A Privileged Journey

by David Maidment

  I could stay longer — it is still only half past eight — but the fog is getting thicker, trains are getting later, and Oxford station is deserted now. Enough! I’ll go and get some hot soup somewhere and turn in for an early night. Tomorrow there’s just one more examination, an interview, then after lunch it’s back to school via Reading and Guildford until the next set of scholarship exams for which I’ve been entered, at Pembroke College, in a month’s time.

  Oxford station on 4 March 1957, with Collett 0-6-0 2236 on a stopping train to Thame and 6862 Derwent Grange passing with a northbound freight.

  Chapter 6

  Living in Woking, 1957-62

  ‘Schools’ 30907 Dulwich, newly transferred to Nine Elms following the Hastings-line dieselisation, ready to depart Waterloo with the 12.54pm to Salisbury, 19 March 1959.

  I left Charterhouse at the end of 1956 and got a temporary job at Old Oak Common from then until I went to University in September 1957. I’ll cover my time at Old Oak later, but a more mundane aspect of that period was commuting from Hampton Court to Waterloo and Willesden. By changing at Surbiton in the morning I could pick up the first Basingstoke–Waterloo service, one of the few steam trains that stopped at Surbiton other than on a summer Saturday. During 1957 it was almost invariably hauled by one of the massive Urie ‘H15s’ (30482-90) or the Maunsell rebuild (30491), although on two occasions one of the last Urie ‘N15s’ appeared (30748 Vivien and 30738 King Pellinore). (Some years later, in 1966, I picked up this same service from Woking and was astonished to find at its head, newly and uniquely transferred to Guildford, 77014 — a loco by which I’d been hauled in 1955 between Whitby and Scarborough!)

  In November 1957 my family moved to Woking, and the County Council supplied me with a season ticket to Warren Street instead of paying for college hostel or lodging accommodation (University College London’s male students only had access to 171 hostel places at that time). So began regular steam journeys to London. My first day was an eye-opener. The 8.47 Woking, which became my regular commuting train, left Salisbury at 6.45am and was booked for Salisbury’s third ‘Merchant Navy’. (It returned on the 1.0pm Waterloo–Exeter.) As Salisbury had only three ‘Merchant Navies’ (Nos 35004/06/07) we more often than not got one of its ‘Battle of Britains’ (34049-55/59), but on that first morning we got 35004 and a run to remember. This run was never surpassed in all my commuting days, and I’ve included its log in the Appendix, Table 7. I’ve also shown alongside it a 1959 run with 35007 (which by then was rebuilt) and a number of other runs from my morning commuting to London, for comparison.

  At 5.30 that evening I saw 30457 Sir Bedivere tender-first on the buffer-stops at Waterloo with the stock for the 5.39 to Salisbury (a ‘Standard 5’ turn) and realised it was for the 6.9 to Basingstoke, first stop Woking. My first railway books (presents from a favourite aunt) were from that classic Ian Allan series ‘My Best Photographs’ by Maurice Earley, Eric Treacy and O. J. Morris. The Southern volume included a shot of 457 emerging from Honiton Tunnel and a caption I always remembered — ‘the best of them all’. I think this remark was a reference to 448-57 in general, but I have always associated it with 457 in particular. I eventually had thirty-six runs behind Sir Bedivere over the following three years of commuting, but none matched the feeling of satisfaction of that first evening and the realisation of the promise that my season ticket held.

  College lectures were normally from 10am until 4pm — except on Thursdays, when we had an early lecture, necessitating my use of a ‘Lord Nelson’-hauled train. In the evening I had a choice (ignoring the Pompey electrics, of course!). There was the 5 o’clock to Exeter, normally with an Exmouth Junction ‘Merchant Navy’ but occasionally a Light Pacific, or the 5.9pm to Basingstoke, which in my first year was almost invariably hauled by one of 70D’s double-chimney ‘Standard 4s’, 75076-9. I almost always chose the Exeter train, whose locos had a wide variety of outlines and liveries in 1957/8 — rebuilt and unrebuilt, different cabs, tenders. My favourites were 35008 Orient Line and 35013 Blue Funnel, two of the most common, and an exciting run behind one of Salisbury’s top-link drivers was usually on the cards. A number of logs of evening commuter services are shown in the Appendix, Tables 2, 8 and 9.

