That was the year that was – 1972

Presenter: Geoff Plumb

Hybrid Meeting both Physically at Shenfield Parish Hall and via Zoom

Geoff is a regular presenter to our branch with his series of talks ‘That was the year that was ….”. This time it was a  look back to 1972. The talk opened with a quick look at the Brighton Belle’s ex Southern Railway 1933 vintage 5-BEL stock. Now painted in BR blue and grey, Geoff captured their one of their final journeys before the service ceased on the 30th April 1972.

By now of course, all steam locomotives had disappeared from the UK mainline leaving photographers in search of this mode of traction no option but to go further afield. Geoff took us first on a couple of trips to Germany to witness the swansong days of (West) German steam in the East of the country. It was interesting to see the ‘DB’ logo in the form of cast plates on the side of the steam locos – a logo that is still in use today on ICE4s!

The ‘main event’ was a circular tour around the east of South Africa. Here the bulk of the locos were Garretts of various gauges along with other larger conventional locos. Many parts of the lines traversed had limited weight capacity and so often water was a carried in a separate bogied ‘torpedo’ tanker wagon to spread the load. Both coal and oil-fired locos alike seemed to emit copious amounts of black smoke. Geoff’s attempts to record the sound of one Garrett loco proved impossible due to the noise of the mechanical coal stoker and resulted in him riding ‘shotgun’ on the front water tank.

Some of the lines in South Africa were so arid that condenser engines were used where the exhaust steam was fed back to the tender for re-use. To maintain the ‘draw’ through the boiler fans were used making the locos sound more like jet engines that a traditional steam loco – now that would have made in interesting audio recording…

A unique insight into what was happening in other parts of the world at the time when the UK had gone ‘all modern’. The sight and sounds of these giant steam locos up-close would have been incredible and Geoff is a lucky man to have experienced these first-hand and for sharing them with us.