Taken 20/06/21; however unsatisfactory a shot (I arrived late to find the station rammed with spectators and opted for a through the window shot from the footbridge) it was good to see steam out on the main line. The Covid-19 Pandemic means my previous shot of main line stem was back in September 2019, so 2020 is very much the missing year!
Taken 21/06/21 and another through the glass of the footbridge window snap. I guess it works as a record snap. You may notice that a surprising number the good folk of the New Forest are exempt from wearing a face mask ...
Taken 20/06/21 and with the crowds it was difficult to get a clean shot, so if the framing isn't to your liking, that is probably the explanation.
With previous uploads I have used the following cut and paste from the internet about the history of the B1s:
" was the LNER's equivalent to the highly successful GWR Hall Class and the LMS Stanier Black Five, two-cylinder mixed traffic 4-6-0s. However, it had the additional requirement of having to be cheap because, due to wartime and post-war economies, the LNER, never the richest railway company, had to make savings.
Introduced in 1942, the first example, No. 8301, was named Springbok in honour of a visit by Jan Smuts. The first 40 of the class were named after breeds of antelopes and the like, and they became known as bongos after 8306 Bongo. 274 were built by the LNER. 136 were built by British Railways after nationalisation in 1948. The total number in stock at any one time however was only 409 as 61057 crashed in 1950 and was scrapped.
The prototype for the new B class (later classified B1) 4-6-0 was built at Darlington and entered service on 12 December 1942. It was the first 2-cylinder main-line locomotive constructed for the LNER since the grouping, such had been Sir Nigel Gresley's faith in the 3 cylinder layout. With cost saving a wartime priority the LNER's draughtsmen went to great lengths to re-use existing patterns, jigs and tools to economise on materials and labour. Extensive use was made of welding instead of steel castings. The boiler was derived from the Diagram 100A type fitted to the LNER Class B17 Sandringham 4-6-0s but with a larger grate area and an increase in boiler pressure to 225 pounds per square inch (1.55 MPa).
The appearance of No. 8301 (subsequently renumbered No. 1000) coincided with a visit to Britain by the Prime Minister of South Africa, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, and, as mentioned above, it was named Springbok. 18 other B1s took the names of LNER directors. Not that there were many B1s to be named during the war years: constraints on production meant that the first ten were not completed until 1944. However, Thompson then placed substantial orders with two outside builders: Vulcan Foundry and the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow. Between April 1946 and April 1952 NBL built 290 B1s. Over the period the cost of each engine rose from £14,893 to £16,190. Vulcan Foundry contributed 50 at £15,300 apiece. Orders for the B1s, which became Nos. 61000–61409 under British Railways, totalled 410.
The B1s operated throughout LNER territory. The first batch was distributed among depots on the former Great Eastern Railway section: Ipswich, Norwich, and Stratford in London. They were an immediate success and were soon working the Liverpool Street - Harwich boat trains, the Hook Continental, the Day Continental and the Scandinavian. B1s were also a familiar sight on other top-link workings such as The East Anglian, The Broadsman and The Fenman. During the 1950s over 70 B1s were stationed on ex-GE lines.
They enjoyed similar popularity on ex-Great Northern and Great Central territory. Engines based at Darnall, Sheffield were regularly rostered for the Master Cutler and South Yorkshireman expresses. Elsewhere there were substantial allocations in Scotland, West Yorkshire and on Humberside.
If any fault is to be highlighted on the B1, it must be the ride quality. O.S. Nock often criticised the B1s for a poor ride, not something many were used to on the Gresley engines. The B1 was very cheap to build, but the final result was an engine that was somewhat lacking in the quality LNER men had come to expect. The two-cylinder layout gave the engines good starting power and excellent hill climbing abilities, but it also caused very bad hunting effects, a result of the use of cut-offs of up to 75% (a 10% advance on Gresley engines), and as such they were less kind on the passengers they carried than the B17s they replaced.
Overall, however, it was entirely necessary that the B1s be introduced, because the LNER was operating a large number of engines that were well past their economic life. It was somewhat ironic that among the engines that came under threat with the arrival of the B1s were the ones that Thompson admired the most: the engines of the North Eastern Railway designed by Vincent Raven (his father-in-law)."
Whilst No 61306's current livery and name work for me, I understand the former is not authentic and the later was acquired in preservation.
Taken 21/06/21 and yes that is a steam age driver with a walkie talkie!
If I have understood the day's activities, the B1 worked a special from London Paddington to Portsmouth and Southsea station via Reading and Eastleigh, whilst No. 31806 worked light engine from Swanage to Eastleigh and joined the rear of the train. During the special's lay over at Portsmouth the pair of locos worked a short top and tailed additional trip to Brock' and back. Both locos then worked the special back as far as Eastleigh, where No. 31806 was detached and worked worked light engine back to Swanage with the BI then in sole charge back to Paddington. In an ideal world I would have snapped No. 31806's light engine moves, but I was running in the morning and had opened my father's day bottle of Shiraz before the evening working!
Taken 20/06/21; the preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/ website is the best one I know for potted (and not so potted) histories of preserved locos:
"61306 was completed in April 1948 by the North British Locomotive Company. Though built to an LNER design, it was delivered after nationalisation to British Railways.
It was withdrawn from service whilst based at Low Moor, Bradford in September 1967. It was one of the last three B1s working, which were all withdrawn that month. All of the three had been based at Low Moor. Steam ceased in the Leeds and Bradford area at the end of September and Low Moor depot closed. 61306 hauled the last steam hauled portion of the Yorkshire Pullman from Bradford Exchange to Leeds on the day it was withdrawn from service.
61306 was the last B1 locomotive to run on the Great Central Railway line to Marylebone which it did in August 1966 a month before most of the line closed.
61306 was privately purchased for preservation at Steamtown Carnforth in February 1968.
At Steamtown it was painted into LNER Apple Green Livery, given the number 1306 and the name Mayflower. 1306 would have been its allocated running number had the LNER not been nationalised (most ex-LNER BR numbers being the LNER 1946 numbers with the addition of 60000), while the name Mayflower came from a scrapped BR-built Thompson B1, numbered 61379.
In 1978, it moved to the Great Central Railway in Leicestershire, where it remained until 1989, when it was taken out of service for a ten-year overhaul. Scheduled to return to Hull Dairycoates, the sale of the site meant that it moved to the Nene Valley Railway.
It was sold privately in 2006 to the Bowden family and it moved to their company, Boden Rail Engineering Ltd, in Washwood Heath, Birmingham. In 2013, 61306 returned to steam wearing its original BR Apple Green livery and operated by West Coast Railways from their base at the former Steamtown Carnforth.
In 2014, 61306 was sold by the Boden family to David Buck, and moved to the North Norfolk Railway."