Shrewsbury

Wellington station was just how I remembered it from 1959, or perhaps I’ve just seen some pictures of it since - an airy layout with four tracks, including the loops that serve the main platforms. It’s original buildings, dating from 1849, are thankfully still intact but not all the rooms are in regular use. A four-car Class 158 belonging to Transport for Wales was observed heading for Birmingham. We took the 10.54 in the other direction and due into Shrewsbury at 11.07, in the form of a Class 170 operated by West Midlands Railway.

The station, itself, looked remarkably unchanged over the intervening fifty-seven years since I was last here. The main buildings - now Grade II listed, the overbridge, retaining walls and the extended, shallow V-shaped metal canopies appear just as they were. Shrewsbury has an interesting location, with its centre perched on a hill that is almost surrounded by a meander in the River Severn. We had hoped for a riverside walk on our recent return but that path was still largely under water. The county town has 800 listed buildings including many with that distinctive black and white Tudor-patterned, front elevation.

The River View Café is located at The Parade shops, which occupy the stylish and beautifully preserved Grade II listed building that was completed in 1830 as the Royal Salop Infirmary. The winter sun gave us enough warmth to sit out on the terrace with panoramic views across the still swollen and fast-moving river below. I could pick out Severn Bridge Junction signalbox, itself Grade II listed and recently renovated. It is the largest operational signalbox in the world, a status it is expected to maintain for some time to come, as signalling through Shrewsbury remains a mixture of semaphore and colour light.

The Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery was featuring a display of the work of Ladybird book artists. I recognised some of the names, including Rowland Hiller, Ronald Lampitt and Septimus Scott, because they had also been railway poster and carriage print artists in that same mid-twentieth century era. Ian reminded me that Scott’s stunning Art Deco quad royal poster showing a bathing beauty sitting on the top diving board at New Brighton’s outdoor baths is on display at the entrance to the Station Hall at the NRM.

In 1831, Charles Darwin, who was born and educated in Shrewsbury, had boarded a horse-drawn coach outside the Lion Hotel, the town’s leading coaching inn, and headed off to join the Beagle. Over the next five years, he had collected the animal, plant and fossil samples from four continents that would lead to his theory of natural selection, published in 1859. According to his son, Francis, when Charles Darwin revisited Shrewsbury with his daughter in 1869, he had communicated to her a strong impression of his love for his old home town. The trains had been running into Shrewsbury for over twenty years by then. At least, they should have made his journey home a speedier and more comfortable affair.

 

York

Off we go again - and with grandchildren in tow this time - for a trip on the Azuma to the National Railway Museum. The King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley on Friday 11^th February was pretty busy by the time it left Newark Northgate promptly at 9.46 - or 8.46 as the old Potts clock would prefer to call it. Our first move was to ask the two young ladies occupying our seats to move, so that we were all able to sit within easy reach of each other round a pre-booked table, which is important when you are the one i/c of a constant supply of drinks, snacks, magazines, coloured pencils, football cards, stickers, plastic figures and other forms of entertainment from the bottomless rucksack.

The illuminated panel above the window on the Azumas makes the old “You’re sitting in my seat” routine a whole lot easier to deal with these days. No more arguments over lost reservation cards that might or might not have fluttered to the floor from the little recess above the seat. Each seat’s status is lit up for the current stage of the journey, with red for pre-booked and amber for may be reserved after the current occupiers have left. They even have a little picture of a window next to one of the two numbers to discriminate between window and aisle seats.

Many travellers were still in masks and were requested to keep on doing so over the train’s P.A. [11/2/22 – 58,899 new cases, 1,395 hospital admissions, 12,753 in hospital and 193 deaths recorded]. My grandson kindly informed me that in order to eat chocolate mini-eggs, I would have to dispense with my mask temporarily, as well. Nor does coffee benefit particularly effectively from any extra filtration through an FFP2. My granddaughter looked up from her colouring book to notice that our train was “going really fast”, as indeed it had to get to York in just three-quarters of an hour from Newark, including a stop at Doncaster.

There were three Direct Rail Services Class 68 locomotives in the station when we arrived at York. Nos. 68016, 68023 and 68034 were distributed between north and south facing bays and an imminent departure for Scarborough. When I had told the lads that I had spoken to on Tamworth station recently that I considered this to be the most exciting locomotive design since the Western diesels, I had been informed that that was because they were made in Spain. They certainly have a bit of razzamatazz about them – a dash of Flamenco or an odd “Ole”, or two, in their sharp blue uniforms. I had photographed No. 68032 there on a previous visit.

