At the dawn of 1968 it was still possible to see an occasional steam locomotive on main line workings. The Calder Valley seemed a particularly privileged location to live because elsewhere in much of Britain it was already a memory. I think this image of a work-weary ex-LMS '8F' 2-8-0 heading westward along former Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway metals into the dusk is rather poignant of those final months. Steam, which we thought would last forever, did not even see out the year.
