A Privileged Journey

by David Maidment

  At the end of the holiday I decided to return via Dolgellau and Bala and caught the 7.20am Pwllheli–Paddington with a pair of Collett 0-6-0s, 2202 and 2286, which left six minutes late and took their ten-coach, 365-ton train up the nine miles of gradients averaging 1 in 58 past Pontnewydd and Drws-y-Nant to the summit at Garneddwyn at a painful 14mph but sustainted 57mph on the descent. I got out at Corwen, where the pair stopped for water, to see what was on the next train and caught 7310 on the 9.20am Barmouth–Birmingham, which departed Llangollen twenty-four minutes late, awaiting a down train, then managed to cut six minutes on the run to Ruabon, where Tyseley’s 6879 Overton Grange took over and bustled the eight-coach train to Wolverhampton, where we arrived a minute early!

  I hung around at Wolverhampton and eventually caught the 2.35pm to Paddington with Old Oak’s 6003 King George IV, which left two minutes late with ten coaches (385 tons gross). After a punctual run to High Wycombe, with a maximum of 90mph at Blackthorn, we caught up a late-running Marylebone-bound local after Seer Green and crawled behind it all the way to Denham, then roared away to reach 80mph at Greenford, arriving at Paddington a disappointing eleven minutes late.

  It was now time to start work and join the railway. However, by the time I left college in June 1960 I had missed that year’s intake into the Traffic Apprenticeship scheme and therefore, with the help of contacts made earlier, joined the Western Region London Division’s Passenger Train Office as a ‘Class 4 clerk’ — the junior grade. Perhaps as an omen of things to come, I was made redundant within two weeks of my induction and filled the post of an office junior without any apparent change in my pay or role — which was sorting Guards’ Journals. The Guard’s Journal was a record of each journey, indicating the locomotive number, train formation, number of passengers and time gained and lost by the engine, signal checks, speed restrictions, station overtime etc. Part of my job was to refer any significant signal delays to the District Signalling Inspectors for explanation — an activity that was not well received by experienced time-served inspectors from the hands of enthusiastic young new entrants to the service!

  A pair of Collett ‘2251’ 0-6-0s, 2202 and 2286, head the Barmouth–Paddington via Ruabon express onto Barmouth Bridge and over the Mawddach estuary, July 1960.

  After three months I regained my status as a Class 4 clerk, being put in charge of the production of the ‘Daily Manuscript Notice’ — a document that was compiled, Roneo-ed and distributed each day to stations and depots in the Division, indicating last-minute changes to the timetable, the schedule for specials and relief trains and formation strengthening to accommodate surges in traffic and special parties — a need I would identify through scrutiny of train loadings from the Guards’ Journal records and the details of bookings from the Party Section. The culture of the day can best be illustrated by one incident I remember vividly — I was summoned one day before an angry General Manager (Keith Grand) to explain why, during his morning promenade along Paddington’s platform 1, he had seen the chocolate-and-cream formation of the ‘Cornish Riviera’ despoiled by one maroon coach at the back. Apparently I should have required Old Oak depot, in my Notice, to attach a suitably liveried vehicle or leave the train short-formed! When I rang his secretary to arrange for the interview in which I was to be dressed down she suggested I should come in the early afternoon. When I duly arrived, quaking at the prospect, she told me to go back to work, as he was never fit enough in the early afternoon to see anyone after his usual alcoholic lunch. She would tell him that I’d fulfilled the appointment and that I’d hear no more about it. I didn’t.

  My first day at the office had been 1 August 1960, and by September I was eligible once more for 25%-rate ‘privilege’ tickets, so I began to resume my journeys on evenings and Saturdays to experience the swansong of main-line steam, before the diesels made major inroads. In fact, with a routine clerical job during the day and few commitments in the evenings (I was several years away from a romantic engagement) I went over the top in my efforts to experience the last couple of years when steam was still to the forefront on British main lines. The only constraint was whether I had enough cash — even at ‘priv’ ticket rates — as I was chasing steam on one of the key routes out of London at least once every week.

