The LNER Encyclopedia

Help. I am new to the forum and am looking to try and trace some work history for my late father. George Goodchild was based at Neasden shed and died in service aged 55 in 1958. I understand he won a long service (30 years) award at some stage which means he must have been employed from the mid to late 1920's. I also understand from a family member that he joined the railway as he wanted to play for their football team!! I know that the latter part of his service was as a loco driver and remember walking to the sheds to see him at work. Any help would be very much appreciated. It would be wonderful to trace some of the locos he drove and I have a picture of me with him when he was driving "Derby County". My sincere thanks for any assistance.

Hello alang

Not sure if it helps at all but one Harry Goodchild was probably the last Yardmaster at New England (Peterborough) in the late 1960s and was still about when I first went to P'boro in the early 1970s. He would have retired by 1974/5, I think. The name is not too common, so maybe there's a link.

Thanks for that. As far as I am aware we had no relations in Peterborough. but as you say, the name is not that common.
Thanks again.

Hi at the moment i live not too far away from Neasden which as you probably know was a Great Central Railway shed prior to 1923.
The mention of your father playing football when at Neasden probably means that he was a member of the LNER Sports and Athletic Club which still exists as several youth football teams playing at the original ground at Sudbury Middlesex. I pass the entrance quite often and will take a picture next time i pass.
Google LNER and you will see the link to the current football club.
Incidentally Derby County was renamed for a period in 1937 when my team Sunderland got to the FA Cup final. The actual loco Sunderland was in the works so Derby County was painted to look like Sunderland to haul a footex from Newcastle to Wembley.

Hi 52D. Thanks for your reply. All these snippets of information will hopefully help to build a picture of my father's career on the railways. As I am new to both this forum and this type of research I am in the hands of people "in the know"! Something I would like to know, and which you may be able to help with, is if work logs were kept on a daily or weekly basis and if so, do they still exist? I would love to find out what locos my father drove and to where. The picture I have of "Derby County" was taken, I should think, around '55 or '56 as I would have been around 8 or 9 at the time.
Thank you again

alang

Mrs BB says try this:

LINK. Railway ancestors index
« on: Today at 14:47:17 » Reply with quote
The Modern Records Centre at Warwick has just launched an index to the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (later the NUR) covering the period 1872-1887, with a few out-of-sequence entries up to 1899.
This is for the first of many registers so watch this space...

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/libr ... story/rail

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