Life on the Old Railways

by Tom Quinn

  ‘In these early days,’ John recalled, ‘I worked mostly on what was called the empty coach link, the shift of men who brought empty coaches into London or took them out from London to Barnet and Enfield and the sidings. When we put the coaches together we had to check all the electrical connections to make sure all the lighting and so on would work, as well as the vacuum and steam pipes. We’d also check that windows were closed and handbrakes off. As guards working in the shunting yards we were so busy we hardly had time to breathe; it was mucky work, too, but we were never given overalls, and this always struck me as odd – firemen, cleaners and drivers all got overalls, but not us. Just one of the peculiarities of the old railway, I suppose.’

  John reckoned that drivers relied heavily on the skill and experience of the guard. And if the mainline guard knew which guard had checked the train and put it together, he’d know whether or not to make his own checks. These days, on the other hand, as John himself points out, the guard is a sort of glorified ticket collector:

  ‘In my day the guard was an important man, vital to the safe operation of the train. There were three links among the guards: the lowest, where we all started, was the empty coach link when you were simply getting coaches ready and bringing them to where they needed to be. Then, strictly according to seniority, you moved up to the local link, which meant you worked on trains doing local runs; and finally the top link meant you were on mainline trains. There were also two volunteer links, for the Newcastle and Edinburgh run – they were volunteer because you had to lodge away from home, but they paid extra.

  ‘Trains were machine-washed every day if they were going to the sidings at Hornsey; but if they were destined for Holloway they were all washed by hand, simply because there were enough people to do the work!’

  Like drivers, guards had to know the road before they were allowed out. John learned the road to various places from King’s Cross – places like Peterborough – and then had to sign a legally binding document to confirm it. Placing the responsibility on the individual in this way was important as lives depended on it. John and his fellow guards used to make their own ‘road books’, notebooks in which they drew the various routes and lines, and the positions of signals and crossings on them.

  ‘There were always moments of drama, too – I remember trains occasionally lost steam on a steep incline north of Wood Green in North London where what we called a jack catch was installed. This was a device designed to derail a train that lost all steam and began to slip back. We used N2 steam engines for local work, and on another incline, this time towards Finsbury Park, they’d get stuck occasionally if they hadn’t had a run at the hill or if the sand was poor and the line wet.

  ‘If the train stopped here we used to leap out and put detonators on the track, the idea being that when a relief train approached to give us a hand, it would know how close it was to the stalled engine as it backed into position. The rescue engine driver would then blow what we called a cock crow on his whistle before he got going with the stalled train behind him. I’d usually be out there with a lamp helping when this sort of thing happened – and I remember, too, it was awful if you had to do all this in a tunnel, because the noise of the detonators used to bring down great falls of soot from the tunnel roof; by the time you got out you were covered in the stuff. The drivers hated the noise of the detonators going off in tunnels, too, and they’d try to get you to put down fewer than you were supposed to.’

  As time went by John found that he could spot problems long before they arose, although that didn’t always mean he was able to do anything about them.

  ‘At Wood Green I could always tell when a train was about to get stuck – we’d have a run at the hill, and if the engine and first carriage got over the top of the hill I knew we were all right; but if only the engine got over, we were in trouble.’ In a situation like this the train stopping would mean delay and serious disruption to the timetable. Drivers, guards and firemen always hated unpunctuality – but despite the best efforts of all concerned, things still, occasionally, went wrong. It was the price that had to be paid for a railway system that relied heavily on the skills of train crews and on what by today’s standards were remarkably primitive, if magnificent, engines.

  ‘Drivers, and everyone else for that matter, were very proud of their good time-keeping, which is probably why we didn’t get stuck that often. When it did happen, I’d walk back to the nearest signal box so the signalman knew we’d blocked the line up ahead. The guard always had a vacuum brake in his van and that went down, too, if the train was stuck. When you think that the old Pullman train might weigh 440 tons you can see that they took some pulling, and that there were bound to be problems now and then; certainly the sand would always be running as we approached a hill. Certain things were not such a problem in the steam days as they are now: wet leaves, for example, because the old engines would crush through the leaves. Diesels are lighter and don’t crush through so they are more likely to slip. Snow was always more of a problem with diesel electrics, too, because it used to make their motors short out, something that obviously could never happen with steam trains. The only problem with snow in the steam era was that it mucked up the mechanical signalling.

  ‘I remember on the 7.45am to Leeds once there was so much snow that we didn’t get back till three o’clock the following morning. There was at least two feet of snow, and with that much lying on the ground, all the signals broke down and you had to crawl along. You had to stop at every light and go back and protect your train with detonators under what was called time interval service; and of course as a result of all this, journeys were badly delayed.’

  With electronic signalling unaffected by weather, the responsibilities of all railway workers, but especially guards and porters, were gradually reduced – and that, of course, meant jobs became more mundane, and so less satisfying than they had been.

