Reunion: Geoff White, a former fireman at Old Oak Common and now a volunteer on the Honeybourne Line, fired the last steam locomotive built for British Railways, on its first revenue-earning service: a fitted freight to London. Nearly half a century later, he is pictured here with that locomotive, no. 92220 Evening Star, which is on display at its Swindon birthplace in STEAM: The Museum of the Great Western Railway. Unlike its 250 sisters, Evening Star carries British Railways express green livery and its chimney is graced by a Great Western-style copper cap. Note that the smokebox number plate is made of brass, instead of the usual cast iron. This was also the only member of its class to carry a name (sister engine 92203 was named Black Prince when bought from BR by its owner, David Shepherd). Underneath the name plate is a plaque commemorating the fact that this was the last locomotive built by British Railways. Reference in the article is also made to shed codes – you can see the small oval plate on the lower half of the smokebox door. This reads 50A, which was York although the engine’s first allocation was Cardiff Canton (86C). Evening Star underlined its celebrity status when it worked The Red Dragon express (the headboard of which the engine is carrying in this photograph) on a few occasions and on one day was noted touching 90mph. When Western Region control learned of this they soon put a stop to ‘freight engines’ working express passenger trains. 92220 celebrates her 50th birthday in March 2010 (Photograph: Paul Stratford)  

Geoff ('Chalkie') White is a senior driver, trainer, engineer and highly respected member of the locomotive department at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.  He is steeped in steam: he joined British Railways in August 1953 at Leamington Spa (84D)*, working his way through the firing links, moving to London and becoming a fireman at Old Oak Common (81A)*, the former Great Western Railway's premier shed, on 18^th March .

It was while at Old Oak Common that Geoff  first encountered the last steam locomotive built for British Railways, no. 92220 Evening Star - although at the time, he didn't appreciate the significance of the engine.

Old Oak Common had a huge allocation of mostly Great Western locomotive classes, as well as some BR Standard 9F 2-10-0s.  No. 92220 Evening Star was delivered new to Old Oak Common where it stayed for a short time, before moving to its first shed allocation at Cardiff Canton (86C)*.  In fact, while at Canton, Evening Star acquitted itself well with some turns on the crack 'Red Dragon' express to Paddington achieving speeds of up to 90mph, until Control got wind of a freight engine being used for an express turn - but that's another story.

Geoff recalls his encounter very well and this is his reflection of what was in retrospect, a quite remarkable occasion.  The date was Saturday, 2^nd April 1960.

"I'd booked on to Old Oak as 9 o'clock spare, which meant that I could find myself doing almost anything - or nothing.  But sometimes these turns produced a surprise and today was to be one of the biggest surprises of all, even though on the face of it, it was a quite ordinary job.

"I was in the mess room when the foreman came in and peered through the cigarette-smoke fug looking for me and a spare driver, a decent bloke called Jack Wiggins (who we used to call the 'Black Prince' because never changed his overalls until they were black!).  He told us we were to go to Swindon 'on the cushions' and pick up a freight engine - a 9F - although that's all we knew about the engine, and bring it back.

"Well, that's quite a nice job really, a comfy ride down to Swindon and an easy light-engine working back to the shed, so off we went.

"We arrived at Swindon shed and booked on with the Foreman who just said: 'Oh, the engine's a new Nine, no. 92220, it's out in the yard, help yourself."

"So we signed the paperwork and went to find the Nine, a class that we knew Swindon was turning out at the time.  Jack and I looked round the yard looking for a plain black Nine, but couldn't see one although we did spot a green loco with a nameplate which we assumed was a Britannia pacific.  It's only when we looked more closely that we saw that it had ten driving wheels and was the Nine we'd come to collect. 

"I said to Jack, 'What's going on here?  Swindon turning out freight engines in green and look!  It's even got a copper cap on the chimney!'  Anyway, there it was, all shining and new so I tidied the fire ready for our easy trip back to London.  We rolled out to the shed exit and called the Bobby.  'Light engine for Old Oak,' I announced.

