The engine sheds at Nine Elms, Battersea where many of the locomotives on the Watercress Line would have been serviced from time to time and also an environment familiar to some of the people who have shared memories below. Photo Kevin Lane Collection.
Railway Workers’ Memories
Part of the Canadian Pacific Project involved collecting oral history associated with the railways during the period that the locomotive was operating or the lines that it ran on. Here are some of those accounts from a variety of railway workers.
We would welcome more memories so if you want to donate some please contact Keith by email; kchambers@hotmail.co.uk.
End of Southern Steam – 9th July 1967
Before leaving school at the age of 15, I applied for a job at Guildford Motive Power Depot as an engine cleaner. I then received a letter through the post inviting me to attend a medical at London Bridge.
After successfully passing my medical, I started work as engine cleaner at Guildford on 4th April 1961.
My first day at work was incredible. Once kitted out with protective clothing, i.e. a uniform of overalls and a grease top hat, I then spent the rest of the day helping to clean Schools class locomotive, No. 30909 ‘St Paul’s’. She was one of three Schools Class locomotives that were based at Guildford at the time (the others being No.30903 ‘Charterhouse’ and No. 30906 ‘Sherborne’). I went home quite elated that I had helped to clean one of these wonderful Schools class locomotives.
I also worked on one of the last locomotives to leave Guildford on the final day of steam on the Southern Region, 9th July 1967. The following day, we all transferred to Woking and I became a secondman on diesels or electrics for the next two years before becoming a driver myself.
My last day was, was quite special for me. As previously mentioned, I was on one of the last locomotives to leave Guildford. I booked on duty at Guildford; my name on the alteration sheet showing ‘locomotives to Salisbury if required’. There were four locomotives left at Guildford to leave on the last day; two BR Standard Class 5MT locomotives No. 73155 and No. 73118, West Country Class No. 34018 ‘Axminister’ and the last locomotive to leave was USA class No. 30072 which was crewed by a pair of Fratton men.
My journey consisted of the two BR standard locomotives coupled together, my driver being Driver Bill Brain and the other locomotive was crewed by Passed Fireman Pat Kinsella and Passed Fireman Dave Elston.
After coupling the two locomotives together, we left Guildford, running tender-first to Woking and then reversed and continued engine-first to Salisbury. One poignant moment for me was going through Brookwood station where I had spent so much time as a boy watching steam locomotives passing through. There I was, on one of the last locomotives to pass through Brookwood on the final day of steam, so quite a nice feeling.
When we reached Grateley station, we were stopped by signals and had 10 to 15 minutes to wait. The signalman suggested that we get some refreshments, so we went out to the pub and brought pints of beer back to the locomotives. Photographs were then taken of us all with our pints of beer on the front of the locomotive! It was customary for you to have a drink somewhere after the journey to quench your thirst but you weren’t really allowed to drink on duty.
As we continued on our journey to Salisbury, the West Country class locomotive followed us down. This locomotive was crewed by Driver Dave Bunce and Passed/ Fireman Charlie Hampshire.
As mentioned, the last locomotive to leave Guildford made its way to Salisbury via Fratton because of the coaling and watering side of things and had to break its journey at Fratton to then continue to Salisbury.
It was quite strange getting off that locomotive at Salisbury for the very last time. I suppose because there were four of us, we were sort of all jovial about it but I suppose in a way, it was very sad that we would never set foot on a steam locomotive again.
Geoff Burch
Recollections of the Civil Engineer’s Department, Southern Railway
I joined the Southern Railway in December 1937. That’s in the Civil Engineer’s Department, new works section, in Waterloo Station.
When I started, the first thing I did was colouring new railway footings, surveys, very full length scale drawings, and small works outside such as repairs to stations or construction of new stations. My first sort of large project was small construction works on existing stations, such as changes to the kiosks and stuff. Later on, I started on larger projects, building new signal boxes.
Working in Waterloo station was quite interesting. Waterloo, I think, was built on marshy ground, and had arches underneath. Most of the arches were let out, mostly to the liquor trade. There was a bonded store for the whisky so there was a smell of whisky underneath the station.
The drawing office over looked the roof, over the whole station. If you went down one floor all the windows overlooked the concourse which was quite a sight in the days of Ascot, where the trains went off to Epson Downs a popular approach. Of course, in wartime the concourse would be a different sight. Instead of troops of boy scouts going on holiday somewhere you would get positions of troops on their way to the coast or camps across the country.
