A Privileged Journey

by David Maidment

  One morning I was asked to do a small job which meant walking down to the throat of the depot, where, on the line leading out of the depot that all engines took en route to Paddington, there was an Automatic Train Control (ATC) ramp for drivers to test the equipment on their locomotive before going off shed. There had been problems requiring a fitter’s attention, and now they wanted a test before drivers were reminded once more to check their ATC. This was no hardship for me — it just meant climbing onto the footplate of the next four locos going off shed and asking their drivers to check the correct working of the apparatus. I therefore carried out the instruction on 6012 King Edward VI, 0-6-0 2222, 6868 Penrhos Grange and 2-6-2T 6101. They all worked, and I reported a clean bill of health for the equipment.

  The 1957 ‘Bristolian’ engine, 4090 Dorchester Castle (with extended smokebox), under repair at Old Oak Common in July 1958.

  3440 City of Truro resting at Old Oak Common between commuter runs, 18 May 1957.

  ‘Star’ 4056 Princess Margaret at Old Oak Common on 9 September 1957, two days after its laborious run from Plymouth.

  Princess Margaret leaving Paddington later the same day to work the 7.15pm Bristol, its last working before failure at Southall and condemnation.

  An event of interest during my time in the Central Office was the decision by the WR Motive Power Department to review the allocations of all top-link engines in order to equalise mileages, so that no depot had all the low- or high-mileage locos — this applied mainly to the ‘Castles’. It was a golden opportunity to get rid of any ‘black sheep’, and much effort was made to hang on to the favourites. (The ‘Castles’ had a reputation of having a wide range of superb and weaker locomotives — more than any other class I knew.) About 33% of our allocation changed — I can remember we got locos like 5005, 5008, 5027 and 5029 and somehow didn’t manage to lose 4091, which was known then as the only three-cylinder ‘Castle’ (one beat being entirely missing); everything was tried to cure it, without any conspicuous success, and I was not surprised when, early in 1959, it became the first true ‘Castle’ to be withdrawn. We, did, howover, manage to hold on to 4090, 5034, 5035, 5040, 5056, 5099, 7001, 7027, 7030, 7032, 7033 and 7036, which were our star performers.

  My presence at Old Oak did cause some consternation. Clerical work was jealously guarded, and local staff did everything in their power to ensure no excuse could be made for staff cuts. Besides the embarrassment of doing a clerk out of his overtime in copying out the 1958/9 winter rosters, I completed my day’s duties in the Mechanical Foreman’s office by around 11am on most days. This flummoxed the other clerks, and I was told to take an early and long lunch break in Old Oak’s hostel canteen and, as they knew I was interested, spend the afternoon with a different fitter each week. I remember vividly spending one week with Joe Parrott (then 72 years of age), who was the ATC fitter, and going out to North Acton, to knock out the ATC shoes of GW locos coming from the Midlands and heading across to the Southern. Another week was spent with the boilersmith, enduring the usual ritual of being sent into the firebox of a loco whose fire had only just been dropped. On one occasion I came across one rather rotund Traffic Apprentice who had actually got stuck in the firehole door after such an initiation, and we all had to haul him out, much to his embarrassment.

  My first attempt at carrying out any maintenance work by myself was a total disaster. I was told to dismantle the clack box of one of 81A’s many pannier tanks, and I found the nuts so worn that I managed to break two substantial monkey spanners and dismantle half the engine before I prised off the offending part. However, I can’t have been completely useless, as the locomotive concerned, 5764, survives to this day on the Severn Valley Railway!

  In the summer of 1958 I spent more time acting as the Running Foreman’s assistant in the main office block (before my banishment to the new train-crew depot). I was actually in charge of booking the engines out to their jobs as well as receiving other depot messages about incoming locos turning around at Ranelagh Bridge. Although I tried to manipulate some turns my scope was in fact very limited. We had the practice of keeping the best locos on the same turns for weeks (as opposed to the ER method of allocating regular engines to crews). The top-link engines got best Welsh coal — Oakdale or Markham — whilst the second-link engines went to the other side of the coaling stage and got briquettes or worse. I could choose which ‘Castle’ to banish to act as Ranelagh Bridge standby — one of my predecessors, I was told, had regularly despatched 4037 when it was at Old Oak (c1955/6) to stand there, in the knowledge that it looked superb with its huge polished nameplate, but such was its reputation for rough riding that no foreign crew would think of taking it unless their steed was a total failure! (I had a footplate run with 4037 on the Plymouth–Shrewsbury through working in 1961 after it had had a front-end frame renewal, and it was a lion of an engine — see Chapter 13.)

