Returning to Grantham

[52A]

'Dowlais Top' I think Bryan. See http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/dowlaistopstation.htm - it looks like the jet-equipped wagon is travelling in the same direction, on the same line and, in part of the film, in the same position as the Dean Goods in one of the pictures.

Who knows how that desolate-looking spot became confused with Grantham when they were indexing the clip!

Desolate spot it was, too. I'm originally from just down the road from there - probably explains why I'm now in the snowswept prairies of Alberta. Yikes, I could do with that contraption in my driveway.

I think it shifted the snow OK but also blew out all of the ballast!

[Boris]

The same idea was tried out in Dunford East yard in 1947 as well.

An 04 was also fitted with two steam lances coupled to the slacker pipe on the footplate and two p.way men walked in front of the loco blowing the snow out of the point work

As the previous message said the jets blew loads of ballast about so the idea was dropped, at Dunford anyway

[R. pike]

I read a magazine article on the Highdyke branch that said they tried the jet engine snow clearance idea along there. By all accounts it didn't get on too well with the ash ballast..

[52D]

60041 has mentioned the contraption being tried on the Alnwick and Cornhill line at Whittingham where suprise suprise it blew away the ballast. I think you can see this happening on the video.

[61070]

However on one particular day strange engine movements occurred. There seemed to be more steam activity than normal, mostly 9Fs and WDs. The first stranger was Royal Scot 46155 The Lancer light engine on the main heading north. The next also heading north was the only A1 I ever saw in action. 60128 Bongrace and it appeared to be hauling the Flying Scotsman complete with the earlier headboard rather than the gold thistle as used on the Deltics. The engine was immaculate and travelling very fast. I was about 12 or 13 years old and didn’t keep detailed records or dates. I was interested in collecting numbers which I was very particular about. I have the record in my 1963 Combined Volume. I have done a great deal of research but cannot find any reference to this working. As someone said in one of your earlier contributions, you sometimes think you may have imagined it but I have it in writing and the memory as if it were yesterday. I don’t think it was a special as nobody seemed to know anything at the time. I do know that pacifics stepped in for the troubled Deltics in the early years but cannot find any reference to Bongrace as far south as Grantham. Can anyone help!

Could this be the clue we need to solve this one?
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/roysrailpage ... 6155b.html
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/roysrailpage ... 6155a.html
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0411261757 (incorrect year, presumably)
19th September 1964 was a Saturday; loco returning to base? - 5A Crewe North according to Locoshed books for May and Oct 1964.

...and now I've just found this - 60128 was involved as well!
http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/60s/640919lc.html
Could the headboard carried by 46155 in the pix be the one you saw on 60128, but thought was the 'Scotsman' board?

...and another pic taken on the GC, north of Nottingham, on the same day - probably still light engine, headed for Crewe:
http://christopher8062.fotopic.net/p49121879.html

[deltic9013]

What a fantastic discussion site. The mystery solved. I could have easily mistaken the headboard in the excitement of the moment. I was not mistaken about the year as I had narrowed it down to 1964 through looking at 60128's withdrawal date and the times I would have been at Grantham. My reference to 1963 was the issue of Ian Allen's Combined Volume I was using at the time. So 46155 bought the train to Peterborough and Bongrace took over from there on its journey north. It has taken years to solve this mystery and I had almost convinced myself that it was in my imagination! I had just discovered the photograph of Bongrace at Peterborough on September 19 1964 waiting to take the train forward. Thank you for the other references.
deltic9013

[deltic9013]

Having looked more closely at the itinerary for LCGB 'The Pennine Limited Rail Tour' on September 19th 1964, I noticed that 46155 was due to haul the return from Nottingham Victoria in the evening. This would explain why I saw it light engine passing through Grantham. It would take the Nottingham line just North of the station. It may have called at Colwick on the way for servicing. Can any one confirm this!

[strang steel]

That is an excellent piece of detective work, John.

It is amazing how useful the internet can be for solving mysteries from the past, that were previously considered to be lost in the mists of time.

[61070]

Isn't it great to end the year with this successful piece of detection? You have to salute the guys who collect and tabulate the data for the likes of the Railtour site.

I hadn't noticed that 46155 was diagrammed to haul the final leg of the tour from Nottingham 'Vic' to Marylebone. In the light of this, the photograph taken at the site of Carrington station, which was north of Nottingham Vic, puzzled me initially as the loco is on the down line, facing north, i.e. going away from Nottingham. deltic9013's suggestion of it calling for servicing at Colwick doesn't easily fit this scenario - but then, I thought, perhaps it's en route to Annesley for servicing instead? Annesley had some 'Scots' at that time and its crews worked the GC main line to Marylebone, so this would appear to have some logic.

Now, there is an excellent website on life and times at Annesley in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and 46115 gets a mention in one of the stories.

Go to http://www.annesleyfireman.com/ and scroll about 4/5 of the way down to find the story about 46155.