The office was moved during the war and this was planned in 1938. I was a junior and went with some senior people in the department to Dorking in Surrey to look at a proposed place for the whole drawing office and other sections of the engineers, and other departments of the railway. On top of a hill, there was a building like a big hotel, very old, quite a reputation. Some of it was in dreadful condition, the kitchen would never have passed any tests. Some of the toilets had been blocked for years, and there had been no attempt to open them. I say it was a magnificent building, it would be alright to be partitioned up for quite a few bedrooms.
I was part of the Home Guard and this was quite easy. You just stood around in the huge grounds to this hotel. We mounted Home Guard around in case you had saboteurs coming in but it was quite uneventful. The fire service was more fun, in fact you got to practice. We had a fire pump for throwing the water around. One time the whole board of the railway came down to see a demonstration and when it came to displaying how the mobile pump went, I was in first with the hose. Unfortunately, one member of the board didn’t know quite how far the hose could project the jet. The man in charge duly proceeded to open the throttle, anybody that knows anything about fire engines, it takes more than one man to hold the thing when there a full throttle on the water. I was holding the hose in my hands as hard as I could but the pressure increased and increased and the hose proceeded to jerk upwards and the jet fell where the members of the board were standing. Fortunately, the Chief of the Board found the funny side of it and burst out laughing, so the other members of the board almost had to follow suit and suffer it.
Basil Gunter
A Journey on 35005 Canadian Pacific
I had one infamous run with 35005 which was around 1958 or early 1959 – it was the last run before 35005 was rebuilt. It worked the 11.15pm Waterloo – Basingstoke, first stop Woking, with four coaches & was booked to return with a freight, normally a Nine Elms ‘King Arthur’ class job. However, Nine Elms often put a foreign engine or a high mileage Bulleid pacific on it. 35005 was in dreadful condition, valve gear all over the place. We slipped and slithered with our paltry load and took over five minutes to get to Vauxhall making very odd noises. Then something clicked into place and we accelerated violently and tore round the 40mph Clapham curve without braking at 61 mph with me taking cover lying on the floor. We hit thick fog at Surbiton and overshot the Hampton Court signals checking us to move to the slow line (we’d been doing 75). After obscenities shouted between driver and signalman, we picked our way past the signal at danger and got lost in the fog between Esher and Hersham down by the River Mole. We had to feel our way to Esher’s starting signal and the fireman climbed the signal to feel its position. We arrived eventually at Woking twenty five minutes late and then 35005 went up in flames. The local fire brigade had to arrive and douse the fire started in the oil bath. It was so late I didn’t wait to see if the train carried on and if so, with what. I had in all 13 runs behind 35005, none of the others as memorable as that one!
David Maidment
Dancing on the footplate: Experiences as a fireman at Eastleigh Locomotive Depot
My interest in railways and trains started aged 5 when in 1950 we moved to Paulsgrove, a large council housing estate to the north of Portsmouth. I was sent to Hillside Infant School which was next to the Portsmouth to Southampton railway line. The different steam engines that chugged past drew me into train spotting which I took up seriously when I moved to Paulsgrove Secondary Modern School. This was next to the same railway line with a much better view of passing trains. I often got shouted at by various teachers for watching trains when I should have been focusing on such delights as Pythagoras. After some years of watching trains and sneaking around at Fratton and Eastleigh Locomotive Depots, I just wanted to work on them when I left school.
I started with British Railways as an engine cleaner at Fratton Locomotive Depot on Monday 21st March 1960 and retired from Network Rail on Friday 26th November 2010. At Fratton as an engine cleaner I cleaned very few engines as I was often required to walk, for hours sometimes, to take out call notes to drivers and foreman to tell them of altered times to be at work. In April 1960, I went to firing school at Guildford to learn the art of fireman. I passed the exams/tests, the final one being stood in front of the shed master at Fratton and grilled on rules, regulations and engine management after which he declared I had become a passed cleaner. Still graded as a cleaner but qualified to carry out fireman duties.
My first turn of duty as a fireman came in my first week as a passed cleaner, I booked on at 8am for a cleaning turn but was told to get to the station and get the next train to Woking. In the freight yard, I would find the engine 34047 a West Country pacific named Callington and reported to the driver who was from Feltham Depot. I was to work as Driver Rice directed, I was elated but slightly scared at the prospect of a first firing turn on a big engine. Driver Rice was an older gentleman who kept a good eye on me but 34047 steamed very well and we worked a very heavy freight train from Woking to Feltham, disposed of the engine and I caught the train home.