  Already the English Electric Type 4s (Class 40s) were taking the cream of East and West Coast services, and the ‘Warships’ had assumed the majority of West of England and Bristol-route trains. My first opportunity was on Saturday 3 September — we still worked Saturday mornings in 1960. I got away at the first opportunity and caught the 12.5pm Paddington–Plymouth. Expecting a ‘Castle’ (or even a ‘47xx’), I was disappointed to find only a ‘Modified Hall’, Exeter’s 6965 Thirlestaine Hall, which actually performed very competently — drivers at Old Oak certainly rated them highly, as I knew from my months there. With an eleven-coach load, 420 tons gross, we ran steadily to Reading in just under 40 minutes but left Newbury five minutes late after a signal stand outside the station and overtime awaiting ‘line clear’. We then passed Savernake Summit at 49mph, in 22 minutes 24 seconds from the standing start, and let fly down past Patney, reaching a maximum of 86mph at Lavington. After a signal stand at Heywood Road Junction we climbed to Brewham Summit at 46mph, touched 77 before Somerton and, after a signal check outside Taunton, were six late in. The climb to Whiteball was a bit painful — only 18mph at the top — and a long 5mph p-way slowing at Silverton made us nine late into Exeter, where another ‘Modified Hall’, Laira’s 6988 Swithland Hall, was attached as pilot, to reduce the amount of Summer Saturday engine-changing at Newton Abbot.

  6004 King George III at Paddington on the last booked steam-hauled ‘Cornish Riviera Express’, 11 June 1958.

  I returned to Exeter along the sea wall for novelty’s sake behind one of the short-lived North British A1A-A1A diesel-hydraulics, D604 Cossack, which — with ten coaches and three vans on the 12.0 Penzance mail to Manchester — just held the scheduled time, although running late, without exceeding 62mph after Starcross. By Exeter I’d had enough and picked up the 1.20pm Penzance–Paddington, with No 6003. This lost four minutes to Taunton — explained by a 15mph p-way slack at Stoke Canon. I might have gone through to Paddington with it on its thirteen-coach load, but I alighted at Taunton in the hope of something better on the 4.35pm Kingswear — the last up West of England–Paddington service. However, I was disappointed to get a Reading ‘Hall’, 5993 Kirby Hall, which left Taunton eight minutes late and ran well enough to Newbury before hitting trouble. For a start we were apparently right behind 6003 on the Penzance (perhaps I was better off on the Kingswear after all) and found no water in the troughs at Aldermaston, so we stopped at Theale to request a special stop at Reading to take water there. I guess 6003 was doing the same, as we crawled behind it, stopping at Reading West Junction and outside the station, and could see 6003’s train at the platform. We eventually got away, and after a steady run with a 74 maximum at Taplow we ground to a halt outside Paddington, as a DMU had suffered an ATC failure and needed to be routed into the main-line platforms because of a problem with the equipment on the suburban platforms. We eventually rolled in fifty-four minutes late.

  I’d noted that a newly ex-works ‘Castle’ now equipped with a double chimney, 5088 Llanthony Abbey, was prominent in the Guards’ Journals I was scrutinising daily and was being credited with substantial time recovery on some of the ‘King’-diagrammed Wolverhampton turns, so I grabbed the chance of riding the evening relief to the 6.10pm Paddington, the 6.23, when I saw 5088 was rostered. Sure enough, it romped away with its eleven-coach, 415-ton-gross load, arriving more than seven minutes early at Bicester despite a 15mph p-way slowing at Haddenham with 57mph at Seer Green, 45 minimum at Saunderton and 81 after Brill. I returned from Banbury with 6029 King Edward VIII on the last up Wolverhampton (the 4.30pm Birkenhead), which arrived eight minutes late, explained by two p-way slacks. The following Friday I saw that one of the Laira ‘Kings’ transferred to Canton to replace t
he ‘Britannias’, 6004 King George III, was motive power for the 5.55pm ‘Red Dragon’, a heavy, thirteen-coach train (505 tons gross), and decided to take it to its first stop — Swindon. On a Friday the train was timed to leave at 5.58pm, behind the retimed 5.53 ‘Mayflower’, but we left in front of it, as its loco, D809, had failed at the platform. We therefore got a clear road and set off with gusto, reaching 76mph by Iver before a 5mph p-way restriction at Slough. After Reading speeds resumed in the upper 60s/low 70s, and we arrived at Swindon a minute early. I returned on a train I was to catch frequently over the next few months — the 2.30pm Neyland, due Paddington at 10.10pm (just right for me to catch the 11.15pm Waterloo home). Landore’s burnished 5074 Hampden looked fully fit for the job, but our rapid acceleration to 73mph was cut short by severe signalling problems all the way from Challow to Didcot, and we were sixteen minutes late into Paddington.

