Confessions of a Canton goods guard

[The Johnster]

6 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

 

All of these comments on my two photos are most gratifying - I'm so glad I posted them, even if they were a bit rubbish 😬! 

 

So am I, Halvarras, rubbish or not (and I'd say not, I've seen, and taken, much worse) they triggered some happy😃 memories!  There must be many railway photographs which do not instantly strike one as being brilliant but which contain interest and useful modelling information in the backgrounds and off to the sides of the main subject.  The shocvans here are a case in point; we've established that they weren't fitted heads for iron ore trains, but a discussion may yet be provoked that determines what they were doing in that location.  Something tin-plated at the depot, perhaps, but there must have been quite a bit of it...

Edited March 20, 2023 by The Johnster

[John Besley]

Brilliant read, long overdue for you to write up your stories in one place - keep them coming

[Michael Hodgson]

15 hours ago, The Johnster said:

During my short and not particularly illustrious British Telecom career, I worked with a bloke who was a lifelong and dedicated fan of Newort County; this was in the 80s and a time when they were doing not very well even by thier standards.  I had to admire his stoicism and persistence, a true fan. 

I worked in Peterborough with a bloke from Newport.  One day I asked him if he was growing a beard.  He said, no he just wasn't shaving till County won at Home,  If memory serves they had lost 34 home games in succession!

Edited March 20, 2023 by Michael Hodgson
typo

[br2975]

10 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

All of these comments on my two photos are most gratifying - I'm so glad I posted them, even if they were a bit rubbish 😬! 

.

Content over quality - any day.

.

Post any that you have.....

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, br2975 said:

.

Content over quality - any day.

.

Post any that you have.....

 

Often the "rubbish" can be the most interesting, as I think we have just proved!

 

Mike.

[The Johnster]

Ok, to continue... Back to North Curve Yard, but in charge of the trains this time as a passed out guard.  No problem, already familiar with this job, but it was useful to develop the skillsets needed to fill out the daily guard's journal, or the ticket was we called it.  I also had to finish the job properly, which involved the final trip of the day to Radyr Quarry, which was included in the route knowledge I'd agreed to that Ted Beacham the shunter had told the TCM about.  Picked it up fairly quickly though.

 

One morning, during a tea break, a large West Indian gentleman in a guard's uniform came into the cabin, and Ted immediately began berating him in what I would have called fairly stringently racist terms, while the newcomer responded with 'redskin' and 'squawf*cker', and with these two rather large personages, both of whom gave the impression that they could look after themselves, squaring up in a not very large cabin, and being between me and the door, I started sliding under the table, but a gale of raucous laghter broke out almost immediately.  This was my introduction to a very well known Canton character of those days, George ('when I a young man in St Kitts I very religious.  I never hab no sex wit no woman on Sunday') Hodges, native of St Kitts and Nevis and one of the funniest men I have ever met.  Turns out that Ted's ancestors were French Canadian fur trappers, the original family name being Beauchamps, and his grandfather had been a conductor on the Canadian Pacific at Kamloops, having married a Blackfoot lady, hence the name calling.  He could prove it by providing a spine-chilling warcry that sounded authentic enough to me!  One of his uncle had been killed at Vimy Ridge.

 

The following few months were a series of weeks route learning interspersed by a week working a turn on the route you'd just learned.  Route learning was something I took seriously, and it has to be said that not all of us off the street newbies did so.  This did not help with the resentment we faced from the old hands.  I'd been expecting some of this from old hand guards, men who'd had to come up the hard way and wait for posts to become vacant at a time when cuts of both services and staff were the order of the day (because of the use of seniority in filling posts, most senior application gets the job, dead men's shoes), but there was very little from them.  What I did have some issues with were a minority of drivers. 

 

I got it, I couldn't blame them particularly.  The safe running of loose coupled goods trains depended on guards being competent to do their job, stay awake, and know where they were and what was likely to happen next, keeping couplings taut and assisting the braking by applying the van brake on downhill stretches or when slowing down, and my view was that the best way to achieve this competence was to know the routes, properly, so as to be able to work over them with a loose-coupled train at night and in poor visibility.  But this was very much left to one's own conscience, not checked up on properly, and some of my colleauges were taking advantage of being able to sign for route knowledge 'back cab only', their route cards being annotated thus, so they could be sent out to work a train so long as it was fully fitted and they were riding on the engine.  No wonder some of the drivers regarded us as a bit of a joke!  We were being unfairly tarred with the same brush, but I could see why the resentment was there; we'd caused the redundancy of secondmen with the single manning agreement (the drivers; union, ASLEF, were of the view that ours, the NUR, had stabbed them in the back over this agreement), lenghtened the waiting time for full drivers postitions of the secondment who remained, and made it harder for footplate grade men to move back to their home depots (dead men's shoes again) without losing seniority.  The 'back cab only' boys made life worse for all of us, mostly did not settle in the job and left within a few months and weren't missed, and I know for a fact that some of them regarded route learning as a chance to sign on duty, 'sell their ticket*', and go home.  I blamed 'the company' for not checking on these miscreants as much as the perps themselves.

