Signs of the end

Although we all knew that the end of steam could not be far away it was easy to believe for a moment that this was not the case, given the level of activity we could see in and around the open cast mine (if you could forget about a diesel or two). After all, yesterday I had seen more steam locomotives in action on one day, in one place, than at any other time in my life. However, today we saw more tangible signs of the end.

First, we visited the depot to see what was going on. Nothing. There is no longer a saturday shift here. We wandered round the empty buildings and admired the two lonely SYs inside. A boiler lay abandoned in the snow nearby. The silence was ominous in a place that had all the signs of being a hive of activity not so very long ago.