  I had been invited to spend a weekend in Wallasey, near Birkenhead, visiting friends I’d made at Barmouth, so I set off from Paddington that night on the 12.5am from Paddington without going home. I was a bit put out to find that I was to be crammed into a four-a-side compartment all night in a train that was full and standing behind another ‘Modified Hall’, Old Oak’s 6961 Stedham Hall, which was routed via Oxford; then, at Wolverhampton, 4918 Dartington Hall took over for the next leg of the journey, to Chester. I didn’t get much sleep, as the fore-and-aft motion in the front coach was not very soothing! We left Chester twenty-three minutes late behind a Stanier 2-6-4 tank, No 42459, which recovered sixteen minutes of lost time on the half hour run — all recovery time, I guess, as we didn’t exceed 54mph. My return on the Monday night was on the 8.55pm Birkenhead behind another ‘Hall’, 5989, to Wolverhampton, and then I was delighted to see 5011 Tintagel Castle of Reading backing onto our eleven-coaches train, in which — this time — I had a decent corner seat. We ran well enough to Reading but then crawled up the relief line from Slough, arriving at Paddington twenty-six minutes late, although few of my fellow-pasengers were worried by a later-than-booked arrival in the early hours of the morning.

  I gave things a miss for a month or so, then decided that a trip down to Kemble on the 5pm Paddington–Gloucester ‘Cheltenham Spa Express’ behind its regular Gloucester double-chimney ‘Castle’, 7035 Ogmore Castle, was too good to miss. A steady run to Maidenhead was then marred by prolonged signal checks around a p-way slowing at Ruscombe sidings, so performance was upped after Reading, and we ran from Didcot to Swindon in the 73-76mph range, arriving at Kemble on time. There followed a ‘quickie’ back to Swindon behind ‘Modified Hall’ 6986, and then it was Landore’s 5006 Tregenna Castle on the 2.30pm Neyland. It was a cold, frosty night, and I stood at an open window in the first coach, listening to the glorious full-throated roar of the engine as we accelerated to 71mph before Shrivenham and then again after a p-way slack. Although the train had been twenty-five minutes late after delays in South Wales we continued with great energy despite another couple of p-way slacks, and after a final 75mph at Ealing Broadway, after the Slough stop, were twenty minutes late into Paddington.

  I paid what must have been my last ‘steam’ trip to Liverpool Street on 12 November. The ‘Sandringhams’ and even all the ‘B1s’ from the Great Eastern section had gone by then, but I wanted to travel on the ‘Jazz’ from Liverpool Street to Chingford and back on the last day before electrification. I went out behind ‘N7’ 69636, which was in excellent nick and looking smart, but the return was behind a rather less fetching 69674, which looked and sounded distinctly tired. During the turnaround at Chingford I observed Liverpool Street’s GE blue pilot ‘J69’, 68619, arriving on a last-day RCTS special.

  A week later, on 17 November, I undertook the first of several successful triangular trips to Bristol, then up the North & West to Shrewsbury and back to London via Birmingham. The 7.30am Paddington–Paignton via Bristol was one of the West of England trains still rostered for steam, and 7018 Drysllwyn Castle, by now transferred from Bath Road to Old Oak, was the motive power. Driver Green of Old Oak set off with energy, and by Slough 7018 was whisking its ten-coach, 355-ton train along at a full 80mph, although a p-way slack and signal checks made us six minutes late away from Reading. Speeds of 76mph before the Didcot stop and a steady 72 all the way up the Vale of the White Horse had reduced the deficit to two minutes by Swindon, but we then changed drivers, and the Swindon man appeared to lose interest, as we dropped five minutes on the run to Bristol, with only one signal check on the Bath–Bristol section to justify the loss. The rain was now pouring steadily as the 8 o’clock Plymouth–Liverpool, the Newton Abbot/Shrewsbury double-home job, came steaming around the curve into platform 4 at Temple Meads behind a gleaming Shrewsbury engine, 5095 Barbury Castle. I found an empty compartment in the first coach and prepared to enjoy myself as the ‘Castle’ stormed out of Bristol with no trace of a slip and thundered up the 1 in 75 to Filton with its eleven-coach, 410-ton train. A dash up to 81mph as we raced down towards the Severn Tunnel and then a steady staccato barking up the grades past Llantarnam at 44mph meant our three min-late departure from Bristol was turned into a seven min-early arrival at Pontypool Road. We continued in glorious fashion and completed the Hereford–Shrewsbury section in well under the hour, arriving at Shrewsbury more than thirteen minutes early. I calculated that we had gained forty-four minutes net on the schedule from Bristol, and the driver (G. Owen of Shrewsbury) said on arrival: ‘She’s on form, so we just let her run.’ (See Appendix, Table 12.) The fact that the crew was on the last leg home of a two-day diagram might also have helped! From Shrewsbury 6922 Burton Hall of Oxford took the 4.30pm Birkenhead efficiently enough to Wolverhampton, whence 6024 — once more — took us back to London, doing its best between multiple p-way and signal checks, not to mention station overtime unloading mails, but arriving twelve minutes late. Speeds in the 80s at Knowle, Blackthorn (86), Denham and Greenford were evidence of our trying.

