Steam Trains and Cold War Conspiracies: The Legend of the Strategic Reserve 

I like that the railway enthusiasts' attention for detail both birthed and disproved the conspiracy

"Not only did they think it could be true, but they _wanted_ it to be true." That, IMO, is why any given conspiracy theory takes off.

When you first said "Strategic Steam Reserve", I pictured a cave containing a ten story tea kettle under a cozy that required the combined efforts of every grannie in the Home Counties to create.

i had the pleasure of rescueing the very last reserve steam engine from its hidden shed in sweden a few years ago. that engine has now been restored to full working order.

There's a spectacular alternate history waiting to be written about a secret second rail network and the vital role it played in countering a terrible threat the mid-century British government kept under wraps - a sort of trainspotting Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell. Design oddities in certain models arise from their need to fulfil certain roles; certain lines exist because it was necessary to get them to certain parts of the country; engineers and designers are unsung heroes of desperate missions. It could be played for laughs, or tremendously straight. Maybe this story could take the form of an intermittent series by a RU-vidr with a large collection of images and footage of Britain's existing and historical rail networks in action. If only we knew of such a person...

We had a steam reserve down under in my home state of Western Australia. Mind you it wasn’t because of the threat of nuclear Armageddon, rather it was in the event of an oil crisis, the WAGR (that’s the Western Australian Government Railway to those outside of Australia) set aside several locomotives at locations such as the workshops in Midland, the coal powerhouse of Collie, and a few other places too. Unfortunately this never came to fruition and at least a good 1/3 of those locomotives were cut up. But a good few of the Collie examples survive today.

I've heard the theory that the preservation scene itself was the strategic steam reserve too, without them realising it. It would make sense after all, as the government wouldn't have had to put the time and money into keeping locos running when volunteers do it anyway, they could just be requisitioned in the event of war.

I completely forgot this was a thing till just now. I remember hearing rumours about this sort of thing when I was young in the 90's. Even if we were to keep a reserve it wouldn't be all these eclectic rare types, it wouldn't make sense. They would of been BR standards, 8F/9F and the austerity engines anyway. It's always fun to speculate though.

This has reminded me of the stories my dad would tell me back in the 70s about the alleged strategic reserve in a tunnel under a hill near Neath in South Wales. This tunnel was supposed to contain ALL the ex-GWR Grange class locos which would apparently explain why none got preserved.

What's always struck me as improbable about the whole 'strategic reserve' story is that the entire infrastructure to operate mainline steam has been removed, so these locos couldn't be coaled, watered, oiled, maintained, or even crewed. Incidentally, we have no coal either....

One of the other reasons why Steam reserves existed, is because compared to early electric and diesel Locomotives, steam locos were actually easier to maintain as they could run even when quite a lot of stuff is broken or damaged. It was why industrial Locomotives in the UK were often Steam even after steam Locomotives had been got rid of on the main line (plus cheaper to rent and run).

Interestingly, the last steam engines of the strategic reserve in Sweden were only taken out of storage and into preservation during the 2010s there is even a video on youtube from one of the last expiditions to retrieve a couple of engines from a shed in the north of Sweden.

I think that the whole preservation movement itself would be the best way to disguise a strategic reserve if you ask me. What better way to ensure locomotives are used, kept in working order and have people who know how to use them?

The mistake we made in hoping for a strategic reserve was believing that government policy towards the railways in the 1960s was cogent and rational

I was a fireman/second man working out of KX in the 60.s, we had a few ex Scottish footplatestaff who came south after being made redundant, i can remember this topic as "canteen gosip",but these guys spoke of taking 8F,9F and black5's to one or two naval yards for storage in the early to mid 60's, they only went as far as the dockyard gates the MOD then moved the locos inside.They dont remember bringing any scrap trains out.

Obviously, for all those who needed to know, the plans for running the Strategic Reserve rail network were available in heavily encoded form in books published under the name of W. Awdry.

There's nothing conspiratorial about soldiers training on heritage railways. The Army has its own railway trade which is mostly reservists, but some regulars too and the heritage scene provides places to train without disrupting the National Network. Back in the day, as a logistics instructor, I made use of the heritage sector whenever possible.

Rian Hughes' novel The Black Locomotive mixes London psychogeography with science fiction, with the Strategic Steam Reserve a key part of the plot, the climax of which is a late night dash on a black SR Lord Nelson class from Box to the Crossrail tunnels at Paddington (all in the hands of a secret society of train enthusiasts!).

