British Strategic Steam Reserve

H

hholdenaz

Well-known member
Recently, I've developed a small interest in the legendary and mythical Strategic Steam Reserve of Great Britain, and, well, as much as I feel like believing it, I find it hard to.

From what I've read, there seems to be little evidence, although stories about crews being sent home and returning the next day, only to find their engines missing, does give a hint, though the engines could've simply been towed elsewhere overnight or were spending the night at a different depot after pulling a nighttime train while being operated by another crew.

I've looked it up on Google and most sources say that it was in a hidden tunnel. However, as it seems, unless there was a large underground lake in the area, then the engines could dry up rather quickly, as several sites about it pointed out. Also, maintenance would be constantly needed.

However, I've recently come up with a question: why does the area have to be underground? I mean, what if it was actually in a remote corner that nobody else has access to? (No, I'm not referring to Sodor.) Or what if the reserve was on a closed branch line secretly restored and disconnected from the mainlines?

This may not seem possible, but Network Rail couldn't detect every line, or at least I don't think they could. Then again, technology is advancing.

Well, what do you think?

P.S. I had a feeling that a topic about the reserve was made already. If it is, I apologize.
 
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Ah, the Strategic Steam reserve. There's no truth in it, it's wishful thinking by over-enthusiastic railway conspiracists. ;) Think about it. Every disused tunnel has most certainly been mapped and explored and when you think about it, the idea of locos being stored in disused rail tunnels is ridiculus as you could not move them to the main line without relaying track! As for locomotives being hidden above ground, that's silly as well as you'd have to have somewhere to put the locomotives. A SSR would really have to have 70+ locomotives to be useful, and a large shed which suddenly popped up to house them all would stick out like a sore thumb. As for storing them outside, they would be easily spotted by Google Earth-savvy railway enthusiasts and the secret would be out. I can't really think why an SSR would be kept secret anyway TBH. Remember also, Network Rail already has a makeshift "Strategic Steam Reserve" in the many restored steam locomotives operating on the main line and preserved railways across the UK. In fact, this "Strategic Steam Reserve" has already seen action:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8428097.stm
 
nathanmallard said:
Ah, the Strategic Steam reserve. There's no truth in it, it's wishful thinking by over-enthusiastic railway conspiracists. ;) Think about it. Every disused tunnel has most certainly been mapped and explored and when you think about it, the idea of locos being stored in disused rail tunnels is ridiculus as you could not move them to the main line without relaying track! As for locomotives being hidden above ground, that's silly as well as you'd have to have somewhere to put the locomotives. A SSR would really have to have 70+ locomotives to be useful, and a large shed which suddenly popped up to house them all would stick out like a sore thumb. As for storing them outside, they would be easily spotted by Google Earth-savvy railway enthusiasts and the secret would be out. I can't really think why an SSR would be kept secret anyway TBH. Remember also, Network Rail already has a makeshift "Strategic Steam Reserve" in the many restored steam locomotives operating on the main line and preserved railways across the UK. In fact, this "Strategic Steam Reserve" has already seen action:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8428097.stm
Click to expand...

Yes, why would it have to be kept secret? Unless the owners of the reserve don't trust modern railways, which no longer scrap steam engines, then there would be no need to keep it secret. Perhaps they don't trust anybody, even heritage railways, who is involved with railways.
 
Why would it have been secret? I'm guessing anyone wondering that is too young to remember the paranoia of the cold war era.

Most of the rumours stemmed from inaccurate disposal records leading to uncertain disposal details for some loco's combined with a healthy dose of wishful thinking.

There are though plenty of places where such a reserve could have existed - Google Burlington Bunker, or Corsham (there's also a BBC film in Youtube IIRC) for the sort of places we did (and probably still do) have underground. The ammo depot at Kineton (visible on Google earth) is another rail connected site with unknown amounts of underground storage under edge Hill that is still very much in use.

