Last run for loco

10:00am Thursday 6th December 2012 in News

The Princess Elizabeth The Princess Elizabeth

THE Princess Elizabeth chuffed its way through Oxford on a visit to the county.

The 6201 was built in 1933 at Crewe Works and was one of 13 Princess Royal Class locomotives.

Withdrawn in 1962, it was purchased by a private owner and the Princess Elizabeth Locomotive Society was formed to support the engine.

Since 1976 the locomotive has been back on track hauling rail tours and featured in the Diamond Jubilee pageant. Oxford was its last run before an overhaul at the end of the year.

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Comments (2)

1:12pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Myron Blatz says...

Steam trains are so very lovely to look at and ooze nostalgia, but even in their hey-day, they were dirty, pollution-emitting and very costly to run and maintain - so not that very different to Inspector Morse's old Jaguar! Had only the UK gone over to electric-powered trains (like I saw on tv with Switzerland) then life and the environment would have benefited. One of the main reasons why steam power was replaced by diesel and diesel-electric powered locos, was that our governments of the post WW2 era had decided to run with the cheaper (ha!) diesels, which also made lots of money for the petro-chemical companies, and didn't need the infrastructure, maintenance or personnel which steam demanded. It's a shame, because Great Britain (not the UK or even just England) had led the birth and growth of railways in the 19th Century - with, at one time, virtually every country around the globe (not just those in our Empire) having started their leap into the 'industrial world' with locos and railway equipment manufactured in GB - including Russia, China and the USA. Something for which 'George Ostrich' and his Tory Coalition in 2012 would give someone's 'hen's teeth' to achieve!
Steam trains are so very lovely to look at and ooze nostalgia, but even in their hey-day, they were dirty, pollution-emitting and very costly to run and maintain - so not that very different to Inspector Morse's old Jaguar! Had only the UK gone over to electric-powered trains (like I saw on tv with Switzerland) then life and the environment would have benefited. One of the main reasons why steam power was replaced by diesel and diesel-electric powered locos, was that our governments of the post WW2 era had decided to run with the cheaper (ha!) diesels, which also made lots of money for the petro-chemical companies, and didn't need the infrastructure, maintenance or personnel which steam demanded. It's a shame, because Great Britain (not the UK or even just England) had led the birth and growth of railways in the 19th Century - with, at one time, virtually every country around the globe (not just those in our Empire) having started their leap into the 'industrial world' with locos and railway equipment manufactured in GB - including Russia, China and the USA. Something for which 'George Ostrich' and his Tory Coalition in 2012 would give someone's 'hen's teeth' to achieve! Myron Blatz

10:51am Fri 7 Dec 12

King Joke says...

Myron, to be fair, although it pains me to say it, George 'Ostrich' has announced several hundred miles of electrification so he is doing belatedly what we should have done fifty years ago, and far more than the last government did.

We decided not to electrify in the 1930s because we had an abundance of cheap coal. The Swiss had little coal but abundant hydro-electric power so electrification was a no-brainer. The French had neither, so decided to electrify to use the little coal they had more efficiently. We had another opportunity to electrify after the war but the country was broke and couldn't afford the capital cost. It was this, and not clandestine support for the oil industry, which drove dieselisation. Dieselisation was much cheaper in terms of manpower than steam, but didn't require the high capital cost of wiring.
Myron, to be fair, although it pains me to say it, George 'Ostrich' has announced several hundred miles of electrification so he is doing belatedly what we should have done fifty years ago, and far more than the last government did. We decided not to electrify in the 1930s because we had an abundance of cheap coal. The Swiss had little coal but abundant hydro-electric power so electrification was a no-brainer. The French had neither, so decided to electrify to use the little coal they had more efficiently. We had another opportunity to electrify after the war but the country was broke and couldn't afford the capital cost. It was this, and not clandestine support for the oil industry, which drove dieselisation. Dieselisation was much cheaper in terms of manpower than steam, but didn't require the high capital cost of wiring. King Joke

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