Gresley personally went to Germany and rode on the "Flying Hamburger", and doubtless very rapidly saw it for what it was - trivia. It was just a 2-car articulated unit (think a single DLR car), and in a spirit of some egalitarianism at a time when Continental main line trains had three classes, was SECOND class only - when most still travelled Third. It had just 100 seats, and would have been a gross distraction to run at high speeds among the heavy traffic on the ECML, which was far busier than the Berlin-Hamburg line.