Souvenirs from 'the good old days'

[Pandora]

Usually the brake stick.

 

Pete

   A dangerous  trick with 08 was to set off in the sidings and the driver would dash ahead  setting the facing points while the "empty-cabbed  08" would trundle along at walking pace,  one of our drivers  escaped by a whisker of being bowled over, he crossed in front of the moving loco, fell over the running rail and just managed to extricate a leg before the wheel passed over,  he took this as a warning and a gift from heaven, never tried the same trick again   

[DavidR]

How far back were the 'Good Old Days'? Will the 1990's do?

I have a destination board from the 'EC 40 Varsovia' , 'Warszawa Wschodnia - Poznan - Frankfurt (O) - Berlin Lichtenburg'.

It was given to me by a bloke in Gt.Yarmouth !,

I have travelled Berlin- Poznan - Katowice, but not Warsaw-Berlin.

[Trev52A]

How far back were the 'Good Old Days'? Will the 1990's do?

I have a destination board from the 'EC 40 Varsovia' , 'Warszawa Wschodnia - Poznan - Frankfurt (O) - Berlin Lichtenburg'.

It was given to me by a bloke in Gt.Yarmouth !,

I have travelled Berlin- Poznan - Katowice, but not Warsaw-Berlin.

 

Sounds good to me. 'The good old days' is whatever is nostalgic to you.

Any chance of a photo of this destination board, then? Sounds interesting.

 

Cheers

Trevor

[The Stationmaster]

Stationmaster

 

The mention of work study makes me remember something that made it hard for me to stifle laughter.

 

if I read things rightly, I was probably about a decade behind you in working for BR, and when I joined, the purpose of "work study" had altered from its original, stern, intent.

 

By the time I was attached to WS, public-sector pay restraint was in full force, and was causing an unholy combination of disruptive annoyance (petty strikes on petty pretexts), utter demotivation, and very skilled engineering staff leaving, to go to other employers.

 

On the first day, the old-hand in charge gave me a really good intro to the topic, beginning: "It's important that you start with a clear understanding: we are no longer here to find ways of making things more efficient. Our job now is to find very carefully measured ways of paying people more money, for doing exactly the same work, while showing an improvement in productivity on paper."

 

Thus was public-sector pay restraint circumvented!

 

Kevin (usually Nearholmer, but somehow logged-in under a defunct alias)

 

The Freight Train Incentive Bonus Scheme was designed to do exactly that (increase earnings) although it was also supposed to encourage freight train (mainly trip) crews to work more efficiently.   It was also studied using experienced staff recruited from the likes of Shunters, Guards and Drivers who would know all the wrinkles when timing a job and make appropriate allowances for anyone who was hanging the pot on to drag out the timings.

[Kylestrome]

Getting back to 'the good old days', the good old days for me were when trains were pulled by proper locomotives with a string of Mk 1s or Mk 2s behind.

 

Here are just a small selection of souvenirs that I have collected on my wanderings during the eighties (no prizes for guessing my favourite lines).

 

Nicked when nobody was looking.

 

 

Tickets the old fashioned way.

 

 

What we had in our pockets before smart phones.

 

 

Ticket evolution.

 

 

David

Edited November 4, 2017 by Kylestrome

[Tim V]

A souvenir! Dated April 1978

 

Check out those prices! Coffee 15p!

 

   

[Mike Storey]

The Freight Train Incentive Bonus Scheme was designed to do exactly that (increase earnings) although it was also supposed to encourage freight train (mainly trip) crews to work more efficiently.   It was also studied using experienced staff recruited from the likes of Shunters, Guards and Drivers who would know all the wrinkles when timing a job and make appropriate allowances for anyone who was hanging the pot on to drag out the timings.

 

Quite right. When freight shunters suddenly went sick or were engaged elsewhere, and first line on-call or immediately available supervisors/managers, like me, had to go and do their jobs, the "wrinkles" became very clear. But what clobbered me, and many of my compadres, was that an experienced shunter, or guard (or second man in those days), could break or couple a completely dirt/grease ridden vac or air hose in seconds, even in freezing conditions, whereas it would take me five or ten minutes! You could certainly appreciate their skills, but at the same time you also learned pretty quickly that the allocated walking times were based on a paraplegic, blind man, with recalcitrant labrador.

 

But to be fair, some of the allocated walking times, or even PNB's, for turnaround passenger workings were ridiculously short, and caused much performance loss, if the crew concerned stuck to their agreed timings during perturbation. Efficiently planned manning levels did not always match train performance needs, hence the emphasis, more recently and thank goodness, on an increasing ratio of stand-by drivers (and conductors/senior conductors where relevant). It has taken privatisation and a few decades of commercial awareness, to understand that contingency costs usually pay for themselves in reduced penalty payments (and increased customer satisfaction).

 

In terms of souvenirs, I can only refer M'Lud back to my prematurely soiled headgear, when undertaking such duties. But then my never soiled Bump Cap, belatedly issued in recognition of said emergency duties, but without recognition that I had been transferred to a role in which I was no longer required to undertake them.

[The Stationmaster]

A souvenir! Dated April 1978

 

Check out those prices! Coffee 15p!

