by James Smiley
“Where do ye want the swinger?” he asked in a tone suggesting that its presence was a hindrance.
A bag of ferrets was released into my stomach.
“By the way,” he added, “the Giddiford superintendent apologises for nay sending it yesterday. T’was nay available then.”
The two-and-a-half ton crane, a monument to my previous day’s ineptitude, seemed to be pointing at me accusingly with its jib. My nerves were jangled further by the whistle of a second locomotive entering the station. The Giddiford train was arriving in the opposite direction pulling a swinger of its own, an aged Stanhope strapped to a flat-truck, but as this was not required at Upshott the ferrets settled. Wincing at the clitter of brakes bringing the ‘up’ train to rest I arranged for the unwanted crane truck to be uncoupled from the ‘down’ train, Fireman Jones making the disconnection. The shadow of the Giddiford train pulsated through the windows of the Blodcaster train to vault across my face as I reprimanded myself for not having cancelled the winch when it was no longer required?
The two trains departed almost simultaneously, their dense smoke parting like music hall curtains to unveil the mobile crane abandoned at Platform One. I ignored the wretched contraption and retreated to my office to deal with the day’s bulletins. As expected, Mr Maynard spotted the forlorn hoist and towed it to a siding behind one of his horses.
To my further dismay I found that I had received from Headquarters a directive concerning the installation of a weighing chair for the amusement of passengers at Upshott. Being unenthusiastic about such contrivances I popped it my waste paper basket. Just as I did so I heard a knock upon my door, but before I could respond, Miss Macrames entered. The purpose of her visit was not difficult to imagine but I did wonder why she had dressed as if for church.
“Miss Macrames, would you be amused by a weighing chair?” I pre-empt her intrusion.
The pleasantry brought an unpleasant expression to her face and made me realise that my unguarded enquiry was open to misinterpretation. Naturally I had intended only to canvass her opinion, although in truth I regarded her as stirringly buxom even though her boudoir mirror might not be so polite about it.
As if sensitive to my embarrassment, Rose radiated a sudden smile and asked if there was to be a weighing chair at Upshott. I apprised her that we might also be hosting a sweetmeat vending machine.
“I shall write to Headquarters and express my reluctance to accommodate such novelties while my platforms are undergoing realignment,” I told her, pulling a clean sheet of paper from my desk drawer. “They shall also know that I am loth to clutter the thoroughfares of my station with them at any future time. And whilst I am at it, Miss Macrames, I will also pursue the matter of your lost parasol.”
“Horace, you’re a mind reader,” she thanked me. “But why are you so opposed to passengers enjoying a little joviality while they wait for trains? I’ve heard that Giddiford Junction is getting a scent fountain and a sight testing machine. I don’t know about eyesight but a scent fountain sounds exquisite. Oh, and Horace, don’t forget you agreed to call me Rosie.”
“I suppose a scent fountain would make an interesting diversion,” I concurred without knowing why, “but these machines are generally more suitable for the city terminus, not the rural branchline. I believe we country folk are too discerning to be drawn into this growing obsession with trivia.”
“If you say so, Horace,” Miss Macrames agreed dolefully.
“Yet we are not backwards, Rose,” I qualified my remark, suspicious that she was making sport of me. “Progress does not pass us by. Oh no. After all, do we not have the telegraph?”
“How perceptive you are, Horace,” Rose agreed swiftly, taking a seat without invitation.
Ever intent upon bewitching me with her knowledge of technical matters, Rose hijacked my mention of the telegraph and used it to tell me of a new development called ‘earth-return’ conduction. What? At first I wondered if she had misread something in a journal, or was regurgitating an article for my delectation as a railwayman, but I soon realised that she knew what she was talking about. Few people, myself included, could even recite the mysteries of ‘high voltage accumulator circuits’, still less illustrate them with pencil and paper, and by the end of our conversation I had gone from attentive to incredulous. Along the way I learned that the mainline was to have a system by which a single wire could conduct messages in both directions, and even that a telegraph cable had been laid under the Atlantic ocean to connect England with Newfoundland! Had Jack Wheeler told me such things I should have dismissed them as apocryphal, but then Jack had neither the credentials nor the allure to enthral me, and I found myself wondering if I could hire Rose to charm me into understanding Morse Code.