If anyone had a steam reserve it would have been the MOD - you only have to look at their vehicles disposal lists over the years to see the vehicles they have stockpiled over the years "just in case" such as all the 1950's "Green Goddess" fire engines that were disposed of (many unused) in the late 90's. Slightly off topic, but I'd still like to know what happened to all the Land-Rover 101 ambulances that were for sale after they were withdrawn by the MOD around 1999. One day there were hundreds of them for sale on an old airfield at Fradley (I bought one) two weeks later I was back there and they were all gone. I was told in no uncertain terms not to ask again where they had all gone......

Coming back to the strategic reserve, that's the beauty of conspiracy theories - there's enough facts there to be plausible, but I reckon I'll have won the lottery at least twice before someone discovers 200 perfectly stored steam engines in an underground bunker :D

Regards,

Anthony (NOT a conspiracy theorist!)
 
2995Valliant said:
If anyone had a steam reserve it would have been the MOD - you only have to look at their vehicles disposal lists over the years to see the vehicles they have stockpiled over the years "just in case" such as all the 1950's "Green Goddess" fire engines that were disposed of (many unused) in the late 90's. Slightly off topic, but I'd still like to know what happened to all the Land-Rover 101 ambulances that were for sale after they were withdrawn by the MOD around 1999. One day there were hundreds of them for sale on an old airfield at Fradley (I bought one) two weeks later I was back there and they were all gone. I was told in no uncertain terms not to ask again where they had all gone......
Click to expand...
I seem to remember that the Green Goddesses had a bit of a run out during a couple of Firemen (persons?) strikes. As to finding what happened to all the ambulances, that's what Freedom of Information requests are for. :)
 
The rumour I heard while at school back in the 60's was that the MOD had stored a number of Mainline Steam locos for use in a possible Cold War scenario, of course no one knew where they were were stored or had actually seen anything.
Most BR loco's at the withdrawal of Steam even the alleged missing ones seem to be pretty much accounted for now anyway.

More likely this "secret store" was probably wishful thinking from over-active juvenile train mad minds or a misunderstanding of the purpose of what the MOD had stored and were actually using on their Military Railways at Longmore, Long Marston, Bicester etc.

Or perhaps people were thinking Woodhams scrapyard at Barry was really a Government store?

Reality says that a Steam loco stored for 50 years, even assuming it was in perfect condition at the time of storage is not going to be usable due to corrosion, they rust whether stored indoors or outside unless constantly maintained and would need a vast amount of money to bring up to current safety standards and get a current boiler ticket. Anyone around in the 60's will appreciate that most of what was running on British Railways wasn't exactly in pristine condition to start with.

If in the unlikely event of actually having some kind of emergency that required the use of Steam power, there are more than enough preserved working loco's in existence http://www.onlineweb.com/rail/locomotive_listing.htm and quite a few that are allowed on the main line that could be requisitioned anyway, however on Network Rail there is no infrastructure left for coaling, ashing out, turning loco's around, no water supplies or troughs, so it's not likely to happen without providing some means of providing all this. The occasional Steam special Excursion can be dealt with but logistically difficult if you are running a railway with Steam.

So if there was a secret store of rusting hulks where is it? Britain is a small Island, it's virtually impossible to hide anything let alone a large number of Steam Loco's without someone knowing about it unless it's some private collector or the PTB were able to move large numbers of Locos under some form of cloaking device, you can't easily move a 9F without it being kind of obvious.

Although, anyone interested in UK Narrow Gauge will have heard of a certain NG collection that is hidden away and continuously being added to, Locos arrive in the UK from various places and "vanish" No one is ever allowed to see them although we have a pretty good idea of where they might be, latest is that they may be destined for some kind of future museum, which is probably as likely to happen as the non existent restorations that were supposed to be happening.

Old Tunnels? I doubt that there are any left that haven't been explored legally or illegally or used for growing illegal substances. Underground storage, with rail connections? More likely to have been for storing dangerous flying or drop from above "things" that go bang and blow things up.
 
Mind if a Yank weighs in on this?

I may be young, but I do remember the paranoia of the Cold war. No, not first hand, but from old books, television shows, and the recollections of my Grandfather; who, besides being the catalyst for my discovery of the love of railroads and steam trains, was an SR-71 Blackbird Pilot in the USAF; he lived that paranoia for a living.