A visit to the NRM with the family is a whole different ball game to my more usual solitary self-indulgent ventures. We spent as much time in the food hall and the play area outside as we did with the exhibits, though the model train layout intrigued for a short while and the miniature train trip round the yard was probably the highlight of the day. How could I possibly have envisaged that as a possible end game, when as a teenager in the 1960s I was wandering around this same bit of ground, then laid out with the tracks serving York North sheds during the last days of steam.    

I had time for a quiet moment with the blown-up mural that itemises points of interest in Terence Cuneo’s 1967 Waterloo Station painting in Station Hall, which I learnt had included not only a self-portrait, but his wife sitting in their car, Prime Minister Harold Wilson and even President Charles De Gaulle, plus the usual mouse. Nearby are the original George Earl masterpieces, Going North and Coming South, depicting the hunting class at Kings Cross and Perth, respectively. The children helped us to identify some of the trophies that the shooting party was bringing back to the capital with them, including antlers, rabbits and red grouse. The tiled map of the North Eastern Railway network is also worthy of inspection.

This had been inset day for our local schools and we had therefore been able to pick a day before the hordes would be likely to descend during half term. There were one or two school parties there too, including a substantial cohort of year three - that’s seven-and-eight-year-olds - and all in high-vis vests. Well martialled by teachers and helpers, they had been very attentive for a short presentation about the Rocket given by a very animated Railway Museum volunteer. I saw the same gaggle having their lunch afterwards on the undercover picnic benches, also in Station Hall. They were doing more talking than eating and it was quite a racket. I love moments like that, because I know I can walk away without a care in the world. It was not always like that. Taking kids out of school was always a risk and a massive responsibility, but it was also well worth the effort. Their teacher suddenly stood up, aware of the rising decibels. “One, two, three!”, she shouted. “Eyes on me”, they all replied in unison, after which nobody spoke. That’s the way to do it, thought I. It was a masterstroke. Why hadn’t I thought of that. Mind you, I’m not sure it would have worked quite so well with recalcitrant sixteen-year-old youths.

  

Lincoln

The weather didn’t know what it wanted to do with itself on the day I went back to Lincoln. On my early morning bike ride, snowdrops had put in an appearance on the grass verges for the first time this year, hanging brightly from their deep green and very determined shoots. The skylarks I’d heard earlier in the week were out in force again, also convinced that spring was on the way. Sunshine had given way to cloud and there was stiff breeze on top of that by the time I’d arrived at Newark Castle for the 11.57 to Lincoln, which was provided by an on-time two-car Class 156 unit for a 28-minute journey at a cost of £4.40 for us oldies.

Things were quite busy at Lincoln. The 5-car bi-modal Azuma unit would be depending on its own diesel engines to reach the overhead wires at Newark Northgate. Quite a crowd had gathered for the 1.24 departure with the promise of first-class accommodation at the front of the train, as well as an “at your seat” refreshment service, on the journey to King’s Cross. Units also sped off to Sheffield and Leeds, Nottingham and Leicester, Spalding and Peterborough and Grimsby and in less than an hour, three Class 66 hauled freights had carried containers and cement through the centre roads. An elderly gentleman seated on platform 4 suddenly sprang to his feet, temporarily abandoning his half-eaten sandwich to scurry towards the platform end to join three other guys all with cameras trained on the latest Class 66 to pass through eastwards. “Don’t get in the way”, he informed me as I belatedly made it in time to share the moment. I took a step to the side, which luckily was enough to keep him onside. A local bell ringing practice struck up, which also seemed very apt in this characterful cathedral city.

The university at Lincoln has expanded steadily over the years, including the provision of a number of new buildings in the former railway territory close by. Many of the students were now heading home on this Friday afternoon, thus making my own train homewards a bit more problematic than I would have liked. As I waited for my train, the station announcer politely requested that we should use a face covering if we can “as a courtesy to other travellers”, which I thought probably caught the mood appropriately of these ever-changing times. I was quickly on board when the train pulled in and I sat down next to a window on the back seat in the carriage and hoped everyone else would walk past me. The coach filled up and a lady roughly my age with a mask on sat next to me until Hykeham. I had chosen the right side though, because as we accelerated away from that station stop, we passed a marsh harrier, quartering about 2 metres above a meadow of rough grassland, moving very deliberately, head down, tail flicking and alongside the train. For a few moments I stopped worrying about keeping safe. Then two people further down the coach started coughing at the same time. 

     

 

GCR Winter Steam Gala

Good viewing at Quorn and Woodhouse yesterday during the winter steam gala. Guest engines, the home fleet, including the 3-car DMU, the windcutter set and a freight train of closed wagons all contributed variety to the rapid-fire comings and goings. They certainly know how to put on a good show.

