Versailles

In August 1971, we went by train to Brittany, via Paris and Versailles. The youth hostel in central Paris seemed rather anarchic and a little scary, in an “anything goes” sort of way. It was most unlike any others that we had been to before. The various comings and goings kept us awake for much of the night. When we made our escape in the morning, we had to pick our way out between people still asleep on mattresses that had been somewhat precariously laid down on the staircase.

In marked contrast, the formal affluence of the 17th century Palace of Versailles was next on our itinerary. I remember being struck by the sheer opulence and splendour of the place, especially the extraordinary Hall of Mirrors. It was probably the first “stately home” I’d ever been in and it certainly left an impression.

In retrospect, we were lucky to be able to get about so readily. Whilst studying, we were dependent on earnings from part-time jobs and the extraordinary generosity of our hard-working parents, who were certainly not wealthy, but who wanted us to have opportunities to travel for pleasure that had not been so readily available to them in their youth. I remain enormously grateful to them. I just hope that I told them so at the time.

Please note the fashionable, dual purpose rucksacks that we had chosen for our journey.

Borderland

What a beautiful and unspoilt county Northumberland is - especially during good weather. Our recent short break took us round Kielder reservoir by bike, and then to the Farne Islands, where I was twice pecked on the head by protective Arctic terns, or rather, on the hat that I had been advised to wear for that reason. We were straying into their domain, after all, and in danger of treading on their eggs, had the locations not been indicated by the polished, numbered and carefully placed pebbles at our feet - and theirs.

We also encountered some vestiges of the former North British Railway and Border Counties Railway line from Hexham to Riccarton Junction [where it met the Waverley route]. The 42-mile, single-track line provided an alternative, though much slower, through route from Newcastle to Edinburgh, after 1862. It closed in a series of stages during the late 1950s. The substantial station building at Bellingham, which was the largest intermediate settlement, remains intact. Next to the platform edge, there is now a short length of track occupied by two Mark 1 coaches that make up the Carriages Tea Room, much lauded by the enthusiastic volunteers at the heritage centre and museum, located opposite within the old station yard.

We came across the former track-bed again on our ride around Kielder Water. Kielder Viaduct, built to cross the marshy ground, which became the Deadwater Burn after reservoir construction, was preserved by the Newcastle and Northumberland Society after the closure of the line. This structure provided us with a welcome flat section, in what otherwise felt like a very “up and down” path on our smaller wheels!

Somewhere to the east of Cardigan Bay, in 1972

Thank you for contributing to the 8,000 visits to my blog, which also now contains over 160 different posts. Mind you, that 8K does include my regular Russian friend[s]. I had no idea that old British trains went down so well east [or possibly still west] of the Urals. The Russian visits seem to come in rapid bunches of 20 or more and then might cease for weeks before reappearing. Preliminary enquiries online suggest such activity is likely to be spam and offer ways of tracking traffic sources more accurately. It may be harmless but the “frequently asked questions” section advises bloggers not to try to link with any such sources directly, if the blog’s reported audience statistics section permits that.

It’s difficult to see what else my anonymous visitor[s] could gain from their avid, though rather patchy, attention. I would guess that I get the same interference on the computer as everyone else. In addition to unwanted adverts and spam, I get fabulous offers of wealth if only I will divulge pertinent financial information, opportunities to bail out friends I did not know I had who have inadvertently become marooned in Nigeria and payment requests for orders I haven’t made.

However, short of hacking my account, throwing a spanner in the works and demanding money to return things to normal, I can only imagine that, at a whim, and for no good reason other than for their own amusement, they could suddenly and without warning, cut    

Beer and Pizza

Birmingham is blessed with a number of superb art galleries, including the Barber Institute of Fine Arts and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. In their permanent collections, there are many captivating pieces by well-regarded, classical artists.

In contrast, the Ikon is a contemporary gallery, which gives exhibition space to some thought-provoking modern installations. British artist, Oliver Beer, uses both film and sculpture in his work. In “Highway” [2014], Beer has arranged two highly polished sections of railway track from the SNCF station at Lyons, laying them so that they point gradually downwards and are also converging, rather than being in parallel [which, traditionally, trains have tended to prefer].

The gallery blurb says that it “stands as a memorial to lives that have sped by – an acute angle, pointing downwards to the absence that is the ultimate destination for each and every one of us.” And, on that cheery note, we went and had a pizza – and a beer.  

Grand Hotel

Last Sunday, we heard Gary Brooker sing Grand Hotel, as part of Procol Harum’s 50^th anniversary tour. On Thursday, we stayed in one – the Macdonald Burlington Hotel in Birmingham. This time, we were in pursuit of another musical experience in the form of Roger Hodgson, formerly of Supertramp, at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.