 

As an example, a couple of months after starting this route learning period and having signed for several, a driver asked me how many wagons I could get in the down loop at Pandy, on the Hereford Road.  'Many as you want so long as they're on their sides down the bank, there are no loops at Pandy' I responded, which wrong footed him a bit.  After this inauspicious start I got on very well with him, and enjoyed working with him, as was the case with most of such drivers that held this viewpoint, but one or two never really accepted any of us 'back cab jockeys'.  It was a burden we had to bear, unfairly, and we had to prove ourselves for some our own colleagues at Canton to accept us.  And some people from other places never did; youngish bloke on a Canton job = incompetent back cab jockey sleeping on the job, useless, what's the job coming to, often from people whose own competence was not what it should have been.  We'll come back to a signalman at Barry that I had a couple of run-ins with later in the series, more than once as well!

 

The first of these route-learning weeks was with Mr Lloyd in the Bubble Car, Severn Tunnel Jc including Cardiff Tidal and Uskmouth Branches and Llanwern Steelworks Reception.  Followed by a week on a Long Dyke-Tunnel transfer job with a return working to Tidal, secondmanning the loco off and back on shed, which gave me an opportunity to pick that side of things up.  Then, IIRC in the following order, Jersey Marine including Margam, Gloucester, a week at Radyr Junction, Llanelli (had a b*gger of a job getting a brake van ride over the Swansea District, but I insisted, got one from Margam in the end; 'you'll never work a brake van down there, it's all fully fitted oil trains, wasting your time, sign back cab'.  Yeah, worked over there about half a dozen times with a van, in the dark as well, in the event...

 

Then Hereford, then Vale of Glamorgan, and that was all the route knowledge required for no.9 guard's link, the 'Spare Link', the bottom link, which you were placed in by default.  We had work to all those places, but Canton also had full sets of traincrew, Driver, Secondman, and Guard, booking on spare every four hours 24/7, Midnight, 04.00, 08.00, 12.00, 16.00, and 20.00 in case anybody failed to report for duty or was prevented signing on duty for any reason, or taken off their booked duty for those reasons.  Midnight and 04.00 you were pretty much guaranteed a job, but the other spare turns were often six hours or so of hanging around the cabin, and could be brain-numbingly dull.  After six hours, you were normally sent home early, and you'd be ready to call it a day by then, trust me; doing nothing is bl**dy hard work!  By the end of September I was fully routecarded for the link, and ready for anything!  I'd had a taste of real railway work, at it's worst, signing on duty at two in the morning, rough brake vans, obstreperous drivers, no social life, dismal conditions, low pay, filthy dirty, but I reckoned I could hack it, and by and large I did!

 

 

*'Selling your ticket'; the guard's daily journal, in which you accounted for your time on duty including train details and passing times, was used for recording train running and for calculating our pay; there were enhanced rates for night work (22.00-06.00), Rest Days, Saturdays, Sundays, and Bank Holidays, as well as a goods mileage bonus if you worked trains over 50 miles in a single period of duty, including acting secondman, which was permitted up to 15 miles from your home depot, and any distance to return to it.  Drivers and Secondmen had similar daily journals, and we called them 'tickets'.  If you wanted to get away early, and had booked an account of your time that covered you til the end of your duty, you would 'sell your ticket'; give them to another Canton man who would post them in the box provided in the lobby for you when he booked off.  Now, this was fraud, of course, but we all did it and the supervisors knew full well that we all did it, it was one of those things that had become tolerated over the years.  A man coming back to the depot with an hour or so duty left is of little use to the supervisors, as any work you give him will put him 'over his time'; traincrew and signalmen had to have a minimum of 12 hours rest between shifts, and it was easier to let the man go home than to arrange for someone else to cover the duty he'd missed 12 hours later.  If he's been working on a brake van he's probably filthy, so you don't want him on a passenger job either if you can help it.

 

TTBOMK nobody ever challenged this, but the rules regarding the 12hour rest have now changed and I doubt the same conditions apply today!  There was plenty of opportunity; for example after working a train to Severn Tunnel Jc one evening and asking the TCS for orders in case there was back working home for us, we were told to go home on the cushions (IIRC the TCS may have been our own Mike Stationmaster, but I very much doubt he remembers this incident).  We were less than three hours into our 16.00 spare duty, and a down passenger was leaving STJ in a few minutes, so we sprinted and caught it.  According to our tickets, we'd missed this train because of the official route and walking time from the signing on point to the station at STJ, and the next one wasn't for another four hours or so.  We were back at Cardiff Central before half seven, 'sold our tickets' to a Canton driver coming back from Gloucester on the cushions, and obviously could not show our faces at Canton.  The tickets said we'd got back at a time when we'd have reasonably expected to have been sent home, but had a few beers in the bar of the Great Western Hotel in Cardiff.  We got away with this; of course, if the TCM had a mind, he could easily have instituted some system of signing off duty, such as handing the tickets in to the roster clerk and signing for them, but in practice they were posted in a box, basically because that suited everybody!

Edited March 24, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Routes, learning them and working them.