  ‘Castle’ 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe at Old Oak Common after working the Down ‘Bristolian’ diagram, September 1958.

  ‘57xx’ 0-6-0PT 5764, now on the Severn Valley Railway, seen at Highley, 2010.

  6018 King Henry VI, the last ‘King’ to retain its single chimney, at Old Oak Common, 26 June 1957.

  Our star engines that summer were 5043, working the ‘Bristolian’, 7013 (the erstwhile 4082), on the out-and-return ‘Cambrian Coast Express’, and 5093, alternating with a Newton Abbot ‘Castle’ on the ‘Torbay’. The first two were among the increasing number of double-chimney ‘Castles’. 5057 had at length replaced 7018 on the up ‘Bristolian’, a Bath Road turn, and 4087 (my favourite) and 4097 were much in evidence on Laira and Landore turns respectively. By this time all of the ‘Kings’ with the exception of Old Oak’s 6018 had double chimneys, and that loco was fitted during my time there, maintaining its reputation (along with 6022 and 6024) of being one of the best.

  One of the jobs I had been given in 1957 was to fetch the strongbox of pay packets from the HQ paybill office in Paddington and escort it back to Old Oak — I don’t think that at the time I realised either the responsibility I had or the real security risk I ran. The heavy safe was delivered to me on the platform at Paddington on a Wednesday evening, ready for payday on the Thursday. I had to transport it on the footplate of a locomotive going to Old Oak — I guess this was thought safer than sending it by road. I could hardly run off with it; the safe was securely padlocked, and we were unlikely to be stopped by armed raiders between Paddington and Old Oak Common — access to the line was hardly as easy as the location of the Great Train Robbery. I can remember heaving it into the cabs of 4098, which had arrived with the up ‘Torbay Express’, and 5082, which had arrived on the ‘Cambrian Coast Express’. On another occasion 7030 was my taxi, and I recall on another payday hauling it into the confined space of 1504’s cab.

  Whilst at Old Oak I was given the opportunity for my first ‘official’ footplate ride by a very generous and sympathetic Shedmaster, Ray Sims. Earlier experiences on 69654 at Shenfield and an even earlier ride on the Guildford shed pilot, 0-4-0ST 30458 Ironside, did not really count. The Shedmaster had obtained an official pass for me to ride the 11.5am Paddington–Gloucester and return diagram, and he put one of Old Oak’s best ‘Castles’, 7001 Sir James Milne, on the turn for my initiation, knowing that I would have a very comfortable journey in which to learn the art of firing, which he guessed would be offered to me.

  After Swindon my rite of passage began in earnest as I was handed the shovel and expected to keep steam up as we climbed to Sapperton — a feat accomplished, although I have to say not all the coal found its way into the firebox at the first attempt. I had expected to have a clean-up and eat my sandwiches during the Gloucester break, but Locomotive Inspector George Price, my mentor on this occasion, had other ideas and took me around Gloucester Cathedral, where the sight of two boiler-suited men, one still filthy from the enforced exercise, must have seemed a little odd to the other tourists and pilgrims!

  A couple of months later Ray Sims, the S
hedmaster, hinted that I might like to apply for a second pass, and I duly received one for a return trip to Wolverhampton, out on the 9 o’clock Paddington. I joined 6015 King Richard III (the first ‘King’ fitted with a double chimney) on the turntable at Old Oak and went up with it to Paddington, where we awaited the inspector. Departure time came, and there was no sign of him; the train crew said not to worry (they were happier without), so off we went.

  A good punctual run ensued, but I was left to my own devices at Wolverhampton. As I was wondering what to do — I still had a return footplate pass, but no particular train was specified — I saw 5032 Usk Castle of Stafford Road backing onto an up express. Although I’d really finished train-spotting by this time, 5032 was in fact the only ‘50xx’ I’d not seen, so I introduced myself to Driver Bert Griffiths and Fireman Forrester of Wolverhampton Stafford Road and was made most welcome. Until Banbury we were hampered by the presence of a horse-box marshalled behind the engine, restricting us to 60mph (why was this permitted?), but after Banbury we went to town and whirled our 13-coach load to 84mph after Ardley and through Gerrards Cross. When I got back to Old Oak I found that everyone was searching for me — the inspector had turned up at Paddington for the 9.10 with the last single-chimney ‘King’, 6018, and had waited for me. I was deemed to be in trouble until they examined my pass, which was clearly made out for the 9 o’clock and not the slower 9.10!

