ECML PERFORMANCE, THEN AND NOW
When main line steam finished in 1968, few people can have envisaged that steam-hauled charter trains would be regularly running 50 years on. That this should have come about is due in no small measure to the determination and persistence of a few enlightened souls – the preservationists themselves and their volunteer bodies, plus luminaries such as David Ward, the late Bernard Staite, Mel Chamberlain and many others in the ranks of British Rail and its successors. However, the climate in which steam operates in the modern age is very different to that of the 1960s. The aim of this article is to explore the differences which have evolved in steam performance over this time. Many technical and safety improvements have had to be incorporated to allow steam to operate today and the sheer volume and speed of normal services (pre-Covid!) means pathing slower trains is more difficult which affects the characteristics of steam running.
To illustrate this point, I have chosen some steam era performances on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) from my own records, featuring the King’s Cross to Grantham section. The ECML timetable was considerably revised and services accelerated in September 1957. The afternoon ‘Talisman’, limited to eight coaches, had already been introduced a year earlier, and was now joined by a morning version (initially called ‘The Fair Maid’) which continued beyond Edinburgh, to Perth. There was a degree of disappointment at the time among Gresley aficionados that the ‘Talisman’ schedule non-stop to Newcastle was no better than 4½ hours (average 59.6mph) compared with the prewar ‘Coronation’ which, with nine coaches, covered the distance in
