61070

On Old OS maps: this was Brick Kiln Lane until sometime pre-c.1904, thereafter Springfield Road (edit 11-1-13: 1911 census has 'Brick Kiln Lane or Springfield Road'). The brick works, including clay pit, was situated to the the south of the lane/road, opposite the junction with Huntingtower Road. The brick works remained a feature of OS mapping until the early 1930s. By the late '40s it could have been derelict and it later became (1960s) the site of a 'Works'; no doubt our Grantham-based correspondents will know where I mean and what this works was - it was east of BMaRCo. There was a malthouse adjacent to the brickworks. You'll be relieved to know that all this is a few feet off your baseboard Robert (though probably still inside the chapel!).

Robert - it's looking fantastic in there already. Nice day for the move too. Can I have a go at the quiz please (if it's still open) ? 1 Lowgill viaduct? 2 The Lune Gorge (from A685) 3 Stainmore summit? Slightly intrigued by what the yellow triangular sign on the outside of the door might be warning us of? 'Stand well back from the edge of the baseboard - streamlined trains pass through this station'?

The photo of 60112 was taken on 19th September 1963. A few weeks before that St Simon had been given a somewhat hurried repaint to prepare it for hauling a Waterloo-Weymouth excursion on 25th August: http://mikemorant.sm...dPJVmr&lb=1&s=L and the 'Great Shot!' centrefold (pages 34-35) in the September 2012 edition of Steam World. Though it still carries a 34F shedplate, Grantham shed had closed 2 weeks before the photo posted above was taken. I have generally assumed that someone had made a start at maintaining the loco in clean condition soon after it returned from its travels on the SR, but had run out of time - or manpower - to do so. Note that the white paint on the buffers is still evident. I expect this was the last A3 to be repainted while in BR service.

I've added the appropriate photos showing the glmpses - and they are that - of the shed offices and workshops referred to by Roy in his two most recent posts: I've noticed to the right of the engine, just behind the white faced buffers, one of the windows in the time office (loco. dept), a wooden building, quite long as it also accommodated small offices for the c.m.e.(Frank Lawrence at that time), and one or two others including the roster clerk, as well as the running shed shift foremen, one "inside-in the chair",as he was known, and one supposed to be running things outside. There was also a signing on time clerk and time office runner. All the links, rosters and daily/weekly roster aterations were posted in there as well as daily notices of temp.line works/speed restrictions etc. Really the hub of activity for the day to day running of the depot. At the back of the old shed (ie. the south end), and attached to it, was the fitters' shop and the general office/shedmaster's office, all in the same brickwork. The two offices were quite small really, considering their importance. There are odd glimpses I'm sure of this area in some photos in John's "Returning to Grantham" thread on the LNER website. [photo shows the back wall of the 'old shed' - the rest of the structure had been demolished] Above the time office's roof (which I refered to) appears another, higher roof, which I thought at first was the front of the "new shed", but I think now it is the roof of the boilersmith's shop, a brick building, quite high and standing on slightly higher ground, which also accommodated the firelighter and boilerwashers in small messrooms at the rear. Whether that building existed in the '30s. I don't know; I rather think it may have, with the brickwork and age of it, as far as I can remember. Your descriptions are so clear and detailed, Roy, that I can imagine myself there! Perhaps Robert can be encouraged to include this area in his model. John

How gratifying it is to have found a photo that's of value to you both. I came across the Rail Photoprints website just the other day, and I plugged 'Grantham' into the search box (as I usually do) to see what came up. All except this one were pretty much regular Grantham fare, though I should say that I can never see too much of that. Of course the main question for you, Robert, is how much of that arrangement existed in the mid/late 1930s. I can't help there. One observation though. The more distant crossover would be redundant if the nearer arrangement were to be a double slip. Might this infer that the layout could have developed in two or more stages, each stage incorporating additional options dictated by changing operational needs? Roy - I wonder whether the man beside the first coach is passenger shunter Gilbert Needham? Gilbert appears in several of my Dad's pictures and he was recognised from them by several people who I've met at Grantham. He typically wore his hat right back on his head. If you knew Gilbert what do you think? I'll drop a note to the Rail Photoprints website, pointing them to this page so they can see how useful their images are, and asking if we can see an enlargement of that detail. Hope you are keeping well.