 

Severn Tunnel.

 

With the bubble car and Mr Lloyd the guards' inspector, included Cardiff Tidal and Uskmouth Branches.  Quite a bit to learn, as although there were no gradients except the Bishton Flyover and the short rise out of Newport High Street on to the river bridge, there was a good bit of railway in this shortish stretch.  Lamps were required to be lit through the Gaer Tunnels in Newport, we were familiarised with the 90-wagon length limit on the reliefs between STJ and Tidal, and the clear road necessary through High Street, and the STOP board procedures entering the yards and Llanwern Reception.  Llanwern Reception was a hole in space/time, you would pull up at the STOP board and, unlike normal procedure where you would be called forward by a shunter from the yard, the panel having alerted them to your presence, at Llanwern if you were lucky somebody would appear from the shunters' cabin and acknowledge your existence, but whether they did or didn't you would be there a while.  On one occasion I was there waiting to be called forward for more than three hours; there seemed a very relaxed and non-urgent culture about the place, which may well have contributed to it's eventual closure!

 

It was the only steelworks where we ventured on to the property, everywhere else being 'protected' by yards like Tidal, Margam, Llandeilo Jc and such from our tender mercies.  But once you were inside there, all bets were off and you settled in for the long game...

 

STJ, Tidal, Ebbw Jc/AD Jc, East Usk, were all 'normal' yards; you stopped at the board, were called forward under handsignal control of the ground staff, and did what they told you, almost always 'cut off and loco to...', either direct to your return working, shed, or light engine home.  Relief procedure was at set positions at signals near the signing on points, and for guards involved walking the length of the train, usually meeting your relief on the way.  'Back cab' jobs were much quicker of course, you and your driver got off the engine and the relief crew got on, with no more than passing conversation, or the other way around if you were the relieving crew at Canton.  Relieving a train with a brake van was rare at Canton, especially on the down relief (the mains were never used for this, up trains were relieved on the 'up goods' road, so that we didn't have to cross running lines on foot) because the van would have fouled the junctions and the shed inlet road; if we were relieving a van on the down or on the Barry/Radyr Quarry routes we did it at the station. 

 

At STJ it was done in the up direction on the 'examination roads', three goods loops off the up relief also used for examining trains before they went through the Severn Tunnel itself, handy for the signing on point.  Therefore, no trains routed for Gloucester were relieved on the up at STJ.  The down relief point was the down goods loop alongside the down hump reception roads, accessible over the bridge without crossing running lines; the Gloucester roads were 90mph here!

 

So, a week on the bubble car and then out working trains.  As the back working was Caped on a couple of days and we were sent home on the cushions, I took the opportunity to get a couple of rides through the Tunnel in brake vans on an STJ-Stoke Gifford transfer with Tunnel men.  Which segues me nicely into Severn Tunnel working...  We'd had a day trip to Portskewett pumping station as part of the induction course, so I was familiar with the basics already.  It is very dark down there, and to assist traincrews in locating the actual bottom, where a 1 in 90 gradient down from the Welsh side changes quite sharply to a 1 in 100 up to the English side, there are warning lamps, IIRC but it's a long time now a single lamp 440 yards before the actual bottom, lens angled towards loco/brake van, and a double lamp at the actual bottom, one lens angled at loco/brake van and a lower one angled to reflect from the rail head. 

 

As it was difficult for drivers to judge distance (and even if they are moving, at lower speeds) in the darkness (don't forget there were only marker lights or the headcode backlights in those days, you couldn't see much ahead of the loco), the signals in the tunnel had 'countdown lights' that were illuminated if the signal was showing a red aspect.  These were similar to the countdown markers for motorway exits, diagonal lines representing respectively 300, 200, and 100 feet from the signal as you approached it.  There were four signals inside The Tunnel (this was it's correct deliniation, all other tunnels on BR had names and numbers but this was 'The Tunnel', in the same way that the Forth Bridge is 'The Bridge', but it was known by all and sundry in the job as 'The Hole'; working a brake van though it was inevitably 'Toad in The Hole, and with the stove lit, of course, 'Fire in The Hole'), roughly about a half-mile in from each entrance, and with telephones connected to both Newport and Bristol Panel boxes.  Another feature was a thin continuous wire attached to brackets in the wall about four feet up from the cess on the up side.  This was the last line of defence, with a 12vdc current running through it so that if it was broken by an 'incident' or pulled apart by hand if needed, an alarm bell rang in both panel boxes and all relevant signals were put to danger.   There had been an intermediate block section at the bottom during the war. 

 

So, having a couple of van trips under my belt including my one and only ever ride on a Queen Mary, I signed for Stoke Gifford at the end of the week.  Bill Griffiths (Train Crew Manager Canton) was rather impressed, and asked me some questions which I nailed.  I hadn't been inside the examination loop at Pilning, but was pretty sure I could cope when I eventually did, and I could!  All goods and mineral traffic through the Severn Tunnel had to be examined by the guard or a C&W wagon inspector before making the journey, and I have already described the examination loops at STJ.  Pilning had a single long loop capable of taking 120 wagons on the down side, with a fan of sidings kicking back off it that any 'brokers', green or red carded cripples, could be put off in for later collection.  There had been a C&W presence here in steam days, but it had gone by my time. 