As for a strategic Reserve, there's ample support for the plausibility of such a thing. Indeed, many nations, on BOTH sides of the Iron Curtain, had (and in some cases, still have) steam reserves for emergency; China and Russia Come to mind first because I was looking at them this week. But many Scandinavian countries had these as well: http://youtu.be/RkaFe0umF7s The Belfast and Moosehead Lake, a former short line turned tourist railroad in Maine here in the US, actually has (or had; the line's changed hands recently and no one seems certain where she's gone gallivanting off to) a Swedish 4-6-0 of a similar design to the ones in the video, which also came from the Swedish Strategic Reserve. Now that I think about it, It seems like I remember an Austerity 2-8-0 running in Britain that used to be part of Norway's or Denmark's strategic reserve.

So in short, IS there such a thing as a British Strategic Steam Locomotive Reserve? My romantic, whistful, steam-loving side desperately wants to believe yes, and believe it's filled with long-lost classes like 2Ps, A1 Peppercorns (the real ones, not the Tornado types) V3 2-6-2Ts, and the like. Heck, I want there to be one HERE, in the USA! But does it exist? probably not; you'd have probably seen the MoD start selling the engines off by now, because they're getting to the point where they aren't that useful anymore, since gone are the 4-wheel vans, cattle cars, and 7-plank wagons of their day. But, we can dream, can't we? :)
 
Drying up would be a good thing. The last thing you would want is a bunch of steamers parked in a damp tunnel. You would want almost 0 moisture in the air! As dry as you could get it so the engines would not corrode. Moisture does terrible things to boilers, running gear, rods, pistons, tenders. Dry is better.

That being said, its its a true strategic reserve, I bet its highly classified, and if it exists, it will never be know unless they either are needed, or they decide to scrap the project and release the locomotives.

Frankly, there are enough operational engines in the UK now that a reserve would never be needed, the US is a different story. We only have a handful of mainline engines, and a TON of narrow gauge steamers, which are useless on the main lines of America.
 
sawyer811 said:
But does it exist? probably not; you'd have probably seen the MoD start selling the engines off by now, because they're getting to the point where they aren't that useful anymore, since gone are the 4-wheel vans, cattle cars, and 7-plank wagons of their day. But, we can dream, can't we? :)
Click to expand...

Well the MOD have actually been selling off by auction a load of wagons and suchlike both standard gauge and Narrow Gauge, corresponding to the latest closures, nothing remotely related to Steam Engines other than most of the rolling stock is pretty ancient. Much of it is snapped up by the various preservation groups especially the NG stuff although scrap dealers also get hold of a lot. Last one was back in February http://www.ramco.co.uk/sales/tenderview.php?tender=58 No Locos though. ;)
 
Im neutral on this. But the idea of hiding large buildings to store things isn't far fetched. But in WWII Lockheed hid one of their factory buildings and run way from possible air attacks.

This shows what they did with just some nets, a few fake houses, and some fake trees. So, while not supporting the idea of a huge fleet of locomotives hidden some where in the the UK. The possibility is there they they're might be a building, hidden under some nets and fake trees with some rusting away locomotive's isn't too far fetched.

I know of a couple of places near where I live where whole cuts of cars, about 15 and a caboose or two, are sitting just a few yards from some homes. Hidden by years of over growth. I even know where a speeder, in not too good of condition, is hidden mostly still intact. (Save for who knows how much corrosion to the water logged motor.)

And every so often some farmer or construction worker in in the UK or Europe stumbles on a chunk of metal and it turns out to be a plane.....or tank....or bomb...or part of ether of those.
 
JIb228 said:
Im neutral on this. But the idea of hiding large buildings to store things isn't far fetched. But in WWII Lockheed hid one of their factory buildings and run way from possible air attacks.

This shows what they did with just some nets, a few fake houses, and some fake trees. So, while not supporting the idea of a huge fleet of locomotives hidden some where in the the UK. The possibility is there they they're might be a building, hidden under some nets and fake trees with some rusting away locomotive's isn't too far fetched.