Recovering from my trance I put a tricky swerve to our conversation and asked Rose if she knew the Coach House ostler. But this I did very indirectly.
“I should introduce you to Raif Carter,” I said. “He may only be a humble ostler but he also is something of an expert on the telegraph.”
Far from declaring her acquaintance, Rose appeared nonplussed.
“My, you certainly have a superior class of ostler in Upshott,” she smiled disarmingly. “In the taverns of Blodcaster they discuss nothing but drinking, wenching and ratting.”
“Oh, you are from Blodcaster,” I observed with interest.
“As from yesterday I must come to Upshott regularly to visit a friend,” said she. “Well, as far as I’m concerned he’s a friend. He’s a gentleman who’s proper taken my fancy.”
‘Lucky fellow,’ I thought as I resumed my paperwork despondently.
Realising that my duties were pressing, Rose sighed and departed with a sweet smile.
An outrageous quarterly bill from the company veterinary surgeon had caught my eye. His revised shoeing and general charges totalled five pounds, ten shillings and three pence, not including his retaining fee. Comparing this with previous bills I could see that the practitioner had come to view the railway as a milch-cow or, more probably, was testing his luck on a new stationmaster.
Further, going through some incomplete files, I discovered another of Mr Mildenhew’s neglected tangles. It seemed that I had inherited a deadlocked dispute over a consignment of strawberries. The fruit, having come from Covent Garden last summer, had fallen foul of a marshalling error and failed to reach Blodcaster. As a result the strawberries had perished in a siding here at Upshott aboard a wagon thought to be empty. A tight bundle of notices and memoranda testified to the interminable wrangle that had developed over compensation, no party giving ground. Unlike Mr Mildenhew, I would settle the matter.
My next duty took me to the signalbox to speak with Ivor Hales. Regrettably, in line with the policies of the London & South Western Railway company, the South Exmoor’s Board of Directors had once again refused Sunday pay to members of the Signalmen’s and Switchman’s United Aid Society. My sympathy rested squarely with the signalmen whose ‘day of rest’ would continue to be, in fact, a day of unpaid labour.
Returning to my office, straining to hear the faint murmur of a train descending the far side of the valley, I detected a closer sound. It was someone clambering about upon the mobile crane. I was about to investigate when Jack Wheeler popped up from behind a cog-wheel, his nose twitching like a rodent’s, and waved a piece of paper at me. He climbed down to the ballast and studied the note with a ready grin. I did not like this grin. I ignored it and snatched the note, which read:
‘Stationmaster Jay: Urgent. When finished with crane please forward to Busy Linton. G.W.V.
Now I understood Jack’s amusement. Had I left the crane as a swinger on the Blodcaster train, not only would this train have left on time, it would have forwarded the contraption directly to Busy Linton instead of leaving me to be haunted by it until the 1.40pm ‘down’ train. I wondered how many more of my clownish oversights I would have to live with.
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Chapter Fourteen —
Big stones and bigwigs
The peace of Upshott village was shattered by the approach of the bi-weekly stone train bound for Splashgate. Splashgate was a gauge transhipment point for Squire Albury’s quarry railway about a mile further down the line. Facilities there were minimal, comprising a makeshift platform for quarry workers, a woefully inadequate stone hoist, and the squire’s two-foot gauge railhead with mineral sidings and engine release loop. As if this primitive arrangement was not perilous enough, no standard gauge siding had been laid by the SER. Consequently the stone train would have to stand upon the running line, obstructing all other traffic for an hour while the squire’s brawny quarrymen manually transferred rocks from the tubs of the little railway to the trucks of the SER. Poor signalling, and often poor visibility, made this a tense time for Ivor Hales.
