End of steam question - perception

Following on from the 760077 thread.

When did the knowledge that steam was really going to end in a finite time window fully percolate through?

Clearly no one specific answer fits all

 

The publication of 'The Modernisation Plan for British Railways' in 1955?

 

I would wager that Most of the population wouldn t have been aware there was an end date.

 

Most of the population probably did not care.

 

Was thinking slightly more railway-focussed, but thinking of that weld on 77067, did the welder think "sod it, that'll hold for a few years and it'll be scrapped by then"

There's references in the various reminiscences books about the writers talking about colleagues very happy to not come home covered in muck and exhausted. It must have been very unsettling to be working in places that were going to be not only closed, but completely replaced by a different technology.

 

My dad recalls reading about that as a school boy and not putting 2 and 2 together that lots of diesels meant no steam

 

It's probably a bit like asking when petrol engine cars will come to an end.

 

The replacement of steam with diesel was a classic British muddle. How long do you want to talk about it? It's now water under the bridge.

 

That's the whole point of a forum like this. People can go on talking about stuff for as long as they want to.

 

The simple answer to the OP's question is "3 years before I was born", because that's when LT finally got rid of steam.

The more interesting question, coming out of the thread this came out of, is how that consciousness changed. This was the era of the "white heat of technology", yet many pictures suggest a country that still in many ways belonged to the pre-war era. That suggests, a picture I remember my parents and grandparents both shared with me, a society in transition. How that affected peoples' perceptions is genuinely interesting - far more so than the actual transition.