 

Yards closer to the Tunnel, 15 miles IIRC, were allowed to examine trains for Tunnel passage and therefore such trains did not need examination at STJ or Pilning.  These included Stoke Gifford, Bristol Goods and East & West Depot, Lawrence Hill, Avonmouth Dock, and on our side STJ of course, East Usk, Ebbw Jc/AD Jc, and Llanwern Steelworks.  Not sure about Rogerstone, closed by my time anyway.

 

Next, Jersey Marine including Margam & Briton Ferry

 

Jersey Marine was a smashing little yard, very 'old school' and traditional, as was Briton Ferry.  One of those places you could rely on your train being immaculately prepared, van spotless, and stove laid ready for lighting, lamps  trimmed and filled, spare oil in bottle, all equipment provided.  Some places you had to hunt around a bit for this stuff and find your own stove coal, and at Margam this was made difficult deliberately for you; we will revisit this!  The link job that I learned with was a class 8 that we relieved in the station, that put traffic off at Margam, and Briton Ferry (but only called at Briton Ferry once during that week), and ran light from Margam or Briton Ferry to Jersey Marine, to pick up a transfer freight Class 8 for Severn Tunnel Jc, then light engine home, a 45 or 46, which were a bit unusual west of Canton.  This time there were gradients to learn; the switchback out of Cardiff, uphill to Llanharan, down to Tremains, then the precipitous haul over Stormy, 1 in 90 both directions.  Van brakes were needed here, and were advisable as a gentle drag to prevent a possible 'snatch' through the dip under the road bridge at Peterstone-Super-Ely.  Putting traffic off at Margam introduced me to the permissive goods roads and the R&SB in that area, all good experience under the belt.  I was becoming adept at brake van work by now as well, where and when to use the brake, tending to the lamps, checking the equipment in train preparation. 

 

Brake vans carried a shunting pole and brake stick held in brackets on the end wall opposite end from the stove, a tail lamp and two side lamps, oil and reservoirs for same under bench, a milk bottle with spare oil in a container by the seat, and a pair of track circuit clips mounted on wooden blocks on the wall.  There was also of course the brake wheel, a bench each side with space underneath, duckets with padded seats and shoulder pads, and a writing desk opposite corner to the stove.  You soon learned that it was necessary to always carry a box of matches in a waterproof container and a newspaper, to get the kindling going and block up the gaps in the woodwork.  You would also, on boarding the van, give the side lamp brackets a bit of a wiggle to see if they were loose; if they were the van was a rocker and you were in for a rough ride.  One of the worst aspects of rockers, over and above the tiring ride, was that the motion would shake the lamps out and you'd have to keep re-lighting them, meaning going out in the cold and rain on top of what was already a miserable situation.  Rockers were excellent tools for knocking the enthusiast out of you; if you still loved trains riding in one of these on a foul night after getting up at two in the morning to sign on, you were incurable.  I was incurable, but that doesn't translate to enjoying the rougher vans; this aspect of the job was unrelenting miserable, and could so easily have been avoided, but the zeitgeist of the time was very much against it; 'they'll all be scrapped in a year or two anyway/you back cab jockeys don't know what rough work is/blah blah blah'. 

 

All of which rather missed the point, which was that the 1969 single manning agreement had been a sea change for guards, who were now 'traincrew' and booked on duty at loco depots and signging on points.  Previously, with no requirement to perform secondman duties, they had booked on duty at the goods yards, and habitually prepped their own vans, sometimes in their own time.  A rough rider would have been instantly reported to the yard's C&W, who would have been badgered relentlessly until things were put right.  All that was chucked out the  window in 1969, nobody was going to take any notice of the likes of us, and it has to be said that a lot of the remaining goods guards didn't help themselves much, accepting the miserable conditions and generally abusing the vans to express their displeasure instead of getting off our collective *rses and doing something about it.  Nobody cared, and anyone who did was ignored and ridiculed; this was, remember, a railway on which not all was well, in fact on which not much was well!

 

There was a surplus of brake vans owing to the loss of traffic and spread of fully fitted working, so you'd have thought the survivors would be in good nick.  Not a bit of it; in the cost-cutting climate of the day, the maximum allowed for spending on repairing or maintaining brake vans was 50p, over which the van would be scrapped, many yards' C&W performed miracles that they shouldn't have been asked to to keep the vans in service; keeping them in decent condition was a much bigger ask and I'm not apportioning blame in their direction, nor their cash-strapped managers.  At Radyr there was a legendary bloke called Johnny Chopsticks who was rumoured to live rough in the woods, who took it on himself to look after the brake vans and provide kindling for the stoves; if he'd been over your van you were in for a warm ride.  I was never certain if he was actually a railway employee or just one of those odd characters that the world still had room for in those days; I never actually met him but was occasionally aware of a semi-ghostly figure flitting around the yard, staying out of the floodlights.  Johnny Chopsticks was a legend, and quite possibly a myth, but train preparation at Radyr was faultless (tx, Mike).  It couldn't prevent rough riders, though, and of course much Radyr work was low-speed Valleys stuff where this did not matter so much.

