Where is this please?

[Mickey]

Deleted

[strang steel]

Reading the individual statements, they are in very close agreement with the sequence of events from the Grantham station point of view.

The shunter at Peterborough says he connected the vacuum pipe and called to the driver to 'blow up' and heard him do so.

So, is the Railway Magazine saying that the shunter lied in his statement?

Their report says they have a crucial piece of evidence, which seems to be that Fleetwood did not check his brakes but this contradicts the shunters' statement.

There is no indication where this alternative evidence has originated, or have I missed something?

[Mickey]

Deleted

[60129 GUY MANNERING]

I wouldn't like to pass any comment about GRANTHAM cos i've never been out of the station

I use to like the signalling at GRANTHAM in G.N.R./L.N.E.R./B.R. days but apart from that and that there was a 'loco shed' there at onetime and it was also an important stopping place in G.N.R. days and also there was a branch going off towards NOTTINGHAM (i think?) and there was a 'nasty' derailment there in 1906, oh yes MAGGIE THATCHER came from there apart from all that that i don't know anything about the place?

Wots the women like from that place they can't be all like MAGGIE can they?

Micky,
I would like to think there is not another Mrs T anywhere in the World,but thats only my opinion. However she is not very popular in the Town apart from with the die in the wall Tories .This seems to relate to her Father who as folk know was a Grocer during the War and with rationing he has a very tainted reputation,however I can't say if thats fair or not as I was just a twinkle in my Dads eye at that time.
Grantham is much like any small market town,no way things can be kept secret very easily and folks don't like change.The Town is filling up with East Europeans and thats not popular,but I have lived most of my life in London,so its not something that bothers me too much.
As for John and Woolsthorpe,he is quite right Grantham does try to hijack the "Gravity Man".
Grantham was however the birthplace & hometown of one Brian (Liquorice) Locking of the Shadows and Nicholas Parsons.
Regards,Del.

[Mickey]

Deleted

[60129 GUY MANNERING]

Micky,
I spent many happy hours there and kept out of trouble,they were good days not much money about but if your mates had sweets you would all share and the wonderful noise of a "Streaks Chime Whistle" approaching was what dreams were made of.Trouble was I could never see it ending even when the first five Class 40's arrived at the London end, they were so unreliable it seemed that it was just a fad that would pass. With hindsight,I wonder if most of the problems were down to the Drivers lack of experience with the New Coming or indeed just the fact that they never wanted steam to end and so did not go out of their way to take on board the new instructions. In fairness it was a very different beast to the one they were familar with.Motor generators,switches,buttons interlocks,circuit breakers and fuses to name but a few.
Oh Happy Days.
Regards,Del.

[strang steel]

I think that what happened was the whole western world were obsessed with the space age, and the race between USA and Russia to put a animal into space

I reckon that the BR managers saw the railways as the ground version of the hi-tech future, so any improvement was better than the Victorian steam engine that had been refined for 150 years.

It is criminal that branch lines were not allowed to include revenue that originated at stations elsewhere, and that just before the financial analysis was done, the whole line was re-painted but the cost was allocated to the line's accounts in order to ensure a loss was made for that year.

[Blink Bonny]

SS, there was no political will to keep railways open at the time. It wasn't just as case of repainting stations: the Somerset and Dorset had huge sums spent on very heavy maintainance on track and signals and stations. I understand there was a campaign re-wiring of all buildings on the S & D and new supplies installed to many buildings that had no electricity and needed none either.

Thank God that the "Closure by Stealth" of the Settle and Carlisle was spotted and stopped in time.

[Andy W]

There was cock-up as well as conspiracy in those times and in the words of one of my former finance colleagues, "there is nothing more dangerous than a macho manager chasing the latest trend or having far too much money to burn". Some of the money was spent because there was a budget to spend it and there were few other things to spend it on.

