1960s shed visits

[pH]

In checking something for a post on here, I was looking at the spotting notebooks from the 1960s that I still have. In one of them, I had noted the sheds I had visited, each time I did. There were some interesting numbers, so I looked at another notebook and added in the shed visits I could see in there.

 

I started taking numbers in April 1962, visited my first sheds in August that year and my last ones in September 1968. (I had no interest in going after just diesels and electrics.) I reckon I visited between 75 and 80 different locomotive sheds in that time, including a few sub-sheds, as well as 2 locomotive works. The furthest southwest was Exeter GWR shed, though it was closed by then, but locomotives were still been stored there. Furthest north was Inverness, , south – Weymouth, northwest – Mallaig subshed, northeast – Kittybrewster. Furthest southeast was probably Kirkby-in-Ashfield.

 

While the coverage was pretty wide, it wasn't particularly deep. Since I lived then in the west of Scotland, the most visited were the Glasgow sheds, but nowhere more than maybe 9 times, to both Polmadie and Eastfield. Hard to come up with an overall total for shed visits, but I think it was between 110 and 120. The large majority were without a permit, and quite often without permission i.e. 'bunked'.

 

My best estimates of sheds I visited by region: ScR – 30, LMR – 28, WR – 9, NER – 7, SR – 3, ER – 2

 

Did anyone else keep track of sheds they visited? Or is my OCD showing?

[phil_sutters]

My Dad did and I have his log books. He didn't visit as many as you. I don't currently have the time to check through them but Swindon was the most visited I think. His railway photos are almost all in my photo-sharing albums at http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/538609  along with my own more recent efforts. There are some here in my gallery - but in a rather fragmented way. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/profile/14351-phil_sutters/&tab=node_gallery_gallery  He could go past Swindon works on a train and still be writing numbers in his spotting book several minutes afterwards.

[KeithHC]

Bit too young for steam sheds but did go to Two in the 1960's. Nine Elms and Redhill need I say more.........

 

Keith

[pH]

15 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

He didn't visit as many as you.

...

He could go past Swindon works on a train and still be writing numbers in his spotting book several minutes afterwards.

 

Maybe not, but he took more and better photos than I did!

 

Yes, I remember the few minutes after passing a shed, furiously writing down numbers - some with question marks after them. You developed kinds of shorthand e.g. as I passed the shed, I would only write down the last three digits of Stanier 5 numbers, which were quite common. That marked them as Stanier 5s in my notes, and there was no overlap of those numbers in the class, so you could expand them to unique numbers afterwards.

Edited April 27, 2020 by pH
Grammar

[phil_sutters]

I visited one or two with him. Swindon once I remember and here I am at Brighton. As a parish priest, he often used to take his day off on Mondays, after busy Sundays. He would head off with his pork pie and a bag of buns, down to Salisbury or Exeter or up to Bristol or Swindon, with his spotting book and pipe in hand.

Edited April 30, 2020 by phil_sutters

[luckymucklebackit]

One of my greatest regrets in life was not keeping my detailed notes of trips and visits, the lists of numbers were tossed once the underlining process in the ABC had been completed.  As a relative youngster (only 14 when the 1970s started I had limited 1960s shed visit experience, my Grandfather (a railway employee) took me to Eastfield, Fort WIlliam, Haymarket, Polmadie and Kipps between '66 and '68, just early enough to see a couple of remaining steam locos at Eastfield.  What was impressed in my memory was the sheer number of locos that would be in the depot on a Sunday, Eastfield seems to have endless lines of diesel shunters.

 

Jim

[Old Gringo]

Hello pH, a couple of days ago you asked, "Did anyone else keep track of sheds they visited?"

 

Well, I also started loco-spotting and making notes during 1962; visiting my first shed and works in February 1963 and my last sheds in the August of 1968.  Also, just like yourself, by then I had no interest whatsoever in the diesels and electrics of the 'modern' railway.

 

Your question prompted me to bring out my old notebook, into which somewhere around 1970, I transferred all the data of those heady days, where we passed from the steam era to the space age. Although in my case, it was from short trousers to long-haired 'radical' backed by those super sounds of the Sixties.

 

Over the period from the autumn of 1962 to the bitter end in the summer of 1968, I followed the demise of the steam locomotive and from January 1963 kept notes of all the trips and shed visits that I managed to make.  As I was attending school throughout the period, my activity was limited until 1967, when instead of studying for my 'O' levels, I spent a lot of time on my bike chasing the last trails of steam across the North West and walking all those inviting cinder paths!

 

During the past couple of days, I've looked back over the notes and come up with my own summary of those six final years of the steam locomotive in operation.  It appears that I made 260 visits to 82 different engine sheds and 3 locomotive works, plus one visit to Barry scrap-yard (in 1966) and a couple of visits to London stations.

 

The spread of my visits is very similar to yours too; with the furthest south-west at Okehampton (my only Southern shed!), north-west at Kyle and Mallaig, (although both disused by August 1966), north-east was Aberdeen (Ferryhill) and south-east at Colwick, near Nottingham,  Although I did spend a magical three hours on Kings Cross station, between the hours of 10pm and 1am in early June 1963, just before steam was banned. And I also managed an hour on a wet Waterloo station in February 1967, after winning a return ticket to London on the first electric train via Macclesfield.

