I’m not sure of the year. It could have been 1956 or ’57– certainly before the railway bug had bitten. But I certainly remember the locomotive.
I was at King’s Cross, on the westbound Circle/Metropolitan Line platform, waiting for a train one afternoon when a steam locomotive came rattling quite briskly through with a train of vans. My memory of that moment is still so vivid. What I saw was, without a doubt, an ex-GWR ‘9701’.
Meat has been traded at Smithfield Market for 800 years although the market closed in 2023, moving to new premises near Dagenham. Meat trains to GWR’s underground Smithfield Goods Depot joined what’s now the Hammersmith & City Line by a connection at Royal Oak, just outside Paddington station. They ran through Paddington’s Underground platforms to Praed Street Junction in the tunnels just to the east of the station. There were other steam-worked services on the Underground’s ‘Widened Lines’ in this area, joining from the LMS and LNER.
The GWR trains – limited to 25 wagons and one brake van - worked to and from Acton Goods. Originally a minimumplatforms, and to 5mph at a couple of them. The 1962 working timetable shows seven trains on most weekdays (not so many on Saturdays and Sundays). Many ran in the small hours, but some during the afternoon. It was, presumably, one of those afternoon trains that I saw.