  ‘Castle’ 7001 Sir James Milne at Swindon on the occasion of the author’s first official footplate trip on the 11.5am Paddington–Gloucester, 19 June 1957.

  6015 King Richard III on arrival at Wolverhampton with the 9am Paddington ‘Inter City’ express on the occasion of the author’s footplate trip, 21 August 1957.

  Midland Compound 41113 arriving at Willesden Junction, 1 August 1957.

  5032 Usk Castle on arrival at Paddington with the 11.35am Wolverhampton, 21 August 1957.

  It wasn’t always undiluted pleasure. Emboldened by my experiences I applied to the Southern and was granted a footplate pass for the 9am Waterloo as far as Salisbury. Unrebuilt ‘West Country’ 34026 Yes Tor backed on in good time, but for the first and only time I was made less than welcome by the footplate crew. The driver (Cross by name, and cross by nature) complained bitterly that he didn’t want a passenger; I made to dismount but was stopped by the inspector. However, the driver was an absolute misery and kept muttering under his breath all the way, until after Andover the inspector suddenly asked me what my highest speed on the footplate had been, and when I said 84 he persuaded the driver to let 34026 run down Porton Bank until we touched 87. I think the inspector felt sorry for me, and I had a lingering hope he might take me back to Waterloo on the footplate of 35009 Shaw Savill on the up ‘ACE’, on which I returned to the capital, but no such luck.

  At the end of each day I would walk back to Willesden Junction and wait for a Rugby–Euston semi-fast instead of using the Bakerloo Line, which I should have done. The Euston train waited for ten minutes in the station at Willesden to let ticket collectors go through the train (at Euston it drew into an open platform), and I used to hang around and board at the last moment to avoid tedious explanations about why I wanted to travel via Euston instead of the quicker direct Bakerloo route to Waterloo. The attraction was the motive power on this train. Although in winter it was a Rugby ‘Black Five’ (44715, 44716, 44860 and 44862 most frequently), for the summer timetable Rugby returned its stored Compounds to traffic, and 41093, 41105, 41113, 41122, 41162 and 41172 were regulars, even if their timekeeping was a little shaky. Occasionally, after the failure of one of them, we would get the Camden stand-by engine (a ‘Jubilee’) or a ‘Crab’.

  At the time, for an enthusiast ‘in heaven’, it was the locomotives that made the deepest impression, but in later years it was the interaction with the people I met at Old Oak that stood me in good stead in my railway-management career — Ray Sims, Norman Willis, the Chief Clerk, Billy Gibbs, the fitters who humoured me, the character who realised after a few hours that I did not swear and apologised profusely for calling a spade a spade. (He didn’t — he called it a [expletive deleted] shovel; when he was telling me what to do I almost had to stand, notebook in hand, extracting the odd word that meant something from the string of obscenities preceding and succeeding it!) Then there was George Price, the kindly inspector who took me on my first footplate trip on 7001 and guided me around Gloucester Cathedral in filthy overalls during our turnaround and managed to lose me on my second footplate trip!

  Driver Bert Griffiths and Fireman Forrester of Stafford Road on the occasion of the author’s footplate trip from Wolverhampton, 21 August 1957.

  Tableau 6

  Old Oak Common Shed, July 1957

  4087 Cardigan Castle prepares to leave Old Oak Common for Paddington prior to taking out the 9.30am Plymouth, April 1957.

  It always seems to be hot here. I’m sure it’s an illusion, but today seems the same as every other day this summer, and, much as I love this place, I’ll be tired and probably suffering from a headache before the day is out. I saunter down the long driveway from the gates to the shed — no hurry, my work will not keep me occupied all morning, so no-one will complain if I’m after half past eight, the official time for day-shift clerical workers to start. I pause at the side entrance to the shed and go forward to gaze at the two Churchward 2-8-0s, 4701 and 4708, still warm from their overnight freights from Birkenhead and Plymouth, stabled on the siding where at least one of this small band of fast freight locomotives stands every morning. Then I turn back and enter the shed, stepping over the exit rail and glancing at the bevy of ‘Kings’ and ‘Castles’ that have arrived during the night and are even now being prepared for their day’s work.