I can remember when the Green Goddess fire trucks came out during a firefighter's strike in the late 1970s. It surprised people that the army had held on to them and this undoubtedly fueled the rumors of a strategic reserve.

Proof, if proof were needed, that railway enthusiasts live in their own fantasy world.

Fascinating video! I wish it could be true. I think one reason for Finland maintaining a strategic reserve was to do with fuel. Finland has a bit of nuclear power, and some hydroelectric, but not a great deal of generating capacity. In the event of something bad happening the steam locos could be fired with wood, as they have rather a lot of trees in Finland.

A fascinating video as usual, while the UK may not have had a strategic reserve, NATO certainly did and one of those locos (a BR52 'Kreigslok' named '"Peer Gynt") used to be a the Bressingham Museum. I can't add a photo of the explanation plaque, but the gist is here :- "This German-built Class 52 2-10-0 locomotive No. 5865 was first produced in 1937. The class were know as "Kriegslok" - literally War Locomotive'. They were simple and sturdily built and proved to be very reliable machines. Over 8,000 were built - larger than any other class of locomotive and they saw service all over Europe. For the technical minded, the locomotive has two cylinders 600mm x 660 stroke. The coupled wheel diameter is 1.4 metres and the firegrate area is 3.9 square metres - the size of the latter was such that many were converted to mechanical screw firing or to oil burning. The working pressure is 15.5 atmospheres, producing a tractive effort 50,172 Ibs at its drawbar. The locomotive weighs 136 tons and is 23 feet high. The dimensions are such that it could not work on British railway lines (even though they shared the same track gauge) as it would foul bridges and platforms etc. No. 5865 went to Norway during the war and at the end of the war it was taken over by the Norwegian State Railways and named "Peer Gynt". It was taken out of service in the early 1950s. That was not, however, the end of the story as this locomotive and many others of this type were overhauled in 1953 using NATO funds and placed in tunnels as "War Maintenance Reserve" for use if ever NATO needed to operate railways in a war emergency situation. They were largely forgotten until 1972, when this example was discovered in a sealed tunnel and Alan Bloom (the late founder of Bressingham Steam Museum) bought it to add to the collection. It was steamed on a number of occasions but when the boiler reached the end of its certification period, the projected overhaul costs were found to be prohibitive. Unfortunately too, the locomotive's boiler was lagged in asbestos which nowadays has to be removed by specialist contractors and this operation alone will cost in excess of £30,000." I have no idea if it's still there, but it was reasonably well-preserved. I have no idea if any other survived, but they were still running in Germany on mainlines into the 70s. By the way, the Electro Magnetic Pulse from a nuclear detonation only really affects modern electronics, valves are usually immune, which is why the old Soviet military persisted with valves long after NATO went 'solid state'.

As 18th Assistant Undersecretary of State at the Department of Transport (Contingencies and Civil Emergencies Division), I hereby congratulate Mr Hazzard for this excellent piece of misinformation. The general public must never find the stockpile of Steam Trains, Sinclair C5’s, Segways, and certainly not that *fully functional* flying saucer we built in the early seventies (which now has Network Rail livery).

Another location suggested was the tunnels at Heapey, Lancs, once connected to the Chorley-Blackburn line. This was possibly bolstered by the use of the exchange sidings for storing ex L&Y locos in the 1950s.

As a half Finnish and half Welsh person who likes trains: Pelasta moottori!. I cannot speak the language and have tried to get the internet to tell me how to say: 'Save the engines!' I have probably posted: "I demanded that the donkey be re-painted!! Finnish is a not an easy language.

I always loved this one - a wonderfully dotty piece of wishful thinking. The Wiltshire tunnels were home to Enfield precision engineers who made Royal Enfield motorcycles and some others were later bought by a company called Rusepalm who tried to sell them on a space by space basis as a big bomb shelter around 1981; I don't know if any money changed hands but it got onto nationwide and debates about planning applications for nuclear bunkers were had in the house of commons; locals were worried about the traffic implications if "the balloon went up"! . I believe they now house the UK's largest underground wine storage facility; a strategic reserve indeed!

