Tall Tales

[great central]

G'day Gents

 

 

 

Well I'v still got a few tales to tell, so I might as well get them out, One dark night, two railwaymen were sitting on a 142 at Bradford 'Forster Sq' waiting to go home, the driver was revving up his racing 142 waiting for the green light! when the signal changed to GO, and off we stormed, ECS to Leeds, at we rounded the bend just outside Bradford the signal went back to red, we stopped and the driver got up to call the signalman, on his return he imformed me that there were some people up ahead chucking things off of the bridges that we had to pass under, well we thought it a good idea to slow the racing 142 down a tad, the driver opened the controller a tad and we rolled along at about 20mph, looking for trouble, and we found it, just as we rolled under a bridge BONGGG!! something big hit the windscreen and was gone, no broken glass, nothing sliding off the roof, we just looked at each other in the dark 'What the..!!!' the driver floored the racing 142 to the next signal, and quickly reported what had happened to the signalman, who reported this to control, who reported this to the police, who (sounds like a owl story........ who-who) had been touring the area looking for these ....little darlings! and the cops got them, still waiting at the bridge for the next train, little did they know, we were the LAST TRAIN? What they had done was to tie a rope to a 44 gallon plastic drum and tie that to a lampost, and just as the train came under the bridge, Drop it! the train then hit the drum and the drum sailed up in the air after being, landing back on the bridge, the train crew only saw the drum for a second of so!!! After that we raced back to Leeds, home and bed

 

Another night I was sitting in the back cab of a 156 unit when there was this banging sound coming from under the train (we were passing Hessel near Hull) and showers of sparks were coming out the back of the train, so I called the driver to let him know what was going on, His reply was 'Ah don't worry, were just run over a shopping trolly??) We were in Hull in a few minutes, so there was a fitter at hand to check the unit out, no damage, but it gives you a bit of a fright when you hear ballast hitting the underside of your train :mrgreen:

 

manna

Two similar incidents to these to recall.

Working the last Liverpool-Nottingham some years ago, bowling merrily along between Warrington and Manchester there's a muffled bang followed by something rattling along the roof of the 158 then a full brake application. I head to the front of the train to see what's happened. Driver's side windscreen shattered and bulged in but fortunately stayed in place. We'd hit something hanging from a bridge. Train driven slowly forward to Glazebrook to cross over then back to Birchwood to detrain the passengers, unit then empty back to Lime Street to be rescued next day. That unit had a splashed line of black paint along the cant rail area until refurbished a couple of years later.

Another Liverpool-Nottingham on a Sunday hit something near Langley Mill, an old dustbin full of bricks placed square in the 4ft.

Then there was the mystery of showers of ballast being thrown up when we got over about 65mph, driver completely unaware and once he reduced speed again it stopped. We carried on, driver telling me to let him know if it started again. Sure did just as we entered Totley tunnel! Ballast flying everywhere, I'm concerned about it bouncing off the tunnel wall and perhaps breaking a window. Driver can't hear the cab to cab intercom so I make my way past quite a number of worried faces to advise him. We slow again and it stops, so decided to stop and examine once clear of the tunnel.

Took a while to find the culprit, a flexible sand pipe had come adrift and was hanging down, at lower speeds just dragging along the ballast, but at higher speed flailing around throwing ballast up. Drove slower into Sheffield for a fitter to secure the pipe.

According to a fitter friend that unit had quite a few knocks and dents on the underside, but fortunately the incident didn't cause a failure on the line

[Northroader]

Maybe I ought to balance the stories of the bad deeds kids were capable of with a story of the fun you could have. As a kid I knew all about Railways of course, as there was a GWR branch half a mile away in one direction, and a LMS branch about a mile the other way. Then in 1948 Ian Allan brought out a booklet "Narrow Gauge Railways of Britain" by F.H.Howson. price 3/6d., and mum got me a copy sometime after. This was highly intriguing, helped my education on no end. By the early fifties I was riding a push bike, and one day I set out for a slice of the action, having worked out that the Snailbeach District Railway was just over twenty miles distant. About two hours later I went through Pontesbury, and past the village got to a girder bridge over the main Bishops Castle road. Just beyond there was a rough turn in on the right where lorries could get loaded. Nobody about, or lorries, but up on the bank was a line of old wooden hopper wagons, which could discharge crushed granite into a lorry. Salop County Council had it for their roadstone. Getting up on the bank there was loop and sidings, and these extended on as far as the Minsterley branch line, becoming more and more overgrown as you went on. So time to explore the other way, and I went off up the track, pushing my bike. The line runs in a shallow rocky cutting for about a mile or so, and about half way up there was a rumbling, and a train came round the curve, so I flattened myself against the side of the cutting. There were about eight loaded hoppers, rolling down under gravity, with a man perched on the rear headstock of the last wagon, holding on with his right hand, and left hand ready to go round the side of the wagon to push the handbrake lever down. This lot rolled on down, and I continued on up the line. Soon after a Fordson farm tractor appeared, one wheel between the rails, the other outside, and a long piece of chain jangling along as a tail. It seems that the line had some steam locos, but they had all given up the struggle after WW2, and the tractor was the motive power to get the wagons up to the quarry. I got there soon after, just a loop off the main line passing under the crusher plant screens, where a few more wagons were placed. The line went on a short way, so that wagons could be dropped into the loop at the top, then the track gave out, but there was a well worn path for the quarry workers on to the next road over ridge. Here you had to get on to the road, as the track beyond was completely overgrown. You could follow where it went to Snailbeach, where there were mine workings, all long abandoned. There was bits of tracks into a two road engine shed, well locked up, and an engine house for the mine workings. The whole lot had a "mountains of the moon" appearance, as the lead being quarried was extracted from a vein of white quartz, which was tipped as waste. The site is still there, preserved by a mining trust, but greening over a bit. You could follow the route a bit further, as far as Crowsnest, tucked under the Stiperstones mountain. "Snailbeach", "Crowsnest", were there ever such names for a railway? The quarry went on to develop loading the wagons with a loader, then found lorries could also be done with this, and that was the end of the line, being scrapped mid fifties, and now well overgrown.