Looking at the finances of the time it was the rapid loss of core traffic on main lines that pushed the branch line closures forward in a fairly desperate effort to save money. The fact that some managers tried to build a career on that programme was criminal as were some of the games that were played but many of the lines were severely loss making and always would have been, however the cake was cut.

The stupidity of chucking away locos, carriages and wagons that had life in them and replacing them with modern versions that were thrown away after a few years service, incurring yet more expensive write-offs in the financial books, was something that appalled most railway finance men of the time, particularly as the traffic was declining fast so paying for all this new kit would eventually become a huge burden "in the books". But the Government had "given" the BRB all these modernisation goodies and so the die was cast.

That waste & those broken promises of a "paying" railway ruined the relationship between the Treasury and the BRB for ever and the hostility is still there today as the costs of running the network have soared, thanks to the NR "credit card".

Getting back to Grantham, I regularly visit due to my dad being nearby and a couple of weeks ago I walked down past the (sadly) many empty shops, hearing several languages. I said to the missus, "it's like being back at home (in Watford), are we the only English people about today?!" I do miss the proper Lincolnshire voices in the street but I am told that in my native Boston the young East European and Portugese kids are gaining wonderful local accents! Sometimes change is unsettling but it is never boring (!) and it makes memories of times past just that much more special.

[cambois]

Now that is more like it. The strings are pulled to release the brakes as splitting the vacuum pipe would destroy the vacuum and apply all the brakes, which would only normally come off by creating the vacuum when the loco was coupled on.

So the sequence would seem to be that the loco was coupled to the train, the brake pipes were not joined and to get the train to move all the strings would have had to be pulled. That seems like a lot of work, so I am not quite sure how that happened, unless the train crew thought the sticking brakes were caused by a brake problem on arrival.

This has happened on a number of occassioons, hence in my time the requirement for a brake continuity test in the rear vehicle to prove the brakes on and off.

I have recollections on 2 x 25s (in multiple) on the Inverness sleepers not being coupled together properly in Mossend and heading north with the rear loco mainting the vacuum in the train and only the loco brake working correctly on the front loco, with 16 on it took a long time to stop. The brake continuity test was carried out but not properly, so the fault was not picked up when the electric came off at Mossend and the 25s coupled on.

My recollection is the driver had a heart attack and died on the loco when it happened (there was a second man for the steam heat, but he could not drive) Date mid 70s? But have my memories got mixed up?

[strang steel]

William Plant , shunter, states : I have been 18
years in the service of the Company, and have been
passenger shunter for eight years. I came on duty at
Peterborough on the 19th at 8p.m. to work until 7 a.m.
on the 20th. I had previously come off duty
at 7 a.m. on t h e 19th. I remember t h e 8.45 p.m.
train from King's Cross arriving a t Peterborough
about 10.12. I myself uncoupled t h e engine off
tha t train, and when I uncoupled t h e engine I
also disconnected t h e vacuum brake pipe. When
t h e new engine came back on to t h e train I also
coupled i t up. When I did this I also connected
up the vacuum pipes. I did this without any
special instructions. As soon as I had connected
up t h e vacuum pipe I shouted to him (the driver)
" Blow up," and I heard him do so. As the train
was leaving I said " Good night " to the driver
and he said "Good night " to me. From t h e
fact of my hearing t h e driver blow u p t h e brake
I was satisfied that it was in good order, and he
made no complaint to me about it. Had there
been anything wrong with t h e vacuum brake t h e
driver would have told me of it. The train
started about a minute and a half after I had
connected up t h e vacuum brake.

[Mickey]

Deleted

[manna]

G'Day Gents

How could they possibly do that Micky.................you weren't even on duty that day, you was trying to nick that barrel of Watneys Red Barrel, out of the back of the BRSA

manna

Don't think I should 'ave said that.......

[Mickey]

Deleted

[strang steel]

The strangest comment of all seems to be from the Grantham South signalman "I noticed t h e driver and fireman on the engine ; they both
appeared to be standing looking out of their
respective glasses in front of them, but they did
not seem to be actually doing anything."