  In my second and third years the 5.9 became much more interesting, as ‘Arthurs’ and ‘Schools’ from the Southern’s Eastern Section were transferred to Nine Elms and Basingstoke. Initially on the 5.9 we got ‘Schools’ 30904, 30905 (with the high-sided tender that for years had been coupled to 30932), 30908, 30918 and 30923 and ‘Arthurs’ 30765, 30773, 30794 and 30795. A little later we got 30777 Sir Lamiel, best of the lot, which became almost a permanent fixture on the 5.9 in the latter part of 1959 and the first half of 1960. I searched in vain for any reference to ‘Sir Lamiel’ in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes or the German mediaeval poets — until recently. Over lunch in a Carlisle pub, whilst No 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe was being coaled and watered en route from its tour of Scotland, a colleague consulted an Arthurian expert on my behalf and elicited the response that ‘Sir Lamiel’ is referenced once in Mallory as ‘Sir Lamiel of Cardiff’; nothing else is known about him. Perhaps No 30777 should bear the shedplate 86C.

  30914 Eastbourne at Victoria on 12 June 1959, the penultimate day of Kent Coast steam, ready to depart with the 12.35pm to Ramsgate.

  A unique event which I have described elsewhere but which bears repeating was a personal engine trial carried out one memorable week in 1959 by Driver Carlisle — a former GW driver by now based at Basingstoke. He decided to see which of the 70D ‘King Arthurs’, ‘Schools’ and ‘Standard 4s’ could get to Woking in the shortest time. I travelled on the train three times that week with 30794 Sir Ector de Maris, 30923 Bradfield and 75078. All got to Woking in less than 26½ minutes (schedule 31 minutes for the 24.4 miles) — not bad for a heavily loaded ten-coach train in the evening rush hour (see Table 9). The ‘Schools’ achieved the highest speed (83mph at West Weybridge, passing Brooklands), but 30794 won hands down overall by dint of an electrifying start from London, passing through Surbiton in 14½ minutes at 75mph. We held that speed thereafter and stopped at Woking in 25 minutes 45 seconds, this being the only time we beat the 26min barrier (indeed the only time in three years that I managed that with any steam train in either direction). 30794 was not Basingstoke’s best ‘N15’ either, and it is interesting to contemplate what time might have been achieved with 30765, 30777 or 30795.

  The 1959 Summer Timetable promised the introduction of electric traction on the Kent Coast via Chatham, so I took a day off studies to experience the last rites. I occasionally sallied forth between lectures (and as a change to the Waterloo–Woking trips, but of course this cost real money) from Victoria to Bromley South and back to travel behind the six-wheel-tender ‘Arthurs’; 30800, 30805 and 30806 all obliged, as did a couple of ‘U1’ three-cylinder 2-6-0s on Ramsgate trains, and I managed to get one ‘D1’ 4-4-0 (31505) on the return. However, on the penultimate day of steam, a Saturday in mid-June, I forked out for a day return to Chatham and found the first Victoria–Ramsgate express after my arrival at the terminus was headed by 30914 Eastbourne, which I was happy to take immediately, leaving me all day to select a choice return working. (I was hoping for a Wainwright/Maunsell 4-4-0 rebuild.) I took a number of photos at Chatham while I waited — 30911 Dover on the next service from Victoria and then 30803 Sir Harry le Fise Lake as it rushed through non-stop. The up services were disappointing — Bulleid pacifics and ‘Standard 5s’, not even an ‘Arthur’ or ‘Schools’. I was just about to give up and determined to take the next service when it turned up behind a 4-4-0 — not a ‘D1’ or ‘E1’ rebuild but one of the Maunsell ‘L1s’, a rather down-at-heel 31788, which performed soundly enough. It could not have been too run-down, as it was transferred with sisters 31753 and 31786 to Nine Elms, where I had a series of runs later behind each of these on my commuter trains to and from Woking.

  30905 Tonbridge with the unique Schools high-sided t
ender passes Woking with a summer relief train for Bournemouth, July 1959

  ‘U1’ three-cylinder mogul 31891 at Victoria on the 1.35pm to Ramsgate in 1958.