 

Yards you could unquestioningly rely on to prep your train and van immaculately; Radyr, Briton Ferry, Llantrisant, Bristol East Depot, Lawrence Hill.

 

Yards that actively opposed any attempt at decent train preparation including at management level and particularly for Canton guards considerd to be 'back cab jockeys'; Margam, Margam, and Margam.

 

Yards that prepped your train and van but you had to find your own coal and oil; everywhere else.

 

Been doing this for nearly two hours, now, enough for today, more later.

Edited March 24, 2023 by The Johnster

[John Besley]

Very intresting insight into railway work from the opposite end of a train - enjoying the ride

[5BarVT]

On 13/03/2023 at 20:34, The Johnster said:

This knowledge, or at least the awareness that it existed and was used, marked my psychological transition from enthusiast to, well, something else.  I am enthusiastic about railways, but since that morning have never regarded myself as a railway enthusiast.  It's a difference of attitude, and difficult to explain quantitatively, but nonetheless genuine  and real. 

Bit late back to read this post, but I recognise that transition too.  Also happened to me in my first week as an employee.  Was best part of 5 years before I knew what a Sectional Appendix was mind!

Paul.

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, John Besley said:

Very intresting insight into railway work from the opposite end of a train - enjoying the ride

 

To quote the old rhyme:-

 

'The guard is the man

who rides in the van

The van's at the back of the train

The driver, in front, thinks the guard is a c*nt

and the guard thinks the driver's the same'.

[5BarVT]

On 17/03/2023 at 22:28, The Johnster said:

Bardic Handlamp (seriously indestructible piece of kit, dropped mine off a loco at 60mph, barely scratched and undamaged when I recovered it, had a bracket on the back to enable use as a substitute tail or head lamp, three colours, white/red/green, and an inbuilt handle at the top. 

You had the Guard’s/Porters etc version with the long lever control that stopped you getting the yellow filter round to the front.  The signalman’s version had a smaller ’cross’ lever which could go right round.

Paul.

[Michael Hodgson]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 There had been an intermediate block section at the bottom during the war.

The mind boggles.

A loco suffering wartime neglect stopped at the IB Home on wet rails trying restart a goods train overloaded because of the need for wartime supplies uphill from the sump.  Bad enough for the footplate crew with the loco creeping away in fits and starts, but the bloke in the van gets the benefit of all their smoke.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

You had the Guard’s/Porters etc version with the long lever control that stopped you getting the yellow filter round to the front.  The signalman’s version had a smaller ’cross’ lever which could go right round.

Paul.

 

That's right.  The signalmans' version could show a yellow aspect as well as the red and green.

 

6 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

The mind boggles.

A loco suffering wartime neglect stopped at the IB Home on wet rails trying restart a goods train overloaded because of the need for wartime supplies uphill from the sump.  Bad enough for the footplate crew with the loco creeping away in fits and starts, but the bloke in the van gets the benefit of all their smoke.

 

Yeah, by all accounts it could be pretty bad down there; it wasn't exactly healthy in my day with the diesel fumes.  I've certainly heard stories of loco crew having to try to breathe from the edge of the fall plate for better air.  A GW brake van with the door shut was probably solid enough to keep the worst of it out (they were double skinned, our BR standard and LMS-type vans would have been hopeless).  The Tunnel was pretty well ventilated (you can see the fan house at Portskewett from the M4 Severn Crossing) and it was always blowing a gale down there, just to add to the general hellish drama of the place.  Water ingress from the estuary was considerable especially at high tides, and years of steam engine soot and diesel fumes meant that everything was covered in a black sulphuric slime that was acidic enough to sting your hands.  It was the increase in traffic during the war, especially the build up to the D-day landings and the logistics effort to supply the advancing armies in France, Belgium, Holland, and eventually Germany itself that had prompted the decision to put the IB down there in the first place; STJ was one of the major hubs of this traffic.  I heard stories of trains from Tidal or Long Dyke taking six hours to get as far as STJ, the crews being relieved and going home on the cushions, to book on the following day to relieve the same train, which had barely turned a wheel in the meantime beyond moving up in the queue on the permissive block, which started on the up relief at Magor and ran for about two miles to the actual junction.  We were warned on the induction course that it was not difficult to become completely disorientated down there.  It was unbelievably noisy even when there wasn't a train in the offing, wet, a freezing howling gale, and pitch black, and dangerous; the acidic slime made everything very slippery.

 

There were worse tunnels for smoke and fumes, though, and the single bore of Ledbury Tunnel had a particularly evil reputation, especially as up loaded coal trains had to climb through it.

[Matt37268]

17 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

 

 

There were worse tunnels for smoke and fumes, though, and the single bore of Ledbury Tunnel had a particularly evil reputation, especially as up loaded coal trains had to climb through it.