The Burlington is the former Midland Hotel, built by the Horton family in 1871 to cater for visitors arriving in the city by train, effectively serving as a railway hotel, but under independent ownership throughout. It is a stone’s throw from New Street station, now in its latest incarnation as part of the Grand Central complex.

This is where Enoch Powell gave his infamous Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 about Commonwealth immigrants. There is little evidence of the hotel’s close historical connection with the railway. This stained-glass window is a reminder.

The Sea Wall

This was our first visit to the sea wall at Teignmouth, in July 1971. We stopped off briefly on our way to Cornwall. This famous location for train watchers, is where the main line from Penzance leaves the Teign estuary and passes through Teignmouth station on a sharp curve. This takes it onto the sea wall and along the scenic stretch of coastline to Dawlish Warren and the Exe estuary. We have been back there many times since then. My reactions were a little slow, as a Paddington-bound Western diesel sped beneath the Eastcliff Walk footbridge. I must have had other things on my mind.

Crewe Diesels

Crewe has had diesels and electrics for as long as I can remember, and I have been going there since 1961. The diesel depot, which we used to scamper past on our purposeful trek from the station to Crewe South sheds - often passing with little more than a cursory glance in the early days - was actually a more difficult nut to crack. We got kicked out more than once. I think that they were already rather more covetous of their new traction types than they were about the old steamies that were still lounging around in large numbers on South. By late 1971, however, I was going to Crewe expecting nothing other than diesels and electrics. This time I even photographed a few.

Birkenhead sheds - for the last time

The first two photos were taken on 21/6/67. Steam and diesel were then found alongside each other at Mollington Street. When we went again on 15/10/67, there was still a good mix. Steam finished there on 5/11/67, as we discovered when we returned on 3/12/67 and 31/12/67.

The last visit we made to Birkenhead sheds was on a cold, bright, winter’s day in late 1968 or early 1969, when we went on from there to Wigan [for Spring’s Branch - final picture], and then to Hawarth and the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. I suppose that represented a transition in a single day, really, from a former reliance on the national network for our entertainment, to a new emphasis on the preserved lines. Birkenhead sheds closed in 1985.

The Slippery Slope

My wife stood at the top of the piste and surveyed the slippery slope ahead of her. She took in the beauty of the peaks, glistening in the bright sunlight. She did not see the guy who cleared her out, smacking into her from behind, taking her completely off her feet and leaving her dumped in a heap on the snow. “He was a very nice man,” she said later, “He called back over his shoulder and asked me if I was OK.” “Yes, OK, thank you,” she had called out after him as he disappeared over the next ridge. That was before she had tried to stand up, when she realised that her wrist was at an unnaturally jaunty angle and was actually no longer working at all because it was broken in two places.

When she had first left for the slopes, I told her how much I would miss her, waved her off, and then immediately checked out the Northern Rail website and found that my chosen day ranger ticket would cover the Nottingham, Sheffield, Lincoln triangle within which we reside. I was quite excited by the prospect of riding normal service trains again, just for fun.

The 10.03 Class 156 Super Sprinter to Nottingham was busy with resolute shoppers and families getting in the mood for a half-term treat in the form of a day out in the city. The windows were filthy.

The conductor guard was being trained. He looked totally baffled by my unusual ticket request. Unfortunately, his overseer was equally perplexed, but eventually found evidence of a similar, but more expensive, version. When I questioned this, he kindly gave me the option to renegotiate at the Nottingham ticket office. This meant I had to tell the tale a third time to get me past the barrier and a fourth at the ticket office, itself.

The 10.45 Class 158 Express Sprinter to Liverpool was “have to travel backwards” busy. On such occasions, I try to squat on the edge of the seat so that I’m facing the window on the other side of the gangway and look out over my shoulder in the direction of travel. Fellow passengers viewed me with suspicion.

In Sheffield, there was just time to join the 11.44 to Lincoln. Our motive power had moved down market. The Pacer Unit sounded like a bus. Inside, it also felt like being on a rather grubby bus, but why does it have to look like a bus on the outside, too? It’s a train, for heaven’s sake.

I knew that Lincoln Central is handily placed for a range of enticing eateries but I found Subway pretty easily. I don’t have many opportunities to partake of a Subway sandwich.  I greedily went for the foot-long version and filled it with as many tasty extra bits as I could; olives, gherkins, peppers and chilli sauce. To say that it is not near the top of my wife’s list of favourite culinary establishments is to create an understatement, the enormity of which, I can only begin to convey. Luckily, my wife was in the French Alps and she may never know how frivolous and disappointing I was in her absence.

Back at the station the automatic barrier did not accept my ticket, throwing it back out at me. The attendant, no doubt poised alongside to sort out any such barrier problems snorted, “Humph, ranger ticket,” as though I was some sort of confidence trickster, only one small step up from having no ticket at all.

