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Mallard's visit to Burbage
It is not well known that Mallard, the fastest steam locomotive in the world, once visited Burbage's Savernake Low Level station. LNER number 4468 (later, as seen here, LNER number 22 then, finally, BR number 60022) set the record of 126 m.p.h. on July 3rd 1938.
The event photographed below took place on 28th April 1948, shortly after nationalisation. To help it formulate the designs a new generation of engines, the newly formed British Railways started by evaluating the locomotive designs it had inherited from the "Big Four" i.e. the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS); the Great Western Railway (GWR); the Southern Railway (SR); London North Eastern Railway (LNER).
Far from its usual East Coast Mainline route, Mallard had been hauling a train from Penzance to London Paddington when it developed a mechanical fault and had to be shunted in to the sidings at the old GWR Savernake Low Level station while emergency repairs were undertaken. While the blue liveried loco lay there, a relief GWR engine from Westbury was summoned to take the rest of the train on to Paddington.
Being such an unusual event John Powell, then a young porter visiting from nearby Grafton & Burbage station, ran home to Stibb Green to get his faithful "Box Brownie". The photograph was taken by Savernake booking clerk Doreen Stevens, nee Spackman, (whose photo in 1942 can be seen on page 39 of "The Marlborough Branch" by K. Robertson & D. Abbott) and shows, from left to right, the LNER driver and firemen in the cab, two LNER engineers who had accompanied the loco, guard on the Marlborough Branch Herbert Bint, Savernake station porter Bill Waters and 16 year old John Powell.
After a couple of hours the repairs were complete and the engine continued on to Paddington 'light', never to be seen on these GWR metals again.
With its boiler ticket expired, today Mallard lies as a static exhibit in the National Railway Museum in York. However on July 3rd 2008, the actual 80th anniversary of the record breaking event, Mallard's "sister", 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, twice passed through the site of Savernake Low Level Station while hauling the London Victoria to Bristol Temple Meads "Cathedrals Express" excursion train. This loco was in the early BR experimental blue livery which, I believe, was the same as that used by the LNER and which Mallard was in when photographed in 1948. Sir Nigel Gresley was the designer of these A4 "Pacific" locomotives and, co-incidentally, had been educated at Marlborough College.
The following photographs are of the event; first two were supplied by Neil Stevens; the third by Grafton resident Tim Riordan.
The first, taken from a carriage window on the return trip to London, shows the approach to the old Savernake Low Level station and the Durley Road bridge next to the hotel. Until 1961 the Marlborough Branch train would probably be seen snoozing at its bay platform which ended at the visible parapet of the bridge.
A stop at Newbury on the outward trip to take on water.
Under a big Wiltshire sky 60007 storms through the Crofton curves and on towards the summit at Savernake, the fireman no doubt looking forward to a well earned rest. The top of Crofton Pump Station's chimney can be seen above the front of the locomotive.