I’ve heard a few stories about Ledbury, how true they are I don’t know, but more than one of my railway friends has told me of what a harsh environment it is. 

[BachelorBoy]

I am enjoying this enormously. More please.

 

(But when do you get to the confessions about parties in the guards van with the Benny Hill-like scantily clad ladies?)

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Matt37268 said:

I’ve heard a few stories about Ledbury, how true they are I don’t know, but more than one of my railway friends has told me of what a harsh environment it is. 

What you’ve heard is probably true, Matt; only the pre-electrification Woodhead had a worse reputation TTBOMK.  It was bad enough with diesel fumes; I cannot imagine what it must have been like with steam!

 

1 hour ago, BachelorBoy said:

I am enjoying this enormously. More please.

 

(But when do you get to the confessions about parties in the guards van with the Benny Hill-like scantily clad ladies?)

 

Patience, Padawan, they’re on their way; the thread isn’t titled ‘confessions’ for nothing!.  You don’t want to get to the juicy stuff too soon, though; it’ll be worth the wait, I promise…

Edited March 25, 2023 by The Johnster

[Rivercider]

Many thanks Johnster for the latest instalment of this fascinating thread, I am in danger of being late for work this morning.

Back on page three (fnarr fnarr) I enjoyed the pictures of Ninian Park posted by Halvarras, which helped illustrate the thread, and brought out more anecdotes and information. I took photos from about 1978 and some were of locations mentioned so far. I can find some photos that include freight working, and some with brake vans. Do you mind if I add a few, especially some that show details of the yards mentioned?

 

cheers  

[KeithHC]

Going slightly off topic. But surely the two tunnels at Bath on the S&D where meant to be the worst. One engine crew died going through Combe Down tunnel. 
 

Keith

[Michael Hodgson]

The pumping station (with the original pumps removed) is a Grade II listed building.  We got there once on a railtour.

https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/300024002-sudbrook-pump-house-portskewett

 

On the opposite side of the main lines, the old MoD branch to Caerwent was lifted, but it got relaid by IIRC the Territorials and later still lifted again, I believe the rails went to the Gwili Rly.  I liked the way the branch was shown on the 1" OS maps as running to and across the A48 but stopped immediately after that bridge (the camp gates).  The camp was a large ammunition dump for the US military, and we often heard helicopter operations at night, it was rumoured the SAS were doing training exercises in the woods around there.  There are proposals to use the route as a cycle path

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/20205768.cycle-path-plan-disused-railway-line/

[The Johnster]

5 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Many thanks Johnster for the latest instalment of this fascinating thread, I am in danger of being late for work this morning.

Back on page three (fnarr fnarr) I enjoyed the pictures of Ninian Park posted by Halvarras, which helped illustrate the thread, and brought out more anecdotes and information. I took photos from about 1978 and some were of locations mentioned so far. I can find some photos that include freight working, and some with brake vans. Do you mind if I add a few, especially some that show details of the yards mentioned?

 

cheers  

Glad you are enjoying it, Kevin; I’d be delighted if you added relevant photos, the more the merrier.  I sometimes take for granted that, because I knew where and what these places were, everybody else does as well, and of course some of them were backwaters at the time, not known much outside the job, and have vanished under redevelopments and roads long ago.  Even the mighty Canton is a decaying ghost now.  Photos will help folk understand my ramblings, and trigger more memories as well!

[slow8dirty]

Johnster's confessions illustrated with Kev's pictures, that could be a good book😉💡

[The Johnster]

Don't forget M. Philou's excellent maps!

 

More route learning insterspersed with working trains on the routes learned:-

 

Gloucester.

 

Plenty of interest here, and some gradients to worry about as well.  Up and down loops at Lydney and Grange Court, and a proper goods yard as well as the shipyard at Chepstow, but we never went in these places.  Later on I regularly worked the 05.30 dmu to Cardiff, first service of the day, which was usually more full as the empty stock on the way up, as it collected any Severn Tunnel traincrew that had fetched up at Canton or made their way to Newport overnight, usually a 120.  One of my colleages, Bob Jeffries, good mate, same age as me and much the same taste in music, was involved in a tragic incident with this train on the way up to Chepstow with the ecs one morning.  It was winter, pitch dark, and a stiff northeasterly breeze meant that a Per.Way gang working on the up main junction turnout at STJ and concentrating on what they were doing failed to see or hear them coming, and two of them were sadly run over.  I digress...

 

It was difficult to get night time experience during route learning and I appreciated the more experienced guards I rode with pointing out landmarks that would be useful at night and in poor visibility.  Some of these were bridges, useful for the change in noise as you passed beneath them, and some were lit features on nearby roads or in buildings.  You needed to know where to put your van brake on, and where to release it in order to avoid bumps and snatches that might break couplings and would certainly attract comment from your driver (fair enough, we would happily mention it to them if we thought they'd been a bit rough with us).  There was a morbid fear of breaking couplings but in fact this was a very rare occurrence and I only recall hearing of one incident of it for my entire career, which had occurred on the Gloucester Road but not to a Canton man.  The problem with night route learning was that, understandably, the company were reluctant to book you out at times for which enhanced rates of pay were applicable when you were not doing anything productive.