" 'Oh no you're not,' the Bobby (signalman) replied.  'You've got a fitted freight to take back with you.' 

"So that was the first revenue-earning turn for Evening Star but I still didn't realise the significance of the loco. I didn't know that this was the last engine built for British Railways and that it was specially turned out in green and named to mark the occasion."

In fact, 92220 was completed in March 1960 and officially named Evening Star by K.W.C. Grand, on behalf of British Transport Commission, following a competition amongst staff at Swindon Works.  As well as the last steam locomotive completed for British Railways, it was also the 999^th British Railways 'Standard'** locomotive to be built. 

Following the glare of publicity and the popping of Champagne corks, the engine was put on public display in Swindon Works.  And a fine sight it made too, because a 9F is a very impressive machine with its ten-coupled wheels, high running board and high-pitched boiler.  The 251^st member of the class and the only one named was painted in fully-lined-out express green livery, complete with copper-capped chimney - in stark contrast to its 250 plain black sisters.  Ironically, Evening Star is now back at its birth place, again on public display at STEAM: The Museum of the Great Western Railway, where it will spend its 50^th birthday in March 2010. 2010 is also the year that marks the 175^th anniversary of the founding of the Great Western Railway.

Geoff continues: "We had an uneventful run back to London and took the loco back to Old Oak shed.  The next day, the foreman asked driver George Coles and I to pull the engine out of the shed and we used pannier tank no. 8773 for the job.  George said that 'it was for the photographers'.  So we positioned Evening Star for all the press photographers who were asking us to pose in front of it.  It was only then that I noticed and read the little plaque under the nameplate on the smoke deflector."  The plaque reads:

No. 92220 built at Swindon
March 1960
The last steam locomotive for British Railways
Named at Swindon on March 18 1960 by
K.W.C. Grand, Esq.
Member of the British Transport Commission

"That trip was my one and only encounter with Evening Star.  The engine stayed with us for a couple of weeks and worked some specials before going to its home shed in Cardiff.  Interesting to say, the first members of the class I saw were four members of the class in grey paint, being towed through Banbury - quite a sight.

"But seeing that plaque really brought home that steam was coming to an end and there were all sorts of rumours about engines being withdrawn and the first diesels taking over.  And it did begin to change.  I finished in 1962 after a trip on a '600' Warship diesel to Wolverhampton - I had mistakenly thought that a digit had been missed off the roster board and that it was the usual 'King' - but it wasn't.  I and many other footplate crew really didn't like the diesels and left the railway.  I found a career in engineering instead but that is another story for another day."

Evening Star was withdrawn in 1965, after just five years of revenue-earning service and was subsequently acquired by the National Collection. 

There are a few 9Fs still surviving, and 92203 Black Prince (named by its owner, David Shepherd, after he bought it from British Railways in 1967) being a regular performer on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.  922203 was built in 1959, the 17th-to-last of the class.

Most of the 9Fs performed their designed-for task very well but for much less than a decade before most went under the cutter's torch - well short of the 30 years originally expected of them.  That fate would certainly have met Black Prince if it had not been for the intervention of David Shepherd.

You can follow the links below for the story of the 9F class and of Black Prince.

* These are shed codes.  Each locomotive depot had a shed code and for the former Great Western Railway, the codes were in the 80, each with an alpha suffix, 'A' being the principal shed in a particular geographic group.  Click here for the full list of British Railways Western Region shed codes and their un-numbered sub-sheds (for example, Cheltenham was a sub-shed of Gloucester).

**There were 12 British Railways standard class locomotives, all incorporating common design principles and introduced from 1951.  They were intended to replace many ageing classes throughout the UK and provide a modern fleet of steam locomotives to carry British Railways though to a gradual transition to modern traction.  The Standard locomotives were distributed throughout the national network.  They ranged from Class 2 - both tender and tank locomotive versions - through to the 9Fs, although with the Modernisation Plan most worked many years short of their design life.