Here's a photo I've found of said crossover in 1957: http://railphotoprints.zenfolio.com/p748395313/h3327df79#h3327df79 John

The connections referred to were still in place in July 1964: http://www.lner.info...=2283&mode=view (you can't see much of the trackwork, but the ground signal is a clue), but were gone by 6 Feb 1966 - as this photo taken on the latter date shows:

I'm very glad to have helped. Strangely, I don't remember that signal at all from our visits in the 1960s, though clearly it was there. In those days I took a particularly keen interest in signalling (I wanted to be a signalman!) so it's all the more puzzling that I don't recall it. I've checked a few sources of photos to see if the top of the post is visible anywhere, but without success so far. It appears too tall to have been originally intended for the two signals it carries in the photo. Perhaps it was built to carry a somersault arm, which was mounted a couple of feet higher so as to give adequate clearance from platform level when 'off'? In terms of what moves were governed by which signals in the photo, would the shunt signal - the lower one on the lattice post - be used (for example) to signal the locomotive forward in preparation for running round? Is it showing 'off' in the photo? (I say that because, in comparison with the ground disc signal on the left, the white rectangle is inclined.) Not sure about the ground disc signal on the left. I think the second (and possibly also the third) track out from the platform was part of the carriage sidings, but weren't these sidings accessible also from running lines at the South Box end (i.e. they did not end with buffer stops)? If they were accessible from both ends, would this mean that they needed to be signalled in some basic manner? However, really I hesitate to comment on anything too specialised in the signalling field because, as in many fields of railway engineering, I've learned that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing! There are, however, a number of signalling experts on the LNER Forum and we could ask for some views there. A track diagram would help, if you have one.

I've recently come across this view of platform 5. It's a photo by Ben Brooksbank and it can be found here: http://www.geograph....k/photo/2878811 . It's main value is that it shows in some detail the up starting signal on that platform which, in my experience, is seldom seen in photographs. In fact it's enabled me to identify the location of one of my Dad's shots also attached (and which I might title 'still life with signal balance weights'!) that had me puzzled for quite a while. It's interesting to see that a few lengths of channel point rodding have been fashioned into a rudimentary protective enclosure to protect bystanders from being struck by the mechanism when it moved. On a Yard Box diagram from later years the main signal arm is described as 'fixed' and the disc signal was operated by lever no. 31. Hope this helps with a bit more detail.

Mike - just a quick note to say that my copies of Grantham and Railways, The Grantham Rail Crash of 1906 and Grantham in Focus (Vol.1) have arrived, and they are providing more fascinating detail for me. I'm specially grateful to have the key to the station buildings in Grantham and Railways. It will be of great value for improving the captions of my photos. John

Yes, my father took nearly all the photos I've posted myself on the 'Returning to Grantham' thread - the exceptions are some of Roy's which he allowed me to include. Dad enjoyed taking 'candid' people photos so, unless the subjects are obviously posing for their portraits, most of them would have been unaware. You can see, for example, that the photo of the guard next to the door of the down side refreshment room was taken 'secretly' from around chest level, without raising the camera to his eye and lining up the shot. Hence the rotation I've needed to carry out to bring the verticals into alignment (I've not cropped it square all round so as to retain as much as I can of the detail you're interested in). Since showing many of the photos to former Grantham railwaymen I've been able to put names to most of the people - some of whom, like the porter sitting on the box, could only be recognised by people who knew them really well because you can't actually see his face very well. Note the the box has a 'FRAGILE' sticker on it! Thanks for your tip about the GNR Society's features on track and signalling through Grantham. I've been on their website recently but I didn't pick this up. I'm looking forward to seeing more pictures of the layout 'as and when'. John

Hello there Derek - I hope you are keeping well. I'll have to watch myself; you never know who's on the lookout for mischief on these forums!

