Planes Trains and Automobiles: WO’s Seventh Heaven

Published: 29/02/2024

The WO Bentley Memorial Foundation has just added a painting of a double-headed steam train to the collection, writes Dr Tom Dine.

‘WO’s Seventh Heaven’ - Artist –Robert Nixon

Why, I hear you ask, is the Foundation spending money on Railwayana? 

It is the Foundation’s policy to try to obtain artefacts which illustrate all aspects of WO’s illustrious and varied career. 

WO left school at 16 and in 1905 started his professional engineering journey serving as a premium apprentice, at a cost to his family of £75, at the Great Northern Railway (GNR) works in Doncaster known as 'The Plant'.

A copy of the apprentices’ book of the Great Northern Railway detailing WO's entry into engineering.  A copy hangs in the Foundation library at the Bentley Drivers Club Headquaters in Wroxton.

Living in Nether Hall Road in Doncaster between 1905 and 1909, he started in the fitting shop, progressed to the foundry and then to the engine-erecting shop.

In 1910 WO moved back to London achieving his childhood dream and completing his apprenticeship by hurling coal into the firebox of a GNR Atlantic locomotive working out of King's Cross Station.

The painting depicts a double-headed train straining hard as it climbs out of King's Cross station pulled by two GNR 'Atlantic' locomotives.

The Great Northern Railway Henry Ivatt designed Atlantic locomotive 990 (Henry Oakley) built at the ‘Plant’ in Doncaster in 1898; the lead engine of the double header in the painting and now part of the National Railway Museum collection.  It is the type of engine WO would have acted as a fireman on the London to Edinburgh run.

In WO's own words:-

            ".........I was fascinated by the feeling of power as we pulled out of King's Cross, up the steep gradients and tunnels of north London, up the steady grind for another eleven miles to Potter's Bar and by the sudden irresitible surge of acceleration when the track levelled off and fell away.  There is nothing to compare with the sensation of rushing through the night without lights and with that soothing mechanical rythm beating away continuously, even leading to a dangerous tendency to surrender to the power quivering away under the steel floor.  And then the signals flash into view, your absolute guide and master - and from time to time the lights of a town, the searing white flash of a station - and back to darkness.............."