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Wednesday 18th January AGM plus talk by Kingsley Gardner
"from Cleaner to Inspector at King's Cross"
Wednesday 15th February Peter Triggs - Railways in Central England
Wednesday 21st March Paul Atterbury - Britain's Lost Railways
Wednesday 18th April Richard Hood - Norfolk & Western Railway
Wednesday 16th May Andy Thompson - Stratford-on-Avon and Midland
Junction Railway
Wednesday 20th June Andrew Pennington, Head of Train Planning for
First Great Western
Wednesday 19th September Graham Bean - More of Graham's mis-spent youth!
Wednesday 17th October Malcolm Garner - The 1968 Hixon Rail Disaster
Saturday 3rd November Model Railway Exhibition
Wednesday 21st November Alan Reeve - More steam in the 60's. (postponed)
Wednesday 19th December Amyas Crump - The Modeller's Railway.
Our December meeting featured a talk by Amyas Crump, entitled “The Modeller’s Railway”. Amyas has a compendious knowledge of the railways in Britain and has written several books on the lines that have now gone. He showed many slides illustrating the features often missed by modellers, and the sometimes very odd combinations of locomotives and rolling stock that could be seen in real life. He talked about the liveries used by the Railway companies before nationalisation and in British Railways days. It was a delightful journey across the rail system in the steam era and later, looking at all corners of the rail system, and down industrial and branch lines. There were many photos of particular local interest, Chard Junction and Chard Town stations being very close to home, and pictures of the Tiverton Branch with its delightful but tiny Great Western engines.
Our October speaker was Malcolm Garner, and he gave a talk on the 1968 Hixon Rail Disaster. This occurred at one of the new automatic barrier level crossings which had recently been introduced. A heavy transporter was carrying a 120 ton transformer on a long low loader travelling at low speed. The whole unit was nearly 150 feet long. As it crossed the main railway line from Manchester to London, it was struck by an express passenger train travelling at high speed.
The causes of this accident were thoroughly investigated and revealed that both British Railways and Wynn’s, the road haulage company, had failed to properly inform the public on the one hand, and ensure the drivers understood the dangers of these crossings on the other. Amazingly, a near-miss accident had happened about a year earlier where one of Wynn’s units had grounded on a level crossing. It seems that this crossing was next to a signal box, and the signalman leant out of the window and actually shouted “You can’t park there!” On this occasion, the driver jumped back in the cab and by gunning the engine and letting out the clutch, managed to get the trailer clear of the line just before the train passed. Wynn’s wrote to British Railways and informed them of the incident, and expressed their concern about automatic crossings. The reply was unbelievable, stating that the crossing type was approved by the Ministry of Transport and therefore quite safe. They stated that in their opinion there was no likelihood of a vehicle stopping on a crossing – despite the evidence that this had already happened. Wynn’s were no doubt disgusted by this response, but sadly did not inform their drivers of the risks to reduce the chance of further accidents.
The result was a collision that killed 11 people, and injured 45, of which six were serious injuries. It was a Saturday just after New Year, and the First Class front portion of the train was only lightly occupied – the rear was more or less full, with standing passengers. If this had been otherwise, the death toll would have been much higher. Only 24 seconds elapsed between the lights beginning to flash and the train arriving at the crossing, and there was no means of stopping the train if the crossing was blocked. As a result of this accident, much improved signage and information was created to reduce the risk of a repeat incident.
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At our September meeting we were pleased to welcome our Treasurer, Graham Bean, with another collection of Memories from his Misspent Youth. For this instalment Graham focussed on 1966 and, using his own photographs, took us on a journey through the year from New Year’s Day to Boxing Day and across the country from Plymouth to Inverness. This was an interesting time in UK railway history with some parts of the country fully dieselised while other areas still saw a high percentage of steam working. We were reminded of diesel hydraulics on Laira depot, introduced to pre-grouping steam still hard at work in the Fife and Northumberland coalfields and given a glimpse of the early days of electrification on the West Coast mainline at Crewe. Combined with holiday trains in the north-west, preserved narrow-gauge steam in North Wales and sorry lines of withdrawn steam locos awaiting the cutter’s torch, this was a truly eclectic mix of images and memories.
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Our speaker in June was Andrew Pennington, a very experienced Head of Planning at First Great Western. He runs one of the largest planning departments in the country with a staff of over thirty people. Their job is to match the resources available with the expectations and wishes of consumers and many others: government, engineering, maintenance, accountants, among many others. Since the needs of each of these parties do not necessarily always
coincide, they have a very complex juggling task to get the best fit for the timetable.
The planners also have to deal with short term disruptions or extra demands such as bad weather, breakdowns, excursions and events. Andrew also explained that given the structure of the management of the railway system as a whole, the end result of their planning has to be submitted to other parties, such as Network Rail, who “own” the track and lineside equipment. Their own planning department may demand changes to the submitted plan.
One advantage FGW has is that the parent company also runs buses, so that if the worst happens and a line is closed, they can often whistle up alternative transport quite quickly.We were very lucky to get such a senior manager to give us a fascinating and detailed look at the behind-the-scenes work that goes on to keep our trains running.
At our May meeting Andy Thompson introduced us to a little known line, the Stratford upon Avon and Midland Junction Railway, the "SMJ". This grew piecemeal across central in England from the 1860’s finally linking a point near Olney in Bedfordshire with a point about 10 miles west of Stratford upon Avon, with branches to Blisworth and Banbury. Along its winding routes it passed through nowhere of any significance apart from the eponymous Stratford and many of its stations were far from the villages it claimed to serve. It is not surprising that its passenger services were poor and short lived. The main source of local traffic was iron ore which was extracted from a series of mines and carried towards the steel towns of South Wales. Its chequered history included a few unusual features; for a few months in the 1930 it ran a service with the prototype Ro-Railer, a bus fitted with railway wheels. This ran on the tracks from Blisworth to Stratford upon Avon where it converted itself to a road vehicle and continued a few miles to a country hotel owned by the company. Most of the line didn’t even survive long enough to be closed by Beeching, though one small stretch still survives, from the main line at Fenny Compton to an MOD depot at Kineton.