I went on loan several times to Stewarts Lane Depot in London. There was a younger driver at Stewarts Lane who was very keen on ballroom dancing. He went to the Victor Sylvester School of Dancing and he berated me several times for my total lack of interest in dancing, “a sure way to get a girl”, he said. One evening he and I worked freight with a C class from Battersea Yard to Penge Tunnel, which I believe is over a mile long. I had, I remember a good fire on and the engine was romping up the bank, the driver then took it as a good time to show me some dance steps. What sight we must have looked to anyone seeing us in a dance pose gliding around the footplate. There were some great characters in the footplate grades.
While, at Eastleigh I fired many West Country and Battle of Britain engines to Basingstoke, Bournemouth, Salisbury and light engine to and from Southampton Docks (I was never rostered to work all the way to London). I prepared and disposed of several Merchant Navy engines but I only fired one, 35005 Canadian Pacific on the main line. It had just come out of the locomotive works after an overhaul so everything was new, clean and shiny. We were booked to prepare this engine for light engine work to Southampton Terminus station in the very early hours of the morning. Attach to the rear of the paper train that had come from Waterloo, swap over with the crew that had worked the train down from London and take their engine back to Eastleigh Depot. For some reason, they could not continue to Bournemouth and we were instructed to work the train forward to Bournemouth. 35005 was in great condition and steamed perfectly and ran like a dream.
I worked several times on, ‘The Bug’, which was the local name for the shunting engine at Winchester City Yard, and Frank Mills was the regular driver there. Frank had been struck with polio which left him with problems walking so the regular job at Winchester working day turns only Monday to Saturday suited him. Frank had been a fireman through the 1930s and the war and he often spoke of the experiences he had. From his description, it must have been a torrid experience especially in summer firing a heavy train at night with blackout sheets shrouding the footplate. Often not knowing what time you would get home, sometimes being delayed or put in loops or sidings for hours, working many hours of unexpected overtime and running out of tea and food. All that along with the chance of being bombed.
As the end of steam approached there were many rumours, stories and much speculation on our future. I was very interested in the engineering side of the railway and got bored riding as second man on Class 33 and 47 diesels (which was becoming more of a daily experience), Mr Hale made arrangements for me to interview with the ODM (Outdoor Machinery Department). I transferred to the ODM in summer 1966.
It was a great career and the bit I remember with the most affection was my time as a locomotive fireman; the camaraderie and the characters I met made it the best time.
Trevor Rumgay
Memories of Basingstoke Parcels Office
My first full time job after leaving school at seventeen was as a parcels clerk at Basingstoke for British Rail in 1970. My first payslip showed £8/11s for my first week. The parcels office was situated at street level in the passenger station. The station platforms, where parcels were loaded and unloaded, were above street level and were accessed by lifts and stairs.
The railway had an internal phone system using old bakelite phones. Basingstoke was a medium sized parcels office as I was reminded on one occasion when the phone rang and the caller proclaimed in a strong Merseyside accent “This is Birkenhead Parcels here. A real parcels office!”
The parcels office dealt with small consignments of one parcel upwards. This was different from goods traffic which was dealt with at a separate goods depot. Goods traffic was for heavier consignments. Our charging rates ranged from weights of 6 lbs to 2 cwt. The thinking was that any parcel of a smaller weight would be sent by post.
The office was open from 8 am to 8 pm and was staffed by a clerk and two parcels porters at any one time and these worked in two shifts so that on any one day two clerks and four porters would work there. There was also a chief clerk who had a separate office. His role was always a bit of a mystery to the rest of us.
At this time the parcels service on B.R. was called “Rail Express Parcels”. Parcels that we sent were either brought in by individuals or collected by lorries from factories, shops or individual addresses. The lorries at that time were operated National Carriers Ltd who had taken over the road collection and delivery of parcels from British Rail, a precursor to privatisation I suppose. The lorries and their drivers were based at the Goods depot and there were eleven rounds serving different areas. Not all parcels that arrived at Basingstoke were delivered. Many were marked T.C.F (or T.B.C.F.) which meant ‘to be called for’ i.e. somebody would come to the station and collect them.