 

Part of route learning to Gloucester was The Windmill.  This was a pub up a side street just off Barton Road on the town side of the level crossing, and much frequented by railwaymen waiting for back workings or cushions home.  There was a long public bar along a street frontage, painted green one end and red the other, to separate the Western men from the Midland.  I thought this was a great tradition and good craic of course, but didn't take it seriously until elbowing my way in to a space at the bar up the red end one evening and being promptly told 'oi, Canton, f*ck off up your own end' in a Brummie accent.  How he knew my depot I have no idea, but I thought discretion was the better part and f*cked off up my own end...  This was a quarter century or so after the demise of both the GWR and the LMS, and half a century after the Midland Railway did all GW men a favour and ceased to exist.

 

Vale of Glamorgan

 

I had a week learning this with a job that we relieved in the station, a class 7, that like the early morning Jersey Marine train put traffic off at Margam, then ran light engine to Swansea High St Goods to work a fully fitted vacuum train back up, with a Hymek.  For the entire week I was booked to learn the Vale with it, it ran main line because of late arrival at Cardiff.  But I stuck with the crew and signed for Court Sart Jc to Swansea High Street at the end of the week.  They gave me anothe week over the Vale, this time with a Barry crew on an Aberthaw-Blaenant MGR job. 

 

Cushions to Barry, picked up the MGR as it collected the wagons from one of the sidings, and away to Jersey Marine, where the train reversed and picked up an air-braked brake van, purpose revealed shortly.  which was left for us on the hump and which we rolled down by gravity to the rear of the train.  Off up to Blaenant, where the train pulled up clear of the top points and was let back down the bank through the loader three hoppers at a time, controlled by a travelling shunter from Jersey Marine using the air brake setter (exhaust valve) in the van.  As the site was on a curve in heavily wooded country, by the time he could no longer see handsignals from the NCB shunter on the ground, this shunter could be seen from the loco, so the process continued,  Once the train was loaded, we pulled forward into the loop and cut the loco off to run around for the drop back down the hill to Jersey Marine through the ruins of Neath Riverside. 

 

This was the Neath & Brecon Railway route, still open up to Craig y Nos Quarry.  In the northern outskirts of Neath, it ran along the back fence of a place called Penscynor Bird Gardens, which anyone of a certain age from South Wales will remember as somewhere you went on a day trip when it was raining, along with Dan yr Ogof Caves (and dinosaur park), a sort of mini zoo with exotic birds and a petting zoo for the kids.  Almost everybody had a car window sticker from this place.  Anyway, the news that week was that an ostrich had escaped and was manfully evading recapture, being sighted all over the place.   We went to town with this on the journals in the 'remarks' columns, reporting sightings of the ostrich, herds of wildebeeste sweeping majestically across the Serengeti, lions, tigers, pink elephants, Moby Dick, zebras crossing, luncheon vultures, and all sorts...

 

Then home via Aberthaw CEGB, which I had to learn anyway.  One reported to the 'main discharge control office' when one arrived at the reception roads, which was upstairs and had a grand view of operations.  There were all sorts of consoles with flashing lights and dials, don't think anybody knew what any of them did but they looked the part.  Another feature of Aberthaw CEGB was the moon pool.  This was buried deep in the very bowels of the boiler house, and was where the seawater intake from the concrete platform half a mile offshore came out.  This platform had an abandoned Ruston Bucyrus crane on it that had been used in it's construction, gradually deteriorating in the salt air; it lost it's jib in a storm a few years later.  Anyway, back to the moon pool, this always had a fine variety of live fishes that had come in with the seawater, cod, hake, skate, plaice, you name it.  Water went through a filter from the moon pool to evaporate the salt out and render it suitable for the boiler, which could also be oil-fired if needed.  If you brought a plastic bucket, there was a net you could borrow to catch any you wanted and them home, alive, for your supper.  I am rather fond of skate wings, fried in butter, and seasoning in a bit of tomato paste, but dabs (small plaice, you need about half a dozen to make a decent meal) were another regular from the moon pool.  I was introduced to the delights of conger eel steak from this source as well; these were killed and cut up on site.  You didn't want one of those b*ggers thrashing around in a loco cab, all head and teeth and a serious attitude problem.  Saw one snapping and trying to get it's own back on the bloke who'd severed it's head about ten minutes earlier, nasty sods*.

 

There was an urban myth in the area that skate could not be brought ashore whole and the wings, the edible bit, had to be cut off at sea aboard the trawler, because the fish's body had genitalia similar to human (sort of, but you'd need a good imagination).  Nonsense of course, but there were several people who told me I couldn't bring live skate home with me for that reason. 

 

Then you reboarded the loco for the computer-controlled run through the discharge hoppers, then over a weighbridge, which gave you the empty load (which you knew already, the same as yesterday), and right away Barry to be dropped off for cushions home.