  The shafts of sunlight are picking out a couple of Old Oak ‘Kings’, 6015 King Richard III, with ‘Cornish Riviera’ headboard already in place, and 6028 King George VI, rostered for a later Wolverhampton turn. There’s also a Landore ‘Castle’, 4074 Caldicot Castle, amid the Old Oak engines, probably for the ‘Pembroke Coast Express’ at 10.55 from Paddington. Despite being one of the oldest ‘Castles’ still in service it looks in fine condition — it stands out immediately, for its buffers and smokebox-door hinges are painted silver, as Landore does for all its top-link engines. It’s surrounded by three of our own ‘Castles’, 4089, 5052 and 5082, and Bath Road’s 5085. I walk over to the huge blackboard by the enginemen’s lobby, where today’s allocations have been chalked up by the Running Foreman. My guesses are correct; as well as 4074 for the 10.55 it’s showing 6028 for the 11.10 Wolverhampton, just ex-works 5082 for the 10.10 ‘Cambrian Coast Express’, 5052 for the 11.5 to Gloucester and, a surprise, Laira’s 4087 for the 11.30 to Plymouth.

  I go in search of my old favourite, 4087 Cardigan Castle, pleased that it’s working a top-link job today. It must be on No 2 turntable, whose outlet via the side of the shed I’ve just crossed. I spot it immediately, sandwiched between Old Oak’s 5035 and a ‘Modified Hall’, 6979. Smoke is curling from its chimney, and I peer into its cab to see if anyone is already tending the fire. There’s no-one there, so I haul myself up onto the footplate and sit for a moment on the driver’s tip-up seat and peer down the length of the boiler, noticing the mechanical lubricator positioned high on the side of the smokebox on this engine, one of the experiments noted on the engine-history cards that I maintain as part of my new role — our 5084 has a similar experimental lubrication arrangement. The fire door is open, the blower is on, and I note that there is already 120lb indicated on the steam-pressure gauge, ample time to get to the full 225 before it’s due off shed around 10.40. I take a handful of waste, lean out of the cab and polish the numberplate — it’s just a bit dusty. The engine looks in pretty good condition, although, according to the tiny painted date on the back of the tender, it was last outshopped from Swindon Works on 5 July 1956, just over a year ago, and must have run a fair mileage since then, so I’m surprised it’s still booked to a job like the 11.30. A quick phone call to my opposite
number at Laira later establishes that it has already clocked up 70,000 miles since its last ‘Heavy General’ repair at Swindon in the spring of 1956. I’m happy to lounge here, but I ought to get to my desk fairly soon, so I dismount, giving the engine an affectionate pat on the cabside, telling myself that I’ll keep an eye on the clock and make an excuse to see her go off shed.

  I enter the office of the Mechanical Foreman, Billy Gibbs, a forthright Londoner well respected by the fitting staff here. He’s on the phone and just waves an acknowledgement to me as I slide into my desk and look at the various dockets and notes left for me. I’ve got dockets from the Stores on the amount of oil issued to the various engines, dockets from the coal stage on the tonnage of coal dropped to each tender or bunker, and yesterday’s engine-roster sheets, from which I can calculate engine mileage to add to the individual engine-record cards. I go methodically through each engine card, searching the dockets for details appropriate to that engine — it’s quicker that way rather than keep looking for the cards in a haphazard order, for I’ve about 150 cards to complete, minus those engines that are stopped on depot or in works — about 30 today. At roughly a minute a card I’ll have finished the basic job by 11 o’clock. Billy Gibbs knows this, so he makes no objection when I absent myself to wander over to the shed outlet road off No 2 turntable and find, as I’d hoped, 4087 standing half in, half out of the shed, blowing off steam furiously, while the fireman is stoking up further. I look up at the driver. ‘Can I come up?’ He nods, and I scramble up onto the footplate. The driver is obviously curious as to why I want to come up, and I explain my enthusiasm for this engine going back to my childhood memories of it. He grunts and then opines that he’s not so enamoured of it, though he doesn’t put it quite like that! He complains that ‘they’ shouldn’t put an old ‘40’ like this on a fast Plymouth train; she’s too rough. She seems to have got plenty of steam though — and, I note, a four-row superheater boiler, new to the engine at its last overhaul. (I’ve found this out from the various engine records.) Despite the grumbles it’s time for them to go, and I scramble down to watch 4087 move off, coal stacked high on the tender, still blowing off, steam tight at the front end.