These days there's quite a peculiar setup developed if you do any googling on the subject, as there is a highly secretive family with some ideas of turning it into a preserved line, from what bit I've seen, the viability of the scheme would be doubtful. All very odd.

[terra-nova]

Another story I heard was definitely seventh hand and went like this.

A fitters mate was working a weekend night turn and decided he had contributed enough, so went and found a nice compartment to rest.

It must have been good because the next he knew the train was in motion, but luckily it stopped at a signal and so he dropped down onto the ballast and started back down the track.

But he came across a junction and without thinking followed the straight path. He walked for miles and miles. It had long become daylight and like most of us would have done he started to panic . Eventually he came across an over bridge with a path leading up to the road

He climbed up the path and stood on the road. As he had made the wrong decision at the junction, he couldn't trust his instinct of which way to go.

Eventually he found a house and asked to be handed over to the police

Somewhat bizarrely his clock card recorded a prompt exit

I am sure somebody on RMWeb will know the true version of this story

[brack]

Northroader - a lovely story. Sadly anything to do with the restoration of the snailbeach line or the individuals you refer to most definitely fits into the topic of tall tales.

[tomparryharry]

I suffered an unfortunate event of this sort while using the urinal in a notorious Cardiff club many years ago, the legendary 'New Moon' club.  Being in a suitable place already, I retreated to a cubicle to re-arrange myself to the best of my ability, and managed to deal with the worst of it fairly well, considering (there was a little more space than in a train toilet, but much less light), but it was clear that my underpants were beyond redemption and were, in fact, a goner, or perhaps a pair of goners, and I was going to have to dispose of them and spend the rest of the evening going 'commando' and taking the greatest possible care in the matter of Newcastle Brown Ale induced flatulence.  But what to do with the underpants?  I didn't want to take them back out of the cubicle, because a) they were extremely unpleasant, and b) there were by now other punters in the toilet and I didn't especially wish to advertise my predicament. 

 

Putting them down the loo was the first option, but I rejected that on the grounds that it would have probably blocked and anyone seeing me exit would have known who was responsible; I was, as I say, not feeling very proud of myself.  So I opened the small window to the outside (this was 4 floors above street level) and put them on the window ledge, shut the window, made a sort of temporary emergency pair of undies out of toilet paper, left the cubicle, washed my hands and carried on; I'd got away with it!

 

I was in there again (you'd have thought I'd have learned, but no) a few weeks later and, whilst again using the urinal, curiosity began to get the better of me.  As soon as I'd finished, I had to go into the cubicle to see if they were still there.  This question remained unanswered, because they'd bricked the window up...

 

The building was demolished a couple of years later.

Remembering the New Moon, I'm not surprised!

[The Blue Streak]

Another story I heard was definitely seventh hand and went like this.

A fitters mate was working a weekend night turn and decided he had contributed enough, so went and found a nice compartment to rest.

It must have been good because the next he knew the train was in motion, but luckily it stopped at a signal and so he dropped down onto the ballast and started back down the track.

But he came across a junction and without thinking followed the straight path. He walked for miles and miles. It had long become daylight and like most of us would have done he started to panic . Eventually he came across an over bridge with a path leading up to the road

He climbed up the path and stood on the road. As he had made the wrong decision at the junction, he couldn't trust his instinct of which way to go.

Eventually he found a house and asked to be handed over to the police

Somewhat bizarrely his clock card recorded a prompt exit

I am sure somebody on RMWeb will know the true version of this story

 

I've heard similiar stories here in Oz regarding railway employees who took a nap in a cosy spot and woken up elsewhere. (We've all taken a nap when we've had a quiet hour or two on nights ) Although I've never heard the story of waking up elsewhere from the source and it's always via someone, who knew someone. But where there's smoke there's often fire. Like they say - there is often a prototype for everything .

Edited September 3, 2017 by The Blue Streak