Playing Through the Lines

I love the way the pundits try to make football a more complicated game than it really is by regularly inventing new phrases to describe stuff that all good teams have always done as a matter of course. Last year it was “pressing” that was dropped into every possible conversation, and this year its “playing through the lines”, which we were already referring to as a through ball, fifty years ago.

Computer graphics now allow all sorts of measurements of patterns and performance, including those lines that connect encircled back-four players “look at the straight line across the back - playing as a unit”. We used to refer to it as pushing up together to catch opponents offside. I don’t think that anything much has really changed, in spite of the technology now used to illustrate it. It’s a simple game, however you want to dress it up. Some of this over-analysis enabled by fancy graphics belongs in Pseud’s Corner.

Playing through the lines was what we were doing at the engine sheds. They were dangerous places, though we never took unnecessary extra risks. We could, however, have easily been undone by a momentary lack of concentration, such was the buzz that those places offered, so you had to concentrate on what you were doing. We approached them with the happy confidence of youth. Now, concentration and confidence are things that makes a difference - in football, too!     

Full of Surprises

The Contemporary Art Gallery in Nottingham overlooks the tell-tale blue brick retaining walls of the former Great Central Railway, at the point that expresses bound for London Marylebone burst out of the tunnel mouth and straight onto the junction at Weekday Cross.

The Contemporary, itself, likes to surprise - even to shock - with its rapid turn-over of modern art. Some of it is bewildering and some amusing. Sometimes it is challenging and quite upsetting, and occasionally it seems banal beyond belief. It is always different - though not necessarily refreshingly so.

I’m always up for giving it a go, and I find little gems that take my attention from time to time, as was the case last week within an exhibition entitled Still Undead: Popular Culture in Britain Beyond the Bauhaus. This time, it was in the form of three London Underground posters designed by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in the 1920s.  

The Manchester Club Trains

The club trains were initially provided by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the London North Western Railway to carry businessmen commuters to their office jobs and back - to Blackpool, Southport, Windermere and Llandudno. They each provided a special saloon carriage that offered comfort and privacy for those paying a supplement to join the club. They continued to operate under the London Midland and Scottish Railway between the wars, but were discontinued during World War Two and not resurrected after it.

However, the fast, early trains and their return workings would have still carried on into British Railways days and its not difficult to imagine that the club mentality [especially for those who were “in the know”] lived on amongst many of the commuters whose lengthy daily journeys were the cost of working in the big city and living by the sea, much as it does in many other parts of the country today.

John Harrison’s atmospheric watercolour painting of the North Wales Club Train shows the southbound evening train heading back to North Wales through Warrington Bank Quay behind a Black Five. She would only be on the west coast main line for a short time before taking the Chester line south of the town.

Warrington BQ was one of the first locations we visited with our school railway society, probably in late 1960. We walked up the approach road from Warrington Central to see 46223 Princess Alice at the head of an express for the north. The club train would have already passed through without stopping by then and we would have left for home and our tea before she returned.  

Port at War - Liverpool 1939-1945

I recently rediscovered this book, left to me by my Dad. It was written in 1946 by TJ Buckley on behalf of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. It includes photographs showing what the Luftwaffe did to Liverpool during the blitz, but concentrates on the endeavours made to keep the port operational in response to aggression.

The three railway related contributions are of USA locomotives being unloaded in Birkenhead docks and of British and foreign troops at Riverside station, which I regretfully gave little attention to prior to its closure in 1971.

Gedling Country Park

The local borough council have transformed the old Gedling colliery site into an excellent country park. In the café is a wall display that points out some of the links with the past, including this reference to Colwick marshalling yards on the Trent floodplain at the bottom of the hill.

Better known to us as Colwick sheds, the photo shows Class A3 No. 60048 Doncaster, and although Pacifics received attention there it was with freight engines that is was perhaps more usually associated.