The 13.35 to Leicester was a Class 158 semi-fast service full of students going home for the weekend. Clattering over the East Coast Main Line at Newark crossing, we passed an Immingham-bound oil tank train. There was no chance of making out what was hauling it, though the young man opposite me noticed my conditioned and uncontrollable whisk of the head, when I first saw it. I checked with a paper tissue that I had not got any chilli sauce on my chin and then I tried to adapt my demeanour so I came over as a normal passenger for the rest of the journey.

I arrived in Nottingham in time for a cup of coffee in Waterstones before joining the exhausted shopaholics on the Lincoln stopper with the dirty windows - so dirty, in fact that the little boy opposite couldn’t make out Sneinton windmill when his granny tried to point it out to him. I think she was going on previous experience, rather than direct observation. It was definitely out there somewhere, last time we all passed this way.

In the car, I mulled over lessons learnt. I realised that I had seen only three locomotives all day and had not been able to identify any of them. I had remembered how important it is to be facing the direction of travel if you are interested in [a] railways [b] landscape

[c] avoiding dizziness and a cricked neck. I had witnessed some very well used trains and a lot of general good humour from those in transit. I had noticed how much smoother travelling by ordinary train has become on continuous welded rail and with improved suspension systems, when compared to earlier generations of DMUs. I had observed that railways now have bins again, after the no bin era. The authorities must presumably have concluded that bins are actually useful things overall and that those determined to do us harm, may not, in the end, be deterred solely by the lack of them.

I had heard far more bits of information being imparted than used to be the case - about the presence of CCTV, the importance of not smoking, of not leaving luggage unattended, of minding the gap, of remembering to take my belongings with me when I alight, alongside a repeated promise on certain stations, that there was a definite intention to check my ticket.

When I finally arrived at Fiskerton, I realised that I had prematurely pushed the button on the door before the light had come on, and I half expected a voice to announce, “Do not push the button to open the door before the light has come on,” to shame me publicly. On this occasion, I got away with it. 

 

[This article is adapted from that printed in the current edition of Railwayana Antiques Gazette, with thanks to Tim Petchey.]  

The Summer of Love

We were alongside the Shropshire Union Canal, near Upton-by-Chester. The occasion was an outing by Ennerdale youth club in Wallasey, organised by Audrey Meade and her sister, Jean Rushworth. We travelled by No. 10 bus to Birkenhead Hamilton Square and then on the Crosville service from Woodside. A fairly lengthy canal-side walk followed, with a stop for a picnic lunch. I carried Chris’s rather bulky transistor radio, throughout.

Never mind the peace and tranquillity of the towpath in summer, we required the sounds of the Summer of Love and most notably - and it was played a number of times on the day - Procol Harum’s, A Whiter Shade of Pale. It is almost exactly 50 years ago that the song first appeared and had such an immediate impact. As we had only recently met, we have thought of it as “our song” ever since [along with a few thousand others, no doubt].

We eventually saw Procol Harum at Liverpool University’s Mountford Hall, on 8/3/73 and, as chance would have it, we have tickets to see them again - in Nottingham, on Sunday.

A soft spot for Joem

Designed by Wilson Worsdell and introduced in 1898 for the North Eastern Railway, the Class E1      0-6-0 tanks were later re-classified as Class J72 by the London and North Eastern Railway. 113 locomotives were built in a series of batches, the last of which was by British Railways, in 1951.

The sole survivor is No. 69023, one of the 1951 engines. She was given the name Joem by her new owner during her time at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, where she arrived for restoration in 1969. She was on duty in the early 1970s when we visited the K&WVR on a bright winter’s day with plenty of snow on the ground and is seen here running round her train at the Oxenhope terminus.

She moved to the North York Moors Railway in 1983, and after time as a static exhibit she was taken to Darlington for overhaul, in 2004. I had no idea before I arrived at the National Railway Museum’s outpost at Shildon in 2012, that the engine I would be driving for my one and only driving experience ever was none other than Joem, now without nameplates.

The staff at Whitegates College for young people with autism in Worksop [and also, briefly, those at Portland Training College for people with disabilities] were always the most generous of colleagues, especially when it came to recognising special birthdays and the other little landmarks in life - including my retirement. I’m very grateful to them for providing me with such a great day to remember.

Far from being retired, herself, Joem is currently at work on the Wensleydale Railway.

Summer, Seventy. Sun, Sea - and lots of lovely Sand

It’s August 1970 and Ian has just come down by train to join the lads’ Cornwall hostelling holiday, hopping off at Hayle. A Western diesel powers through with a Penzance to Paddington express. It is too quick, both for me and my camera. We are staying the night at Phillack youth hostel and spending much of the day on the nearby sands.