At this point I really must explain the railway terms ‘up’ and ‘down’ and why they were a comical misnomer when applied to the steeply inclined South Exmoor branch. You see, although trains heading away from a railway’s principal terminus, in our case Giddiford, were defined as ‘down’ trains, on the SER they were most definitely struggling upwards. Conversely, ‘up’ trains were coasting downwards. Therefore Splashgate was down the line from Upshott terminologically speaking yet up the line topologically! Public confusion was inevitable.
Returning you to the story, no train clanged and crashed with more fury than the stone train with its battered trucks devoid of their stabilising cargo, and upon arrival of these empties of a Tuesday the LSWR locomotive hauling them would be detached and left to fuss about the station on minor duties until relieved by an SER locomotive from Blodcaster. The empties would then be pushed by the SER engine to their rendezvous with the squire’s mineral train.
It being important not to delay this operation I monitored initial proceedings with close reference to the time, pending the arrival of 0-6-0 saddle tank ‘Exmoor’. When nothing further was to be done, LSWR locomotive number 222 retired to Platform One and there simmered quietly with its fireman trimming the coal and its driver polishing the gauge glasses. Unlike SER tank engines, 222 was a powerful mainline tender type locomotive which had once worked passenger services on the Somerset & Dorset line. Now in semi retirement it no longer hauled the S & D’s modish passenger stock but shabby freight wagons, behind it today being eighteen wooden trucks pyrographically engraved ‘Albury Quarries (Ondle Valley) Ltd’.
I expected ‘Exmoor’ to be running late, for it would need to be detained until the road out of Blodcaster was clear, the incoming train blocking its path being the one that I had delayed to uncouple the mobile crane that I did not need. On the South Exmoor railway one single oversight could trigger a livelong series of delays.
To my great relief ‘Exmoor’ came trundling down Longhurdle embankment only two minutes late and tooting its whistle as if to boast of a spritely run. There were occasions when it took presence of mind not to think of these locomotives as personalities. LSWR number 222 was now steamed away to the mainline whence it came and ‘Exmoor’ coupled to the rear of the mineral trucks to propel them to Splashgate, this manoeuvre placing it at the head of the stone train for its heavily loaded return journey.
It might amuse you to know that in these early railway days, empty mineral trucks often derailed when pushed, and because locomen involved in this kind of manoeuvre could hardly see what lay ahead of their train they would insist that it be preceded by a man bearing a red flag. At Upshott this insalubrious duty befell Mr Troke, he being the Rollingstock superintendent, and the fellow greatly disliked it. You see, it was not unheard of for a pilotman to be run down by the very train he was heralding, owing to the engine driver’s inability to curtail his machine’s natural tendency to gain speed. Many people claimed that the reason why the manoeuvre was so dangerous was because there was always some fool with a flag on the line.
With the stone train gone, peace returned to Upshott station and I consulted the day’s traffic diagram to see what spare time it afforded me. Here I found reference to Humphrey’s ‘unexpected’ train by which the top brass were to make their surprise visit. The schedule contained no specific details about timing. There was merely a scribbled note to the effect that a ‘Directors’ Special’ would make use of a suitable path which, in plain English, meant that it might come at any quiet time.
However, my experience of junketing bigwigs told me that their round trip would be timed to allow luncheon to be taken at the Railway Hotel in Blodcaster. It was axiomatic, therefore, that the Directors’ Special would come through Upshott circa Eleven-Thirty. Had I the skill to decipher the chatterings of the electric grapevine I would have discovered more, no doubt.
‘Exmoor’ returned at 9.35am with its brakes grinding against the massive load bearing down upon its drawbar, and this puzzled me. The stone train had no reason to stop at Upshott on its way back to the mainline, it being supposed to continue to the exchange siding at Giddiford. Yet against all the coercion of a squire’s merchandise descending to market the train was indeed trying to stop. At the rear I could see showers of sparks beneath the brake van and smell overheated metal, and at the front I could see wisps of wood-smoke peeling away from ‘Exmoor’s primitive brake blocks.
The mystery was solved when Mr Troke alighted the footplate of the little green-and-black engine and stumbled over a keg of Leicestershire salt awaiting collection by a local potter. This brought an end to the squealing of brakes and the mineral train gathered speed again. It seemed that my Rollingstock superintendent had called upon a locomotive hauling thirty tons of stone downhill to provide a lift. Was the fellow so unfit that he had been stranded for an hour at Splashgate, unable to walk a mere one mile back to work? Applying my stationmaster’s nose, I doubted it.
