FIFTY-five years ago in August the then-British Rail ran its last steam train on the UK’s railways and ushered in the age of diesel power.

But steam trains continue to capture the public’s imagination and dozens of enthusiasts turned out in the Wellington area on Saturday (May 27) to see one of the remaining operational locomotives pass through the town.

The visit of LMS Jubilee No. 45596 Bahamas came just four weeks after the world’s most famous steam engine the Flying Scotsman drew crowds in their hundreds as it passed through as part of its centenary year celebrations.

Jubilee class locomotive No. 45596, which will celebrate its 90th anniversary next year, was captured on film by Wellington Weekly reader Richard Mackrory.

It was pulling a sold-out Railway Touring Company excursion from Woking, in Surrey, to Plymouth, Devon.

The iconic locomotive made a stop in Taunton to take on water before travelling through Wellington and then having to work hard to climb past Sampford Arundel, where Mr Mackrory took his photographs, to Whiteball Summit on the Somerset and Devon border and onward.

Then excursion was pulled by diesel from Woking to Bristol Temple Meads, where the Bahamas took over, and on the return journey in the evening the steam locomotive was taken off just outside Taunton.

The Bahamas was built in Glasgow in 1934 by the North British Locomotive Company for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and was named two years later after the islands in the Atlantic Ocean, which were part of the British Empire.

When the railways were nationalised in 1948, it became owned by British Rail and was transferred to Liverpool, and was bought for preservation by the Bahamas Locomotive Society (BLS) in 1967.

It was taken out of service in 1973 for an overhaul and for its livery to be returned to British Rail green, and then in 1990 BLS moved home to Keighley, in West Yorkshire.

A major overhaul began in 2013 and Bahamas again hauled its first rail tour for 25 years in 2019.