  Of course, I did not always dash away from college straight after lectures finished but sometimes tarried with my friends over coffee or practiced my table-tennis with Gordon, a fellow member of the college third-league team. Waterloo’s offerings after the 5.9 were the 5.39 (a Nine Elms ‘Standard 5’), the 6.9 (one of Nine Elms’ three ‘Eastleigh Arthurs’, 30455-7, for the first year and thereafter usually a ‘Standard 5’, once 73080-9 had been transferred from Stewarts Lane) or the 6.54 to Salisbury. This last was interesting, as during 1957 and the early part of 1958 it was rostered for one of Salisbury’s ‘S15s’ in the 30823-32 series, then one of its regular ‘King Arthurs’ (30448-54) until 1959, when Nos 30796, 30798 and 30799 were reallocated from the Eastern Section to Salisbury and took their share of this turn. The most common was 30453 King Arthur itself; I had fifty-five very efficient runs with this loco — a performance matched only by No 30777 (fifty-three runs in total, mostly on the 5.9 Waterloo).

  30453 King Arthur awaiting departure from Waterloo with the 2.54pm to Salisbury in May 1960.

  An evening excursion to Hackney Downs in the summer of 1958 yielded this view of ‘N7/1’ 69603 approaching with a local for Chingford.

  I regularly attended the weekly college MethSoc discussion group (more like full-blooded arguments most weeks) at Hinde Street Chapel, near Bond Street tube station. The meeting was not until 7.30pm, so after a day’s study I would often retire in the meantime to Liverpool Street for immersion in the station’s sulphurous, murky atmosphere. The constant raspings of Westinghouse brake pumps as ‘N7s’ scuttled to and fro, together with Sandringhams or ‘B12s’ tender-first at the buffer-stops, awaiting their next assignments, were an enticing draw. In the early evening there was always a ‘Sandringham’ on empty stock at platform 8 or 9, and I would look eagerly at it to judge whether I wanted to buy a ticket to Broxbourne or Bishops Stortford, or even just to Tottenham Hale, to accompany its next northbound foray. My memories are of dark, damp wintry fogs, glistening wet platforms, hordes of scurrying commuters, the panting brake pumps and down-at-heel ‘B17s’ such as No 61601 Holkham or 61618 Wynyard Park or a ‘B2’ such as 61616 Falloden, behind which I would make that modest journey past Hackney Marshes, with a drunken syncopated apology of an exhaust drifting past the cracked-open window of my compartment. I would take it as far as Tottenham Hale, or Broxborne if I was not too impecunious, returning as often as not behind a Stratford ‘N7’ or ‘L1’. Occasionally, if the best ‘Sandringham’ looked set for the GE main line, I would go to Shenfield and be treated with another ‘Footballer’ or ‘Sandringham’ on the return. Real fireworks were unusual, but one evening the driver of 61613 Woodbastwick Hall decided to keep steam on going down Brentwood Bank, and we nearly made an ‘80’ — but I couldn’t quite get beyond 79mph on the watch. The poor loco paid for it that night — on arrival at Liverpool Street the bottom half of the smokebox door was glowing an angry red!

  Thompson ‘B2’ rebuild 61616 Falloden on the 4.36pm Liverpool Street–Kings Lynn ‘Fenman’, 1958.

  Over three years I was at college I amassed a fair mileage behind the ‘N15s’, which were always my SR favourites. In all I had 585 runs behind this group of fifty-four engines (I’m ignoring the Urie ‘N15s’, behind which I only had two runs — 30748 and 30755) at an average of 10.8 runs per individual locomotive. In those years I had no engine failure with any of them (come to think of it, nor with any of the other classes, except for the previously mentioned 34009, one ‘Standard 5’ and a couple of horrendous efforts by ‘Lord Nelsons’ — always the most vulnerable of locos, of which more anon). Nor do I remember a single trip on which we lost any time due to locomotive reasons with the ‘Arthurs’. The ‘N15s’ were very effective engines for six-coach semi-fast trains to Basingstoke or Salisbury, surefooted and with good acceleration, although rarely touching 80mph. (I had a couple of 80s — one with 30777 and one with 30765 — and the 1956 run with 30449, but I think that was it.) The evening commuter services (the 10-coach 5.9 and 11-coach 6.9) taxed them more but not unduly so.

  On Saturday afternoons I would often slip down to the Farnborough Railway Enthusiasts’ Club beside the main line and catch up on the latest news from Swindon from ‘Griff’ Evans whilst watching the succession of summer reliefs powered by ‘Arthurs’ and the occasional ‘Schools’. On one occasion I was spotted on the platform at Woking awaiting the Saturday 1.24pm Waterloo and beckoned onto the footplate of No 30777 for the ten-mile run to Farnborough.

