Description
Alan Warren
The long-running ‘Barry saga’ is one of the most amazing features of the railway preservation movement. During the 1960s, when British Rail was withdrawing steam locomotives from service, Woodham’s scrapyard at Barry in South Wales took delivery of over 200 for cutting up. But, because of other work, cutting did not immediately start on any large scale. In August 1968 came that fateful day when British Rail ran its last regular steam service. It was the end of an era, but there were.
one or two bright spots, for the Bluebell Railway in Sussex had been formed by a private organisation to run steam trains as a nostalgic tourist attraction and the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway in Yorkshire was finalising arrangements to do the same. Steam locomotives would be needed.
Just one month after the end of regular BR steam operation in 1968 the first rescue from Woodham’s scrapyard at Barry was achieved when a Midland 0-6-0 left for the Keighley & Worth Valley line. It was the beginning of what has probably become the greatest rescue ever of our industrial heritage, for in the intervening years no fewer than 213 locomotives have been brought back from the brink of oblivion at Barry by dedicated enthusiastic groups aiming to keep alive a part of Britain’s steam age. Had it not been for the rescue from Barry, many of our private steam railways would be sadly
lacking in motive power and the BR main line steam scene would be much the poorer without the spectacle of City of Wells, Leander, Drysilwyn Castle and the like hard at work on an enthusiast’s special.
The first part of the book, lavishly illustrated and including a generous allocation of colour, is devoted to a general survey of the remarkable record, a number of groups actively involved in the rescue process tell their own tale.
In the second part Alan Warren describes and illustrates every locomotive to have come out of Barry scrapyard. He summarises their careers on BR, the progress of restoration, and subsequent use in the case of those fully
restored to working order. Each locomotive is given a complete page.
SOLD AS SEEN
