'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 5

Chapter 5
Headquarters and ‘supernumerary’ activities

During the previous eighteen months, our team of Traffic Apprentices had been spread over the four Divisions of the Western Region. For four months from the beginning of October 1963 we were gathered together at Paddington for the Headquarters element of our training. This was a convivial time and friendships were built from being together, but it was a bit of a headache for those planning our programme for we were all due to spend days in each section and we had to be rostered to avoid each other – although this meant some long suffering clerical sections received and had to occupy six young and demanding trainees in quick succession. Inevitably this led to even more prolonged and boring ‘sitting next to Nellie’ – we may even have found a genuine ‘Nellie’ in this process!

A programme of weekend courses together in Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park was also initiated when all three year groups were brought together to be indoctrinated by the Region’s and Board’s senior managers in the different functions – Marketing, Operations, Finance and Personnel in particular. Most memorable were the meals because this was also the training place for chefs and waiters for British Transport hotels. So we were the guinea pigs for meals to be delivered to American tourists and City businessmen staying at the likes of the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire. By day two we were leaving out courses, by day three some trainees were even opting out of whole meals, such was the rich fare that we were totally unaccustomed to. We were the bane of the French Chef’s life who was responsible for the quality food produced by his charges and who took our abstinence from some of his delicacies to be a reflection on his standards. The other memorable activity took place in the gardens of the lodge where several of us were rash enough to play croquet with some of the visiting senior officers who came to lecture us. Knocking Lance Ibbotson’s ‘balls’ all over the lawn was greatly satisfying, but hardly a wise political move on our part!

One of my fellow trainees was Stan Judd with whom I was particularly friendly and we met frequently during lunch breaks or after work. Sometimes we managed to meet together to confer about some particular aspect of our training and on one occasion we had both been left to our devices in the file archives of Paddington (Nellie’s grandmother?). I cannot remember if we were looking for anything in particular among the ceiling height shelves in the dimly lit office, but Stan pulled a sheaf of papers out and started an avalanche of loose files onto the floor. We both bent to gather the papers up and read a few headlines to try to get them back in some semblance of order, when Stan suddenly exclaimed and pulled out a couple of sheets of yellowing paper on which I could see copperplate handwriting. Further scrutiny gave us a real surprise and thrill, for we found that it was a memorandum to the Great Western Board signed by Sir Daniel Gooch, no less, dated 1866, proposing to take marketing advantage of the Paris Exhibition of 1870, by tapping the transatlantic trade from the USA route via Fishguard and taking the tourists to Milford Haven for embarkation for France, thus earning a small fee for every passenger so transported! The costs were to be part paid for by developing the wine trade from the south of France via Brittany, to be charged 1d a bottle ‘to encourage the consumption of French wine by the British public’! I suspect nothing came of the proposal for I’ve not seen this idea floated anywhere else, but Stan took this to the archivist as it was of obvious historical value, not least in having Gooch’s signature. I’ve no idea where this document is today – I would hope that it belongs to the National Rail Museum’s collection of papers.

One personal memory from this time occurred when I spent a day in the locomotive record department where index cards held details such as mileages, heavy repairs, boiler changes etc., and building dates, costs and withdrawal dates. This was presumably where a lot of the data I collected at Old Oak Common in 1957 ended up and I began to browse through the files looking for engines whose details I might have provided. In the process I looked at the records of one or two ‘favourites’ and got a bit of a shock. Many enthusiasts develop an irrational affection for a particular machine, usually because of some personal reminiscence, and I was no different. Back in 1944 I remembered travelling from Bristol to London with my parents and the engine that pulled us had always stuck in my mind and when, as a trainspotter, I’d bought my first Ian Allan ABC, the only number to be underlined was 4087 Cardigan Castle . I’d followed the career of this locomotive with interest ever since and saw it several times during my footplate training though attempts to ride it then had always been thwarted. During the first few months during my Cardiff Division training, it had been transferred from Laira depot in Plymouth to St Philip’s Marsh in Bristol to cover a diesel availability shortage on the North & West between Bristol and Shrewsbury and it had appeared to be in excellent condition, with 4 row superheater and double chimney despite the fact that it was one of the oldest Castles built in 1925. I had expected it therefore to be one of the last survivors of the class and looked up its index card only to find with a sinking feeling that it had actually been condemned that very month. I can only assume that it had suffered some mechanical fault whose repair was not considered cost effective. I suppose I had the same reaction as someone returning to the house they’d lived in during their childhood and found it demolished. The engine had certainly earned its keep running some 1.8 million miles in service having cost the GWR some £4,000 when new in 1925. In the late 1950s I’d asked Swindon Works if I could purchase its name or number plate when withdrawn and they’d offered to reserve them for me for the price of £15 + carriage for the nameplate or £7.10/- for the brass numberplate. I had to turn down the offer as the price for even the numberplate was two weeks’ wages. I had the chagrin of seeing 4087’s nameplate go for £20,000 at a railway memorabilia auction a couple of years ago!