Thanks for the book suggestions Mike. Sorry about the missed breakfast - I hope you enjoyed a decent lunch! I don't think I've seen the books by Harold Bonnett and Chris Windows so I will look out for them. I think I must have seen Grantham in Focus (Vol. 1) though - probably at the town's library - as I too remember squirming at that comment about the 9F in LNER green (how weird would that look!); I'll see if I can get hold of a copy cheaply. I do have Grantham in the News 1951-75 and have just looked through it; I can confirm that there's nothing in it which would help this project. The Changing Face of Grantham, a hardback published in 2004 in association with The Grantham Journal, with captions by John Pinchbeck, has two potentially useful pictures on page 79: top photo - a view in the down side goods yard which may give some guidance, if required, on track layout; bottom photo - a gleaming A3 (identity not evident, though it would have been on the original print) heading a 'Barford special' which shows the south elevation of the goods shed in the (rather distant) background [the load is 32 dyke cleaners - now that could have all kinds of unintended meanings in modern times!]. John

Hello again Robert, Sorry to distract you from progress with the layout, but I hope the following is (mostly) useful and, if not, at least interesting! Platforms 1 & 2 north end canopy From the appearance and locations of the canopy support columns in the Parley photograph in Steam Days I’m sure you’re right about the easternmost row of pillars being between the two tracks. Thinking about it, in structural terms I don’t think it would have been possible to design a canopy which was solely supported by columns mounted on the platform – it’s not broad enough for two sufficiently widely spaced rows of columns while still leaving adequate clearance from both platform edges. It appears that the track serving platform 1 is therefore covered, ‘train shed’ style, by the canopy and platform 2 is shaded by a section of the canopy which overhangs the westernmost row of columnns, in a similar (though not exactly the same, in either length or cross-section) manner to the opposite down side, platforms 4 and 3 (where a 'bolt-on' awning appears to have been provided for platform 3 as a bit of an afterthought). I’ve compared the 17 June 1902 photographs published in Steam Days and in Archive. The Steam Days image has reproduced better, so that more detail is revealed in both shadows and highlights. Therefore you’ll not pick up any more information about the canopy by looking at the Archive publication – though there are two (not three – my mistake) other photos of Grantham station from 1902. However, I can see now that the photograph published in Archive is actually a different image from the one in Steam Days. The camera is set up in exactly the same place and the same locomotive and train is at platform 3, but in the view published in Archive the train has just begun to move away – it’s slightly nearer the photographer and the first puff of exhaust is leaving the chimney. The two women walking north along platform 2 in Steam Days are right at the left hand edge of the Archive photograph, confirming that it was taken a few seconds later. This may be of little significance so far as the canopy is concerned, but it has set me thinking that perhaps there may be even more of Parley’s pictures somewhere. In Archive they are credited to ‘the collection of John Tatchel’, and the text is acknowledged jointly to him and the secretary of the GNR Society, a Richard Tarpey. Have you had any contact with that Society? In terms of the post-war remodelling of the bay connections and the extension of the platform I do now recall reading some discussion of that. Down side platform buildings I’ve now fully ‘taken in’ Roy’s photographs and I have to say that you and he have quite ‘made my day’, because I’ve been able to pinpoint the locations of two more of my father’s photos which, until now, were simply at ‘unknown locations’ on Grantham station – see later. First, however, the A4 (+ WD and ‘Peak’) photo. This was taken through the gap between the northernmost (brick) building and the wooden structure to its south. If you follow the silhouette of the edge of the right hand building against the sky (above the roof of the Peak) you can just discern the regular indentations of the mortar courses. Here’s the staircase photo as good as I can get it. It was taken on 5th September 1963. Note that the phone kiosk is an older style, and may well date from ‘your’ era. The northernmost brick building housed the down side refreshment room and it had a large clock face mounted externally on platform 3 – see my photo of 92044 posted 25 August 2010: http://www.lner.info...&p=34059#p34059 The clock was presumably two-faced, though I don’t have any photos which show the north-facing side. Here’s a glimpse of the door of the refreshment room on platform 3 (9th April 1964): This next one was taken (on 18th April 1963) on platform 5, I think towards the south end of the southernmost of the two brick buildings: The above is one of the two photos which Roy’s pictures have helped me to locate; and here’s the other (22 August 1963) – in the background is the ‘modesty screen’ between platforms 3 and 5 outside the entrance to the gents’. Note that Roy’s photos were taken after the platforms were renumbered, but I’ve used the numbering which applied in the early 1960s. I hadn’t seen or heard about ‘Grantham and the Railways’ but I have already ordered a copy! It’s really amazing what still turns up – I really thought I’d pretty much reached the end of the road on researching my pictures.