Hayle and St Ives may face each other over the estuary but they are like chalk and cheese. St Ives must be one of the most scenic and fascinating of all British seaside resorts, Hayle, by comparison, rather dull, once away from the beach.

We had our dune jumping competition there, however, running seawards towards the crest, launching off and falling into soft sand. I don’t think that I’ve ever been airborne under my own power for a longer period of time on any occasion since then, though I have occasionally been known to fly by the seat of my pants.

People, get ready. There's a train a-coming.

Switzerland, by train [of course], seemed like a good idea for our first foreign holiday together, in August 1970. We ended up at Montreux, where the railway ran between the lake and the youth hostel. The line, on the trans-Alpine Simplon route between Geneva and Milan, was exceptionally busy at all times of the day. Swiss Federal Railways had committed to electric traction early on. Some of their locomotives looked positively ancient, even by 1970, but they were obviously still making a useful contribution.

We took an evening stroll, and were lured to the Montreux Casino by the sound of live music. We asked who was performing and were told it was Cactus. Cactus was a band featuring Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert, both formerly with Vanilla Fudge, an American outfit and one of our favourite progressive [and supposedly psychedelic] groups. They specialised in slowing down, and then incorporating a heavier rock presence to some well-known tunes of the day that had been issued by other artists. It was a unique style and we really liked it. We still have their first five LPs gathering dust under the stairs.

Vanilla Fudge had disbanded and Cactus was the reincarnation. We couldn’t get in to the Montreux venue, but we hung around outside for a time and listened, as the music drifted out over Lake Geneva on a lovely summer’s evening. Apparently, The Doors had also been booked for that night but they had cancelled.

It transpired that Cactus were merely the warm-up act for Black Sabbath. I had thought for decades that it was the trains that kept me awake that night but now I’m not so sure, with all that racket still to come while we were tucked up in our compulsory sheet sleeping bags in our respective dormitories. It’s amazing that we got reservations at the youth hostel at all for that day, come to think of it. Maybe Black Sabbath fans and youth hostels just didn’t go together.

 Montreux, 31/8/70.

Montreux station, 31/8/70.

Swiss Federal Railways electric locomotive No. 10265 at Montreux station, 31/8/70.

A Swiss Federal Railways electric locomotive leaving Interlaken, 31/8/70.

Railcar No. 65 at Chamonix station, 3/9/70.

Carve-up in the Cotswolds

As we explored Britain from the mid-60s onwards and began to appreciate its fabulous variety of scenery, there were some areas that seemed more welcoming than others. The Lakes, Scotland and Cornwall all seemed to have plenty of footpaths and open areas, and, even then, they were [kind of] geared up to receive visitors.

The Cotswolds appeared to have fewer obvious permissive paths and more signs telling you what you couldn’t do and where you couldn’t go, rather than encouraging access. It felt like a bit of a “carve-up” to me. I guessed that partly reflected its role as comparatively productive farmland. I also imagined that a lot of affluent local residents with sizable properties and otherwise uninterrupted views over idyllic English landscapes would probably have been quite happy for it not to be a tourist area at all.

We first visited the Cotswolds on our bikes in 1965, climbing the Cleve Hill escarpment and crossing the hills from west to east. We returned in 1970, with our girl-friends this time, staying at Cleve Hill youth hostel on the 24^th July and Charlbury the next night and travelling in Ian’s two-tone Ford Prefect.

We somehow gravitated towards both Charlbury station and Finstock Halt during our brief stay in the area. Charlbury station was opened in 1853 by the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. It is a Grade 2 listed building in the Italianate style. The line was singled through both stations the year after our visit. Double track was reinstated at Charlbury in 2011.

Opened by the Great Western Railway in 1934, Finstock Halt officially became just Finstock in May 1969, though the running-in board did not yet reflect the change. By 1980, the GWR corrugated iron shelters had been replaced by a modern “bus-stop” style waiting area on a re-built platform occupying the site of the former down line.

It was a warm and muggy evening, overcast after rain, when I took these photographs. Occasional shafts of low light penetrated the clouds. Local services were in the hands of DMUs and the main line expresses to Paddington from Hereford and Worcester, which did not stop at Finstock, were diesel-hauled by Warship Class locomotives.

Ah, yes. Nothing better than a bit of late in the day train spotting along the local main line to make a short break complete. You can’t say we didn’t know how to give the girls a treat……………....  

Well, she was just 17

Our first trip to the re-opened SVR was in mid-1970, just months after the passenger service from Bridgnorth had been reinstated by volunteers. These pictures from my early colour slides were developed in July 1970. Hampton Loade was the end of the line at that time. That is where I think the first picture was taken and probably the second one as well. Graham’s Vauxhall Viva, just visible, provided our means of transport on that day. Chris was just 17. You know what I mean.