  John recalled that guards and drivers were often quite close in their relationship because they relied on each other: ‘They trusted each other because they had to. I remember some marvellous drivers. There was Tiddler Wilson, for example, a wonderful man, who was so short he had the regulator bent in order to reach it. The other reason you tended to work closely with the drivers was that you worked regularly with the same small group of men, and a lot of people knew each other or were even related to each other. On the local link, I worked mostly with ten drivers, and my wife’s uncle was one of them.’

  When the Duke of Kent got married, John was the guard on the VIP train that took Winston Churchill and Clement Atlee to York where the wedding took place; it was packed with dignitaries and MPs, most of whom John remembered as friendly and courteous. At one time or another he also met Lord Home, Harold Wilson, Ted Heath and numerous football teams!

  ‘In those days almost everyone went by train,’ he recalled. ‘Prince Philip was a frequent rail traveller, and he always seemed to be in a hurry when I saw him, striding along and oblivious to everything. Famous people could be surprisingly forthcoming, too; I remember being astonished early one Sunday morning to find Douglas Home – he was then foreign secretary, so it must have been late 1950s or early 1960s – waiting for his car. We started chatting, and he told me what he was planning to do as foreign minister. I suppose he was really just thinking aloud, but I was terrified for a minute that he might ask my advice!’

  Despite the early years of unsocial shift work and low pay, John stuck at the job and began slowly to move up the links. He also began to enjoy himself, although the level of responsibility never diminished: ‘Bowling along in the guard’s van was enjoyable once you were on a good link, but I had six big journals to keep up to date – all the stations we passed and the times at which we passed them had to be filled in, and even in the dark you always had to know where you were. Twenty minutes were allowed for the King’s Cross to Hatfield journey, and if we were late I was held to account for it; a couple of yellow signals followed by a red would all be logged in one o
f my books as evidence for delays. I might even attribute delay to the driver if I felt he wasn’t driving particularly well. The book, or journal, was seen by every area you passed through so that all information could, if necessary, be corroborated.’

  British Railways had standardised brake vans by the mid-1950s, and fitted them with a periscope so the guard could see over the top. Earlier guards’ vans had a sort of bulge at the top fitted with windows; but despite greater visibility, mishaps still occurred, though they were rare.

  ‘I can remember approaching Arlsey in Hertfordshire when part of the motionwork came off the train – a side rod had come away from the engine. One end was still attached and the other was smashing into the gravel ballast at the side of the rail and throwing huge amounts of it up and over the carriages; I could hear it raining down on the roof. That was a nasty incident, because if the rod had come off completely the train would probably have been derailed. Luckily it stayed on long enough for us to be able to stop.’

  One interesting little trick remembered by John was the use of scent bottles to give advance warning of bearings overheating, often the cause of serious failure. These small bottles of scent were fitted next to the motions under the boiler – if the motionwork got too hot, the bottle broke, and the driver smelled the evaporating scent and knew he had a problem.

  John was always fascinated by the ancient heating systems on the old steam trains, but he was always insistent that, in most cases, they did their job. In fact these trains were heated directly by steam from the engine.

  ‘On a very cold winter’s day,’ remembered John, ‘you had to watch it because if you lost power you lost heat, too, for the passengers. The steam went through thick pipes under the seats. I knew when we were in trouble because at the back of the train I needed 201b pressure at least, and if it got below that I knew it was time to start worrying. In my time I worked on Nls, N2s, J50s and J52s, Als, A2s, A3s and A4s – just about everything. The best was the A3, I think; the drivers loved them too, because they provided a good ride.

  ‘Guards’ vans were always freezing, though; until British standard vans came in you had a little cubby hole in the corner of the van with a tiny heater and a little coal fire that would get white hot sometimes, with the draught created by our speed. In the guard’s van in the early days you also had a little cooker where you cooked your breakfast. I’d always managed a very nice fry-up by the time we got to Peterborough!’

  By 1957 John was working in the top guards’ link at King’s Cross, with the mainline passenger trains: ‘it’s a curious thing, and I’m by no means saying it was a good thing, but in those days everyone – train drivers, guards, porters and engineers – went to the pub at lunchtime and had a beer or two, and there were never, or very rarely, any accidents. But then railways were not just a way to make a living, they were a way of life. That’s why when it snowed you would often find guards, supervisors, porters and other station staff helping out. I think we had a lot of pride in the job because we always seemed to be doing things we didn’t really have to do.

  ‘The funniest thing I can remember was being told to get a bunch of yobos out of a first-class compartment; so I went along, but having checked their tickets discovered it was Jimi Hendrix and his entourage!’

  But what looked like trouble sometimes really did turn out to be trouble – like the time John came across a particularly rowdy individual on the train to Peterborough. With no telephone or other means to get help he used his wits – and a potato!

  ‘I couldn’t think what else to do, so I wrapped a message round a spud and threw it to the next signalman, who telegraphed ahead. The trouble-maker was booted off when we got to Peterborough.’

  From his very earliest days John remembered men who would have started work in the early part of the twentieth century, such as Old Gore the stationmaster at King’s Cross who always wore a top hat and tails, and always saw the Flying Scotsman off in person on Fridays.

