The Steaming Sixties: #03 'The Shed and The Pit, Rose Grove Homage' -Stirring Episodes from the Last Decade of Steam on BR- (IR061)

Product No.: IR061
Title: The Steaming Sixties: #03 'The Shed and The Pit, Rose Grove Homage' -Stirring Episodes from the Last Decade of Steam on BR-
Author(s): Anderson, Paul
Illustrator(s): N/A
Publisher: Irwell Press
ISBN: 9781906919061
Condition: New
Binding: Laminated Pictorial Boards
Dust Jacket: None
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Year: 2009

Features: 64 Pages with Colour Photos.

Bushbury, but during the late 1960s it meant something very different to railway enthusiasts. There was smoke, steam, oil and general grime at a certain place on the outskirts of Burnley, together with a token display of foliage in the form of weeds. This was, of course, Rose Grove shed and though in truth it sat outside the town amid green fields and moor so that it did, in a way, live up to it name these pleasant surrounds were largely invisible to the hordes who descended upon it in those last days, intent on one thing only.

By the summer of 1968 it had become a place of pilgrimage where the dying days of still very active main line steam were being played out. Then there was Copy Pit, not some deep Stygian hole, but a railway summit 749ft above sea level in a harsh yet scenic valley between Burnley and Todmorden. There were fearsome gradients in either direction and Rose Grove shed provided the banking engines, particularly from Todmorden where they helped trains of Yorkshire coal over the hill towards Lancashire power stations. Stanier 8F 2-8-0s performed this duty until the very last day, Saturday 3 August 1968.