Photos of footplatemen at Grantham, 1962 and 1963

[Ferrybridge Flyer]

I am picking up so much stuff from this forum-you guys are great!Wish there was a photo of me from my schooldays spotting!Pontefract Baghill used to be busy back then!And as for water and jam sarnies-luxury!!We lived in hole on't platform,and sucked gravel!!

[61070]

Well it's been an interesting week! You might have thought that the fire had been drawn on this thread and the pressure was dropping but, behind the scenes, the bars have been raked, fresh fuel added and the needle's up to the red line again!

I mentioned that I was going to make reference to the Chronicles of Napier website, with its lists of Deltic sightings, as I thought it might reveal evidence to support, or maybe to eliminate, some dates.

Observations published on the site for late June 1963 are quite sparse so, at first, I didn't think there was much real progress to be made. Then I noticed a concentration of sightings made on Thursday 27th June. Intriguingly, these correlated well with my spotting notes (listed previously).

Naturally the website only lists Deltic sightings. Also, although the service being hauled by each locomotive is given, there's no indication of where, or at what time, the observations were made. Comparing the order of the locomotive numbers with mine it was clear that the observer was likely to be some distance north of Grantham. So I emailed the site to ask if more information was available and, in particular, if there was information in addition to the Deltic sightings.

In a very swift reply Paul Bettany, who looks after the site, told me that the observer had been at Retford and had supplied the data to him three years ago. Paul undertook to try to get back in touch to see if he could get me the complete log. On Easter Monday afternoon it arrived! It's far more detailed and useful than my simple list of numbers, with passing time and direction included and also, where shown, train head codes.

Significantly, 60010 was noted passing Retford at 17:25 on a down express passenger train. Moreover, the locomotives of down trains preceding and following it appeared in the same order as I had recorded at Grantham.

Significantly also 1A30, The Heart of Midlothian, was not identified in this sequence of lineside observations at Retford. Therefore I think it must be practically certain now that 1A30 was indeed the train being hauled by 60010, having taken over from D9000/61250 at Grantham.

So the story appears to be complete (or nearly so). On Thursday 27th June 1963 The Heart of Midlothian left King's Cross hauled by D9000, was rescued by 61250 to Grantham, and was substituted by 60010 forward to Newcastle, 60010 thereafter spending until mid-August on Gateshead shed waiting to have a heated bearing attended to.

To the railwaymen involved I expect this would simply have been pretty much 'another day at the office' (for some of them, who were handling the situation in Control, quite literally so), a situation in which a well rehearsed plan got the train back on its way with as little delay as possible in the circumstances. But it surely would have amazed them that, 45 years on, information relating to this sequence of events, recorded by casual observers and an amateur photographer strung out along the route, should come together over a worldwide personal communication system.

But the story is not yet totally complete and there remains scope for investigation. Perhaps the main outstanding question is the identity of the locomotive that took the train forward from Newcastle to Edinburgh, after 60010 limped off to Gateshead shed. Other more minor queries are the nature of the problem that brought D9000 to a state of complete failure, and exactly where this occurred.

Thanks then to Stembok (with whom I've exchanged some very helpful private mails during the week); to Tommy Knox, who has consulted his extensive, and still growing, database of LNER pacific workings; to Paul Bettany of the Chronicles of Napier website; and of course to the observer at Retford, whose name I don’t know but whose detailed log, kept all these years and transferred to a spreadsheet, has been the key to bringing the detail of an afternoon of operational incident on the ECML into sharp focus.

And thanks to Richard and colleagues for providing and maintaining such a great medium for communication and the exchange of opinion and information.

Ferrybridge Flyer – here are some more photos of spotters at Grantham (not me this time); clearly not as grim for us as t'were up north!

[52D]

Canny haircut on the gajee to the right last photo

[stembok]

Full marks for persistence and perseverance 61070!
In fact, the months of May/June,1963 saw some interesting incidents concerning Grantham ,D9000 and the Heart of Midlothian. As well as the saga of 60010 on June 27th, D9000 had previously blotted its copy book on the 'Heart' on May 11th, when I saw the down train arrive at Darlington 40 minutes late behind A3 60066, the latter having taken over from D9000 at Grantham. Not an outstanding effort this one, with York -Darlington taking 47 minutes -booked 40, but at least steam got the train there.
More intriguing was June 4th,1963, when a fire aboard D9018 on the down Flying Scotsman saw it replaced by A3 60054, the Grantham main line pilot on this day. This was one of those runs I would love to have been on. The A3 rocketed through Darlington, with platform observers reporting the A3 as travelling much faster than the norm on the fast lines and on arrival at Newcastle the guard, when asked for details of the locomotive substitution, claimed a pass to pass time of 32 minutes York to Darlington (44 miles). Even making due allowances for inaccuracies, as he was probably only timing to the nearest minute, it still suggests a pretty sharp time between the two points with an 11 coach train.

[Ferrybridge Flyer]

Your own personal transport at that age? Talk about north/south divide!!(only kidding!-i used to cycle miles to spot-wouldn't even look at a bike now!)