Preservation
Withdrawn locomotives were sent for scrap to various locations around the country, to scrap metal merchants who had been approved to bid on the contracts. Most locomotives from the former Great Western Railway were either scrapped at Swindon railway works, or sent to Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, which became a centre for the railway preservation movement.
Former main line locomotives, along with various smaller industrial shunters, form the backbone of steam motive power for heritage railways. Main line running on charter trains is possible and they run under TOPS code as Class 98.
Some of these "heritage" lines are remote and cut off from the national rail network, serving obscure or deserted destinations and running primarily as a tourist attraction. Others, especially those connected to the National Rail network or situated in more populous areas are often used by members of the local community for general public transport, or by ordinary rail travellers. To cater for this local traffic, some steam lines offer heritage diesel or steam "push-pull" services out of season.
Read more about this topic: Steam Locomotives Of British Railways
Famous quotes containing the word preservation:
“The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think we have a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)