It would make much more sense to have heritage railways use and maintain locomotives in plain sight than have a secret cache which would have to be maintained out of sight. Quite a lot of them have connections to the mainline so easy(ish) to run further affield. So - Todays strategic reserve - look - right there - merrily puffing their way through forgotten vales and picturesque scenery trying to make believe its just for tourists. ;-)

Great to see JH doing some non-tube stuff. These secret Nordic locos are like the myth of the (American) GG-1 electric locomotive stored somewhere in Britain (where it could never run anyway).

On a channel that is constantly interesting, this was surely one of the most fascinating videos of all. Bravo!

Thanks for sharing the interesting facts on the Strategic Reserve, Jago. I know we can't save everything, but it's a shame a number of these great steam engines are being left to rust away.

Plus - what use a fleet of steam powered trains be when you've spent years removing every coal bunker, water tower and non-electronic switch across the entire network.

_The Cold War ended before the World Wide Web_ - I never before considered just how close in time those two world-changing events were to each other! That fact seems likely to create its own conspiracy theory!

“Or I might just be a government plant!”😂😂 Jago Gold!!

Nice to see the restored Nuclear Dawn mural in Brixton featured 👍.With some expert timing, it would be possible to get a shot of the mural with a steam-hauled train passing on the bridge in the background (forming the periodic round-Kent excursion trips).

It was a nice idea, and probably could have been viable into the late 1970's or so, but people forget that the entire steam-age infrastructure, such as turntables and watercranes had largely been removed after steam's demise. If only BR had adopted the East German railway's idea of 'Plandampf' operations, that is, taking steam locos out of the reserve and running them in regular service to keep crews' driving skills up to date and not incidentally, make lots of money out of steam enthusiasts..

It's usually quite easy to identify a Finnish steam locomotive. Just look at the cylinder blocks; where you'd usually find two barrels (one for the power piston and the other for the valves), Finnish types usually have a third, which incorporates a bypass valve for efficient coasting. There's a pilot valve in the regulator which provides steam pressure to close the bypass valve when power is wanted, and that pressure leaks off when the regulator is closed, so the bypass valve opens. A less obvious feature - at least from the outside - is that Finnish locomotives were relatively early adopters of multi-jet exhausts, using a design by local engineer Kylälä. He noticed that enginemen had developed a practice of securing a bar across the exhaust nozzle inside the smokebox, to improve the draught, essentially making a crude approximation to a two-jet exhaust. He refined it to a properly engineered four-jet exhaust, keeping the total cross-section area the same as the original but increasing the surface area of the exhaust steam as it entrained smokebox gases. This was later refined further by Chapelon to make the famous Kylchap exhaust. The combination of these two features made Finnish locomotives quite advanced and efficient types, despite their obsolete-looking appearance. The latter was occasioned by the large spark arrestor built into the chimney, made necessary by the extensive use of wood fuel - Finland having no native coal reserves, but some of the densest forests on the planet. Today, Finland has several steam locomotives preserved in operating condition and used for railtours or to operate museum railways, and a decent number more in cosmetically restored condition in museums, or simply kept on station plinths. There's even some fairly large-scale models in the main booking hall of Helsinki railway station.

Back in the day I ran the MOD network at Shoeburyness, where we were storing several hundred LU 59 stock vehicles. It was commercially very good but the military didnt really Iike their site bring cluttered up with old trains. They were always happy to book hours to my cost centre though! After a moan by a particularly irksome retired Major I told him that they were part of the mythical strategic creserve and that we would be digging tunnels to store them in. This shut him up but a few months later I was approached by a well known RAIL magazine asking for my comments about the secret underground tunnels at Shoebury. To this day, people are convinced there was a huge secret stash of lost locos at " Pigs Bay"

Military training on heritage railways was done for variety of signalling systems and block working as Bicester had basic signalling and the MOD depots ran with regulator working. Those Squadrons were 275 Rly Sqn and 79 Rly Sqn. Im ex 275 Sqn and 507 STRE.

