In a departure from my previous Sunday Reflections, I’m going to look at an event that happened before I was born, but was very significant to the area I grew up in, and was talked and written about regularly in the world of railway enthusiasts, one I very much belonged to. On 10th July 1967, the Southern Region of British Rail introduced a new timetable, and for the first time since railways first appeared in the South of England over 130 years previously, there were no steam locomotives in operation. The Bournemouth line was now fully operated by electric trains, banishing the final steam operations from the region. This was also the end of steam trains to and from London, and the end of regular steam-hauled express passenger trains anywhere in Britain. Although officially limited to 85mph, trains on the Bournemouth line regularly topped 100mph in the final years, and this made the area a must for steam fans.

After steam was removed from this part of the country, its operating area gradually contracted until it was confined to just a small area in the north-west of England, where the last steam trains ever to run on British Rail operated in August 1968. By then, it was mostly only freight and slower passenger trains, so the Bournemouth line really was the last stand for steam at very high speeds, with intensely-worked services.

July 10th 1967 was a Monday, so the final day of steam operation was a Sunday. Steam had been gradually disappearing since earlier in the year as new electric trains became available, and from April there were only eight steam-hauled trains out of Waterloo on Mondays to Thursdays, with an additional two on a Friday. Electric trains to Bournemouth had already started operating, but steam substitutions at the last minute were common.

Obviously, I don’t actually remember any of this, as I wasn’t born until 1974, but the last days of steam out of Waterloo were incredibly well-photographed, and those photos showed impressive fire-breathing monsters thundering through stations like Raynes Park, New Malden and Surbiton, places I was very familiar with, and went to watch the trains myself. It was enough to fire my imagination, and make me think what it must have been like to see these things fly past on a regular basis. The ghosts still lingered, and my childhood in the seventies and eighties wasn’t long after the final wisps of steam had disappeared.

There were opportunities to see steam in preservation, of course, and the best place to go to recreate the atmosphere of the final days of Southern steam is the Watercress Line in Hampshire. These days it runs ten miles from Alton to Alresford, but prior to closure by British Rail in 1973, it ran through to Winchester. When the main Bournemouth line was closed for engineering work, trains would be diverted over this line. The gradient out of Alton is very steep, so the Watercress Line use a lot of large locomotives, many of which are the exact same types you’d have seen on the front of expresses in 1967. It gave me a tantalising glimpse of the world I’d missed by a few years, but sadly most preserved steam trains don’t operate above an extremely sedate 25mph.

However, I did have an opportunity to sample what it all would have been like in the glory days on 11th September 1992. On this day, a special railtour called “The Bournemouth Limited” ran from Waterloo to Bournemouth. It was the first steam-hauled train to run from Waterloo in 25 years, and so it was a very special event, and an opportunity not to be missed. As soon as I heard about it, I booked a ticket. The train was hauled by locomotive 34027 “Taw Valley”, a West Country class loco typical of the express trains on the line, and a class I’d grown to really appreciate.

British Rail had been very hesitant about operating steam railtours out of Waterloo, because steam locomotives always bring out photographers, and sometimes they’ll trespass to get good shots (it still happens whenever they let “Flying Scotsman” out to play). It’s a major concern on lines with third-rail electrification, so BR would only allow the train to operate during the dark, reducing the risks of trespass. As it happens, this experiment in allowing steam to return to third-rail territory seems to have been highly successful, and daylight runs are common.

I arrived at Waterloo in plenty of time for the 8pm departure, and was met by an air of excitement, as the loco was sitting in the station ready for departure. Big crowds were there to see it. The train itself was very full, and I’m pretty sure it was fully-booked. I was sat with a few older people who did remember Southern steam, and it was an emotional experience for them seeing it come back like this, if just for a one-off. Lots of them were timing the train to see how fast it was going – this was a complicated business in the days before GPS, but it was estimated to hit 90mph in places.

Just about all of the stations we passed had big crowds on them to see us pass – even my parents got caught up in the excitement and stood on the platform at New Malden! Another big crowd greeted us on arrival at Bournemouth, despite it being very late at night.

The train ran back to London with a diesel locomotive in charge, although far fewer people took it in that direction. I had a lot more space on that run back home again. It stopped at Surbiton at about one in the morning, where my mum picked me up and gave me a lift home. I remember sitting on the train back listening to the diesel engine gurgling away, and thinking how bad it sounded compared to the steam of the trip down. However, thirty years later, early British Rail diesels are rare beasts themselves, and a trip like that is something hard to replicate, so I wouldn’t sneer at it like I did back then!

I hope that little reflection on a significant anniversary – and an exciting night out for me – has been of interest. I’m glad I got to see a bit of Southern steam myself, on a train that has gone down in history in its own little way.