 

I enjoyed my week with the Barry men, which finished rather pleasantly with a session in the BRSA (staff club) at Barry on the Friday.  My route knowledge net was spreading ever wider... though it was some time before I had occasion to work over the whole of the Vale line again, and when I did it was at night.  The Barry men's tuition was good, which was just as well because once you get past Llantwit Major it's blacker than the inside of a cow down there...

 

 

*One of the funniest things I ever saw in my life involved a conger eel.  I had foolishly allowed myself to be persuaded by a 'chum' that sea fishing was the mutt's wotsits, and agreed to a day on the end of Barry Harbour breakwater with a borrowed rod and a bucket of maggots, in December, in a strong easterly wind, on a spectacularly dull and cold day.  The idea was that we were going to catch cod (a world record, 44lbs, had been set at this unlikely spot the previous year), and a haddock if we were lucky, or a Hake if we were very lucky.  There were about half a dozen likely characters huddled around the lighthouse for shelter, including my oppo and me. 

 

Nobody caught anything except colds, except one chap who was casting on the harbour side of the breakwater.  He managed to hook a conger, about three feet, which gave him a hell of a struggle as he got it clear of the water and up over the rocks that made the breakwater.  He was a big strong lad, but this eel was clearly about his limit.  He eventually got it up the bank, took about forty minutes, and then had a time of it subdueing it.  They are basically half head with extra teeth and half pure muscle that you can't get a grip on, and it took several of us to hold it reasonably still while he administered the last rites, with a 5lb sledge hammer, whack, and Mr Conger shivered a bit, and then lay very still, lifeless. 

 

About half an hour after this it started getting dark, not that it was the sort of day that had ever really been properly light, and a general concensus of opinion was that we should all warm up over a pint in the pub at the top of the hill, the Marine Hotel, long gone now but the building is still there.  If I'm honest, I'd given up hours before, and so had my maggots, and the conger was the highlight of the day, or so I thought at the time.  It was just about to get better, much better...

 

We were walking along the top of the breakwater towards the landward end, and our hero had his prize slung over his shoulder, it's lifeless head swinging side to side, very stone age man.  Now, I must pause in the narrative to recall Rod Hull and Emu.  Mr Conger decided at this point that he wasn't quite as dead as we'd thought he was (that hammer blow would have seen off Smaug the Dragon, surely).  He lifted his head, looked straight at me, turned it side to side exactlly like Emu checking for witnesses, and clamped his considerable jaws around our hero's neck!

 

'Get it off me, get it off me, help, it's gonna kill me, get it off me, stop laughing you 'stard and pull it off me': nope, the comedy had got to me and I was helpless laughing at the poor so-and-so, nothing I could do.  Luckily, the others present were less heartless, and after a fairly heroic struggle, managed to prise the monster's jaws apart for our poor hero to release himself.  Mr Conger then promptly slithered back whence he came over the rocks, giving us a particularly expressive backwards 'ferkyew' glance just before entering the water.  I apologised profusely to the victim, who eventually saw the funny side, but thought it was only right to buy him the first pint, after all he'd been the best part of an otherwise miserable day!  He was wearing an industrial grade full on Nanouk of the North anorak, the thickness of which probably saved him from any real harm.

 

Never went fishing again after that.  It was never ever going to be as funny again, ever!

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by The Johnster

[ian]

Johnster, you have a flair for narrative. Your description of the fishing expedition was vivid - I felt that I was there.

[Northroader]

The thing that stuck in my mind about calling in Blaenant on the N&B was the way all the miners coming up from below were dressed in oilskins, it must have been a hell of a place to work.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Northroader

[The Johnster]

I never saw this, indeed never went back there again by rail after the route learning week, they were all beavering away underground while the shunt was taking place.  Much of the surface installation was obscured by thick woodland, and apart from the modern processing plant/hopper, fed by an enclosed conveyor that emerged from the trees, you wouldn't have known there was a colliery there at all from railside, not what I was expecting!  Presumably Blaenant was a 'wet' pit, as many in that area were.  What do you prefer, dust or mould, both will wreck your lungs...

 

For layout colliery surface working at Cwmdimbath, Dimbath Deep Navigation no.2, I work on an assumption that it takes a minimum of about an hour for coal won at the faces to emerge from the loading hoppers into the wagons under the washery loader.  It has to be moved, probably by dram but possibly by conveyor belt, from the galleries to pit bottom, raised one cage-full at a time, which must form a bit of a bottleneck, or put another way a reservoir of coal to raise for some time after the men have stopped working for breaks or at the end of their shift.  Similar bottleneck/reservoirs must build up at each processing stage on the surface as well; screening, grading, washing, and loading.  So the last clearance of the day, leaving at 20.45 in the evening, allows for a reservoir of coal to be brought to the surface, which will keep the morning shift occupied during the hour or so after 06.00 while the men sign on, pick up their lamps, are caged down, make their way to the galleries, start working, and the new coal is brought up and processed. 

 

This leads to an initial flurry of shunting prior to the first clearance of the day at about 09.15, after which once the newly delivered empties are positioned, enables the railway side and weighbridge staff to have breakfast about 10.00 am, halfway through the shift.  How accurately this reflects prototypical colliery surface operations I am not sure, but it feels about right....