There are hundreds of rusty (or rusted out) engines stored across Russia in places called “the reserves bases” (báza zapása) for the exact same reason. Some of these bases are strictly guarded, some are less so, so most of those were documented by local rail fans in the recent three decades. Not only engines actually, but other kinds of locomotives, coaches and other railcars too. Sometimes they come back: with steam engines, the better preserved are occasionally get pulled out for restoration to function as a tourist attraction, but passenger cars, 3rd and 2nd class, that technically are write-offs, get back on track every year to form “supplementary trains” to fill up the demand for cheap train tickets to Sochi and back. Those, while technically sound as a rolling stock (Russian passenger trains are actually among the world's safest) are highly uncomfortable in comparison to proper modern ones. The layouts basically didn't change for almost a century, but, well... ill-maintained windows, barely functioning stinky toilets (of “direct drop” type, thus off-limits at stations where the train stops for more than 5 minutes), absolutely no air conditioning (air conditioners are a relatively new thing in Russian long-distance trains, maybe about 20 years, and still definitely not all carriages are equipped with those, although there is quite a progress indeed), and even the water boiler (a.k.a “titan” - and oftentimes in such cases those are still based on coal-burning stove rather than an electric heater) may not function in every car on such “supplementary” train - which is an utter disgrace, because tea in a long-distance sleeper is a must, and is a separate tradition in Russia and around (with addition of instant coffee, instant noodles and suchlike in the recent decades). For comparison, a regular sleeper train takes about 26 hours from Moscow to Sochi - bare minimum of stops, modern carriages with proper lavatories, air conditioners and even showers . A “supplementary” takes up to 44 hours, using very indirect routes and with frequent long stops. Cheap they are, but this kind of journey is not nice at all, particularly when it's over +30°C outdoors. Been there, done that. Usually these trains are full of children with parents... or without, on their way to or from summer camps. So during the day it's really noisy, and at night If you managed to avoid a children's camp on the go, you are surrounded by fat mommas with incessantly yelling babies and toddlers, beer-bellied husbands of said mommas, their in-laws, etc., all coming from the depths of the land to the seaside - at the lowest budget possible. Which doesn't prevent them from watching their favourite dumb TV shows on smartphones and tablets, particularly if the carriage is equipped with more than one or two power outlets - and without headphones.

Interesting how things change. Horses, carts, canals & even steam locos are now primarily for pleasure. Maybe in a century or two people will take nostalgic trips on motorways... 🤔

The times I went into Ongar starting in the late 1990s, that locomotive turned up between visits. For many visits it sat on the run around siding. Many of the locals called it Russian.

A former RAF colleague of mine told of seeing (in the mid-60s) mothballed 8Fs and 9Fs being moved (wrapped in polythene) into underground tunnels at an munition depot where he worked. If they were stored then, it would have been a reasonable precaution at the time. My understanding was that they were removed and scrapped in the '70s, when it became apparent that (Cold War notwithstanding) bringing them back into use post-strike would be impractical.

If you watch the closing scenes of Threads, there's a still photo depicting a steam loco running again in the aftermath, along with miners hewing coal by hand. If my memory serves me correctly, I think there might have been an old resurrected steamer in an episode of the 1970s era BBC post-apocalypse drama "Survivors", presumably based on the same idea.

Excellent and valid points well made! If we desired to have independent means following a war of any sort then we should have kept out coal mines intact. Steam locos are not much use without coal. But we are now depending on imports of everything.

Hi Jago from a slightly cooler Spain where it is 23°. I feel that I am one of a shrinking band of those who actually rode on steam hauled trains when they still existed in service and have great memories of such times. When the drop down carriage windows were held up and adjusted by leather straps. I enjoyed the steam days and also had the privelege of actually riding on the footplate when a train was in service and even on the Flying Scotsman when it was on the North Woolwich line to take the Queen mother to the opening of the museum.

