CHANCE MEETING REVIVES END OF STEAM MEMORIES FROM 40 YEARS BEFORE - 9th July 2007

News Item and Press Release from Andrew P.M. Wright - dated 15th July 2007
Official photographer & press officer, Swanage Railway.
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By Andrew P.M. Wright

While pausing at the controls of unrebuilt 'Battle of Britain' class Bulleid Pacific No. 34081 '92 Squadron' at Swanage between departures, driver Mel Cox was surprised and delighted to meet a rather special person - the son of a driver he used to work with at Bournemouth during the days of steam.

Keith Hardy's father was Ray Hardy, one of the great, quiet characters of Bournemouth MPD. Ray, of Oakdale in Poole, sadly died a few years ago and his son Keith lives in the Broadstone area of Poole.

The chance meeting took place on the afternoon of Monday, 9th July, 2007, and Mel was sheltering from the rain. Exactly, 40 years previously - to the afternoon - Ray Hardy was driving the last steam-hauled passenger train between Weymouth, Bournemouth and London.

Mel still remembers Ray well and with affection: "Ray was a very good driver - he wasn't heavy handed at all. Ray was a very quiet and unassuming man, shy and retiring if you like, with a very good sense of humour.

"Ray was in the number three link at Bournemouth and drove the final steam working to London on Sunday July 9th, 1967, the 2.09pm Weymouth to Waterloo which was hauled by rebuilt 'Merchant Navy' class Bulleid Pacific No. 35030 'Elder Dempster Lines' with Frank Smith as Ray's fireman.

"Railway photographer John H. Bird caught the locomotive taking water at Southampton Central station with chalk inscriptions on its smokebox including 'Last steam', 'Grand finale' and 'No surrender' - a photograph that has been published many times over the year.

"I gather that Ray retired from BR because of ill health during the 1970s. It's a great shame that he did not live to see the Swanage Railway's commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the end of Southern steam because he would have quietly loved it," explained Mel.

Mel was 18 years old in 1967 and based at Bournemouth motive power depot. On that final Sunday of southern steam, he worked a Class 33 diesel locomotive as a second man on a passenger train consisting of steam stock from Bournemouth to Weymouth.

After returning the Class 33 to Bournemouth MPD, the afternoon of that fateful Sunday in July saw Mel prepare 'West Country' class Bulleid Pacific No. 34036 'Westward Ho', stripped of its nameplate, so it could work a Channel Islands fruit and vegetables train to Westbury in Wiltshire - one of two such workings that afternoon.

Mel recalls that British Rail management in London issued strict instructions that no steam engines should be within sight of passengers using the new third rail electric train service that was due to 'go live' between London and Bournemouth on the morning of Monday, 10th July, 1967.

That meant that as soon as Bournemouth's steam locomotives completed their final duties, they were hurriedly despatched down to Weymouth motive power depot where they could be kept out of sight.

The last steam locomotive to leave Bournemouth motive power depot on the evening of Sunday, 9th July, 1967 - just before 9pm - was Standard Class 3 2-6-0 tender locomotive No. 77014 on a parcels train for Weymouth. That was the last revenue-earning steam train to run in the south of England.

Previously, the motive power depot's last remaining shed shunter, Ivatt tank No. 41224 - a regular Swanage branch performer in 1964 and 1965 - was despatched to Weymouth light engine.

All photographs are copyright Andrew P.M. Wright unless otherwise acknowledged.
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Last updated 17th July 2007 by Keith Morgan.
© Swanage Railway