Busy Stations

Network Rail recently announced the UK’s busiest and least busy railway stations in the year to the end of March 2022. Waterloo came out at the top of the list and seven more of the top ten were also in London, along with Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly, though total numbers throughout were well down on pre-pandemic levels. London Euston came in seventh. John Dyer’s picture from around 1958 shows Coronation Class No. 46242 City of Glasgow arriving with the Caledonian.

Elton and Orston station, on the ex-GNR route from Nottingham to Grantham, was at the bottom of the table. I went through Elton and Orston on a recent visit to Grantham. Going straight through it is what most trains tend to do, so its not altogether surprising that Elton and Orston has just 40 station entries and exits recorded over a whole twelve-month period. The current rail timetable for Elton and Orston shows one train a day in each direction, the 07.04 to Nottingham and the 17.12 in the Grantham direction.

I have never been to Elton but I did once have a badminton match at Orston. We played in an old church hall with a single court, just like in the old days before the existence of leisure centres. The match went on late, inevitably, but I remember that because the ceiling was typically much lower in such venues, my normally over-used and predictable drop shot technique came into its own for once. It was a dark, cold winter’s night, and in between games, which turned out to be a lot of the time, we huddled round the only available Calor gas heater. Just down the road, the platforms at Elton and Orston station remained predictably quiet, untrodden and overlooked all the time that we were there.

 

Not Leamington Spa

I was so enthused by the impressive take off of my latest book – 5 sales in the first month since publication - that my thoughts obviously turned to a sequel. What would it be? Still on Track?  Making Further Tracks? In preparation, I made a list of places that I wanted to go to that were a little further from home. They would be stations that I had never been to or only passed through, including a few that I had always wanted to visit. I could also spend some time on stations where I had previously changed trains while on my way somewhere else. At the top of my list was Leamington Spa, the reasons for which will remain a closely guarded secret until I have fulfilled my mission.

I try to ensure that my train trips coincide with times that Chris is also likely to be out all day. Today was such a day. It was pouring down, but the forecast was much brighter for lunchtime and beyond. It was also six degrees and the rain was diagonal if not horizontal by the time that I reached Lowdham station for the 9.54 to Derby. There are two bus shelter affairs on Lowdham station, but the one on the Nottingham platform is open at the sides and so it offers little protection against driving rain. I decided to wait on the Newark platform until a few minutes before departure time.

A slip of a girl wearing a hoody called to me from across the lines to check that she was on the right side for Nottingham, which I assured her was the case. The warning sounded for the barriers to drop. I legged it off the platform, so as not to be caught “wrong side” when the train arrived. I was too late. The road was closed to road traffic for the whole day anyway at the level crossing, and there were two high-viz’ Network Rail men sheltering from the rain in their van. I was stuffed. How embarrassing - I would be stuck wrong side watching my train go off to Derby without me. Then Class 70 No. 70813 came through very briskly with oil tanks, and a bug cart shot through in the other direction towards Newark. The gates opened and I realised I had not missed my train after all, though surely it was due by now - and I was quite wet by this stage.

The girl in the shelter said she was freezing, in answer to my greeting. I said our train must be due and she looked up from the noisy but otherwise obviously magnetic action on her phone - which up to that point had received her undivided attention - to tell me that it was currently eighteen minutes late. I felt a shade deflated to be put right by someone who wasn’t even sure if she was on the right platform for her train. I could have checked this out myself, had a risked getting my phone wet in order to consult Realtime Trains. That was how I had wrecked my last mobile phone, though. I tried not to look too sheepish. I had already missed my connection at Derby for Leamington Spa, for which a mere ten minutes transfer was allowed. My plans for the day were in ruins. “I think I’ll give it a miss, today”, I said, as I made for my car. “Don’t blame you”, replied the hooded figure, barely raising her eyes from the screen. 

As I drove home, I thought about why I had given up so easily. Who knows how the day would have panned out had I pressed on. It could have been a magical mystery tour. As alternatives, I could easily have spent the day at Derby or Leicester, instead. Where was my ability for lateral thinking? Where was my appetite to make the best of a bad job? As it happened, I was no sooner home again, than there were fairly urgent requests on my time in my parental and grandparental capacity and, as always, I was happy to be able to help. Nevertheless, I didn’t know that at the time I made my decision to abort my mission. I really must galvanise myself more readily and, literally, to go off at a tangent sometimes. Perhaps the comfort zone I readily retreat into has become a little too comfortable for my own good. Seize the time! I shouldn’t be wasting it being faint-hearted. On the plus side, I copped 70813 and I’d already made my sandwiches for lunchtime. Then the sun came out. It would have been a good afternoon for photos - low air pressure and clear skies, but hey ho.