A good video with valid points. A Strategic Steam Reserve (SSR)? As someone who lived near to the Last Ditch, and amongst lots of overt and covert bases during Cold War 1, the government are VERY good at keeping secrets and at loosing paperwork. Then there's things like the 150 year rule etc. Eg I've seen bases disguised as farms in the UK (with thinly disguised airstrips adjacent), akin to the X-Files or similar in the US. Box Tunnel and Box Tunnel Junction? My Grandfather made me aware of such - he often kept quiet about the war, he was a professional soldier before WWII. The area around BTJ? There's still a secret base there, a DUMB, no more than a stone's throw away. In addition my grandfather test fired massive ship's guns in WW II near to that location - he was ex RA and had a lot of experience with guns he was put on "light duties" after fighting the Waffen SS and getting wounded and getting out of France via "Dunkirk". His first light duty was manning AAA in Hyde Park during the Blitz! His other light duty was test firing said ship's guns - underground! They were supported by a rail network - the whole set up was massive. Speaking with a consultant and ex Professor, circa 1996, at one of my then suppliers, who had subsidence due to mining about to swallow up their factory, he pretty much declared that most of the CW 1 DUMBs would be sold off and declared as newer versions and/or refurbished preferred DUMBs had already taken their place (he'd worked on government project in or should I write, under London). An old boss of mine, who worked in MOD civil engineering procurement, had previously told me how compartmentalisation worked when selecting and employing positively and negatively vetted contractors. Strangely as he got mid way through his last contract (after he'd tendered and selected suppliers etc) he was struck down with a mystery illness affecting his brain and he was in a coma for three months after collapsing in Whitehall. In the US? People in his position have had their memories wiped and/or "suicided". So NEVER underestimate secrecy. Also after the last three years, the PsyOp we've been through and are going through? It's not hard to see how governments and big business now operate, many ex military, with ATS clearance, now work in the private sector which isn't subject to FOI Requests etc. I'm sure that the government had a plan, steam would have been logical as little to no electricity was involved and we still had coal reserves. Plus, I've no doubt there was room for hidden storage, more room than most would think. Railheads etc would be the issue, also when being used water etc, remember in the early 1970s Alan Peglar's Flying Scotsman had to haul two tenders for that very reason (water troughs, towers, cranes all gone). I've heard stories, sightings of things other than SSR or railway related, about DUMBs and blocked off tunnels in Eg The Royal Forest of Dean - from credible first hand sources. I worked with certain military and railway assets and was made to sign the OSA. All things are possible - so I keep an open mind about a SSR. A bit like the last episode of the, at times, cheesy but fun, TV series "Ultimate Force", send out an armoured vehicle, convoy, flashing lights etc and that's the decoy, meanwhile an adapted dust-cart or Kellogg's Cornflakes artic goes the other way without fanfare carrying the ATS weapons or other ATS equipment.

An excellent piece of detective work, Jago, pulling together all sorts of diverse rumours and stories. Having grown up a mile from the Northern Line near Edgware, I agree that the Northern Line just doesn't figure as some massive shelter.

I love the Epping and Ongar railway...went there for the diesal gala this year...its always good day out and the people who work on it are lovely

When I lived in Bath, stories about Box Hill were pretty common. Bath Stone was very soft and easily cut. I believe it was mined as well as quarried. This fuelled stories about why what really was inside Box Hill tunnel was there in the first place and not somewhere else.

Great video! Is there a list of active heritage steam trains? I wonder how many we have that could be mobilised should they need to be!? Haha wow this is a new rabbit hole for me 😂😂😂

Military training on heritage railways was mainly the Railway Operating Group, Royal Engineers learning to drive various locomotives and operate mechanical signalling after the closure of the Longmoor Military Railway in 1969. The LMR might be worth its own video.

Around 30 years ago, I was told that part of the strategic reserve of steam locomotives were stored in a tunnel on the closed Great Central Railway. The locos saved were the Austerity 2-8-0 types, built for wartime service. I believe the rumour must have been based on the rapid withdrawal and disappearance of the class!

A fictional story (on film particularly) about the clandestine disappearing of steam locomotives around the UK has the potential to be extremely cool. The rumors of steam locos being spirited away under the cover of darkness really spark the imagination

Hang on, Jago! Why would Finnish locomotives finish (sorry) up in UK, or any other country using standard gauge? Finland uses 1524 mm (5 ft in English money) not the standard 4ft 8 1/2 inches (1435mm) of George Stephenson fame...did they get refitted? or is there a Russian re-gauge secretly setup to enable Soviet trains to work on British railways after they won the Cold ( or even tepid) war? 7 out of ten, Jago, see me afterwards!! (seriously though, another brilliant video...do keep em coming!)

Sadly not enough of the 9F were saved in my opinion.. Always been my favourite class.

When the sun does another Carrington Event we'll love having the steam engines.

The railways of Finland are built to the Russian gauge. To use them in the UK would require major rebuilding

Now I want a British Post Apocalypse TV show where the survivors of said apocalypse travel round in an former heritage railway steam train.

As someone old enough to have used steam trains I found this facinating ! The world seems to have forgotten about the EMP and what it could do to almost everything we used today ! The intermitant use of heritage boilers may well see their demise as thermal cycling cracks them - in their working lives a boiler seldom went cold !

