GCR Gala October 2012

Here are a few pictures from yet another successful GCR gala in the not too distant past. It looks like we settled in again at Quorn for our steam fix, which was supplied by the usual combination of some interesting visitors and the home fleet. 

Probably the best railway book in the world

The Railways - Nation, Network and People, by Simon Bradley, is well-written, entertaining and informative. I’m only on page 112, so I’ve still got another 500 to go but its already made quite an impression. At a few pages at a time, it should keep me amused for some time to come.

Here’s a taster [almost literally] on the demise of smoking on trains [p.111]. “Now, even the most lovingly accurate re-creation on the country’s preserved railways cannot bring back the sour smell of wet tobacco ash, smeared thinly in solution with other dirt over the linoleum flooring of a crowded second-class carriage on a rainy winter’s day; nor the grey-black deposit of carbonised tobacco particles inadvertently picked up when the shoulders of coats and jackets rubbed against the tainted condensation on single-glazed carriage windows”.

Certainly brings it all back for me.

 

Lincoln St Mark's station

The station was opened by the Midland Railway in 1846 and was closed to all traffic by British Rail in 1985. It had only been known as “St Mark’s” since 1950.

After lying derelict for some years, the main station building with its classical-style portico was incorporated into the development of a new shopping centre. It is currently occupied by commercial concerns that include Lakeland and Argos.

From the warmth of the coffee house opposite, we admired the warm honey-coloured stone of the station façade on the other side of the now pedestrianised station approach road while the barista warmed to his task, ruing imminent changes in high street retailing. My attention drifted off. How could I have possibly failed English literature “0” level so badly?

 

Land, City & Sea

This exhibition at The Collection - no doubt still better-known to some as the old Usher Gallery in Lincoln - includes examples of the work of some “British Masters from the David Ross Collection”.

David Ross, the co-founder of Car-Phone Warehouse, collects British art made within his lifetime. The exhibition “explores the many different ways modern and contemporary artists have responded to the landscape, be it city or countryside, suburb or seaside”.

I found a railway painting - “From Willesden Green No 2”. The artist, Leon Kossoff, whose style is described as expressionist and who has chosen a number of scenes that include railway locations, has commented that “Train lines open out the landscape, somehow”. 

I agree with this statement, as it happens, but I could not see how the picture helped, in this respect. 

Copyright prevents me from including it here, though it can easily be found on the internet. We were not allowed to take pictures in the gallery.

Honister

Intent instead on giving my knees a good seeing-to again in the hills, I hadn’t expected to come face to face with any old railway engines for a few days.

A series of narrow-gauge underground and surface tramways and railways have served the green slate quarries at Honister at different times in the past. The site is now also open as a tourist attraction.

One of the old locomotives sits in front of a wagon loaded with slate on a short section of track just inside the car park entrance.

The Flying Scotsman Nameplate

I had been looking forward to going to GW Railwayana’s auction at Pershore yesterday but a heavy cold quite literally put the dampers on things. Luckily, GWRA is the only railwayana auction house which has live bidding on the internet [via the-saleroom.com], or if you prefer it you can just watch as proceedings unfold.

I settled down at home for a more comfortable few hours than I would have had reaching for the tissues on a two-hour car journey. The big attraction was the sale of a nameplate from the Flying Scotsman. Would it beat the record for any nameplate at a railwayana sale, standing at £60,000 for A4 Class No. 60030 Golden Fleece? 

The hammer finally fell at £64,500. Maybe you even heard it here first.

Night Mail

“This is the Night Mail crossing the border,

Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

The shop at the corner, the girl next door….”

Auden’s famous poem provided the commentary for a GPO film that I probably first saw in our blacked-out geography room at school during a meeting of the railway society. It wasn’t the first railway poem to be set to the beat of a moving train. Robert Louis Stevenson’s “From a Railway Carriage” had employed the same technique.

The Great Central Railway’s demonstration mail train is always a highlight at gala days. The picture shows Oliver Cromwell blasting through Quorn and Woodhouse in 2012 at the head of the GPO rake and about to collect the mail bags from the lineside apparatus.

Large Prairie

I first saw ex-GWR 5101 Class Large Prairie tank No. 4141 on the scrap line at Barry docks on 31/7/64. I had travelled there on the train from our family summer holiday in Somerset. Our train passed Evening Star in steam as we approached Cardiff.

