recollections of a magical childhood
4:35 pm
Eventually, there’d be distant shouts from station staff; whistles. doors slamming and then a slight pause of anticipation. The OFF light would show halfway along the platform and the signal had a theatre indicator which was lit up as Down Main or similar. The Guard’s whistle, people running, "Mind the doors!". A burst of steam from the engine’s blast pipes to clear the condensation from the cylinders and a very cautious start to minimise slipping. Our coach would start to move very gently and imperceptibly so that the only way you could tell we were moving was by looking out of the window or hearing the first rail joint.
4:36 pm
Almost silently the platform would seem to be gradually gliding past and we’d rush to an open window to see if the engine was slipping as it tried to get its load on the move...
It always did slip a lot – and we really liked that sound as it spun its wheels and then steadied and started to haul the huge load.
As the coach wheels negotiated the complexity of points and crossovers outside Waterloo, I remember thinking it felt as though we were off the track. I suspect this was probably because both wheel sets of the bogies were dropping into the flangeways of the track geometry at the same time on several occasions.
So the train would weave laboriously out onto the mainline.
Past the modern Waterloo signal box and the Sandeman Port advertising hoarding and the two men carrying the ladder for Hall’s paints!
You have to reverse the log on the right as it's Bournemouth to Southampton, not the other way around!
Adding the two times together gives 2 hours, 2 minutes and 24 seconds (plus stationary time at Southampton - circa 2 hours 10 minutes?
On reflection, I don't think so, having just checked the 1950 timetable - that states for "our" train a departure time of 4:35 pm and arrival at BC of 7:11 pm - i.e. 2 hours 36 minutes
There would be slight nudges fore and aft as the engine settled down to its task and we gently ran through the long curves towards Vauxhall. It was a completely different sensation to that of travelling in an emu. You could almost feel the work being done in that cab up front.
4:39 pm
We’d probably be doing about 35-40mph by Vauxhall and still carefully increasing our speed toward Queen’s Road Battersea and Nine Elms. Soon we’d be up to 50 mph so you had to be vigilant to catch a glimpse of Stewart’s Lane engine sheds in the narrow cutting way down below the viaduct before passing that tall steel trellis coaling plant at Nine Elms.
Soon we’d be up to 50 mph so you had to be vigilant to catch a glimpse of Stewart’s Lane engine sheds in the narrow cutting way down below the viaduct before passing that tall steel trellis coaling plant at Nine Elms.
Past Nine Elms shed where the engines were turned and re-fired.
Unfortunately, Nine Elms shed, proper, was facing away from the mainline so you had to settle for a sight of one or two Bulleids coaling up, and at quite a distance away.
4:43 pm
On the north side of the train we might see an M7 shunting empty stock through the carriage washing shed as we ran along the multiple tracks towards Clapham Junction where there would be a check of our speed, a touch of fore and aft jerking as we slowed to deal with the sharp left-hand curve through the station platform where the track was surprisingly heavily banked over; under the road bridge then straightened out into Clapham cutting. I seem to recall there was a grand building in formidable grounds somewhere along this straight; probably a public school or historic building.
The painting "Clapham Junction" at various stages of its journey to the finished article above along with Terence Cuneo
All I can say is that that artist knew exactly how to depict those complex elliptical shapes in perspective literally without fault.
I've tried painting a steam locomotive or two in the past and it's the circular shapes that it's hardest to get right....especially six wheels of various sizes in a row!
Incidentally, the image was subsequently used on the 1962 Christmas Train Annual (Ian Allan, of course). How excited were we to receive one of these for Christmas?!!! So much so that I have just bid on a copy on eBay! (I won the bid and there's a few scans of the above painting and Tel' boy below. The originals in the book are quite small hence the relatively poor quality). And, just to show we could also get excited about our summer hols, we could buy this (right)...
4:49 pm
Anyway now speed could be picked up on the fairly straight run to Earlsfield, past the carriage sidings at Durnsford Road then another washing plant followed by more carriage sheds, under the up local flyover my Hampton Court train had crossed on my way up and on towards Wimbledon. We’d probably be doing 50mph by now.
4:51 pm
Through the station and under the wide overbridge and we’d be settling down to around 60 mph as we headed round the curve to Raynes Park.
Through the station and under the wide overbridge and we’d be settling down to around 60 mph as we headed round the curve to Raynes Park.
Since the flyover, we were now on the centre down mainline and virtually thundering along through New Malden over the High Street bridge and on to the familiar embankment....
...and your old haunts....
... which stretched through....
.... your "home" station....
... Berrylands (at 64 mph).
35027 Port Line, Bournemouth-bound at New Malden on the 23rd July 1966 (also seen on Page 21 hauling the Bournemouth Belle through Berrylands!)
4:54 pm
A quick glimpse of the back windows of 27 Rose Walk...
No matter how many times we made this journey that was almost compulsory that we see your house, etc.
...followed by a whisk through Berrylands station (built in the 1930s to accommodate the new housing estate which had grown up on the outskirts of Surbiton) with that audible change in sound that accompanies station passes and we'd be into the cutting of Surbiton Hill.
I've since learned that the whole route from Clapham to Surbiton, when built in the 1830s, was originally only double track and was quadrupled in 1864 which explains why the cutting through Surbiton Hill was so steeply concreted on its southern border.
Our train would pass under the King Charles Road and Ewell Road bridges to burst out onto the centre through road of Surbiton station; a sight I’d often seen from the platform as this was on my route to secondary school in the 1960s. I think the extra centre track was to allow fast trains to pass stopping commuter trains. There was always a leftward jerk of the coaches as they passed the southern end of the station, I had noticed when watching from the platform, which I put down to a tricky bit of track laying. Nothing ever got derailed there but it always looked a possibility!
4:57 pm
Now we were on to a wide, long stretch of embankment with straight track stretching probably as far as Weybridge (probably reaching 70 mph on a good day) and we’d note the slowly departing Hampton Court branch line on its multi-arched viaduct arc away and climb until it passed over us at Hampton Court Junction.
From here on the scenery was much less familiar to me as these holiday journeys were the only times I travelled this far. Esher, Hersham, Walton, were all passed at a similar goodly pace accompanied by curious views of canals, wooded backwaters and rural industrial parks outside the window.
5:02 pm
Weybridge I remember as having one or two long sidings before it at the London end usually holding one or two older (Maunsell) coaches looking neglected in the middle of nowhere. The station itself was always depressingly dull and dark being in a deep cutting. It had a dingy bay platform as the starting point for a branch to Virginia Water and Staines then before long the line found itself up on another embankment through West Weybridge and then back at ground level through West Byfleet and Woking.
Somewhere along here there’d be a glimpse of the old Brooklands racing circuit and runway; I’m not sure but I think BAC used to be there and aircraft would have been visible in those days. There was also a mysterious triangular junction here with tracks curving off to north and south but we never witnessed any traffic on it.
5:07 pm
The fireman must have still been shovelling coal like mad as we’d still be shifting along at about 65 mph or more through Woking where the local train for Alton and Haslemere would often be seen splitting into two to go its different ways. After Woking, the Portsmouth line headed off south from a junction on the level and we were headed for more deep countryside.
I expect we'd been up and down the train corridors by now seeking out a curled up sandwich or, at the very least checking out where the restaurant car was with its customary aroma of bacon and beer; sliding open and closed all those teak interconnecting doors; gaining a few smuts in the eye here and there from risking a forward look out of the window. Doubtless, you recall those door latches which you could only open by the handle on the outside? That was the 1950’s level of health and safety; stopped you from falling out by accident!