Direct drive diesels have the same advantage of not needing electricity to operate, but transmitting the power to the wheels in something as large as a locomotive is problematic when you consider gear trains and clutches and the like.

The steam engine reserve was my urban exploring holy grail. I searched for years for solid reports of it, but never found it. Now I can finally stop looking.

I went to Romania for a few days on a mystery holiday in June. Part of the holiday included travelling from Bucharest to Brasov by train one day and back a couple of days later. Every station on the route seemed to have an old steam locomotive on display that looked like they had seen better days. I think they likely boelonged to a similar reserve at one point.

The 'Strategic Reserve', if there ever were one, is the UK's heritage Steam trains and those held in working order at the National Railway museum. Although, even if they were used after an EMP strike, bypassing all the redundant computerised rail switching. Which would be so much useless junk afterwards would be a massive task in it self...

There has been a story going around Liverpool for many years of a tunnel under the city containing a number of steam locomotives as part of the ' strategic reserve'

Another reason rumors of a reserve of steam engines in a tunnel don't add up is that steam engines don't remain in a usable condition for long without maintenance, and after a few years in a damp tunnel there would be little more than rust left.

I've often wondered if the strategic reserve was just an April Fool's spoof in one of the railway magazines

I once talked to an old GWR fireman who swore that he and his driver brought their loco into Bristol Temple Meads and two officials hopped onto the foot plate and told them to get a brew, when they came back their engine was gone.

These rumors were prevalent around Heapey depot which was a storage for munitions made at ROF Chorley, never proven and highly unlikely.

I thought the Finnish railways were built to a broader gauge than ours, so the imported locos would have been totally useless anyway! During my days of regular rail tours in the early 60's there was a fanciful tale of the "Waddon Marsh Ghost", an early morning train of coal being delivered to the south London power station that was steam hauled long after it had become a diesel turn. Enjoyed the video, as always.

Great video as always Jago 👍this evening I was getting a bit ratty and short tempered with life! I realised that I hadn’t had my Sundays dose of railway’s “a la jago” lol. Just thinking, if steam engines were a back up plan! Where would they get the coal from? It’s not like we can pluck it out the ground anymore 😂! Anyhoo I’m going into business making tinfoil hats! Enquires to; stickyourheadbetweenyourlegsandkissyourassgoodbye😅

What a great video. I recall being told so many untruths about this when younger. Apparently the Balcombe, Merstham, and Clayton tunnels on the Brighton to London mainline were to be used in this top secret mission. Were some of the rumours I heard over and over again, growing up in the area. Now in Essex, I have lost count about rumours around the small branch line between Ongar and Epping, which is now closed. Was this small line only job to ship good and people to Kelvedon Hatch Nuclear Bunker? Many stories and rumours circulate regarding the 'Cold War', and I find them fascinating. Thanks for these great videos.

I've heard you talk about Train history many times, but your bit about the Cold War at the beginning proves that you're very adept at explaining world history as well!

What an amazing topic! I had never heard about this before. Thanks Jago!

I like the conspiracy theory of British Rail painting passengers that fall asleep painted black.

When I visited the Epping Ongar for the first time I looked up what that Finish locomotive was and why it had been left to rot. Apparently it was brought to be restored to run on the line until they discovered asbestos and it just got left where it is to this day. Not sure how true this is.

The military kept stocks of stuff- for example engines and spares for the "Green Goddess" fire tenders and a number of years ago, the spares were sold off- so owners of old Bedford lorries and buses had a spares bonanza. You show that Army J-94 Austerity Royal Engineer in your film and if there was a steam reserve then why not store them on the Longmoor Military Railway in Hampshire which closed in 1969 and was run by the Royal Engineers. This was a big complex and I visited it a few times- not least a weekend cadet camp there a few months before it shut and we were given an official tour and told it would probably the last one before closure and at that time Clan Line, Blackmoor Vale and the 9F later named Black Prince plus the Austerity 2-10-0 Gordon. I saw the siding where a number of J-92s were cut up by a scrap man and a friend found a water gauge in the bushes. If the government had wanted a strategic reserve then Longmoor was perfect but the Government clearly did not and did not save any steam engines other than for the national collection- and BR found that a pain to manage it seems as their idea at that time of a steam engine, was a pile of cut up bits ready for the smelter.