  The railway year was divided by the seasons and by the dates for which special trains had to be provided; thus there would be excursion trains in summer, and at King’s Cross, special trains for the opening of the grouse shooting season. ‘August 12 seemed to cause a mass evacuation to the moors of the north by wealthy Londoners,’ remembered John. ‘The trains were packed with sportsmen. They’d turn up with half a ton of stuff – dogs, guns, hampers and countless bags.’

  Like many railwaymen, John welcomed the new diesel engines when they began to appear, but he soon realised that in the very process of solving old problems, they created new ones: ‘They robbed us of overtime, for a start, because they were quicker – too quick, if you ask me! And they had no magic about them, just simple efficiency. Even at the time people realised that.’

  As the steam trains disappeared and were replaced by diesel, so other changes took place at King’s Cross, not least the vast increase in the numbers of railway enthusiasts: ‘Train-spotters always struck me as a bit of an oddity,’ remembered John, ‘because they knew far more about the engines than any railwayman ever did; some of those kids were there every day of the week, and they not only knew every engine, but they knew exactly where it had come from!

  John was eventually promoted to cleaning supervisor, which put him in charge, but took him off the trains themselves. Though the job was less interesting, it did, however, bring him into contact with some unusual passengers – such as twenty Miss World entrants. ‘I didn’t think much of them, actually,’ says John.

  By the 1970s John had been promoted to operating assistant at Bounds Green, his last job before retirement in 1989. He’d completed forty years, and never really wanted to retire: ‘Being a guard meant you became well known, particularly among the drivers. It was a serious job, but we had a lot of fun and I can tell you that guards were probably the best domino players in the world!’

  John also achieved a certain immortality through a derailment on the north-east line at a place called Offord: as he was on the train that was derailed, the spot became known as ‘Kerley’s Corner’. But John’s most solemn memory was the arrival at King’s Cross of the funeral train of King George VI. All the pillars in the station had been draped with purple and the station was absolutely silent. ‘All you could hear were the quiet commands of the officer in charge,’ says John, ‘and then the slow march of the pallbearers.’

  The old railway was full of anomalies and quirky working practices that by modern standards seem almost bizarre. Even John was baffled occasionally. ‘I could never understand why guards were issued with a watch, while drivers were not. I’ve always supposed – but it’s a bit of a guess – that it was because once the driver knew the road he would drive almost by instinct, whereas us poor guards had to fill in precise times in our ledgers.’

  Class Struggle

  The early first-class carriages were made to represent three coach bodies joined together. At the end, outside, was a seat for the guard. Every railway had second-class compartments. The earliest second-class carriage, like the third-class carriages, had no sides, the roof being supported by iron pillars. The passengers therefore suffered from wind and rain.

  Mr. Gladstone, in retiring from the Presidency of the Board of Trade, said ‘the Board had not proposed any alteration in the form of third-class carriages, but had insisted that they should be provided with seats, and should be covered in from the weather’, with the characteristically Gladstonian proviso ‘as far as was consistent with the necessary admission of light and air’.

  For some time, on expresses, there were no third-class (or ‘Parliamentary’) carriages. Early thirds in the provinces (and on the London Underground) were without partitions, and, at the time I went to London, it was possible for boys, in the absence of many passengers, to clamber over the wooden seats from one end of a carriage to the other. The seats were pencilled, often rudely, and also hacked by mischievous adults as well as idle lads. Later on, in the third-class carriages, rather thin cushions appeared on the hard
seats. The cushions got cut and torn; electric-light bulbs would certainly have been smashed. These third-class compartments had no window straps. For first-class and second-class passengers, in an age much given to hawking and spitting, there were spittoons. Thirds spat on the floor. Third-class passengers’ trains had sometimes to wait for hours while the gentlemen’s trains went by.

  J. W. Scott, The Day Before Yesterday, the autobiography the founding editor of The Countryman magazine, 1951

  MEMORIES

  OF

  GREASE CORNER

  BILL SIDWELL

  ENGINEER ON THE LONDON MIDLAND & SCOTTISH RAILWAY

  Bill Sidwell started work on the railway in 1927 aged sixteen. Born in 1911 in Lincoln, he moved with his parents to Derby, then at the heart of the railway industry in Britain, when he was two. His immediate family had no connection with the railways (although an uncle had been a signalman) but transport, in the form of early motor lorries, provided employment for his father. ‘Dad was one of the last people, in fact, to drive a lorry with solid rubber tyres and no windscreen. Lorries were an unusual sight at that time, as most road transport was still by horse-drawn wagon. My dad had started work as a chauffeur at about the turn of the century when cars were also a novelty on the road.’

  Living in Derby, then one of the biggest railway centres in Britain, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Bill should go into railway work; he’d always been interested in the practical side of things, so when he left school, he chose to start as an apprentice engineer at the Derby locomotive works. Day one saw him in the machine shop, in grease corner, as it was known: ‘I was set to work putting threads on nuts – that’s what everyone started on in those days. Everything seemed to be done in vast quantities of oil; at the end of the first week I was absolutely covered in the stuff.’