That's a nice shot of 2509. Yes, the photo showing the train of (apparently) LMS-lettered hopper wagons, loaded with ironstone, on the down main line is indeed the one with No.2582 Sir Hugo on the engine spur. That picture also shows, behind the scene, a section of the canopy you mention - the structure that extended north from the up side station buildings along platforms 1 and 2 until it collapsed with the weight of snow in 1947. It can be seen in the photo at page 47 (top) in Cawston and also in one of Rev T.B. Parley’s early Edwardian era photos of Grantham station which has appeared in at least two publications – Steam Days No.211 (March 2007) page 137 and, with three further photographs taken at Grantham in the same period, in Archive (published by Lightmoor Press) Issue 1 (March 1994) on page 40. I expect you will be aware of these but, if you aren’t, they may provide some more clues for you. The loss of the canopy may well explain the different style of gas lamp that could be seen in the 1950s/early 1960s along the north end of the up platform, compared with elsewhere on the station; these most likely being installed to replace older lighting destroyed in the collapse. Incidentally, I’ve found the Vintage Carriages Trust to be excellent for supplying the occasional back number copy of magazines. Their shop can be emailed from http://www.vintagecarriagestrust.org/Shops.htm , and I’ve always received a reply within a few days. The BackTrack issue of May 1996 does include a shot of the water tower. I haven’t much that can help further with your quest for detail. Attached is a shot taken through one of the gaps between the buildings on the down side - it's not the sharpest of images. I’ve another, in b/w, which shows the staircase to the footbridge, but it’s quite a ‘thin’ (i.e. underexposed) negative and I’ll need to have another try at obtaining a decent scan. There’s a shot taken in the down side goods yard here: http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10443415&itemw=4&itemf=0001&itemstep=1&itemx=3

Hello Robert (and all), I've gathered snippets of information here and there which may help to answer or elaborate upon a few points of detail. I can't say when the conversion from somersault to upper quadrant semaphore arms took place, but this signal had become a colour light by by 13/9/1958 (ref. a dated photo in Steam World No.263. May 2009, p23 lower); note also that in May 1953 there was a distant arm on the lower branch signal doll (as well as on the main) - see http://www.a1steam.c...names&Itemid=69 A train of these hopper wagons used for the ironstone traffic can be seen in the background of a colour photograph taken at Grantham in 1946 which appeared on the cover of BackTrack Vol.11 No.10 (Oct 1997). I don't have my copy in front of me, but I think the lettering is visible. [The wagons used for this traffic by the 1960s were iron ore tippler wagons and not, strictly speaking, standard mineral wagons. Although of approximately the same external dimensions as the BR standard 16T mineral wagons, the iron ore tipplers carried a much heavier load (27 or 28 tons), they had no doors, and they had axle bearings that woudn't lose lubricating oil when the wagon was inverted for discharge.] I'm the 'founder' of the Returning to Grantham thread on the LNER Forum and, if I may say so, I think your modelling of Grantham in the 1930s is absolutely breathtaking in both its ambition and its achievement. I have a few more pictures of the station and its environs taken in the early 1960s which aren't on that thread. Though they may not be of so much use to you as other, earlier, material you have clearly worked hard to discover, or Roy's photos of the down side buildings, if there are any specific locations where more reference is needed let me know and I'll see what I have. By the way, have you seen BackTrack Vol.10, No.5 (May 1996) pages 276-277 - some colour photographs of various station buildings?