November 2024: Object of The Month ‘The Steam Locomotive’

November’s Object of the Month is this rather special handmade locomotive Driver Training Manual, ‘The Steam Locomotive’.

The Steam Locomotive: Great Western Railway Types, by Edward Harris.

The story of this fascinating object starts following the return home of a young man called Edward Harris from the World War I battlefields of the Somme and Passchendaele.  Fresh from serving in the Machine Gun Corps, Edward began working for Cardiff Railways as a Fireman out of Ely Mainline Station in Cardiff.  Then he worked his way up to become a Driver by training outside of work hours.

With the outbreak of World War II, there was an enormous surge in demand for railway services, particularly on the South Wales docks.  Tens of thousands of troops and tons of equipment and supplies passed through the network as part of the war effort.  The loads carried by these special government trains were often challenging and dangerous, especially during air raids.

Edward Harris dressed in his Home Guard uniform, c.1940.

Edward Harris decided to pass on his skills to others by becoming a locomotive instructor for the Cardiff, Canton and Ely Mutual Improvement Classes.  In 1940, in the absence of any adequate training manual, Edward Harris decided to write his own.  Using any scraps of paper he could get his hands on; he filled the book with detailed hand-drawn diagrams and useful questions and answers for his students based on his extensive experience working on GWR steam locomotive engines.

Hand-drawn and coloured diagram showing the way the steam travels in a locomotive engine with the regulator in the dome.

Questions and answers about the slide valve engine, written by Edward Harris in order to teach new drivers.

In the same year Harris wrote his training manual, the War Department ordered the GWR to reinstate a number of Dean Goods locomotives which had been recently withdrawn from service.  Just two years later, the War Department placed an order with the GWR to build 80 freight locomotives.  All of these locomotives would need specially trained drivers to ensure the big war machine kept running.  Edward Harris and his book would go on to supply these much-needed skills that would help the Allies win the war.

This object was gifted to STEAM earlier this year and will be on display in next year’s exhibition A Job For Life.