        

Brunel’s Walls

Amongst Brunel’s lasting achievements are these two significant railway walls. Both have recently received attention that has had an impact on their original design. Sydney Gardens in Bath had some rickety temporary fencing in place, in response to sporadic trespassing, when I was last there. It looked awful but also seemed to have been there for ages. Brunel’s GWR had originally cut through the pre-existing Georgian gardens, in 1840. Network Rail has recently completed the upgrade to complement the concurrent National Heritage Fund improvements taking place within the public park itself.

The sea wall at Dawlish was opened in 1846 and has become an iconic venue for train watchers. As well as also being subject to occasional trespass, it has, more critically, always been susceptible to the power of the waves. Both these boundary walls are now restored - at Bath, with new railings on top of the balustrade, and at King’s Walk, Dawlish, where railings were already in place. The promenade here has been redesigned as part of extensive coastal defence work that is still ongoing. Photo opportunities may have become a little more challenging in both cases as a result, but they are still possible and I, for one, am extremely grateful for that, even if I don’t get back there any time soon. The photos are from July 1974 and July 1998.

     

Up North, Down South

November’s Railway Magazine has an interesting article about a recently rediscovered account of a journey made in 1934 from Rye to Glasgow by Michael Cobb, then just 17-years-old, in which the author, John Heaton, compares those experiences with a trip along the same route today. Michael was not perhaps your typical schoolboy railway enthusiast – Harrovian, distinguished Army Colonel, to be, and eventually a PhD. Nevertheless, his observations were amusing and perceptive and he included timed locomotive performances along the way.

As he headed towards Crewe, Michael’s appetite for the landscape he was passing through noticeably dropped, describing it as uninteresting and depressing as he approached the north west of England’s industrial heartlands. Wigan was wet and dismal. Between Preston and Lancaster, he was having difficulty with the regional accents of the railwaymen he was sharing a carriage with, but soon into the hills, he picked up sufficiently to notice the marvellous scenery, mentioning that it was even becoming “fairly civilised” as the Lake District came into view.

As a “southerner meets the north” scenario, it reminded me of a recent encounter at the breakfast table at our Bournemouth hotel. An elderly gentleman stopped at my elbow, en route to his reserved corner table in the restaurant, overlooking the flat roof and the car park. “Where are you from?....That’s a long way, then….Is that where the barbarians come from?.... We come from Southampton….This is our bolt hole….We’ve been coming here every year for twenty years…. Nottingham, that’s a long way to come…. We know someone from Derbyshire….Anything up there’s a bit wild isn’t it?.... His wife appeared and guided him to his seat.

I was still wrestling with Barbarians or barbarians. I know of the rugby team but thought that they were homeless rather than indicative of any particular northern-ness, so I assumed that he meant barbarians because we were from north of Watford [or maybe more likely Eastleigh]. The intimation was, of course, that we were relative savages, except, naturally, that he didn’t actually believe that, but his brand of humour, flagging up perceived “different-ness” between northeners and southerners, was clearly his long established and reliable “go-to” ice breaker when meeting new people with a whiff of any accent other than his own.

In my experience, its invariably southerners that bring up this supposed divide. I don’t quite get it to be honest. I mean I understand the contrasts between the north and the south in terms of industrial and cultural history, and though the expanding Bournemouth conurbation appears to be a relatively wealthy part of the country by anyone’s standards, extreme poverty is certainly more apparent in the old industrial cities, and they happen to be mostly in the north and the Midlands. Stories from my son’s teaching practice experiences in a choice part of Plymouth dockland, inequality and anti-social behaviour in Bristol which seems to be as rife as in other port cities, drug related violent crime in London and the migrant crisis [debacle, more like] currently concentrated in Kent, are not much of an argument for rigid simplifications based on latitude. Different places face different challenges, but let’s not rush to judgement about points of the compass being the key factor.

