Chasing Steam in 1966 (eBook)

INTRODUCTION

The year 1966 was dominated by the lead-up to the winning and celebrations after England’s triumph over West Germany in football’s World Cup. While I’m not denying it was a historic event in MY world, a matter of greater importance was taking place – the demise of the steam locomotive. For over 100 years, the dominant power on Britain’s railways was being discarded in favour of a more innovative, less labour-intensive diesel or electric-powered substitute.

I had joined British Railways (BR) in the June of 1962 and, I have to admit, I knew very little of the political machinations involved in attempting to turn around the heavy losses being incurred by this nationalised industry. My mother, God bless her, had picked up on my interest in timetable reading and wrote to BR asking if there was a job for me – my daily commute to school involved a bus journey and the need to understand the relevant schedules in order to arrive on time. As an aside, this fascination with timetables led to many outings with my younger brother, utilising either the Green or Red Rover tickets, which allowed unlimited travel on London Transport routes at weekends – essential planning was needed, especially on the country routes, to avoid being stranded for hours. At this point, although I was never a trainspotter, I must confess to being the equivalent regarding London Transport buses.

Having passed the medical and clerical exams, I was allocated a position in the fourth-floor offices at Waterloo, in effect as the office gofer. This was, retrospectively, a wonderful initiation into the world of work. For sure, I made the tea, but I also ran errands for all and sundry all over the vast station. A perfect illustration of life back then is John Schlesinger’s 1961 British Transport documentary film Terminus – depicting twenty-four hours in the everyday (and night) activities to be found under the cavernous roof.

I witnessed it all. From the West Indians arriving via Southampton as part of the Windrush generation; the shoe shine boys; the down and outs using the seats as overnight accommodation; the lengthy, winding queues under the triangular signs suspended from the roof for the Summer Saturday trains to holiday destinations, and the alcoholic aroma emanating from the Leake Street vaults, to visits to the station-announcer’s panoramic periscope-like viewpoint just under the roof and making numerous trips to obtain as many ‘freebies’ as possible whenever a promotion (usually food orientated) stall was on the concourse; and finally, queuing, at the manager’s behest, for first-day issues of postage stamps at the post office.

I was to be seen sunbathing during my lunch break next to the beehives on the roof – avoiding falling from the edge (without any guard rails) onto the extensive glass roof covering the concourse. I also made visits to the Bill Office, which was in the arches adjacent to Waterloo Road, to collect leaflets for excursions or cheap day offers. The manager there often gave me a copy of station posters depicting the latest tranche of closures – examples being Hurstbourne, New Romney and the Cowes and Ventnor sections of the Isle of Wight system.

Having sometime during 1964 been moved to a different office, I was ‘awarded the honour’ of setting up a tea urn on the ‘Camping Coach’. This was to be positioned during off-peak hours at one of Waterloo’s twenty-one platforms to promote the use of them to prospective customers – they were mainly located at several New Forest stations. ‘So what?’ you might say. Now, here’s the thing. The coach was located in the North Sidings and was to be shunted via West Crossings to a platform. Having walked over to it before the move, I managed to obtain footplate rides from the friendly crews on a couple of Standard 3MT tanks and a West Country (WC) smooth-cased Calstock.

It may surprise readers to know that I was one of the rare species within the clerical grades who had joined the railways unaware of the associated travel perks. I was surrounded by clerks and managers, the majority of whom had specially joined BR to further their hobby utilising the free passes and reduced fares to travel the country taking photographs of closing lines and the disappearing steam locomotives.

Slowly but surely, the addiction began to take hold. Initially visiting lines threatened under the 1963 Beeching axe, the majority of which were still steam operated, I began, from the March of 1964, to document my travels. Following each outing, I transferred information that I had gleaned and scribbled down in my accompanying travel-worn notebooks into an A4-sized diary. Without this foresight, books such as this could never have been compiled, the minutiae of each journey being far too great to be drawn out of my memory bank.