Tamworth

I drove to Burton-on-Trent station. I found it perched on top of a hump-back bridge. It looked like someone’s fairly substantial brick-built shed. I had seen online that there was a station car park, but where was it? It was not visible from the station. Limited parking either side of the hut appeared to be for staff only. There was just one space prominently marked out for a person in possession of a disabled sticker for their car. I wandered off past plenty of dowdy, closed-down former shops and tried to extricate myself from one-way streets and bus-only lanes in search of some on-street parking within comfortable walking distance of the station for someone with two bad knees and a bad back but no disabled sticker.

The train, a now ubiquitous Class 170 unit, was too busy for comfort so I stood next to the door for the 11-minute journey on the 11.21 to Tamworth, at a cost of £5.00 with a railcard. The lady opposite had the same idea for keeping her distance. She commented on the sunshine, contrasting it with the last two unremittingly heavy grey days that had preceded it – the weather that had prompted Bill Bryson to once compare being in Britain to living in a Tupperware box.

“I’m changing at the next stop”, she offered, adding, “I avoid Birmingham at all costs”. I wondered what Birmingham might have done to upset her, but am not tempted to ask. Maybe she just doesn’t like crowded, narrow, sub-terranean platforms with an uncomfortably low roof, in which case I think she had a point. Her distaste for Birmingham meant that she was travelling from Burton to Northampton, via Tamworth and Rugby. I fought for a moment with my mental map of the Midland railway network, before concluding that that was probably a logical solution, and that perhaps Birmingham shouldn’t even have been part of the equation in the first place.

I got off at the next stop, too, and made my way downstairs to the down platform on the West Coast Main Line. I stood at the London end with the sun on my back and decided it was warm enough to do without a hat and chose vitamin D instead. There were three young spotters sharing the space with me. Directly behind us all was the famous old patch, where spotters just like them had stood and watched as we were now doing, some sixty years ago and probably many more. What struck me most, apart from their undoubted enthusiasm, was their depth of knowledge about the current system. I was marginalised to the fringes of the conversation in no time. They are managing very well without me and I thought I’d only embarrass myself if I got something wrong, so I just let them get on with it and wandered off.

Tamworth station is awful, aesthetically. I was unable to find any redeeming features. The platforms are narrow and you are only allowed to walk on an even thinner strip on the landward side of the bold yellow line, lest you are swept away to your doom by the turbulence caused by a fast train. The buildings are in the form of a series of boxes - lifts, stairs, waiting rooms and concourse. I went outside but could not find an elevated position of safety to try to take a photo of its best side. It doesn’t have one. The main entrance has a corrugated iron roof, pitched at a shallow angle, that makes it look like a factory unit.

Pendolinos, some with very colourful paint schemes, whizzed by, north and south, and an elderly preserved Class 86 made its way from Lichfield to Rugby, between rail tours. Local services on the WCML were provided by London Northwestern Railway Class 350s, including No. 350253 heading south from Crewe. I had soon had enough of modern Tamworth. The train back to Burton was also sufficiently well used for me to feel obliged to stand next to the door again. I reached my car, parked between the bolted doors of the town hall and an imposing church, opposite. Two men were standing at the road side, one on each side of the corner, as I crossed. “What are you doing over there, Dave? He shouted. “Standing in the sun, keeping warm”, replied the man carrying one of those very flimsy looking blue plastic bags with not much in it. I got the impression that standing around and avoiding the shadows, or maybe mooching around Burton’s streets was something they were fairly used to doing. Eight degrees, a light breeze and bright sunshine in mid-January was not to be sniffed at, as I’d already discovered. As I finally dropped down into the shallow valley in which our village snugly sits, with no derelict factories or boarded up shops, I was reminded how lucky I am to live here. I can feed myself as I wish, don’t have to worry too much about increasing energy bills, and I’m still able to waltz around the country like this amusing myself, on a whim. When it clouded over later in the same afternoon, I wondered what Dave and his mate might be doing next, now that the sun had gone in. 

   

Nottingham

I had been reminded how quickly railway landscapes can change on my recent return to Worksop. So, it was again today at Nottingham. What I had previously observed to be a modest stabling and refuelling point east of the station at Eastcroft has become a much more substantial affair with comparatively recent buildings for maintaining East Midlands Railway’s DMU fleet. Next door is another new development including further under-cover provision where Boden Rail now service Colas Rail Class 37, 56 and 70 locomotives.

 

New Delivery

Class 56 No. 56081 duly pulled up on time alongside platform 2 at Worksop this afternoon with a new Class 720 Aventra electric multiple unit, No. 720544, fresh from the Old Dolby test track and marked up for Greater Anglia.