   

And Marie’s the Name

Just one of the things that the internet is useful for is gradually putting me right over the words of songs that I’ve got wrong for decades. I suppose we really only had the song itself to go on, unless you were going to go out and buy sheet music, which would have never crossed my mind. It’s just too embarrassing for words to recount what I have sung to myself since 1961 instead of “And Marie’s the Name” - a phrase which was even more obvious, as I see it now as the bracketed prefix to the title of “His Latest Flame”.

I suppose it reflects the fact that I wasn’t too bothered about lyrics at all in the old days, which was itself a topic of some heated discussions, I seem to remember. It was the tune that mattered most - and the exhilaration of that combination of notes that filled your consciousness along with the mood that the tune brought along in its wake.

The internet brings so much information so quickly that its revolutionised the potential for railway enthusiasm as well. www.realtimetrains.co.uk provides spotters with the information they need on the platform via their phones. www.prorail.co.uk keeps tabs on the railwayana scene and now www.railadvent.co.uk keeps me posted - by the minute almost, though I don’t remember asking it to, about every occurrence out there on the network, or so it seems. My life has changed in so many ways, or more accurately, my life has changed in oh so many ways.

Happy Birthday, John Harrison - Railway Artist

John Harrison was born eighty-nine years ago today. Though never a train spotter, the London Midland and Scottish Railway was never far away while John was growing up in Lancashire, whether for holidays, shopping trips, family visits or the occasional commute if the buses weren’t running. After art training in Liverpool, John went on to become Head of Art in a large comprehensive school. Having eventually taken early retirement, he was able to concentrate on his own railway art. A full member of the Guild of Railway Artists - and formerly on the guild council - he adds, “my work is unashamedly nostalgic, seeking to recapture the men, machines and atmosphere of a departed way of life”. John Harrison’s work, with watercolour as his usual medium of choice, certainly exudes atmosphere - heavy grey skies, wet days, polluted air and railwaymen going about their business. John captures the gritty everyday reality of the steam railway in the 1950s and 1960s as well as anyone. Most competent railway artists communicate the appearance of the steam locomotive effectively in technical terms. It is skill on a different level to additionally bring to life railwaymen in their everyday surroundings as convincingly as he does. It was a pleasure to meet him yesterday and to travel back home with this particularly evocative John Harrison original - a glimpse inside Sutton Oak shed, entitled Memories of 8G. It is a scene so reminiscent of our own frequent visits to the next shed in the list - 8H Birkenhead. Happy returns of the day, John. Thank you for welcoming me and for sharing some of your own memories so readily.

Original railway art sold at railwayana auctions in 2019

Only original paintings depicting railways in Britain and sold at the main railwayana auction houses during 2019 are included below - GCRA, GNRA, GWRA [including their “buy and go” sales], Stafford and Talisman. The online auction at railwayana.net did not hold a sale in 2019. Postal auctions [as at GCRA] are not included below, neither are results from general auction houses that hold occasional railwayana auctions [as at Thirsk], nor any that have railwayana sections within mixed sales. Paintings that were in the auction catalogues but which did not sell on the day are not included. Other railway paintings will certainly have changed hands in fine art sales elsewhere during the same period. All the information from which this summary has been taken has been available in the auction houses’ own online archives. Railway paintings continue to make a noticeable contribution to the variety of objects for sale at railwayana auctions, and, unsurprisingly, examples of original artwork provide popular catalogue cover illustrations for many of those auctions. The work of a relatively small group of leading railway artists repeatedly attracts considerably more interest than the majority of the art works brought to auction. The prolific output over recent years from Guild of Railway Artists associate member, Joe Townend, continued in 2019, when 27 of his unframed paintings were sold at these auctions, contributing 31% of all the paintings sold.



1. The number of original railway paintings sold at the main live auctions continues to fluctuate: 2011 - 32, 2012 - 41, 2013 - 61, 2014 - 88, 2015 - 105, 2016 - 136, 2017 - 81,

2018 - 66, 2019 - 87.



2. The number of railway artists whose work was sold at these auctions in 2019 was the same as in the previous year: 2011 - 25, 2012 - 20, 2013 - 27, 2014 - 34, 2015 - 42, 2016 - 48,  2017 - 31, 2018 - 25, 2019 - 25.



