South Central Railway - Broad Gauge

For my convenience, this section considers the South Central Railway as it existed before the transfers in the mid/late 1970s which removed its north west section to the Central Railway and added a southern section which was previously part of the Southern Railway.

Like the Southern, the South Central disposed of its non standard broad gauge steam by about 1980, but I do have some priceless images from Keith Robinson and Mark Carter taken in 1979.

In this case WP and WG soldiered on through the 1980s and we should all be grateful that Jan Willem van Dorp extensively recorded them at work in the same manner as he did with the metre gauge trains. Until a final flurry of visitors in the early 1990s, their passing largely went unrecorded once the non-standard locomotives were history.

The coverage is not balanced, much features lines in the attractive (and civilised) area around Vijayawada and Rajahmundry. However, the areas where steam remained were generally not visually attractive, and, to be honest, the pictures lack the charm of those taken of the metre gauge.

Jan Willem van Dorp's contribution is unique, mostly an in depth look at individual lines in the later days of steam.