The end of main-line steam in 1968 was not the end of the story. A preservation movement that had begun even before the last BR steam train has grown into one of Britain's best-loved leisure industries — and steam runs again, every weekend, up and down the country.
The first volunteers
As early as 1951 a band of enthusiasts saved the little Talyllyn Railway in Wales — the world's first volunteer-run preserved railway. The standard-gauge Bluebell Railway followed in 1960, and the model spread rapidly.
Rescued from Barry
Crucially, many main-line locomotives escaped the cutter's torch at Woodham Brothers' scrapyard at Barry, where rows of rusting engines were bought one by one, dragged away and painstakingly restored over decades. Lines such as the Severn Valley Railway became showcases for these returning veterans.
Steam today
Today dozens of heritage railways across the country, and a fleet of mainline-certified preserved locomotives — among them Flying Scotsman and the Merchant Navy Pacific Clan Line — keep the age of steam alive. The movement even builds anew: in 2008 the brand-new Peppercorn A1 Pacific Tornado steamed for the first time, the first main-line steam locomotive built in Britain since 1960. The story of steam, it turns out, has no ending.