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.