A fishing rod provided the answer. This I watched Mr Troke fail to catch as it was thrown from the crazily bucking engine. Evidently the imbecile placed no value upon his life. For why else would he risk an hour’s poaching on Squire Albury’s private lake? Quite what I was supposed to do to prevent my staff straying in such circumstances I could not think. I hurried over and challenged the fellow.
“Who gave you permission to go fishing?” I asked.
“Don’t need permission, it’s custom and practise,” he proffered glibly, scraping together a gowpen of spilt salt and funnelling it back into the keg.
Wondering what manner of glaze the potter would achieve using materials contaminated with platform dust, I revised his impertinent custom.
“I may be new here, sir, but I am not a fool,” I opened. “And to prove it I shall take custody of your tackle. Indeed, from now on your tradition will include a caveat. To wit, not only is the poacher’s fishing rod forfeit but any fishes hooked in company time also. In compliance of which I am obliged to confiscate your catch.”
I peered inside Mr Troke’s kettle and saw only water. No one else, I felt sure, could fish for so long in the squire’s well stocked lake and manage not a bite. Unless, of course, the poacher’s ride home had come at a price.
With its unfamiliar exhaust rhythm rapping on the hills, another visiting locomotive was tackling Upford cutting. By 11.45am Humphrey’s ‘unexpected’ train was rolling into Platform One hauled by a handsome Beattie express locomotive, its bodywork outshopped in LSWR chocolate brown livery. The train comprised two crimson-and-cream passenger carriages and was a spectacle to which I was very accustomed being an ex London & South Western employee. Suspended along the sides of these carriages, one of which was a First class saloon, the other an observation car, were roof-boards proclaiming: ‘Directors’ Special’.
The locomotive was bedecked with rosettes, the centrepiece being a silver sash intertwining the respective crests of the South Exmoor Railway and its new parent company. In truth I was quite excited, for the Special carried all the import of an inaugural train running upon a newly opened railway and reminded me of many such occasions that I had witnessed earlier in my career. Taking a closer look at the locomoti
ve I found, squinting back at me whimsically from its curvy mirror finish, a caricature of myself. Noticing that I was bent like a fool I straightened up quickly and progressed to admiring the dazzling brass steam dome, glinting pipework, lustrous copper chimney and ornate whistle, knowing that many hours of polishing had gone into all this bright-work. The locomotive quite simply effulged in the midday sunshine like machine from a new world.
Huge wheel splashers were caparisoned with gay tapestries portraying a valley abundant in industry and agriculture, with trains distorting under the weight of local produce, and legions of blandly smiling passengers. Such cartoons were for the edification of simple folk, of course, but they did have a certain appeal and I was compelled to smile. The driver nodded respectfully and it was clear that he shared my amusement.
“Hey ho, what a wonderful world,” I declared drolly and tipped my hat.
The General Manager, Mr Benjamin Crump, stepped from the First class saloon. Before he could spot me I stole away to my office to have Jack Wheeler brush me down.
Not one for formalities, the affable Mr Crump entered my office with his gloves thrown carelessly into his top-hat and gave me a broad smile, which I reciprocated. Sadly this gentleman was among the last of a dying breed of railway captain who possessed a healthy disregard for protocol, the kind of disregard that characterised many a locally run line. It seemed that with each takeover, each absorption, and each merger, a little more of Mr Crump’s gentle era was being devoured by the sterling-hungry leviathans of the railway network. He placed his hat upon a corner of my desk and surveyed his surroundings.
“Well Horace,” he hushed confidentially, “I’m taking the trouble to stop off and have a word with each of my stationmasters today. Important changes are imminent…” Mr Crump interrupted himself. “By the way, there’s some extremely unpleasant gossip circulating about you in Blodcaster, Horace. I do hope there’s nothing in it. Now, I must be brief because I’m partnering Archibald Scott and he’s a very busy man.”
