In the Railway’s 200th year, David Shirres takes a look at one of its more unlikely items of heritage.
One iconic steam-powered London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) icon weighs 693 tonnes and is 240 feet long. It also has a 2,100 hp triple expansion steam engine which can be seen in operation from the engine room alleyway.
This is the Paddle Steamer Waverley which was built for the LNER in 1946 to replace her namesake that was sunk at Dunkirk. She was the last paddle steamer built for service on the River Clyde and operated the LNER’s steamer routes from the LNER’s now abandoned pier at Craigendoran near Helensburgh.
Link to the past
By the early 1970s Waverley had become not just the last Clyde paddle steamer but the world’s last seagoing paddle steamer, and in 1973 Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) took the decision to withdraw the ship from service due to increasing costs and reduced steamer traffic from increased car ownership. But instead of sending her to the scrapyard, CalMac gifted the ship to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society (PSPS) for £1 and, after much work, the PSPS was able to return Waverley to service in 1975.
So started the ship’s 50 years in preservation. Operating and maintaining the ship, which requires an annual dry dock visit, is an expensive business. In 1981, Waverley received a new boiler. This was replaced by two boilers during her extensive £7 million refit in 2000 and 2003 which included significant work to comply with modern maritime legislation. In 2019, Waverley had to be withdrawn from service as both boilers had to be replaced. After a £2.3 million appeal was launched, new boilers were installed in 2020.
After almost 80 years of operation, Waverley has now been operating in preservation for twice as long as her commercial operation. During these years, the ship was supported by the skills and expertise of numerous yards and specialised workshops. Now there is almost no shipbuilding on the Clyde, so the ship is increasingly reliant on its own engineers and volunteers who have also to comply with modern marine safety standards which are not written with paddle steamers in mind. Keeping the ship in an operational condition is a significant achievement by all concerned.
From her early days in preservation, it was clear that to generate sufficient income Waverley needed to sail beyond the Clyde to attract more customers. In 1977, she left Scottish waters to sail from Llandudno and Liverpool. The following year she had four weeks of cruising on the south coast and the Thames when she sailed into London for the first time.
In addition to the Clyde, this year’s current sailing programme takes her to Oban and the Inner Hebrides, North Wales and the Mersey, the Bristol Channel and South West Wales, South Cornwall, South Devon, the South Coast, and London and the Thames Estuary.
Anniversary celebrations
In 2025, the ship is celebrating Railway 200 as Waverley is as much part of railway heritage as it is of maritime history. As well as offering excursions, the Clyde steamers were an integral part of the commute for those who lived over the water from the Clyde piers. In 1890, the Caledonian, Glasgow & South Western and North British railway companies had a total of 10 trains leaving Glasgow between 16:00 and 16:30 to connect with competing steamer services on which passengers were only allowed two minutes to transfer between train and steamer and could carry no luggage.
A Railway 200 exhibition on the ship further explains this important part of railway history, with six boards illustrating the connection between railways and shipping. These include:
LNER paddlers: a description of the five paddle steamers operated by the North British Railway which became part of the LNER and of three steamers, including Waverley, which were built for the LNER. One of this was not a steamer. This was the DEPV Talisman, built in 1935 which was the first and only Diesel Electric Paddle Vessel in the UK.
Clyde coast connections: an explanation of how there was early integration between rail and steamers with lines such as the Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway being built to serve new piers to shorten journey times for both regular passengers and those on holiday.
Southern Railway (SR) shows how it inherited and expanded a diverse network of ferry and excursion steamer routes to seaside resorts, the Isle of Wight, the Channel Isles and mainland Europe, and how paddle steamers played a vital part in these services.
The Sealink Years: owned by the British Railways Board, Sealink provided a network of ferries between the UK, Ireland, and Europe operating from railway ports. It offered combined rail-ferry journeys to support mass tourism long before budget airlines became common.
To offer a special steam day out, as part of Railway 200 Waverley will also offer connections with the Isle of Wright Steam Railway and the Swanage Railway as part of her cruising schedule on the South Coast in September. These and other sailings can be booked at https://waverleyexcursions.co.uk.
Booking a cruise on the Waverley is a great way of helping preserve this unique example of railway and maritime heritage.