  Another evening trip to Swindon, on 28 November, down on the ‘Red Dragon’ with Canton’s 5048 Earl of Devon and back with 7001 Sir James Milne (an Old Oak engine on a Landore diagram) was marred by the WR’s continuing poor S&T performance, causing us to be twenty-six minutes late at Swindon and twenty late back at Paddington.

  Problems in the Hayes/West Drayton area featured in many of my logs at around this time, and I therefore decided to try my luck on the East Coast. The previous year I’d gone to Peterborough two or three times to get runs behind the double-chimney ‘A3s’ now fitted with German-style smoke-deflectors — I’d had 60049, 60084, 60105 and 60111, which had all been impressive compared with my previous experience of ‘A3s’ as single-chimney locomotives. On 3 December (a Saturday — we now had alternate Saturdays off) I caught the 10.20am King’s Cross–Leeds train with Gateshead’s 60040 Cameronian on thirteen coaches (480 tons gross). A minimum of 52mph with this load at Potters Bar was good, as was 89mph at Three Counties and 86 at Offord, and despite two p-way slacks and two signal checks we were three minutes early at Peterborough on the 90-minute schedule. I continued to Grantham, the train just holding 50mph at Stoke ’box and being four minutes early in. A Newcastle train now arrived with a rain- and dirt-streaked Gateshead ‘A4’ 60005 Sir Charles Newton, and we left fourteen minutes late, the engine hurling our twelve-coach 445-ton train up to 94mph at Essendine before coming to a signal stand outside Peterborough, in only 28½ minutes. We proceeded therefter at a more moderate pace and, without further fireworks, were eleven minutes late into King’s Cross.

  After Christmas I decided it was time I tried my hand at the Midland main line and its two-hour trains to Nottingham, so after working a Saturday morning I joined 45566 Queensland of Holbeck on the 2.10pm St Pancras–Nottingham. We had a manageable nine-coach load, 325 tons gross, and laboured to Elstree — 46mph there — but got going after Harlington and raced up to 85 at Flitwick, falling to 45 at Sharnbrook Summit. We passed Kettering in 75 minutes and travelled via Oakham and Melton Mowbray, but despite having plenty of s
team and appearing to work hard 45566 wasn’t up to it, and we were losing time; we arrived seven minutes late, having lost a net five minutes on the 126-minute schedule. On the return a Kentish Town ‘Jubilee’, 45561 Saskatchewan, appeared eight minutes late on the up ‘Waverley’ from Edinburgh (6.4pm Nottingham) and made 45566 look brilliant in comparison; the fog of steam leaking from the front end was obvious, and the driver kept easing the engine. We ran for much of the way in the 50s and eventually arrived at St Pancras 37 minutes late, having dropped twenty-two minutes net on the 126-minute schedule. The driver said that the engine was not short of steam but was in an appalling condition and that he had had to keep easing in order to sight signals. Uphill it was atrocious; it was certainly not fit for the ‘Waverley’.

  In February I managed to obtain footplate and brake-van passes from Western Region Headquarters, as I was intending to write a magazine article on the North & West. For various reasons I never got around to it. I did produce a draft but got told by a couple of other writers who looked at it that it was short on historical information or descriptions of the route; my piece was literary in style, full of personal impressions, which, frankly, with the benefit of hindsight, I feel might have been of more interest to some editors. After various trips, including a rough ride in an old LMS brake van on an overnight parcels train hauled by ‘Standard 5’ 73093, I had a most interesting and enjoyable all-day brake-van run behind 2-8-0 3837 on the 11am Alexandra Dock Junction Class H freight via the Eastern Valley to Pontypool Road and then via the North & West main line, finishing at Coton Hill, Shrewsbury, in the late afternoon. The GW 2-8-0 performed efficiently enough, but we spent long periods looped for passenger and parcel trains to overtake us.