In Poland, 2 or 4 (can't remember) preserved steam locomotives are still considered strategic reserve. They are used on heritage railways and sometime serve passenger duty if necessary. It happened few years ago when a brand new train set was not operational. Sadly, despite being a official mandatory thing to keep them running, the lads working on them are your regular heritage railway volunteers with not much financial support appart from donations.

Finish locomotives ain't very useful outside of Finland as they are of 5ft gauge not 4ft 8.5in gauge.

I remember seeing a steam engine used in the post nuke scene in BBC's Threads.

The Royal Engineers had their own railway training camp complete with steam engines in Bordon, I think, in Hampshire. I went there in 1963. I only saw a couple of large freight engines which didn't look very 'British'.

Wonderful strategic video thanks Jago

Jago, something about this video just made me admire your efforts as a creator so much more. Your filming is of such characteristic, dare I say, charming visuals, but in being just a guy with his iPhone they are so achievable. Look at the shot of Repton for instance: Yes it is beautifully dramatic but it is also, pardon the phrase, imperfect. You either just retrieved your phone out of your pocket or you braced yourself for the drain cocks. Your hand is not as steady as with a perfectly straight tripod. Or the shot with the L&Y locos: you've said you don't like to have other people in the shot, but when it is a good shot regardless you just roll with it. You run an awesome channel, and you make the best with what you have, which as you have admitted is mostly simple amateur stuff. That's why I think you have to be one of the best. You're not someone with a crew or deep pockets, you're just a person who likes trains, like the rest of us :)

What would have happend to the coal supply "logistic chain" and the track side water supply if there was such a thing as the SSR ? As for UK gov. secrets: the London BT tower is a great example.

I was in "Threads" as an extra 👀

Talking about attention to detail: I did my MSc Dissertation on heritage railways. Got a 60% return on my survey of heritage railways. Average for a survey return is around 33% Guess enthusiasts just couldn’t leave the survey unanswered in the inbox

An interesting story that I hadn't heard before. However, what is real is the mysterious carriage shed at Craven Arms. This was always maintained in good condition, with tracks connecting its locked doors to the Shrewsbury - Hereford main line. After the end of the cold war it fell into disrepair and the site is now part of a housing estate.

A strategic reserve of steam locomotives? Now we don't even have any coal.

I ❤ that last line… you got a subscription for it!!!

If the tracks are flooded, diesel electric traction motors are centered on the axle shafts. Consequently it doesn't take much water to short the motor out. Whereas a typical steam engine has the firebox above the axles giving more flooding tolerance.

Thanks for this VERY FASCINATING review of an interesting bit of history.

Great video and as a rail enthusiast for over 50 years this strategic reserve is just a fantasy here in the UK .99.9 % of loco's are accounted for in scrapping lists ,as you said ,if it hit the fan the heritage railways ARE the reserve

Very interesting Mr Hazzard, but you overlook the secret reserve of steam locos and stock that sound fit and could be hidden and stored in tunnels of the Northern Line of the London UndergrounD. That stock being of the RH&DR. Schhh walls have ears. The message should self destruct shortly. Best wishes from a secret bunker in Oxfordshire.

5:45 - _Strictly_ speaking, there is some overlap: Publication of original (0.9) HTTP standard, 23 August 1991, formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, 18 December 1991. However, the Web itself didn't really take off before the release of Mosaic in 1993. And the theory I always heard that the reserve was held in the original (1845) Woodhead Tunnel, but that might be a bit too public for effective secrecy.

Great to hear this story. I saw a version in a club magazine around 1980 and it looked plausible then. Not just in case of a nuclear exchange, but if our oil supplies got cut off - we had plenty of coal mines then. The "missing" locos were said to be GWR Granges, Black 5s, 8Fs and 9Fs, which are sensible multi-purpose engines to keep. And the favoured locations were in shallow tunnels or sheds/hangars on the numerous MoD sites. Keeping it secret made sense in case the enemy then strategically bombed it. In a nuclear attack, people might get wiped out by radiation and fallout but the infrastructure could stay relatively intact away from the areas of impact. So one could reasonably imagine a government planning in this way. But evidently they didn't! If anything of the sort had been done it would have come to light by now, and the engines would long since have seized up without maintenance and regular use.

Nuclear war planning was so bad. Canada’s ‘secret’ underground command centre only had about 24hrs of air in it if they actually turned the electronics on.

