THE second half of January 1963 remained very cold, but with no further heavy falls of snow to impede railway operations.

On Saturday, January 26, I travelled up to Exeter on the 7.31am diesel railcar service from Torre, on the way observing at Newton Abbot 2-6-0 No.6346 on 'carriage warming' duties, and 4-6-0 No.5029 Nunney Castle working an up goods train.

The scene at Exeter St David's was very much the same as shown in last week's picture (taken a fortnight earlier) with 0-6-0PT No.3794 in steam and fitted with a snowplough, and the same three engines in store on the middle road.

The early start was necessary to join a small party of Railway Correspondence and Travel Society members going down to Plymouth for a visit to the Devonport Dockyard Railway.

The dockyard at that time still had four steam engines on active service, as well as several 4-wheel diesel-mechanical shunters. It was then still running its own passenger service between the north and south yards, a distance of about two miles.

At the time of our visit, two of the four were in steam, though only No.18 was active. Its sister engine, No.17, was also in steam, but tied by an umbilical steampipe to a destroyer, whose boilers were evidently under repair. No.2, another Andrew Barclay of Kilmarnock product, was inside the engine shed, stripped down, while the fourth engine, No.19, the newest of the four, having been built by W G Bagnall in 1930 was spare, and also inside the shed.

Although still very cold, it was a clear sunny day, and several of the party had taken cameras with them, including myself. But these had not been allowed past the dockyard gates. However, we did manage to negotiate that one person would be allowed to take photos for the group. No picture of No.17 attached to the destroyer was allowed, of course, but we could take today's fairly innocuous view of No.18 standing in front of a building, not far from the engine shed.

After the dockyard visit was concluded, we made our way across the city centre to the ex-Southern Railway Friary engine shed, where Pacifics No.34032 Camelford and No.34063 229 Squadron were being serviced, along with six of the Ivatt-designed 2-6-2Ts, which had by 1963 taken over all the local workings.

The ex-GWR depot at Laira was our final objective that day, which despite the arrival of many of the new diesel-hydraulic engines, still housed a fair number of steam engines. In the original round-house were 2-6-2Ts No.4567 and 4570, along with No.5569 and 0-6-0PT No.4568 with snowplough, as pictured two weeks ago.

The straight shed housed the larger engines, including the final Castle class engine built, No.7037 Swindon, also No.7032 Denbigh Castle, visiting from Old Oak Common in London. Three County class 4-6-0s were present, also three Halls and Grange class 4-6-0 No.6850 Cleeve Grange.

Lastly, hiding away from 'authority' in a corner was 0-6-0 Saddle tank No.1361. It had just been withdrawn at the end of 1962, and as the last representative of the hundreds of GWR saddle tanks, it was hoping to be preserved. Which it later was, by the Great Western Society, initially at Totnes Quay, and now at Didcot in Oxfordshire.