Returning to Grantham

[61070]

I think it could be a New England A2/2 and more specifically 60504 Mons Meg which was withdrawn in April 1961,therefore as the lad is wearing only a shirt as opposed to coat, gloves, scarf etc I will plump for the summer of 1960.If its not an A2/2, then I think its one of four A3's with the small winged deflectors and will be 60048,60055,60061 or 60112 and then its harder as 60112 kept them until 1962 from memory although the rest got German type deflectors earlier.
If it turns out that it is 60504 & 1960 I will be backing Seabass to win the National on Saturday as my luck is clearly in.If not I will save my money.

Regards,Derek.

I think you could be right Derek, although I would be more inclined to plump for 1959 - mainly because it was a far hotter summer than 1960 (and it needs almost Saharan temperatures to sit comfortably on Grantham station in a shirt), but also because there appears to be a few more crimson/cream liveried coaches in the train than might be the case a year later.

However, my eyes may be deceiving me and the photo does pixellate rather, when blown up.

We may have to plump a little earlier still, guys. In Iron Duke's photo the down line is laid in bullhead rail. There's a photo dated May 1959 in the Keith Pirt colour portfolio (it's on page 10) which shows both lines laid in flat bottomed rail. Therefore ID's picture has to have been taken before KP's so, if the dating of KP's photo is relied upon, ID's has to be pre-May 1959.

Looking through some 1950s photos this evening which are published in various books and magazines it appears that, so far as the track between the platforms is concerned, the up line was relaid in flat bottomed rail sometime between June 1952 and July 1955. The down line was relaid at some date between March 1956 and May 1959. These 'brackets' are quite wide at present, but hopefully they can be narrowed in future from further study of dated photos. So it definitely could be 60504 and I'll be looking out for your winner on Saturday Derek!

[strang steel]

I can narrow that gap a fraction, because an April 1956 photo of 60810 shows the bullhead track still to be there, (Steam In The East Midlands, David Greening, page 83).

[Iron Duke]

Interesting and informed views by all as usual.
Sorry about the image quality posted, this is about the best that I could manage from the fairly beat up neg.
However, upon inspection of the original 127 neg the lad appears to be wearing a "snake belt" around his trousers.
Does this help with the year, when did these become popular?
Also the camera looks slightly better than the average.

[strang steel]

This Colour Rail shot is dated May 1957, and appears to show bullhead rail in position, but it is pointwork and might not be a guide to whether the plain track was the same by then.

http://colour-rail.com/Preview.aspx?ImgRef=BRE920

And after typing that, I found this one

http://colour-rail.com/Preview.aspx?ImgRef=360034

which is Aug 1957 and seems to confirm my suspicions that although bullhead remained on the pointwork, the flat bottomed rail was installed between the platform area.

[Bryan]

Its a pity that the ECML gets renewed so often as in some parts of the country some people with access to the GEOGIS system would be able to give you the year date of the installation of the new track.

Maybe someone has access to historical GEOGIS records.

[61070]

Thanks for quoting the colour rail links strang steel. I wasn't aware they now have images on line. Thanks also Bryan for the suggestion of official infrastructure records. Perhaps thery will be in an archive somewhere.

There's a colour rail image, ref. 360034 and dated August 1957, which shows the down line laid in flat-bottomed rail at the south end of the platforms. If that date is correct, and making the - hopefully reasonable - assumption that renewal would have been carried out for the whole length of the down main line between the platforms, we may well be looking at summer 1957 as the latest possible date of ID's photo. How does that fit with locos carrying the smokebox-mounted deflector plates?

Colour rail 6008 of 11/8/1956 shows bullhead rail in place on the down main line, so it would seem that the renewal took place during the subsequent 12 months.

There are two photos on the A1 Trust website dated May 1953 which show flat bottomed rail on the up main line between the south ends of platforms. With the same provisos as above this indicates that the A4/4MT photo also posted by Iron Duke (on 29 March) may have been taken before May 1953.

Comparing photos taken on various dates it's evident that, as you suggest, point and crossing work was sometimes not renewed at the same time as plain track, remaining in use for some months after the line on one or both sides had been relaid.

A bonus from this piece of research is that looking at dated photos from the 1950s has helped me to to narrow down the date when the Yard Box semaphore starting signals (with the tall co-acting arms) were replaced by the colour light signal (with the banner repeater at the north end of the up platform) to between May 1953 (from photos of 60148 and 60158 on the A1 trust's website) and 23/7/1955 (from a photo in BRILL Jan 2012 p165 lower). Can anyone be more definitive on this, I wonder?

[strang steel]

I have had a quick scan through the railway magazines that I have for the period 56/57 but I've not come across any mention of track renewals, or any photos of Grantham which would narrow the dates down any further.

[53C]

Interesting and informed views by all as usual.
Sorry about the image quality posted, this is about the best that I could manage from the fairly beat up neg.
However, upon inspection of the original 127 neg the lad appears to be wearing a "snake belt" around his trousers.
Does this help with the year, when did these become popular?
Also the camera looks slightly better than the average.

From Memory small boys wore "snake belt" S" Belt fasteners around the early mid 1950's
The belts themselves were elasticated I think.!

[61070]

This programme has 6 seconds of footage showing the north end of Grantham station before the platforms were lengthened: 07:05 to 07:11. No.4491 gets the starring role - now she's what I call a real iron lady!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Minister/ (on BBC iPlayer - available until 16th April)

If you pause it during the clip there's lots of detail to observe, and you can do a 'PrtScn' to save a still image.