3. In 2019, the number of railwayana auction events that sold railway paintings was more than in the previous year: 2011 - 7, 2012 - 10, 2013 - 13, 2014 - 19, 2015 - 18, 2016 - 22, 2017 - 18, 2018 - 14, 2019 - 16. 



4. In 2019, nine paintings by five different artists reached or surpassed a £1,000 hammer price at railwayana auctions. Since 2011, the number of such paintings sold at these venues each year and the artists concerned were:



2011 - 3 paintings - by Heiron [2], Broom,

2012 - 3 paintings - by Bottomley, Hawkins, Broom,

2013 - 8 paintings - by Broom [2], Breckon [2], Heiron, Root, Price, Freeman,

2014 - 7 paintings - by Root [3], Elford, Breckon, Freeman, Hawkins,

2015 - 11 paintings - by Breckon [3], Hawkins [2], Root [2], Beech, Ellis, Elford, Price.

2016 - 13 paintings - by Breckon [4], Price [3], Hawkins [2], Freeman, Root, Broom,

                                  Greene,

2017 - 7 paintings - by Freeman [2], Price [2], Broom, Root, Breckon,

2018 - 9 paintings - by Hawkins [4], Breckon [2], Price [2], Root,

2019 - 9 paintings - by Breckon [4], Broom, Cuneo, PO Jones, Root,  

And for Christmas, Bob wanted to give her a drum [but why?]

I wended my way to the GC Railwayana auction at Stoneleigh with Bob Dylan for company, this time. When I’m on my own, I tend to listen to other peoples’ conversations for entertainment, though I realise that this is not necessarily an endearing characteristic. A stall-holder drew his visitor’s attention to a collection of luggage labels, which I gathered were a job lot from a previous [now, late] avid collector. “Very soon, nobody will know what they were”, he added ruefully.

On another stall, I noticed a blue enamel sign from LNER days. I was about to ask if I could take a picture of it when someone snapped it up. Perhaps he saw me eyeing it and decided to take the plunge there and then. It said something like “Please lock the back wheels of your bicycle”. I was just imagining the possible scenario that had made that sign a requirement, when it disappeared through the door in the company of its new owner, before being locked above the back wheel in the boot of a car.

I always gravitate to the paintings, these days. Once again, I’m tab-hanging. Do other people see what I see? Do they share my tastes about what makes a good railway painting? My guess is that both of these men next to me are too young to remember steam as an everyday occurrence on the main line in the 1960s. “The number plate’s wrong”. I couldn’t see that. It looked perfectly OK to me. “It’s in the wrong place”…. “He’s got that right”, he said, turning to the next painting, “..but it’s not so technical”. In this second painting, the engine is further away, so the same level of detail is probably not necessary [or even possible], though the perspective and the overall accuracy, I agree, is certainly present. They go back to the first painting. “The smoke’s wrong. It’s a shed scene. It wouldn’t be so thick”. I’ve heard this one before elsewhere, though coincidentally [and somewhat surprisingly], it was the same artist coming in for criticism. Then it had been a rather scornfully, “How can you have the smoke from two engines in the same painting blowing in different directions?”

When I got home, I checked out number plate positions when compared to photographs on Coronation Pacifics and Jubilees. Both paintings were accurate representations.

Smoke, however, is very variable stuff. It is perfectly possible for smoke to appear to blow from one locomotive stopped in a station in the direction of the prevailing wind and for the smoke from another locomotive travelling through the scene towards the former, light engine, to trail its steam in what appears to be an into the wind direction. For locos on shed, the possible variations in the amount, colour, density and direction taken by smoke emanating from smokebox chimneys are almost limitless. They might include - the state of the fire [firing up, building up steam or dropping the fire], the type and quality of the coal and the impact of hosing down, wind or lack of it [strength, direction, consistent or gusty], the open or hemmed in nature of the yard, the presence of nearby locos, nearby buildings [inside, outside, near or far, tall or single storey].