  You may be wondering how I managed to amass so many runs behind these locos in just four years of commuting. Well, I sort of cheated! During my second and third college years I had many free periods in which I was meant to study German mediaeval- and modern-literature texts, and I presume I was expected to work in the college library. Often there would be a whole day free for study. If I stayed in college the temptations for endless coffees and other pursuits with friends were too great. If I stayed at home the temptation to lie in bed for half the day was equally strong. So, often, I would join the 8.47am or, more likely, the 9.8 (a 70D ‘Arthur’, ‘Schools’ or ‘Standard 4’) or the 9.48 (a stopper from Bournemouth with a 70A ‘Arthur’ or ‘Standard 5’) and spend the rest of the day see-sawing backwards and forwards from Woking to Waterloo, reading German poetry and drama texts as I went! I could get in four return trips (eight locos) in normal hours and five if I was still game and there was something interesting about. I’ve put a number of logs from these trips in Appendix Tables 3, 10 and 11, although I rarely timed these trains, as I did have work to do. One of the problems was that if the train ran at a certain speed the rail-joint rhythms would coincide with a poem’s metre (especially Middle High German mediaeval texts), and I could arrive at Woking or Waterloo with a dozen pages read and not a word comprehended, as I had read it too fast!

  30448 Sir Tristram saunters into Farnborough with the 2.54pm Waterloo–Salisbury, July 1959.

  Normal motive power for the 9.48am Woking–Waterloo as Nine Elms Standard Class 5 73118 King Leodegrance draws into Woking in 1959.

  Once or twice a week I would stay in college for the evening for extramural activities — the regular table-tennis league matches or various college society meetings — and this meant dashing for the last steam train back to Woking, the 11.15pm Waterloo–Basingstoke. This was an interesting train — normally four coaches diagrammed for a 70A ‘N15’ (usually 30763, 30774, 30778 or 30779) — but as it was a light job (the loco returned on a freight) Nine Elms would turn out any spare engine, often a ‘foreign’ ‘Arthur’ or a high-mileage pacific that was on ‘restricted’ working. At that time of night few people were about (and certainly no loco inspectors), so I found myself one night invited onto the footplate of Eastleigh’s 30784 Sir Nerovens and offered the regulator before reaching Clapham Junction. Unfortunately I made a mess of it, as the regulator was very stiff; I failed to get it open early enough to recover from the Clapham speed restriction through the station, and our climb to Earlsfield was painfully slow. However, with only four coaches we soon recovered time afterwards.

  The most memorable run on this train (for all the wrong reasons) was with 35005 Canadian Pacific, still in unrebuilt form. It was, as the driver remarked, ‘running out’ and was overdue a visit to Eastleigh Works, where it would undergo rebuilding. From the start things happened. We slithered and slipped with our four-coach train the length of platform 8, making all sorts of weird syncopated noises — the valve settings were all to pot — and took five minutes to get past Vauxhall, then something clicked and we accelerated at tremendous speed, rocketing around the (40mph) Clapham curve at 61mph without touching the brake. By Wimbledon we were doing 75; we were hurtling towards Hampton Court Junction when the brakes were slammed on, and we screeched to a halt, straddling the crossover to the slow line beyond the ’box, having ju
st passed the signal at danger. (For some reason this night the signalman was to put us to the slow at Hampton Court Junction, instead of Esher as usual.) An angry altercation broke the silence of the very misty night, after which we set off down the slow, only to run into a fog so thick down by the River Mole between Esher and Hersham that we reduced speed to walking pace to search for signals. The fireman had actually to climb the signal post just before Hersham station to ‘feel’ its aspect! Finally, after our arrival in Woking twenty-five minutes late, there was a sudden ‘whoosh’ as 35005 went up in flames, and the fire brigade rushed to the scene. I wonder how many HMRI inquiries would have been instituted into that run in today’s world!

  In between travelling to and from London, when I had little opportunity for photography, already carting around so much paraphernalia, my briefcase full of textbooks and removable parts of my bicycle, I made an occasional foray on a Saturday to the wooded cuttings just to the west of Woking station or a little further west to an overbridge near the summit of the rise from Woking to Milepost 31. It was about this time that I swapped my faithful old camera for a second-hand Ensign Selfix — still a slow fixed shutter speed, but with a beautiful lens that gave high definition as long as the trains were not moving too fast. This was fine for the environs of Woking, as long as I photographed trains stopping there or took them at a reasonably head-on angle. I later found another favourite location near one of the many nearby golf courses, halfway between Woking and Brookwood.