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Got the revised edition of Platform Souls, and am now eagerly ploughing through it.

Just finished reading my other "railway" Xmas present - "The Railways - Nation, Network and People" By Simon Bradley ISBN 978 1 84668 209 4

Can thoroughly recommend it, each chapter is really a potted history of the development of an aspect of railways in Britain since the earliest days and right up to the present.

MB

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David - if you are at Mallaig, then you ARE a long way from Nottingham. BUT if you were to visit Compo by train (assuming trains still stopped at his station), you'd be even farther away. By my reckon

Sorry about the break, I hope the pics, the panoramic view of Harringworth Viaduct! So around a long bend and there it is, over a mile of dead straight track across the top of 90ft. high viaduct, fla

On the Antique Roadshow recently a man showed part of his 242 piece collection of what to me are rather insignificant items of railwayana, namely the builders name plate usually fixed to the driving w

Finished it, it's a brilliant book.

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Couple of good books for local Railway enthusiasts published by Book Law Publications Railways of Nottingham ISBN No 1-901945-31-6 I found it particularly interesting having worked at Cowlick in the early 60s.

Toton Engineman by John Wooley Former Driver at Toton Published by and available from Steam World

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John Wooleys book is the best I've read by an ex railwayman. I can thoroughly recommend it.

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About "Book Law publications" I see that vol 3 0f Nottingham Suburban Railway has still not been published.

I was informed by Book Law that it would be released at the end of 2015.

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The author is still ill by all accounts. I'm still waiting for that one.

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The author is still ill by all accounts. I'm still waiting for that one.

Same here. I believe the third volume is going to contain some previously unpublished photos from the closure years. There's been nothing from the NSR mailing list for a long while.

Hope you're on the mend, David, if you're on this forum.

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Some time ago, I did a “ My Best Trip” as a railway fireman blog, a ‘one off trip’ for me as that class of work was usually the routine for the Senior Drivers & Firemen in No’s. 1 & 2 links here at Nottingham MPD. So when starting out as a fireman, or Driver, the “Junior” jobs were described as “round the castle” keeping the local coal pits of Wollaton, Cinderhill, Bestwood, Calverton, Hucknall, Linby, Newstead & Annesly supplied with empty wagons & taking away the full ones, usually into Beeston sidings where they would be sorted for their destinations. 1 engine & 3 crews for each pit, the first crew taking the engine off the shed to Beeston for a train of empty wagons then off to their designated pit, a numbered board on the front indicating to the signalman which one. Due to the gradient most pits were able to move both empty & loaded wagons by gravity. After delivering the empties to the top end we would return to the ‘loaded end and when ready to depart we would draw out onto the main line with the bigger front half then the guard would lower the rest down onto us, H & S ??, then back to Beeston being relieved on route by the next crew until the 3rd. Crew returned to the shed. In bad weather these trains could be ‘backed up’ one behind the other round the curve between Lenton North & South Junctions and beyond to Radford. The worst ‘turn’ at Nottm. MPD was known as “twelve one fatting” and had the distinction for the crew with a start time of 00.01 am. of being the first people to go to work on a Monday morning ! All engines not required over the weekend would have the fires removed on returning to the shed on the Friday, being relit on the Sunday afternoon. No steam means ‘no forced draught’ so Sunday night/Monday morning the sheds were so full of smoke you literally could not see your hand before you and in that atmosphere you were rostered to prepare 8 engines for other crews to take off the shed at the start of their shifts. Again H&S?, unheard of, part of the job, gerron we it! Just the opposite on a “like/dislike” scale was the “Melton Pick up”, office hours start time of 8.50 am. engine prepd. So across into the goods yard pick up 10-12 coal wagons& vans, follow the 10.20 London express up the Melton branch stopping at Edwalton to exchange whatever needed for the local coal merchant/farmer, ditto at Plumtre, shunt inside at Widmerpool for the 11.30ish express, Old Dalby for lunch, Holwell had Stewart & Lloyds steel works so a bit more to do, then shunt out any repaired wagons at Melton Junction trickling in to Melton Station yard 4.15ish to be relieved by a Melton crew. Home on passenger train at 5.30,sign off 6.15, a soft day & 1hr.25 mins OT! Cusheee number!!!

Early in the 1950’s the working week was reduced to 44 hrs. but Management wouldn’t allow a 4 hour shift so it had to be a 88hr. fortnight. Links of 12 drivers/fireman were rostered 12 weeks work of alternate AM & PM weeks work with a ‘rest day’ on the AM week covered by a crew in the same link so one week we signed on at 11.47 am on the Monday & 5 days later at 1.25am ! it’s the job, gerron we it!

