English: Eastleigh Locomotive Works - 1958 This is a circa 1958 view of the front of the works. The office building, the front of which is still visible from the main line, can just be seen on the left hand side of the view. Carriage and wagon works were opened at Eastleigh by the London & South Western Railway (LSWR) in 1891, to be followed by the locomotive works in 1909, under the auspices of the Chief Mechanical Engineer, Dugald Drummond.

In the 1950s, train-spotting was a legitimate hobby for boys, rather than being a pastime for ‘nerds and anoraks’ as it is considered to be these days. One of the highlights of the summer holidays was the annual open day when boys, fathers (and mothers) used to descend upon the works from all over Hampshire and beyond, the main interest being to see how many new engines they could underline in the Ian Allen ABC spotters’ book, rather than to marvel at the heavy engineering skills and technology being exhibited. One of the biggest problems, and the subject of much debate, was how many pieces of a dismantled locomotive did you need to see before it could be underlined!

This photograph was not taken on an open day, as evinced by the lack of people in the view, but I am unable to recall why I was there on that day. The two locomotives in view are a Southern Railway built ‘Battle of Britain’ 4-6-2 express passenger locomotive, and a 700, or ‘Black Motor’ goods class loco, built for the LSWR by Dübs of Glasgow at the turn of the century. I’m afraid that the lens of the Kodak Brownie 127 camera that I was using at the time was unable to resolve the loco numbers. The ‘Battle of Britain’ loco, possibly number 34053 Sir Keith Park, would have been at the works for conversion from its original streamlined design to a more conventional (and practical) form. The conversion program for these and the identical ‘West Country’ class continued until 1961. The last of this type continued in use until the end of steam on the Southern Region in 1967, but no less than 20 of the original 110 have survived into preservation. The ‘Black Motors’ experienced a very different fate. All had been withdrawn by 1962 and none of the class survives.

The picture was taken at a time when the railways were soon to be subjected to great change. The 1955 modernisation plan, which would replace all steam locomotives with diesel or electric traction, was just being implemented, initially by replacing steam shunting locos with diesels. Even so, heavy freight steam locomotives would continue to be built until 1960. On the Southern Region the first significant modernisation plan change to main line operation took place in 1959 when the general ‘workhorse’ class 33 diesels were introduced. The switch to electric multiple unit operation on passenger services in Kent took place at about the same time.

Until the modernisation programme got into full swing, locomotives that would have been condemned a decade or more before, but were reprieved by the war, had to soldier on, but they began to appear at Eastleigh for disposal in ever increasing numbers. Lines of condemned locomotives were to be seen at the rear of Eastleigh locomotive shed, from where a spur line ran to the cutting yard at the rear of the works and along which the locos made their final journey. As the withdrawal of steam locomotives accelerated, there were too many to be dealt with in the railway works and they were sold to scrap yards, such as that at Barry in South Wales.

It is pleasing to see that the works have survived closure and continue to be used for railway purposes, albeit on a much reduced scale.