 

Living in north east Cheshire, unsurprisingly, my records have a distinctly London Midland Region bias, but three visits to Scotland in 1964, 1965 and 1966 also give an emphasis to that region's engine sheds.  Unfortunately, I only managed to visit 4 ex-Great Western Railway sheds and just one shed from both the Southern and Eastern Regions.  However, I visited 16 sheds and one works on the North Eastern Region, 22 sheds (and 2 closed) on the Scottish Region and finally 36 sheds and 2 works on the London Midland Region.

 

I suppose I was very lucky compared to many of my friends, because I had the advantage of an enthusiastic school railway society during 1963 and through to 1964, parents who actively encouraged my enthusiasm.  In '63  and '64 it was surprising where my Dad could get us both with the offer of a couple of fags and just once my Mum even talked the shed-master at 64A into giving me a guided tour!  Occasionally I wrote for a permit, but from 1966 onwards, it would almost always be a careful weekend visit.

 

During those six years I walked down the cinder path at my home shed of 9B, Stockport (Edgeley) over 60 times, and after leaning my bike against the fence next to No. 9 road, occasionally raised an oily rag to 5X 'Jubilee' No,45596 'Bahamas' (now preserved on the K&WVR).  One Saturday in March 1966, I helped to clean our most famous visitor, A4, No. 60019 'Bittern'.  Those were the days, when you had the freedom to go home happy and dirty and smelling of hot oil and steam.

 

Thanks for opening this topic, which has made me open the battered notebook again and relive some of those memories.

 

Keep safe, stay healthy and make every day count.

 

All the very best,

John..

[pH]

On 30/04/2020 at 15:40, Old Gringo said:

During the past couple of days, I've looked back over the notes and come up with my own summary of those six final years of the steam locomotive in operation.  It appears that I made 260 visits to 82 different engine sheds and 3 locomotive works, plus one visit to Barry scrap-yard (in 1966) and a couple of visits to London stations.

 

Living in north east Cheshire, unsurprisingly, my records have a distinctly London Midland Region bias ... Unfortunately, I only managed to visit 4 ex-Great Western Railway sheds ...

During those six years I walked down the cinder path at my home shed of 9B, Stockport (Edgeley) over 60 times ...
 

 

I didn't include Barry visits. I was there three times, in 1965, 1967 and 1968 and even got a few 'cops' the last time.

 

I'm a bit surprised you only visited four ex-GWR sheds, given where you lived. I said I had visited nine WR sheds. Actually, I went round more ex-GWR sheds, but they were in the LMR by then - Tyseley, Oxley and a couple of others.

 

Lucky you, having Stockport as your local shed. (I went round it once, in 1965.) I guess there would always have been the chance of something unusual being on shed. My 'local' shed was Greenock Ladyburn. Within a couple of months of starting to take numbers, I'd seen virtually all of Ladyburn's allocation, plus almost all of Polmadie's engines that worked to Gourock, so there was no point in going round Ladyburn. I only went there once.

Edited May 2, 2020 by pH

[Old Gringo]

What great times we both had back then, pH.

 

I found Barry yard a most exciting (and looking back probably utterly unrepeatable) experience.  Once off the coach, the party disappeared amongst the rows of dead locomotives.  Although we were absolutely not supposed to, several of us were clambering over engines we had never seen before, the Kings, Somerset & Dorset 2-8-0s, MNs, BB & WC, etc. and I have a couple of pictures taken from standing on the rusty cab roofs.  Afterwards, as we sat on the coach on the way home and over the weeks following I found it quite depressing.  But, how lucky that virtually all of the locomotives were brought out and so many have been restored to working order.

 

Again, it's an odd coincidence, but Tyseley and Oxley were two of my four ex-GWR sheds, the others being Stourbridge Junction and Wellington and all were under LMR control by my visits in the Spring of 1964, (but I prefer the old 84 codings).  I also considered Shrewsbury (6D) as LMR, although there were plenty of Western engines present on my August 1964 visit.

 

I was very lucky being just over a five mile cycle ride away from the two Stockport sheds: 9B and 9F.  However, although only about a mile between them, compared to every visit I made to 9F Heaton Mersey (the ex-CLC shed), I visited 9B Stockport (Edgeley) more than twice as many times.

 

There were three reasons for this and your guess was the first, it always appeared that 9B had more visitors than 9F, plus it was always a friendlier atmosphere and perhaps because it was next to Stockport County football club!  The third reason was regarding the approaches to the sheds: to access Heaton Mersey from Gorsey Bank Road, you had to cross a pedestrian footbridge suspended over the frothing, swirling mucky waters of the River Mersey - not something I ever enjoyed.  Whereas, Edgeley was a gap in a fence in Booth Street and then a long cinder pathway, down which a sombrely dressed adolescent could push his bike and often wave to the 'bobby' in Stockport Edgeley Junction No.2 box alongside the shed throat.

 

Happy Days and such freedom then to enjoy what became a lifetime obsession with the steam locomotive!