It makes a nonsense of trying to make definitive judgements about the circumstances on the day. You have to conclude that some people just like to try to sound authoritative even when they are not. My advice would be, if you weren’t there on the day and you only have the painting to go on, give the artist the benefit of the doubt. The artist was there [or at least had a photo to go on].         

Crossed Lines

Hotels often display the worst examples of corporate art. So many spaces to fill, most of which will be subsequently ignored by most of those passing through. Something still has to be up there, otherwise it will look - well, quite empty. They are, by definition, mass-produced, but also frequently bland, with a tendency to smudgy, sloppy impressionist offerings that don’t really provide an impression of anything recognisable. Usually quite colourful, but too often garish, they might add a bit of variety to an otherwise blank wall, but fail to draw people in with any specific focus.

Not so, at the 17^th century Wotton House Hotel, near Dorking in the Surrey Hills - the former residence of the botanist, diarist, designer and collector, John Evelyn. It is decorated with prints of the plants that he investigated, portraits of the family and a range of other themed exhibits. In the bedroom and above the headboard is a large-scale version of a Victorian map of the surrounding area, showing the routes taken by the two railway lines that crossed in the town.

The north-south line uses the Mole valley through the North Downs to connect London to Horsham. It was built by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and opened in 1867, serving Dorking station. The east-west North Downs line was opened by the Reading, Guildford and Reigate Railway in 1849. Great Western Railway services stop at Dorking West and Dorking Deepdene stations.

Oops, Missed It!

Luckily, Chris did much better with a panning shot on her phone. This is Salfords, in Surrey, and the Black Five was on its way to the south coast with a dining train from London Victoria on Tuesday 26 November. It sounded - and looked - as though she was going very well. I thought that I had already taken two pictures before this one, but it seems that I had not pressed the shutter right down on either occasion. Call yerself a photographer? Not really. And anyway, its a fairly new camera....and it was raining - quite heavily, actually.... 

Takes yer back

The one advantage of the “Multies” [DMUs] was that you could see the numbers on approaching steam locomotives from the comfort of your seat, instead of having to stick your head out of the window. So, it was in the sixties between Birkenhead Woodside and Chester General, as well as New Brighton to Chester Northgate and Wrexham. This reminder was at the Great Central Railway’s “Last Hurrah” of the season on Sunday.

Seacombe station

These shots of Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2 tank No. 41231 were taken by John Dyer in October 1958. The train is destined for Wrexham Exchange. I can’t remember going to Seacombe station, but in 1957/8 I attended Poulton Junior School, where the line ran through a cutting [now occupied by the tunnel approach road] at the foot of the playground. Mum also allowed me a brief occasional detour on our way home to visit Poulton station in Mill Lane.

Bouncy, bouncy

We took the Pacer unit from Worksop to Sheffield. They will soon be pensioned off to be replaced by proper trains [OK, still bug carts].

I know they have their following as curiosities but the heater wasn’t heating, the draught whistled round the cavernous interior and the rain seemed to be on both sides of the window, even though the top vent was closed, as it bounced and swayed its way over the points all the way to Sheffield.

The pedestrian walkway connecting Sheffield city centre to the station has been transformed since the last time I was there with the addition of the impressive steel sculpture and fountain in Sheaf Square. 

Legbourne Road station

The station was opened by the East Lincolnshire Railway in 1848 on its Louth to Boston route. It later became part of the Great Northern Railway, then LNER and finally BR. It closed to passengers in 1953, to goods in 1964 and the line itself in 1970. The station building became a private house and the owners operated a museum of railwayana until their retirement in 1998 and an auction the following year.

Market Rasen

The station was opened in 1848 on the Great Grimsby and Sheffield Junction Railway. It is a Grade II listed building, which once boasted an overall roof. It became derelict after closure in 1995. The redundant signal box was reinstated at Quorn on the Great Central Railway.

Restoration of the station buildings took place between 2015 and 2018 after the intervention of the organisers of the Market Rasen Station Community Project, who made a successful grant application towards refurbishment. It now has a café, community rooms and a heritage centre with a display. East Midlands Trains today run a somewhat sparse passenger service between Lincoln and Grimsby on this former GCR and LNER route. 