[Iron Duke]

Wonderful few seconds....
I wonder why this location was chosen for filming and for what purpose?
Was it part of a LNER publicity film?
Perhaps there is a whole lot more of this taken on the day and stored in a cupboard somewhere?

[61070]

I wonder why this location was chosen for filming and for what purpose?
Was it part of a LNER publicity film?
Perhaps there is a whole lot more of this taken on the day and stored in a cupboard somewhere?

I've emailed the Lincolnshire Film Archive (one of the organisations credited at the end of the programme). We'll see what they come back with.

[61070]

The clip does indeed come from the Lincolnshire Film Archive. It turns out that it wasn't filmed by the LNER or one of the newsreel film companies but by a local man, hence why it may not have been picked up before. The archivist replied to my enquiry as follows:

On our website http://www.lincsfilm.co.uk you will find details of the film of trains at Grantham Station in 1937 under Accession Number 199. In fact, however, this item is an extract from Acc No 188, Grantham Review of 1937, filmed by the late Walter Lee, a well known Grantham photographer. We have no other film of railways at Grantham.

You may like to know that our DVD compilation Grantham Looks Back includes a much fuller version of the Grantham Station item than was used in the broadcast. It is less than the 1.75 minutes listed in the catalogue, but this is because Walter Lee used to include numerous very wordy intertitles. The version in the DVD omits these but includes all the good pictorial material.

You can find details of how to order our DVDs by following this link to Primetime Video Productions:
http://www.primetimedvds.co.uk/advanced ... c_subcat=1

I've ordered a copy of the DVD, so we'll see what else there is - according to the description on the website: Scenes in the signal box as the line is cleared in readiness, and the ‘Coronation’ hurtles through on its daily run. A reverse-angle shot shows the "beaver tail" observation car. The 'Silver Jubilee' is also seen passing.

[61070]

Well, the Grantham Looks Back DVD has arrived, with 30 seconds of Grantham ECML footage from 1937 (along with 49.5 mins of other mainly non-railway content from between 1908 and 1971 - which is, nevertheless, not without appeal).

There are external views of Grantham North box, then inside with the signalman and his assistant (a 'telegraph lad'?) at work, including a glimpse of the clock - showing a couple of minutes after 5:30. Then a shot through the station from the 'box, when the down main somersault starting signal is pulled 'off'. Next, No.4491 approaches and passes with the down Coronation, and finally the observation car recedes around the curve. Wonderful stuff! But, before all this appears, there's a three second view north from the Great North Road bridge (no moving trains) showing the area betwen the South Box and the bridge including, on far right, the siding descending towards the Spittlegate Iron Works. Nothing of the Silver Jubilee train passing though, so I've ask the film archive about that.

Now as to when the film of the Coronation may have been made. The Coronation service commenced on Monday 5th July 1937 - hauled in the down direction by No. 4491. The LNER Magazine reports, in December 1937, that No. 4491 hauled the southbound Coronation on 48 of the first 51 trips. This makes another appearance of No. 4491 on the down train very unlikely until September. If we look to the autumn of 1937, from Sunday 17th October an electric colour-light signal replaced the down starter somersaults. There's no evidence in the film coverage of works connected with that installation (which involved the construction of a brick-built relay room immediately adjacent to the south end of Grantham North box) being in hand. In any event I expect that the light in September and October at 5:30pm would scarcely be good enough for filming; and, in the film, the sun does appear to be fairly high. All this infers, I believe, that the film is very likely to feature the inaugural run of the Coronation on 5th July. If there is evidence of No. 4491 being used on the down Coronation on dates in 1937 other than 5/7/37 I'd be very interested to hear.

Unfortunately the clip doesn't seem to be available online, and the BBC programme in which it appeared is no longer available on iPlayer. A really fascinating discovery though.

[workev]

After much deliberation and an excellent meeting at the NRM in York, myself, Iron Duke and 61070 (Ian Simpson, Mel Smith and John Clayson) have bitten the bullet and decided to take the Return to Grantham thread forward. Starting with a blog, and hopefully a full blown website we hope to develop an information hub for all things railway related to Grantham.

With our main focus initially on the British Railways Steam period up to the mid 1960s, our aim is to collate and make available information relating to the railway operations, the staff, the use of railways by local business and the passengers.

A daunting task, made a little easier by our enthusiasm and what seems to be a wealth of information and many contributors through this excellent thread. We are trying to engage with those who worked on the railways, but we really would also like contributions from those who read this thread too (in whatever capacity).

Spotting notes, stories about travel from/to Grantham, life in the town, recollections of life at this time (including favourite sweets...!) will all be gratefully accepted in order that ultimately we can provide this back to the public (we're still looking at suitable media for this, but eBooks seem a favourite at the moment).

The Blog (http://returntograntham.wordpress.com/) has the main areas of focus, and we hope to build this up over the coming weeks and months, until we can get a website in place.

Wish us luck, and if you want to start making contributions we have an email address to grantham35b(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk (apologies for that, spam and all that).

Regards, Ian (and the ReturntoGrantham team)

[workev]

Folks,

I've put a request on the blog (http://returntograntham.wordpress.com/) for any spotting notes at Grantham. Our aim is to try and provide a record of locos that regularly (and less regularly) visited Grantham.

There are many instances in this thread where we have had discussions on unusual loco types, but does anybody have any records that didn't make it into Railway Observer or Trains Illustrated, and photos would be even better!

Look out for more requests for your input soon.

Regards, Ian