Nor do I want to hear platitudes and patronising bleating from folk down south about folk up north being the salt of the earth, ever so friendly, do anything for you, loveable rogues, misunderstood victims or stoical survivors. I remember just one crucial concept from my brief philosophy course - Respect for Persons. It is so simple and all encompassing. Treat others as you would expect to be treated. I think we could usefully add in this context “regardless of where they come from”. Regional stereotyping quickly becomes lazy commentary and tedious to listen to.

 

Parkstone

We parked in the car park at Parkstone for a few minutes on our way to park in the multi-storey car park in Poole. South Western Railway services on the Southampton to Weymouth section of the old LSWR had been disrupted by the weather and by a strike that was called off at short notice. Waiting for the Weymouth bound service that was 40 minutes behind schedule, I clocked the road overbridge to the east of the station, reminding me of how much of the Southern Region’s railway infrastructure was made in concrete, a contrast with the other regions of BR. Desiro Class 444 EMU No. 444 035 duly arrived and three passengers got off and nobody boarded the train. The 5-car Class 444 units were built by Siemens in Austria between 2002 and 2004.

 

Rhyl or Windermere?

Via Loughborough Central, today. Not sure, really. Rhyl has seaside but Windermere has the lakes and mountains. Some nicer places along the North Wales coast than Rhyl, but then Windermere and Bowness are not really Lakeland at its best, either. Truth is that if you are driving an elderly DMU towards Leicester, then you can pretty much choose your own destination by just scrolling down until you find something that appeals. The rest, though, is down to your imagination.

   

Narrative art and the railway, alive and well in Bournemouth and Poole

When I first started looking at the various ages and sequences of art during the two-hundred-year history of the railway, I was particularly taken by narrative art. In a railway context, this began with the Victorian Social Realists. The ability to tell an intriguing story through a single image, or maybe via two related pictures, can involve a degree of deduction and speculation that simply increases the interest of the piece.

On our recent visit to Bournemouth, we discovered by chance that the Russell-Cotes Gallery was featuring an exhibition entitled Telling Tales: The Story of Victorian Narrative Art, until March 2023. I had already come across James Tissot, who produced a few paintings in a railway setting, though I had not seen this offering before - The Captain’s Daughter: The Last Evening [1873], from Southampton City Art Gallery, which was being used to advertise the overall display.

As the accompanying blurb said, Narrative art “draws in the emotions of the viewer….and makes us feel involved”. The same can be said of the two paintings by Solomon, also brought in from elsewhere and that are very definitely railway related, First Class: The Meeting and Second Class: The Parting [both 1854]. Poole Museum had “Level Crossing, Poole” by Eustace Nash [c.1920s], described as a new acquisition and which – though more recent - arguably comes into the same category.

 

 

Bournemouth station after a bit of a gap

When Andy was on Bournemouth Central station in 1963, he was offered a cab ride in Merchant Navy Pacific No. 35002 Union Castle to Bournemouth West and back, which, needless to say, he gratefully accepted. On the 3^rd August 1965, Ian and I met up at Bournemouth for the day. Ian came up from Weymouth, where he was on holiday with his family and I came down by coach from Crewkerne on what was ostensibly a day by the seaside for everyone else on board the bus, except for the rest of our family. They all went to visit my mum’s auntie who lived in the town.

I think that we saw MNs No’s. 35027/26/11 and BB/WC No’s 34101/009/053/76/59/77/51/32/60. I’m not sure because this page in my notes has become too worn along the seam for me to be quite certain in every instance. Ian reminds me that we also got kicked out of the sheds. The good thing about the sheds was that you could see into them from the down platform. The bad thing about the sheds was that they were tricky to get round, because, although they were nearby, the approach was very open and the site was right next to the main line and so staff were obviously on the ball from a safety point of view as far as keeping out spotters was concerned.

Fifty-seven years later and here I am at Bournemouth once again – no longer called Central, since the closure of West. The impressive overall roof is still there and the two extensive and wide platforms are as before. We caught it on a particularly quiet day this time, with disruptions to services caused by an overspill from subsequently dropped strike action plus the impact of severe weather further east. There were plenty of potential customers around but many were looking somewhat confused by all the uncertainty on the rails.