A regular stroll around Waterloo Station, having had lunch in the staff canteen adjacent to Platform 15, included a visit to the country end of the lengthy Platform 11, to admire the preparations involved for the usually Merchant Navy (MN)-powered 13.30 Weymouth departure. The steam locomotive, I came to appreciate over the years, is a temperamental animal. She must be treated with respect for the crew to obtain the best out of her. Often in a worn-out and rundown condition, and covered in grease and oil, these unpredictable beasts required multi-skilled crews whose talents still, to this day, amaze me. The intoxicating aroma associated with these iron horses still sends shivers down my spine and, on the rare occasions these days of obtaining a run with one that I’ve never travelled with, the orgasmic euphoria stays with me for days afterwards.

As this book deals specially with the year 1966, I will now bring the reader up to speed as to where I was within the BR employment hierarchy. I was unsure as to which way my career was heading. Having been bored senseless by attending an evening class dedicated to progression within the ticket offices, I switched to a Rules & Signalling evening class, which was held in the Mutual Improvement Class (MIC) room above Clapham Junction Station.

Regrettably failing to comprehend the importance of understanding block sections and semaphore signals – and citing the fact that the future lay in coloured light signals – the lure of a Tuesday night trip on the ‘Kenny Belle’ (a sobriquet bestowed on this unadvertised service by enthusiasts) to get me there from my Cannon Street office morphed into diverting to Waterloo for the 18.00 and 18.09 steam departures. At least the Cannon Street job, involving journal marking, performance statistics and analysis of train running, gave me an increased income, thus allowing me to travel on numerous rail tours that year.

That November, having obtained further promotion within the clerical grades with a position at Wimbledon, I was to finally achieve job satisfaction: that of locomotive and train crew diagramming, which was to see me through most of my career within the railway industry. By 1966, I had morphed from a track-basher, racing around the country to travel over as many doomed lines as possible, to a haulage-basher intent on catching runs with as many steam locomotives as possible.

To those who have purchased this book without realising what terminology such as the frequently used ‘required’ means, let me explain. While any run behind a steam locomotive was welcomed, the addictive obsession of obtaining a run with a locomotive that I had never travelled with before (and therefore was ‘required’) was a haulage-basher’s objective – the capture being euphorically red-lined in whatever dog-eared Ian Allan Locoshed book was the current issue.

To this end, as can be read within the first couple of paragraphs of this tome, the Southern Region allocation was homed in on. Following that completion, I spread my wings throughout the UK mainland, coming across many like-minded devotees from many parts of the country. Upon such meet-ups, information (don’t forget, it was in pre-Internet days where any publishable information was not seen until months after the event) was readily exchanged as to which trains remained steam-hauled, which had succumbed to diesel, what sheds were closing, etc. This was where the camaraderie came to the fore. We came from all walks of life, not all being railwaymen and therefore not all enjoying the travel perks such as mine. There again, with no automatic barriers and less-frequent ticket checks, who cared?

I had missed the King and Castle classes out of Paddington; I had missed the School classes out of Charing Cross; I had missed the Brits out of Liverpool Street; I had missed the Duchesses out of Euston; I had missed the Gresley Pacifics out of King’s Cross; I had missed the Scots and Jubilees out of St Pancras and so I was left with the scraps. Hitler’s forces had incarcerated my father in a prisoner-of-war camp for many years, otherwise I would have perhaps been born earlier, but it is what it is. I made, albeit belatedly, the best of it and here is the result.

It was sad to see the steam locomotive in its death throes but, somewhat selfishly, I’m glad I witnessed it. It was a slightly ghoulish hobby, being in at the end of the giants of the Industrial Revolution; after all, we teenagers were never going to get old – we were going to live forever and getting old was a lifetime away. Well, here it is now.

Ironically, courtesy of people such as Dai Woodham, the steam locomotive will outlive us all. The burgeoning number of preservation societies with their dedicated bunch of...