RailPictures.Net Photo: 30053 London and South Western Railway Ex-L&SWR M7 class 0-4-4 Tank at Nr. Northiam, East Sussex, United Kingdom by Steve Armitage
The days of the cross-country pick-up freight were already numbered long before the end of steam in Britain. Although such operations were hopelessly uneconomic, delightfully bucolic scenes such as this could be witnessed almost anywhere in the United Kingdom. Former London & South Western Railway 'M7' Tank No.30053, a veteran of some 110 summers, recreates those distant, lazy days when much more seemed right in a world without digital technology. The most modern thing in this scene are the once ubiquitous line-side telegraph poles now also largely consigned to history.