roythebus

Not to forget the railway library in the loo! The Rev. Ted was the only vicar I've heard swear. In about 1971, Bill Gardiner and I had to tow a 1927 Foden from Crich to London with a tram body on the back, using the TMS Scammel as tow truck. Bill decided to call in at Cadey on the way; on arrival Ted told bill not to park on the grass as it was rather soft. Bill promptly did, and the Scammell ended up with on wheel in a grave! I can't print Ted's word to describe Bill, but a resemblance to female genitalia was used!! We managed to get the Scammell out of the grave without too much problem. we had a cup of tea and carried on south, but that's a longer story. Ted was booked to give a lecture at the MRC, but sadly he died the week before. Ted was a fascinating gentleman.

Don't mention the war...

Slightly off-topic, another story from my mate ex Koeln Deutz was about the coal train, berthed in one of the through lines in Duesseldorf Hbf for loco change. Loco unhooks, new Turkish shunter applies handbrake on 2 leading wagons, deposits 40 tonnes of coal between the running rails! The handbrake wheels and the hopper bottom door wheels look rather the same!. He reckons it took 3 days to clear up the mess.

A tale told by a friend, a retired DB driver who used to work the cross-border stuff from Bw Koeln Deutz, a goods train arrived at Aachen. DB loco goes off, DB shunter goes on the back of the train to assist it out of the station as described above. DB banker gets the right away, starts shoving, thinking the Belgian isn't doing much. It's only when the train's over the top and the banker drops back that someone realises the Belgian loco was still in the yard at Aachen, and what they had was a rather heavy freight train with no loco. It apparently came to a stand several km down the line, having see-sawed in a dip! At Venlo, the DB would run in with pan down as the station was NS 1500v DC, and a shunter would move the DB lok to sidings, then onto the train. The departure platform towards Germany was at 16kv AC.

I could add a myriad of tales about these services as I was a secondman at Kings Cross from 1975 to 1978, and had probably the most enjoyable days of my railway career there. It was very interesting as we had the last of the traditional loco hauled services on the suburban and main lines. Suburbans were mostly loco hauled in the peaks, with a number of DMU services. All loco hauled suburbans were class 31 by then, usually with 6 cars. Cambridge fasts and semi-fasts were usually Mk1 main line stock,again with 31s, but rarely a 47. Suburban stock was booked to work to Cambridge and Peterborough, as well as places in between. Early turns would typically book on at about 0400 to 0600, with crews going pass to Finsbury Park to prepare the locos, then light engine to one of the many outstations where the stock was berthed, typically Hertford North, Welwyn, Hitchin or the local sidings at Finsbury Park and Caledonian Road. Late turns would start at about 1500, with a peak hour journey from FP to Moorgate, a trip to the outer limits, berth the stock, then light engine back to Finsbury Park. The locos would be booked to arrive about an hour before departure to steam heat the stock. This was a problem for me in the early days as I hadn't been trained on the steam heat boilers! Up trains would work to either Kings Cross or Moorgate. The few Broad street services were worked by the Rolls Royce engined DMUs. some of the Cravens units would work through to Moorgate. The Metro Cam units would not normally work the widened lines as they weren't fitted with trip cocks to work on the LT section. On the Cambridge buffet trains, we'd usually try to achieve 100mph on the "up" run, on the long down hill stretch through Wood Green tunnel, where we once had 102 out of a 31 with a buffet set! On the down line in summer, the locos would often overheat approaching Potters Bar. This would only happen with the radiator at the leading end, as the air flow missed the radiator grilles! As soon as power was eased off past Potters Bar, the system would cool down again! My regular driver in 3 link at the time was a Yorkshireman called Ron Birch. His son followed him into the footplate grade. Later when I progressed to 2 link where we usually worked to Leeds, I was with Ron "Brusher" Warren who lived at Hatfield. He used to boast that his runner beans used to grow up N2 boiler tubes that he "rescued" from his days at Hatfield loco! My view at the time was how uneconomic the whole operation was, with over 300 drivers and some 200 secondmen at Kings Cross alone. This of course changed dramatically with electrification.

I've got an HO set, brand new if anyone wants it.

They used to reckon that if a Siphon G was used for milk churn traffic and it developed wheel flats, the milk would turn to butter by the time it reached London!!

In the good old steam days, a brake van would have to be at the rear of the train, except if it was a passenger train or parcels train if my memory serves me correctly. even then, there was usually a brake coach at the rear. The milk trains would run to Vauxhall where it was unloaded in the up Windsor loop platform 1; there was a milk depot at Point Pleaseant just east of Putney, and another on the WLL just where the line to West Ruislip used to branch off. The site is now covered by the Westway A40 roundabout! I would sometimes see a milk train from Southfields Park where we had to go for school sports. I used to spend more time train watching than playing football! The milk train was any loco available, from Spam Cans to Q1s and BR standards. the tanks were always filthy dirty and looked far from hygienic!