Parcels travelled both on passenger trains, in the guard’s compartment, or on special parcels trains consisting of parcels vans which were loaded in one of the bay platforms and tended to run overnight. Each van would go to a hub somewhere and the parcels unloaded to be resorted onto other trains for onward travel. This often meant that a parcel could take several days to reach its final destination depending on the number of times it was resorted. Every town in the U.K. was listed in a red book with an area code number next to it which made routing parcels easier. This was written on each parcel by the sending staff. For example 173 meant the parcel needed to go via Leeds.
We had few items of equipment. There was a large set of scales, several high sided blue trolleys called BRUTEs (British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment), a manual fork lift and most importantly of all a bucket of paste and a brush for sticking various labels onto parcels. It was regularly knocked over.
Parcels were charged at differing rates for a number of reasons. The parcels clerk charged incoming parcels in most cases. The exceptions were companies sending a lot of parcels with an ‘Agreed Flat Rate’ per parcel. Most parcels were charged using a set of charges according to weight and the contents of the parcel. There were four basic charging scales, C1,C2, C3 and C4. The majority of parcels were charged at C1 but fragile parcels were charged at C3, some specific items C2 and live animals and perishables at C4. There were additional charges for premium services such as Red Star or ‘recorded’ parcels. The advantage of both these services was that they had to be handed to the guard on a passenger train and therefore arrived more quickly. Red Star parcels could only be sent on a direct service ‘to be called for’ and had a guaranteed arrival time.
Several of the large factories regularly sent parcels such as Eli Lilly, Thornycrofts and Lansing & Bagnall. The railways also handled a lot of mail order traffic at this time from companies such as Freemans of Peterborough, Kays of Worcester and Littlewoods of Liverpool, all now defunct. Although we mainly received and delivered their parcels, hundreds every day, we did also deal with ‘returns’ from their individual customers. We dealt with very little livestock. One regular customer bred hamsters for research which were sent to various labs by rail. The main perishable traffic was watercress which was usually sent straight to Waterloo and across to Covent Garden Market by road. By the 1970s this consisted of just a few punnets per week.
There were other services carried out at the parcels office. These were ‘Passenger Luggage in Advance’ (P.L.A.), Left Luggage and Lost Property. P.L.A. was a service whereby a passenger could send their luggage separately before they travelled. P.L.A. handled at Basingstoke was almost exclusively that of public school boarders at the beginning or end of each term. This would usually be a large trunk. Left luggage was simply luggage left for a period to be collected later. We also dealt with any requests to find lost property which of course made sense because if an item was found it would be treated like a parcel and sent back. Passengers usually reported a loss immediately after travelling and the usual procedure was to phone down the line where the train was travelling in the hope that the item could be retrieved. Generally you would phone the terminating station but at less busy times we would phone intermediate stations especially if we had a good item description and we knew which coach the item was in. Almost always however items would be lost during the rush hour when the trains were full and all platform staff were busy. This also coincided with the busiest period at the parcel office and a common scene was a bowler-hatted commuter who had just alighted from a train from Waterloo demanding that we phoned every station down the line to Weymouth to try and find his black umbrella which was somewhere on a crowded twelve coach train that had just left. Meanwhile behind him would be a queue of lorry drivers with hands full of consignment notes waiting to be served and an equally long queue of lorries in the street outside.
One other job carried out by the parcels staff was releasing racing pigeons. They were rarely sent from Basingstoke but we often received them. Usually they were unloaded from the train and never saw the parcel office. Once off the train they were released from their basket and our only job was to send a small card back to the sender with the release time. Pigeons were supposed to be released when no trains were around. On one occasion one of the porters had been in a hurry and let the pigeons out just as a fast to Bournemouth was coming through. The little flock had started off flying away from the tracks, but in that way that homing pigeons often will when released, they turned suddenly en masse, and flew straight into the front end of a 4TC electric multiple unit.
There was a real mixture of characters as in any workplace. Basingstoke at the time was expanding quickly as an overspill from London. The parcel office staff reflected this. The older staff were career railwaymen. One had worked previously at London Bridge and the notorious Bricklayers Arms goods depot. Another had come from Ireland having worked on CIE (Irish Railways) at Inchicore and then at Waterloo. In contrast a couple of others had started at small rural Hampshire stations. One in particular had been a porter at the tiny station of Cliddesden on the Basingstoke to Alton line and had been present when Oh! Mr Porter was filmed there in 1937. He described to me how the scene when the train ran through the level crossing gate was filmed several times using a special gate that could be pinned together. They all had stories to tell, bits of railway folklore, mostly not fit to be retold here!