A scene from the SMJ. LMS 4F 44567 hauls the last passenger train from Stratford upon Avon to Blisworth on 5th April 1952.
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Our April speaker was Richard Hood, who gave a presentation on “The Norfolk and Western Railway”. This very successful enterprise developed to become a major carrier of coal from the mines in the Appalachians to the coast, crossing mountain ranges in its journey. The coal was discovered by the railway when they were cutting a tunnel through the mountains.
The seams were some twenty feet deep in places and of very high quality. This happy discovery gave the railway its own fuel supply which resulted in the retention of steam locomotives for several years after the other railway companies in the USA had changed to diesel power. The Electro-Motive Division of General Motors, a locomotive builder, even staged a trial to compare the two types, the result being more or less a dead heat.
This was because the line developed and built its own locomotives, and worked to improve them right up until the end of steam traction in the 1950s. Some of the locomotives were very large indeed with a 2-8-8-2 or 2-6-6-4 articulated layout and a tractive effort up to four times that of the 9F “Evening Star” locomotive on British Railways, our largest freight locomotive in widespread use. Up to three of these monster locomotives were used to haul the coal trains over the mountains, with weights up to 18,000 tons, yet they were both fast and efficient. At one point, they even displaced electric locomotives on one part of the line.
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We were very lucky to have Paul Atterbury, well-known for his BBC appearances, at our March meeting. Paul’s talk was entitled "Exploring Britain’s Lost Railways”, and visited many of the features that have disappeared from the scenery since the first great expansion in the 1840s. The talk was wide-ranging in its scope and dwelt on aspects such as social history and architecture. Paul has done a lot of research on the history of railways and revealed many interesting facts, such as his first book on railways being requested by the Automobile Assocation (!), the resentment of the wealthy to the new mobility for the working classes in the Victorian era, and the fact that some 3,000 miles of track had disappeared between 1920 and the Beeching Era in the 1960s. He reminded us that we only now remember Part I of Beeching’s report, which dealt with the closure of uneconomic lines, and not Part II, which recommended investment in extensive modernisation and technical improvement. This second part seems to have been ignored and then forgotten by the Government. Where lines have closed, the tell-tale signs can disappear surprisingly quickly. Farmers reclaim the land for raising crops where they can and the plough can remove all traces within a few years. The more massive infrastructure usually remains, though, and bridges and tunnels will often give clues to where the rails ran. Many of the lines have become cycle or walk routes, though, and can still be explored.
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The speaker at this February’s meeting was our old friend, Peter Triggs, who gave a talk on “The Railways of Central England”. Peter has travelled extensively by rail around the British Isles and is a keen and talented photographer. His slides dated from the 1950s to the present and showed many unusual views of unfamiliar territory. Peter’s knowledge of railways past and present is impressive and in some case even of individual locomotives. His entertaining style kept our attention, not least by handing out sweets to those who could answer his questions!
Note to Webmaster: Castle Class 5038 was named Morlais Castle, which is near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, and not to be confused with Morlaix in France. (No sweets there!)
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AGM and meeting on Wednesday, 18th January 2012 –
“From Cleaner to Supervisor at King’s Cross”
The Club held its annual general meeting in the Village Hall as usual. There was rather more to discuss this year following the death of Michael Sheasby, our Chairman. Michael had worked hard organising speakers and many other aspects of the Club, and his duties have now been split amongst more people. Richard Holt moved from Treasurer to Chairman, Chas May took up the new post of Vice-Chairman, and Graham Bean becomes Hon. Treasurer. Kelvin Lee joins the Committee as Events Secretary. Roger Finch also now joins Bob Cox, Laurie Uncles, Jon Clarke-Irons and Richard Hood on the committee. Nick Thompson will continue to run the Club’s website.
Having dispatched business, members were treated to a fascinating talk from Kingsley Gardiner (photo left), one of our members, who lives in Lyme Regis. Kingsley was a driver on British Railways North East Region, based at Kings Cross. He described his start on the job as a cleaner, moving up through labourer, fireman and driver, and eventually locomotive supervisor at King’s Cross. Along the way, he experienced many unusual and occasionally alarming events such as the train that had to take three goes to get into the York Road platform at King’s Cross, and where the passengers got fed up with the delay and climbed onto the track to get away from the train and about their business. And also the horror of taking a crack express out of the London terminus, first stop Doncaster, only to find after they had left the station that they didn’t have a shovel in the cab! His job brought many unexpected incidents. On the way to work on his bike one day, a road junction jammed up because the policeman who normally directed traffic was administering First Aid to a builder who had fallen off some scaffolding. Kingsley started directing the traffic to get it moving, with such success that the policeman nipped over and placed his helmet on Kingsley’s head. Then there was the “drunk” who was about to be ejected from Liverpool Street station for causing a nuisance. Kingsley, skilled in First Aid himself, recognised a diabetic, took him to the cafe and restored him to a respectable citizen again and sent him home. Kingsley also related how the non-stop service was arranged from London to Edinburgh, with two crews that changed over halfway. This was effected using a tiny corridor through the tender. The off duty men took their ease in the Pullman passenger coaches, dining and relaxing. How dignified.
It was delightful to hear so many inside stories that the general travelling public and the trackside enthusiast don’t normally hear. We hope to have him back again for more reminiscences.
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