Barrie C. Woods

I have had a life-long fascination of steam from when I first sat at the top of the white cliffs at Hitchin on the East coast Main line, train-spotting with my pencil and notepad way back in 1959 at the tender age of just 11. Since those impressionable days and the inevitable demise of steam on the railways my interests spread to road vehicles and I first began visiting rallies, as well as steering and driving traction engines in the early 1970s. My mentor was a veteran of 86 years old by the name of ‘Punch’ Lawrence. This continued for some years, the engines we drove were the first two owned by the legendary Reg Saunders of Stotfold, near Hitchin. Today the sons, Ted & John carry on the Saunders tradition and have increased their steam fleet out of all proportion to those early days.

Work and family inevitably caused adjustments to be made to my activities for some years but never did the yen to get near steam diminish, indeed it continued to dominate my life as it does to this day. From 1973 my involvement in the Battle of Britain Locomotive Society, ensured a life-time of restoration work and fund-raising to get Bulleid Pacific 34081, named ’92 SQUADRON’ back into steam.

Later and now divorced, I set about travelling the world to capture the last remnants of ‘real steam’ rather than the UK preserved and main line activities which although very laudable, were not the same. Countries such as China, Cuba, Ukraine, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Colorado were all visited as well as nearer to home locations such as Poland and Germany, the former to drive engines on the main line with fare paying passengers - if only they knew who’s hand was on the regulator!

Traction engine rallies have been high on the agenda for as long as I can remember and in the last couple of years a fascination with museum exhibits has come to the fore, hence this book. As to the future who knows? There is plenty of steam still around it just takes a little more patience these days to find! But while it’s out there I’ll be out there with my camera photographing it. Barrie C. Woods