 

fare 2.jpg     Fare 1.jpg

 

Ah, HSTburgers - the best ever evolution (revolution?) in UK onboard train catering.

[Old-sparky]

Revolution? Revulsion?

[pH]

Scottish Region Special Traffic Notice for the first week of the Glasgow Fair in 1965 (Fair Saturday onwards).

 

 

150 pages! It obviously impressed me, as it's the only one I kept.

[Trev52A]

BR leaflet from 1978.

 

Who would have thought most of these would still be going strong 40 or so years later? (OK, with several refurbishments and engine changes later!)

Most of us probably hated them at the time as it meant the end of the 'Deltics', but I think of them now as old friends and worth a photograph.

 

Trevor

[russ p]

A souvenir! Dated April 1978

 

Check out those prices! Coffee 15p!

 

fare 2.jpg     Fare 1.jpg

This for me was a point in on train catering, although I was only a kid at the time I thought hst food was excellent

There was always ques for the buffet and most people on journeys from the north East to London had some food

You never see ques on today's trains which if they do do food is a tiny range of sandwiches and overpriced cans of beer

Always makes me laugh on Anglia when the buffet announces we are serving a great range of sandwiches... Err hang on I'll be the judge of that!

[Ray M]

My old fella passed this on to me.

[leopardml2341]

Interesting abbreviation of 'signature' name on that sheet

[Mike Storey]

Scottish Region Special Traffic Notice for the first week of the Glasgow Fair in 1965 (Fair Saturday onwards).

 

IMG_1771.JPG

 

150 pages! It obviously impressed me, as it's the only one I kept.

 

Very early use of the double-arrow logo. Perhaps that is also why you kept it?

[tetsudofan]

To celebrate completion of "A" levels in 1961, together with a school friend, went up to Scotland for a week.

 

 

 

£9 for a weeks travel First Class...... and to put that in perspective, I got 12/6d a week for my paper round.

 

Keith

[The Stationmaster]

Revolution? Revulsion?

 

No way, they were excellent plus a good range of decent quality sauces when they were first introduced.

[Northroader]

Going back to the master controller keys, when the diesels came out, I think each one come with so many keys, although not too sure about this or how it was done. Anyhow there were never enough to go round, everybody wanted their own personal key and they walked. The standard was a plated job with sticky out lugs at the top, D shaped. The works did an “emergency” issue which were turned out of brass, and had a plain round “peg” sticking out of the top. Certainly no question of them being verboten.

[dibber25]

From the early days of my rail travels I kept tickets whenever I could, and any other souvenir items. Two favourites:

 

May 9 1964 The Great Western. Paddington-Plymouth (via Lavington, interestingly, as that was not far from where 4079 failed with a collapsed grate). Note that it is ticket No. 342 on a 340-seat train. My brother and I had tickets 341 and 342 as we travelled as magazine and book sales staff, in the leading guard's van. We did get the same lunch as the paying passengers, however, and I still have the menu.

 

The other ticket is Oxford-Adlestrop in 1965. The clerk at Oxford mis-heard me and gave me a ticket to Paddington. When I returned it, he gave me the correct ticket but note that it is marked 3rd class a decade after 3rd was abolished. It shows how little-used these country stations were, that even a place like Oxford still hadn't used up its old stock of 3rd class. Doubtless they lasted until the end, just a year later. "Yes, I remember Adlestrop" but for a whole set of different reasons from the poet Edward Thomas. So sad that nothing now remains of any of those lovely little wooden OW&W stations. 

(CJL)

[Silver Sidelines]

Bought off eBay because I liked the shirt. Sold as BR InterCity catering issue. Were these the 'Good Old Days'. Certainly the breakfasts and dinners on the East Coast Mainline were excellent.

 

BR Intercity Catering Issue

[leopardml2341]

[blackpete]

Network SouthEast advertising milk bottles (the milk isn't original!)

[Trev52A]

Here are a few tickets from steam days, with a note of the locos which pulled the trains I was travelling on:

 

70005 out from Carlisle on a late evening train. (Had to get bus back from Lockerbie to Carlisle where I was staying in the Youth Hostel near Kingmoor shed!)

12th May 1966

 

62050 both ways (rode in the cab on the return!) 13th April 1966

 

D1631 out from Carlisle, 45227 return. 5th August 1967

 

70039 out from Carlisle, 44993 return. We timed the Black 5 in a very basic fashion with the second hand on a watch as we passed the quarter mile posts and made it 92mph. The driver claimed 96 after arrival at Carlisle! 26th August 1967

 

Happy days!

Trevor

 

 

 

[The Pilotman]

Just found this while rummaging in the loft. It's the very first Weekly Engineering Notice to be published for the Reading Area after Railtrack took over control of the infrastructure, almost 24 years ago. We always referred to these as "R-notices". I kept it because it included the week-long possession for stage 2A of the Didcot area resignalling which saw Reading PSB relinquish control of the Didcot area to Swindon B IECC.  I'm sure I have the yellow traincrew notice as well somewhere.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2018 by Western Aviator

[w124bob]

Got my first 2nd mans payslip somewhere, vacancy list showing transfer to a drivers position at Orpington and my Manchester Victoria traction card.