I know of a couple of places near where I live where whole cuts of cars, about 15 and a caboose or two, are sitting just a few yards from some homes. Hidden by years of over growth. I even know where a speeder, in not too good of condition, is hidden mostly still intact. (Save for who knows how much corrosion to the water logged motor.)

And every so often some farmer or construction worker in in the UK or Europe stumbles on a chunk of metal and it turns out to be a plane.....or tank....or bomb...or part of ether of those.
Click to expand...

Wow. IF you're willing to, could you tell us where it is? In your backyard?
 
2995Valliant said:
Why would it have been secret? I'm guessing anyone wondering that is too young to remember the paranoia of the cold war era.
Click to expand...

Yes, remember the swathe of semi-documentary nuclear war films at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. The paranoia was that recent. I even have one of the leaflets about how to survive a nuclear strike.


2995Valliant said:
If anyone had a steam reserve it would have been the MOD - you only have to look at their vehicles disposal lists over the years to see the vehicles they have stockpiled over the years "just in case" such as all the 1950's "Green Goddess" fire engines that were disposed of (many unused) in the late 90's.
Click to expand...

I used to play in the Green Goddesses at my dad's work. They had a load of them squirreled away behind the main building, along with ambulances. I thought it was the best thing ever when I found one with working lights and siren (flat batteries were common).

I'd agree with Anthony that the idea of a strategic reserve is fanciful. Even as a rail enthusiast, I don't for a second believe in the existence of such a thing . As Malc has also pointed out, a stored loco will deteriorate rapidly beyond use if it is in 'cold' storage, even with a minimum of atmospheric moisture. Steam engines need a lot of regular work to keep them in good order (in other words, they need to be used) and boilers also need certified every 10 years. If there were any engines stored, unless they have been run regularly, they aren't going to be of use to anyone but a scrappy without a great deal of restoration work being carried out on them.
 
FWIW, the USA had some form of reserves: Alco MRS1, about 60 of them plus 10 of the EMD variation. 6 axles, 1000hp, variable gauge trucks. They were deemed surplus to requirements sometime in the 80s or 90s, and sold (originally built for use in EU/USSR during Cold War). The number of remaining locos could be counted on 1 hand, with fewer operational. I do recall seeing an outdated ad for one, it stated "less than 800 hours of runtime". Given that my grandfather's tractor is just now getting close to that, and it was purchased back in the 70s, it would be far more logical for GB to have purchased diesel units from America to fit in such a small clearance gauge with such reliability. But for a STEAM reserve, I can only claim "wishful thinking". At some point, if kept watered, boiler walls would fail, and tanks start draining. Settling of the springs would be another problem, and grease lines would gum up. Lagging would fall off due to age, not to mention be illegal (asbestos), and valve/rod packing would need to be replaced. And unless train weights haven't changed significantly in the past 50-60 years (they increased greatly by GB standards I think, but please correct me), most steamers would be practically useless under high-load, intensive use except for the Class 9F.
 
Even were such a collection still in existence, where exactly would we now get the coal to run them in such an emergency? In the 60s and 70s it was still a major nationally produced commodity, but since the 80s there's been very little of it mined domestically, and much of what there is is apparently not of the right quality for decent steaming.

It would almost certainly have to be imported, then, and given that the whole scenario for the need of this very likely mythical reserve would preclude that, chances are that even had such a collection ever existed, it would have been quietly disposed of as soon as its usefulness was in doubt (if not before, as with our aircraft carriers and compatible planes).
 
hholdenaz said:
Recently, I've developed a small. Interest. In the. Legendary and mythical Strategic Steam Reserve of Great Britain, and, well, as much as I feel like believing it, I find it hard to.

From what I've read, there seems to be little evidence, although stories about crews being sent home and returning the next day, only to find their engines missing, does give a hint, though the engines could've simply been towed elsewhere overnight or were sending he night at a different depot after pulling a nighttime train while being operated by another crew.
Click to expand...

Maybe it was a Train heist :hehe:
 
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