Great Central Railway Autumn Steam Gala 2019

Quorn and Woodhouse is always a good place to watch the action at these events. The Schools Class, Repton, and the ex-LSWR National Collection T9 were visiting. 30120 is as old as the GCR itself.

Looking at the Bigger Picture

I noticed this chalkboard on the platform at Loughborough Central station last week. It is quite an impressive list.

Incidentally, if you ever wondered who it was that stuck down the blue-tac fixing the bottom right hand corner of the map of the GCR to the table, as featured in the BBC’s Victorian Railway series, Full Steam Ahead, then I’m able to announce that, yes, it was me, actually.

Good show at the SVR, September 2019

The Thursday and Friday of the SVR Autumn Steam Gala were warm and sunny. We met up with friends for the first two days of the event, starting with a leisurely lunch at the Mug House in Bewdley, outside in the sunshine.

Spam can, City of Wells, was visiting from the East Lancashire Railway, as were the Bluebell Railway’s ex-SR Q Class and the Standard Class 4 from the Mid-Hants Railway. We also took in the Railart Exhibition at the railway museum at Kidderminster station and Rob Rowland’s excellent one-man art show, in the waiting room at Bridgnorth station.

The SVR is my favourite heritage railway. The valley scenery is very attractive and the event itself is always well organised and a pleasure to attend. Bewdley station has a commanding setting and is a hive of activity during gala days, with three well used platforms and the stabling point siding accommodating as many as four steam locomotives at a time.

Kyle of Lochalsh

Kyle of Lochalsh station was opened by the Highland Railway in 1897 as an extension of the line between Inverness and the former terminus at Stromeferry. These two photos were taken forty-six years apart. Today, there is a modest railway museum within the old station building. Although there are only a few trains a day and they are all two coach units, they are well used and the station is a hive of activity for relatively short bursts around arrival and departure times.

Its position is stunning, of course, with the Island of Skye as the backdrop. When we first went there it was by ferry, but a modern bridge and an improved main road now whisk you to the heart of the mountains at Sligachan, affording views of the comparatively smooth surfaced Red Cuillins to the left and the very different, jagged-peaked Black Cuillins to the right. We took the road through the pass to Loch Eynort and interrupted a trio of young golden eagles exploring their territory at a lower height than they are often seen, following a wooded ravine cut into the mountain side next to the narrow road.

Duirinish

We cycled through the woods at Achrianderact, a good spot for pine martins, we were told, though we didn’t see any. After morning coffee at the excellent Croft café, a converted barn on the outskirts of the next village, we made our way carefully over the level crossing and cattle grid at Duirinish station in time to see the 12.16 departure for Inverness. The road took us down to Pointneora, a good spot for otters we were told, though we didn’t see any of them, though the scenery was breath taking. Luckily we did not see any bulls roaming free and blocking our route.

Plockton

The first train of the day, the 11.17 to Kyle of Lochalsh, approaches the single platform at Plockton. The train left Inverness at 8.55 but surely most passengers won’t have minded the lengthy journey through some of Highland Scotland’s finest scenery, with even the chance of a fleeting glimpse of a sea eagle or an otter along the way.


The Highland Railway station was opened in 1897 when the line was extended to Kyle from the former terminus at Stromeferry. The original station building is a protected structure which became a restaurant before its current use as self-catering accommodation.

Bilsthorpe Colliery Branch

This is where the branch line for coal trains from Bilsthorpe colliery [1928-1997] to Mansfield Concentration Sidings, west of Clipstone Forest, crossed the main A614 road. It is now part of national cycleway 6, which skirts Clipstone Forest, once part of the original Sherwood Forest. Bilsthorpe was linked by rail to Ollerton to the north, MCS to the west and Farnsfield to the south. This latter section is now also a cycleway and an extension to the Southwell Trail.

We have cycled from home to Sherwood Pines Forest Park visitor centre and tearoom three times and somehow failed to find the quickest route there on each occasion. This is because there is no signpost on the cycleway indicating at what stage you should leave the old railway route to strike north through the forest via the many possible forest tracks, nor are there any obvious signs in the forest once you are there that lead you directly to the centre, though there are plenty which guide their own cycling routes within the area. This strikes me as a little unhelpful and certainly not indicative of joined up thinking between the cycleway and forest park authorities.