You know I recently read a science-fiction (if it can be called that) fiction written around the possibility of the strategic steam reserve and plays into the final act of the book. It is simply titled "The Black Locomotive" and while it got a fair bit of the specifics around the locomotive wrong (eg a King Arthur class from the Great Western, wth?!), it does lean into the strategic reserve theory and the fun that could be had.

Great video, Jago. I've always loved the idea of the Strategic Steam Reserve as both an intriguing bit of apocalyptic civil defence theory (not theory in other countries, as you mentioned) and as a romantic fable where, like Arthur asleep in Avalon, steam locomotives emerge from Box Tunnel to help Britain in its hour of need. It doesn't make the slightest sense of course. I can't remember the number, but the amount of withdrawn steam locos unaccounted for is, despite rumours, hearsay and fiction, actually very small. Nothing like the minimum of 80 or so engines you'd need to keep a basic essential transport service going in a post-war scenario. And many of those 'lost' engines are actually accounted for - people know where they were scrapped and when, they just didn't make it onto the top-level records at BR. And of the truly 'lost' engines, there aren't any of the types that you'd predict would be allocated to a Strategic Reserves - the 251 9Fs would, as a single class, be ideal as a one-type, easily-maintained, versatile and useful SSR type. But none are missing. The Black Fives/Standard 5MTs, the 8Fs, Standard 4s, Q1s, WD Austerities etc. are similarly well accounted for. I really doubt that Civil Defence Planners in the 1950s were thinking "ah yes, some 60-year old LNWR Coal Tanks and Midland Johnson Class 2s - this is what we need to store away at great expense in case the Cold War goes Hot." And how were these resurrected steam locos going to be coaled and watered? Leaving aside the probably damage to the water supply system and access to coal in a post-nuke world, BR was very enthusiastic about getting rid of coaling towers, water columns, troughs etc. as steam was withdrawn. Same for sheds fitted to service and maintain steam locomotives. If there was a 'ghost network' of surviving coal stages and water towers at key points across the network, the existence of the SSR would make more sense. But there wasn't. And I don't believe the centralised signalling systems installed in the modernisations of the 1960s and 1970s were 'hardened' against EMP, so aside from any and all physical damage to the railways, the SSR would have to run on lines with traditional mechanical signalling or go back to timetable/written order operation (which, in fairness, would probably be adequate for the circumstances. Frankly in a world after a nuclear strike being able to run multiple trains without any signalling on 'line of sight' would be a miracle). The Army trained for exactly this (and operating railways in less disastrous circumstances). That's what they had their 1:1 Scale Train Set at Longmoor for, and why the WD/MoD had its own core fleet of locomotives (steam and diesel). Which really brings me to the most damning point, which you also raised - why would the SSR be secret? Especially what must be the best-kept secret in the history of the British state if it ever existed? A secret so secret that even the Soviet Union didn't/couldn't hide their equivalent. The Longmoor Military Railway and the Railway Division of the Royal Engineers were not at all secret. Longmoor operated a public service for many years. The countries that had Strategic Steam Reserves did not keep their existence a secret - as you say, a key part of the 'logic' of Cold War doctrine was making your enemy think twice about their ability to cripple you. If you know your adversary has a fleet of dependable, well-maintained, nuke-proof steam locomotives hidden somewhere in an underground cavern, you can't guarantee that your strike would be as devastating as you need it to be. If anything the True British Way would be to loudly brag about having a Strategic Steam Reserve and the big scandalous secret that would eventually come out would be that it never existed.

Not long after the end of steam, the trainspotting community were convinced that there was a "Strategic Reserve" and that the Great Western "Grange" Class was the main part of it. For some reason they had the idea that the whole class was withdrawn and stored somewhere in the UK. The reasoning behind this was that they believed that there was no record of a "Grange" being scrapped. I never believed this to be true as I could not understand why a reserve would be made up of such a locomotive type, but what did I know?!

Always knew you were a Govt Plant... So it's certainly in Box Tunnel Quarry then, exactly where my mate told me in the 1970's.... Nice one Jago, bit early for April though.

one particularly wild idea was that the strategic reserve of steam locomotives was stored in the Woodhead rail tunnel between Sheffield and Manchester if true, this would be spectacularly useless, as that line closed in 1970 and the nearest physical track to either end is several miles away (as a side note, this was one of the most idiotic of the 1960s closures, as it's by far the fastest route between the two cities)