Once settled in with your booked driver it was almost the norm.to work ‘days about’, alternating the driving with the firing and a very good learning time. A year or two passes & I move on into the ‘Spare link’, nominally booked with a driver and an ‘on duty time’ you would be available for any spare work in the 2 hours either side of that time with or without your driver. A great variety of jobs so one week you could be bored silly shunting back & forwards in Nottm. Yard and next week ‘lodging’ at London or Leeds.Several times I even got to fire on the 8.15 “Robin Hood” businessmans train, that particular train was on the board as ‘London only’ but the driver knew differently as the Duke of Rutland exercised his right as an ex-Director of the LMS Rly. to have the train stopped at Manton, Rutland. Not the easiest of stopping places as the ‘braking point’ was inside the half mile long Manton tunnel, not a bad bloke though, right time into St. Pancras meant a pound note in the hand shake to the driver & Yes,he did share it! Incidently that particular turn, London & back worked out at 264 miles for the round trip & for every 15 miles over 160 you were actually working the engine you earned an extra ‘hours’ pay in your wages the only bonus apart from overtime available to wages staff!

One Friday afternoon my driver & I were sent to Derby Workshops to collect & bring back to Nottm.Compound Engine No. 1000, brand spanking new, and I was the first fireman to take charge or so I thought until I ‘Googled Midland Compounds’ last year! Oops, not true, but it was a nice ‘claim to fame’ while it lasted, I was so chuffed I actually bought myself a memento albeit just a Hornby Dublo model !

Bit of a puzzle that Google, it confirmed CME Johnson built 1000-4 in 1902, CME Deeley built 1005-1050 pre WW1 then CME Fowler (1920s.) liked the brand so much he ordered another 195 of them ! Yet after the first 50 were built he made major changes to the design, taking 3in. off the driving wheels & changing the Driver to the left hand side together with the reversing gear, regulator, brake, scoop etc. Strange, if they were so good in the first place!

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Great Albert. Railway work was often hard and thankless but it was interesting too. I would do it all again. I remember even in the 70s and 80s drivers reporting for merry go round (coal) trains. Bleary eyed crews would report to our cabin in the holding sidings beyond London Road with the words COT-RAT (Cotgrave - Ratcliffe) or HUCK-RAT (Hucknall Ratcliffe) just to name two. At weekends in they came with one word BALLAST meaning engineering train. to which we would reply 'and the same to you!' The big mistake was turning the carriage sidings into storage for engineering trains. Liberally supplied with drums of paraffin and bags of coal for the lamps and stoves in the brake vans, they forgot that drivers heated their domestic greenhouses with either paraffin heaters or coal stoves. Say no more.

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Thanks Ian & Bb. I've just printed off those two photo's posted by Fredjee #86 No Steam Here to show to ex-driver Derek Bacon, if it wasn't for the canal bridge in the fore ground you wouldn't know it was the same view, nice ones Fred. (personal use only Fred, OK?)

For several years I had the garden allotment almost beneath the goods line 'stop signal' from Meadow lane so I can't comment on staff 'borrowing' fuel for greenhouse etc. but I did have to renew the wheels on my barrow a couple of times!

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I've previously mentioned the Fast Fish trains the ran each afternoon from New Clee / Grimsby via the ex GC to Banbury, Plymouth, South Wales etc, but can find no mention in any book I've consulted of the return workings. I can only assume that the fish vans were attached to some northbound fitted freight. Either later that night, or the following morning.

In all my years of spotting on the GC, I cannot for the life of me recollect seeing fish vans heading north.

Anybody got any clues. Especially you Stephen.

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I seem to remember seeing them in the early 1950s heading for Bulwell Common (I used to spot at the bridge over Arnold Road), always a V2. You have to ask yourself, what did the engine that took them south do at the end of its journey? It had to go north to bring another load down. What else could it do - how did the V2s get back up north? I appreciate that you lived alongside the line F2, but is it just a memory lapse?

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The V2 fitted freights heading north went to either York or Newcastle, so it's not inconceivable that they could be attached to one of those.

Somewhere, I've got information on the engines return runs. I'll dig it out.

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A bit of digging on the Internet produces a few bits of information:

The Brits would only work as far as Woodford.

Vans were dropped off at various places, so only a few made it right through to Whitland in South Wales.

It's suggested the empties from various places would be attached to other freights to be returned to Grimsby.

There is a mention of a Working Timetable from 1961 which showed a freight departing Woodford at 0137 to Grimsby Docks, passing Annesley North junction at 0341. Presumably that was the return working of the Brit, so not many would have seen it on the way back!

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Thanks MI, that's great info. Cheers.

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Thanks Albert. I remember Derek Bacon very well. I remember many drivers who are no longer with us. Particularly Stan Pritchard. When he died the Granby pub on Station Street closed for ever. Coincidence?

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Hi Chulla.....I loved trainspotting. For hours on end I would stand on Beeston station bridge waiting for the trains to come. Occasionally, a Beyer-Garratt would come through and it would make the hairs stand up on my arms. Every Saturday, I would go to Tamworth to watch the Scots band Semis run up and down the West Coast main line. I found the cheapest way was to get a cheap day return to Derby then a cheap day return from Derby to Tamworth. The train usewd to pull in about 8-55am, just in time to swee4 the 9-00 Scot on the lower level. The odd occasion I would go to Grantham to watch the Streaks and maybe sneak round Grantham sheds without being caught. The only trouble with all this nostalgia is that it will never come back.

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