The tale isn't dated, or linked with this railtour, but now I wonder whether the 'borrowing' occurred when the railtour brought the loco to the GC? The Lancer was clearly in much finer fettle than were the rundown Annesley 'Scots', and the chance to use it for a turn or two must have been difficult to resist. The only clue to a date is the mention of Reggie Maudling as 'Home Secretary'. He didn't hold that post until the Heath government of 1970, but he was Chancellor of the Exchequer from July 1962 until the general election of 15th October 1964, which would fit this period nicely. (Home Secretary 7/62-10/64 was Henry Brooke)

I think my link, in the previous post, to a colour photo of 46155 at Peterbrough East which was auctioned on ebay may not work. Another way to find it is to try '46155 ebay Peterborough' in Google. Replace 46155 with 60128 for a b/w photo of Bongrace on the same occasion. It comes up as the 4th item - after the discussion on this thread, which has already been 'caught' by Google!

[bigkris]

I apologise for the mistake on my website (www.annesleyfireman.com) re Reginald Maudling! It will be corrected immediately.

[61070]

Thanks for coming on here bigkris. Your Annesley site has received so much praise, and quite rightly in my opinion, that I feel it was probably a bit mean of me to remark 'in public' on a pretty trifling oversight.

In fact I owe your colleagues at Annesley - and possibly even yourself - a debt of gratitude for encouraging my interest in railways at the age of perhaps 5 or 6. My earliest regular experiences of the railway were at St Margaret's Pasture on the approach to Leicester GC passenger station from the north. Our Mum would take my little sister and me (and her knitting!) to a bench just beside the girder bridge over the River Soar, from where we would wave at, and usually get a 'toot' from, the crews of passing trains. I do remember the crews of 9Fs on the coal trains being particularly friendly, often waving enthusiastically in return. Happy days indeed!

[deltic9013]

I hadn't recognized the location of 46155 in the photograph so it seems improbable that it called at Colwick. I am sure that Colwick could have handled the locomotive as it was host to such diverse machines as 45562 Alberta and on the same day (3.09.1966) received Merchant Navy 35030 Elder Dempster Lines off a GC special into Nottingham Victoria. I was there at the station and still have the log. Pictures of these two on Colwick can be seen in 'Steam on Shed' by John Stretton, plates 80 and 81. The turntable still worked as did the one at Victoria where I saw B1s 61173 and 61131 turned before taking over from 34002 Salisbury. Did Annesley have a working turntable at the time? Sorry this post is a little off the beaten track but I regularly used the Nottingham Victoria to Grantham line as I lived, until recently, at Radcliffe on Trent just two miles or so from Colwick and so Grantham became a destination on a Saturday and in school holidays since 1964. When Victoria closed the Grantham trains were diverted into Nottingham Midland. If my memory serves me right, at one time the DMUs (class 114) running the service used to shuttle back and forth from Nottingham to Grantham so must have meant a change at Grantham for Skegness. Some used to pull a 4 wheel van for parcels and other small freight. Later the DMU service ran from Crewe to Skegness via Grantham.

[61070]

I believe that the principal mpd for the northern end of the GC main line in its last few years was Annesley, until it closed on 3/1/1966; thereafter Colwick depot provided the motive power for those final 8 months of GC main line activity until 3rd September. Thus 35030 was serviced at Colwick in 1966, while two years earlier 46155 was most likely serviced at Annesley. I was at Leicester Central station for part of that final day day and have a photo of 35030 passing northbound.

[strang steel]

When Victoria closed the Grantham trains were diverted into Nottingham Midland. If my memory serves me right, at one time the DMUs (class 114) running the service used to shuttle back and forth from Nottingham to Grantham so must have meant a change at Grantham for Skegness. Some used to pull a 4 wheel van for parcels and other small freight. Later the DMU service ran from Crewe to Skegness via Grantham.

Yes, that is true. There may have been the occasional service that reversed at Grantham in the 1960s and early 70s but they were few and far between if there were any, and I never travelled on one. The Grantham to Skegness service was more or less self contained although after the closure of the direct Lincoln to Boston line in 1963, there were a few trains which ran between the two towns but via Sleaford.

In an effort to maintain the timings, these Lincoln to Boston services did not call at intermediate stations other than Sleaford, whereas the Grantham to Skegness trains were all station stoppers until the paytrain concept arrived, when most of the intermediate stops became request stops.

The 4 wheeled van, or occasional bogie GUV, was a regular feature of the 114s on these services. In fact, it was their inability to haul these vans and keep to the timetable in the late 1950s which was responsible for their re-engining from 150 h.p. Leyland power units to 230 h.p. BUT units.

The 114s were augmented by the Cravens 105s, although I dont know how many of these units worked between Grantham and Nottingham.

[deltic9013]

Thanks John for the info. Its ironic that us died in the wool loco hauled enthusiasts hated the DMUs at the time but now would give our right arm to travel on a 114 or a 105. They had lovely sounding engine and gearboxes and a fantastic view could be had through the drivers windscreen.
Simon