STEAM BUFFS SHOULD HEAD FOR BRIGG

The Oxfam Book Shop, in Wrawby Street, Brigg, likes to devote its front window to publications on the same topic which it has available for sale. 

At present the display is about steam locomotives, with many books and magazines on show.

Surviving Brigg trainspotters of the 1950s and 1960s are advised to don their anoraks and make for the shop without delay.

We can't say whether any of the books Oxfam is selling feature pictures of Grimsby fish trains chugging through Brigg station, but it's worth taking a look at the wide range of publications on show in the shop.

What excitement there was, circa 1964/5, when "a namer" came to shunt in Brigg and we spied it in the station. This was B1 4-6-0 No 61250 A. Harold Bibby. Initial locos in this class of loco built in the 1940s and 1950s were named after species of antelope, while others in the run honoured directors of the London North Eastern Railway. We are presuming "A. Harold" was one of their number.

Perhaps we should explain that engines carrying names were  more highly prized by trainspotters than those which just had numbers. 

WD class 2-8-0s and 9F 2-10-0s were often to be seen in Brigg prior to the demise of local steam in 1965/6. Members of those classes, and B1s, are bound to feature in some of the publications currently on sale at the Brigg charity shop.

More than 700 WDs worked on British Railways, together with 250 9Fs and 400-plus B1s.