The word “Prairie” describes the 2-6-2 tank’s wheel arrangement, one which was also used for other GWR classes, including the lighter locomotives of the 4500 Class known as the Small Prairies. There were a number of examples of both classes languishing at Barry.

The more recent photos show No. 4141 during her visit to the GCR in 2010 - at Loughborough Central and Leicester North. She is now based at the Epping Ongar Railway, though she is currently undergoing major overhaul off-site.

Jinty

The humble ex-LMS Class 3F 0-6-0 tank was sometimes called a coffeepot - a term also used to describe at least one other class of locomotive - but it was best known to us as a jinty. It was also “the other engine” on my 1950s Tri-ang layout, very much playing second fiddle to Princess Elizabeth.

They were often employed as station pilots at Liverpool Lime Street, bringing empty stock down from Edge Hill and giving departing London expresses a bit of a shove out of the platform and up the hill.

In 1966, late on in the days of steam, I photographed one undertaking similar parochial duties at Chester General station. The 2015 pictures were taken at Loughborough Central station on the current GCR.

Fashion Icon [2]

Here is an unflattering picture of me getting in the way of an otherwise perfectly adequate shot of one of my favourite engines. I hasten to add that it is also a nice picture of some significant others. It was taken at Hellifeld station in 2014.

The zip on this lightweight waterproof [ha ha!] jacket got stuck in the adjacent fabric every time I pulled it up. I got so frustrated with it that I left it on the luggage rack the last time I went to London. I’ve moved on to another natty little number, which I may well be parading before long, once I’ve practised the zip a few times.

Whistler at Compton Verney

The house at Compton Verney was rescued, renovated and then opened in 2004 as an art gallery by the Sir Peter Moores Foundation. Sir Peter was the son of the former Everton chairman, Sir John Moores so I felt fully justified in wearing my EFC tee-shirt under my jumper.

We saw some of Whistler’s better-known pieces in Washington in the summer and much of this current display was of etchings normally housed at the Hunterian in Glasgow. They didn’t do a lot for me, to be honest, though - as is often the case - I think I can see why other people rate them.

The only remotely railway themed picture on view was one such etching of two trains [I think, at a distance] going over Charing Cross bridge.

 

The Churnet Valley Railway

Our only visit, so far, to the ex-North Staffordshire Railway lines was in 2010. Opened in 1849, the railway carried passengers until 1965. It re-opened as a heritage line in 1996. Various upgrades and extensions have been made since then and more are proposed. Returning to Leek is a recurrent theme and there are possible options in other directions as well.

The wooded section alongside the river, the Caldon canal and the railway near Kingsley and Froghall is particularly picturesque. Part of this section is a designated nature reserve and there is also a waterside pub with no road access, the Black Lion, to complete a very heart-warming scene as the steam trains meander up and down the valley.  

Return to Barrow Hill

In 2012, we went back to Barrow Hill for another strong ex-LNER line-up. Not illustrated amongst the few photos I took were Joem, the only steam locomotive I have ever driven [for half an hour], and the “Old Gentleman’s Saloon”.

Featured in the film of the Railway Children that was shot on the Keighley and Worth Valley, LNER Saloon 21661 is, according to the K&WVR, “arguably the oldest operational standard gauge passenger coach in the world”.

I’m certainly not going to argue. I had a nice sit down for a minute or two, and for some reason I felt very comfortably at home in there.

Barrow Hill Roundhouse

There was certainly something special about sheds that had a roundhouse. York [50A], Leeds Holbeck [55A], Croes Newydd [89B] and Sunderland [52G] are all well-remembered, though I never got to Barrow Hill [41E] in the days of steam. Crewe North [5A] had half a roundhouse, though I’m struggling to remember any others that I might also have reached in the 1960s. You could get some very impressive line-ups around the turntable in a roundhouse.

They invariably put on a good show at Barrow Hill, these days. These pictures are from our visit to a special event there in 2010. The raised, central viewing area certainly helps with the photos.

Wakefield Kirkgate

In April 2012, I met up with my friend, Andy, at Wakefield Kirkgate station. It was damp and miserable - then it started to rain. Kirkgate station was about as dilapidated as a station could be with normal service trains still bothering to stop there. 

West Coast Railway’s steam special to Scarborough was hauled by Stanier 2-8-0 No. 48151, a remarkably dependable performer on the preservation scene for decades now. She was late but worth waiting for and you get a good view of the action from the island platform.

Kirkgate station has received a lot of TLC since our visit, which was well-deserved and not before time.