Keith Chambers
A Fireman at Eastleigh Shed
We grew up with the realisation of trains and what they are and what they did. There was a signal right at the bottom, just opposite the bottom of our garden, the trains coming down towards St Denys had to stop at that signal. One day it was an American troop train, the cry went up ‘the Americans’ and everyone grabbed a bag and raced down the garden over the fence because the Americans by that time were throwing food out to us. They knew how short we were because of the rationing and everything else. That was unbelievable. I certainly will never forget that. It used to happen quite often during the war, they were on their way to wherever they were going and if they stopped at that station they always knew that there was a lot of people here short of food so they had plenty and they shared it with us.
I don’t know why I went up to Eastleigh that day, but I walked down Campbell Road. I stood there looking at the engines standing outside and I thought yes. Then I thought no. And I turned away and I started walking back, I thought you come all the way up here what are you walking away for. So, I turned back again and I went in and I got a job. And they sent me for a medical on the same day I applied and I started as a cleaner as all nippers do.
On my first day I was on my own looking through this great big rule book. Crickey, it was a huge thing and I went home and I came in the next day into the same room. Today it was now full of boys and they had all been out firing the day before and now they were all back. Crickey what’s this lot. Then we had the first day of being a cleaner, that’s some of them doing the tender and others having to climb up on that rail that’s runs along the side of the boiler, your standing on it and rubbing oil, and other cloths to clean it off. We did a good job, much better then, we were proud, we wanted our engines to look as clean, as nice as we could.
Every now and again there was, the names went up on a board outside the office and if your name was there with an ‘f’ was buy it you were firing the next day so you had to go and see what you would be doing, what time you had to, to turn up and everything else. And I loved it from the minute I saw it because I had gone through the training, I had gone out with another fireman. I was standing on the footplate, we only had to go outside the shed to get water for the tender, a matter of a few yards. And the driver said to me ‘ok nipper, take her out’, I said ‘take her out?’ he said ‘yes, come on open the regulator’ and I thought god and I opened the regulator and it moved, the engine moved of course it did but it moved because I had moved the regulator, I was momentarily driving that engine, mind you it became common place, drivers always put you in the driver’s seat in various shunting yards to get you used to it. But that was the first time I had ever driven a steam engine, a matter of a few yards.
We did a lot of local runs, so it would have been one of those. When I talk about that I’m talking about places like Bursledon, Hamble, even north of here had a shunting yard as well so you had various things that you did and you had to go to these yards and shunt them and then come back. I had as usual been told to do the driving when we were in the yard and we had sorted everything out. It was all ready to go and I started to walk across the footplate to let the driver take his place and he said ‘no you can work her up’, I couldn’t believe it, I had never done that but I remember everything about it. We had 44 trucks and 1 guards van on and I pulled out of Beavis Park, up through St Denys station, up past our house and I was in the driving seat, up through Swaythling and through Eastleigh and we had to go on up and up. Looked at the guard because he would be waving you on until he said stop and then you put it in reverse and then he’ll start giving you signals to back up which we did, I did everything, it worked a treat, I was on cloud nine and we backed in. We put the train exactly where they wanted it and uncoupled and now with a single engine were going back into Eastleigh yard. I knew well enough, I had been doing it enough, especially in the top yards to know that you come up to a point just before you got to the signal box, there were two ground signals called ‘dummies’ one on the left and one to the right. Always showing red but when they were switched off they switched to green, you had to wait to see which way you were going to get. If you got the one on the left you were going that way on your own and then back through Eastleigh station and into the yard, if you got the other one you were going up the top yard because there’s another engine up there and you would tie onto them and we got that one, we got the right-hand side. So off I went, now looking out for this other engine, there it was, it was where it should be and the fireman of that engine was on the ground ready to tie us on and I eased up to her and stopped and then eased up again while the lad in between threw the coupling up and then my driver yelled ‘whoa’ and I thought what the hell and I looked and there was another engine and it was coming at full pelt and I knew there was a man in between so I grabbed the steam brake and yanked it on, just before he ploughed into the back of us and sent me out of the chair and crashing down onto the footplate. But we were alright because it didn’t do us any damage but my driver said you should see his engine.
James Marsh
