Lest we forget

Today was remembrance Sunday and while we remember those who fell in two world wars and other more recent conflicts, we should also remember that many railway workers left their jobs for active service and never returned.  I regularly commute to London's Paddington station on the train and if I arrive or depart from platform 1, will pass the memorial to the fallen employees of the Great Western Railway.  Inside the memorial is a sealed casket containing a vellum scroll with the names of the 2,524 employees of the Great Western Railway who gave their lives in WWI.

Some of the locomotives in our working fleet played their part in the conflicts.  2807 served in WWI hauling the 'Jellicoe Specials',  taking Welsh steam coal from the South Wales collieries to Warrington for further transportation onwards to the fleet commanded by admiral Jellicoe.

2807 departing Bishops Lydeard during a recent gala on the West Somerset Railway

Stanier 8F, 8274 was built in 1940 and shipped to Turkey the following year.  Of the total of 27 8F class engines shipped to Turkey, only 20 made it to their destination, the remainder being sent on ships that were sunk by enemy action.

8F, 8274 crosses Stanway Viaduct during the GWR 175 gala

Foremarke Hall although a Great Western Railway design was built in 1949 and is too young to have been involved in  either world war, but one example of the Hall class (forerunner of the modified Hall class to which Foremarke Hall belongs), 4911, Bowden Hall, suffered a direct hit from a German Bomb during an air raid on Plymouth in April 1941 and was destroyed.

Foremarke Hall going off shed this morning to haul the remembrance day service train

Both trains running on our line (Foremarke Hall and 117 class DMU) paused for 2 minutes silence at 11:00 today in remembrance.

Lest we forget