Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: 5MT

Manchester Victoria station and Black 5 4-6-0 45076 stands on the banker's road waiting to give a push to the next freight train up the I in 47 max. gradient to Miles Platting. The atmosphere of a large UK city station with steam was still a daily reality back in early June 1968 but by the end of June the last Manchester sheds at Newton Heath & Patricroft were closed to steam.

Manchester Victoria station Platform 17, Stanier LMS Black 5 45202 on a parcels train 4th May 1968. Today the overall roof has gone, this platform is underneath the Manchester Evening News arena and steam a memory! And what is that archaic wheeled contraption on the left? 45202 has a very clean smokebox door compared with the rest of the engine. Maybe some enthusiast got busy with an oily rag because by this late in the steam day cleaners were very thin on the ground. See where this picture was taken. [?]

Cabside number Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 44845, built at Crewe in 1944. I am contemplating the last day of steam at Newton Heath & the fact that the filthy cab won't ever be cleaned again. I don't think that left hand window has ever been cleaned! This engine still had 50psi of steam in its boiler but by the end of the day would be cold & ready for its last journey to the scrapyard.

My first photograph of an operating steam engine out on the line - I had taken one in a scrap line a couple of months earlier and out of steam on shed a week earlier. I came very late to railway enthusiasm, almost too late for British Railways steam! The 1847 Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Mumps station was closed in 2009 and even the Metrolink tram stop on the same location has since closed. The tram now heads down Union Street in the town centre.

Up close and personal with British Railways Standard 4-6-2 70013 Oliver Cromwell on Southall shed while prepping the engine for a main line steam special.