The first thing I noticed when I walked onto the platform was the removal of the through lines. This practice is commonplace on the network, of course, as rationalisation and attendant signalling upgrades have led to simpler track layouts. I hate it. It looks so empty. That’s nostalgia for you. The world does not stand still. Sometimes, it’s best not to go back. Sometimes, it’s probably best to simply live with the memories. Sometimes, however, I just can’t help myself.

Didcot Railway Centre

It was so long ago that we had visited GWS Didcot that the car parking arrangements have been transformed and I’d forgotten exactly where the underpass was that leads to the site. A thoughtfully positioned signpost at that point would have been helpful during a heavy squall, especially as it’s still a bit of a trek.

They have got an undeniably varied collection of GWR locos and artefacts at Didcot. Gas turbine prototype No. 18000 was looking a bit shabby and forlorn in the yard - as though it also would have appreciated a bit more cover from the elements, and the elements were certainly doing their bit, on and off, to make the point.

I had not seen No. 4079 Pendennis Castle since March 1967 when she came to Chester on a special train, so it was good to renew that acquaintance. The blue King is always a welcome sight, even when tucked up and stone cold, deep in the shed. But where was Lady of Legend, the new build Saint Class? We were informed that she was in the engineering workshop having her connecting rod put back on and therefore temporarily out of bounds to visitors. Nevertheless, an enthusiastic and obliging GWS volunteer negotiated safe passage for us to witness the event, which was accomplished with the help of a heavyweight jack and four strong men. It was a good example of old technology in action in an industry that gave employment to so many and was rewarded in turn by loyalty and a real sense of belonging. The GWS is doing a fine job in preserving GWR heritage and making it accessible to successive generations.

   

The day we went to Grantham

The day that Grah’, Andy, John and I went to Grantham was the 10^th of April 1969 and that night we stayed at the youth hostel. Grantham YH is no longer listed on the YHA site, nor could I find it in a list of former youth hostels, so perhaps I imagined the whole thing. I certainly took two photos on the station and a few more on the East Coast Main Line a little further north. We were already too late getting to Grantham in 1969. Ten years before that we would have enjoyed a feast of Eastern Region Pacifics, especially as many expresses changed locomotives there, on their way to and from King’s Cross. By the time we got there it was mostly Deltics on the fast passenger services. Some folk would have gladly settled for that, of course, but as a lad we spoke to on the platform said at the time, “I’m not going to write their numbers down because I’ve seen them all, haven’t I?” There were only 22 of them, and you probably wouldn’t have had to stand on Grantham station that long to see the lot.

Today, I stepped onto these same platforms for the first time in fifty-three years. My journey from Bingham on the old Great Northern Railway route to Nottingham was uneventful. Both the Class 170 that took me there on its way to Skegness and the Class 156 that brought me back were busy, though I seemed to be the only one on board still wearing a facemask. Belvoir Castle dominated the view across its vale to the south for most of the twenty-minute, or so, on the train. A drinks-trolley suddenly appeared a few minutes before I left the train. I guess that only regular travellers on the route will know if that is really a rare event.

Main line services at Grantham are provided by LNER and Hull Trains and cross-country routes by East Midlands Railway. Azumas rule OK, interrupted from time to time by the cross-country bug carts. Light engine Class 56 No. 56091 was going south on the slow line west of the station itself and Class 37 No. 37611 was northbound at the head of a few empty carriages and waiting in the loop, for its eventual path, but the low, afternoon November sun was all wrong for both of them.  

Grantham’s GNR station, dating from 1852, looked well cared for. The loos were clean, they had made an effort with their raised flower beds and even added some window boxes. There was plenty of seating for us old folk and the fancy patterned Great Northern Railway wrought ironwork is still propping up the canopies most sturdily. The digital display was as clear an example as I’ve seen and the platform announcements came straight from the mouth of a real person. Well-used modern lifts have been tagged onto the passenger footbridge connecting number one to the other platforms. Though the Whistle Stop pub was closed [and thus even more appropriately named], the Starbucks café - accessed from the main entrance and the ticket office - was doing a roaring trade and a rival Costa take-away kiosk further down the London platform added a bit of coffee competition. The waiting room on the island platform, serving numbers two to four, had vending machines as well as some modern stained-glass highlight windows, one of which featured a blue A4 as a reminder of the station’s former glory days. There was a lot of bustling around going on, as there should be at a junction station, while passengers search for their connections.