A Standard day at Loughborough

On duty yesterday on the GCR was BR Standard Class 5 4-6-0 No. 73156, looking and sounding in very good nick. She was built in 1956 in Doncaster works but ended up at Barry scrapyard in the mid-1960s before being rescued and restored.

Ah Hah, Jim Lad!

The Black Pearl pirate ship looked as good as ever at the weekend; an amazing, spontaneous community project made of driftwood and run aground at New Brighton. She certainly had an enthusiastic crew on board. No pressed men amongst that lot.

A care home now stands where we remember Mother Redcaps from our youth, a little further along the promenade, with its tales of smuggling and underground passages for the distribution of contraband. When my great grandfather took his photo about 115 years ago it was known as Mr Kitchinman’s house.

Chris’s great, great, great grandfather, William Henry Thorpe, was Master of the Princes Landing Stage in Liverpool during the mid-nineteenth century, overseeing the comings and goings of ocean-going vessels, including, no doubt, coffin ships which were knowingly in poor condition, overloaded and over-insured. They were thus more valuable to their owners if they sunk. 

Chester Tardis

I passed this seat in the NRM on Wednesday. I could easily have spent quite some time sitting there in the Sixties. With Scots and Semis, Counties and Castles, Chester was a busy location. It was either a bike ride along the New Chester Road to sit on the steps alongside the Hoole Road bridge, or a blue number 10 bus from Stroude’s corner to Woodside for the train and a day on [and off] this seat. 

From sheds to transformers

It was another pleasant, bright, warm summer day. I thought I’d go and spend it in the library. Search Engine is the research centre at the Railway Museum in York [they seem to be intent on dropping the “National” bit for some reason.


As I waited for my train back home, I was joined by these two examples of current diesel power. The Class 66, known as “sheds” for fairly obvious reasons, I think, and the more recent Class 68 - a more pleasing design - though the front end reminds me a little of my grandson’s transformer figures. I was half expecting it to suddenly rear up and zap me one. Its even got an appropriate name for the job.

Kingswear

Our destination on the Riviera Express last month was Kingswear, including the ferry crossing to Dartmouth, from where we took a trip up the estuary on board the old steam-driven Kingswear Castle.


Kingswear station is a cosy ex-GWR affair and in the days of steam was the terminus for regular Castle Class hauled expresses from London Paddington.

My type of garden shed

This one was built by the Midland Railway in around 1871. It still stands in the grounds of the old station house, which is now a private residence. Kirklington and Edingley station was on the Mansfield to Southwell line, which closed to passengers in 1929 and to freight in 1964. The shed is on the approach road to the station building and the former goods yard.


The old goods yard site is now used as a car park and picnic area on the Southwell Trail. This is now a peaceful place to watch and listen to birds, though the turtle doves that were annual visitors here are no longer in evidence, nor the cuckoos. A concrete framed loading gauge still stands on what would presumably have been the siding leading into the yard.

The English Riviera Express

My birthday treat from the family was a trip on the English Riviera Express from Bristol Temple Meads to Kingswear on Sunday 7^th July. A good day out was had by all.  Here are a few photos of West Country Class No. 34046 Braunton, at Bristol, Kingswear and taking water at Taunton.


I had last stood on the platform at Taunton in the summer of 1963. When the bus taking me into town from our farm house holiday slowed as it approached the underbridge below the station, I descended the stairs and stood on the open platform at the back of the bus. As I was about to alight at what I though was the bus stop, the bus suddenly speeded up again and I fell off into the middle of the road. I picked myself up and scuttled off for a day’s train spotting on the station, along with a few new cuts and bruises, none of which took the shine off seeing half of all the 800 Class Warships and Castle Class No. 7010 Avondale Castle putting in a cameo appearance to round off the day, as steam was eclipsed from main line duties by the WR’s hydraulic diesels.