In December 1963 I was advised that the last few months of my training would, as expected, consist of filling supernumerary posts and that for this I was to be allocated to the Plymouth Division. I found myself once more in Plymouth itself in January when the mild weather contrasted greatly with the snowy spell I’d experienced at Laira the previous winter. Four weeks as Assistant Stationmaster at Plymouth North Road involved mainly in trying to sort out some problems concerning the punctuality – or lack of it – of parcels trains in Cornwall and I was then sent as Assistant Yard Manager to Taunton, where frankly there was scarcely enough to occupy the Yardmaster let alone an assistant. I did spend some time learning from the new young manager of the just opened Coal Concentration Depot and even more time just trying to get warm for it was a raw freezing February and my lodgings had no heating in my bedroom. I tried going to the cinema during the evenings and found the only cinema in Taunton was showing a Western, a film genre that has never interested me. The second week, the same film had been retained ‘by public request’! I was so cold I actually went to bed at 6 o’clock one evening as that was the only warmth I could find, then I started train excursions to Temple Meads or Barnstaple in the evening after eating out, to enjoy steam heating on the trains.

My next port of call in March was a total waste of time as being Assistant Goods Agent at Exeter St David’s was a non-runner as far as local trade unions and management were concerned. The local management seemed scared to upset Chester Long, the Sectional Council Trade Union official who was a power in the NUR and came from Exeter Goods though he was rarely found at work there, being on trade union duties most of the time. Traffic Apprentices were anathema to the trade union officials there – perhaps there had been some insensitivity in the past by one of my predecessors – but the upshot was that no Traffic Apprentice was allowed even put a foot onto the goods deck where all the activity took place. As a result I merely acted as a sort of relief clerk in the office - not the role that was intended for a trainee in last months at all. I should have made a fuss – but I was too weak, just like the local management, I suppose. Whether the Divisional management team in Plymouth was aware of this situation and condoned it, I have no idea.

Which brings me to the final part of my training, an opportunity to act as a Stationmaster in my own right, a chance to put into practice what I’d learned before moving on to a first permanent and established position, far away where one’s mistakes in this last temporary appointment were not apparent to all. Firstly I had to satisfy the Chief District Signalling Inspector that I was sufficiently conversant with the Rule Book. My 90 minute investigation was not as searching as I’d feared for the Inspector talked more than I did and I was surprised later when talking to the District Manager to be congratulated on my performance in my rules examination. It was in late March 1964 therefore that I was due to finish my training with a spell as an acting relief stationmaster and I was appointed for six weeks to Gillingham station in Dorset. Having spent three years seeing modernisation at first hand throughout the W.R. - traction, signalling, depots, marshalling yards and management methodology - I found in Gillingham that I was in a time warp untouched by the modern world. I spent the months of March and April 1964 there, with control also of Semley - and on arrival I was rung by the Plymouth Divisional office to ask me to assume command of Tisbury and Dinton as well, as the Relief Stationmaster there was wanted somewhere more important urgently. I shared ‘on call’ with the neighbouring stationmaster at Templecombe.

The Salisbury – Exeter main line had been transferred to the Western Region in January 1964, but I have to say that nothing had yet changed from SR days during my sojourn there – indeed, I don’t believe anything had changed for twenty years or more! Perhaps this is not quite true, as a few Standard 4 4-6-0s had infiltrated the Yeovil – Salisbury locals although the majority of trains serving my stations were three coach locals hauled by the inevitable Exmouth Junction unrebuilt West Country or Battle of Britain pacifics - somewhat excessive and costly power for the job in hand. I don’t believe anything else had changed apart from the heading on the notepaper.

My main problem was that I had no transport (no stationmasters were allocated cars in those days) and as there was no road parallel to the old Southern mainline between my stations, there was no public transport other than the Salisbury - Exeter or Yeovil stopping services running at approximately two hourly intervals. As my duties involved supervision of staff at all four locations and the visiting of signalboxes and crossing keepers in my stretch of line, I spent a fair amount of my time travelling on a local to one station and walking through the spring flower bedecked cuttings and embankments to my next port of call. And it really was a gorgeous spring. The primroses were enormous!

There were other antiquated practices. The only way I could pay the crossing keepers on the main line was to commandeer the engine of the local pick-up goods and hang out of the cab delivering the pay packets like an exchange of a single line token! The practice elsewhere of obtaining signatures did not apparently apply here.

The main event of the day at Gillingham was the stopping of an early morning express around 08.30 (it must have been the 07.30 Exeter) to take our commuters to Salisbury or even London. The train was heavily loaded - I recollect 13 coaches but my memory may be exaggerating - and was always hauled by a Merchant Navy and for some reason I never fathomed in my eight week sojourn, always pulled up twice as it hung way out of the short station platform. This was quite a rigmarole with a Bulleid, especially when it tried to pull away the second time as the engine was now over the dip and on the 1 in 80 climb to Semley, and what a palaver our light-footed pacific used to make of this manoeuvre, slipping and sliding, scattering cinders into adjoining cottage gardens and blackening the washing hanging on the line. The role of the stationmaster was to act as station announcer in charge of a battery operated loudhailer - although all the regulars must have known ‘Salisbury, Andover, Basingstoke, Woking and Waterloo’ off by heart.

The return evening service was the 6pm Waterloo although by the time of its arrival I was off duty enjoying a hearty meal at my lodgings overlooking the station. One evening, however, I was called out to Templecombe. I was nervous - this was my first ‘emergency’ - and on arrival at the joint station my confidence was not boosted by the discovery that the Somerset & Dorset signalling system was a total mystery to me. However, the problem was on the LSWR mainline - the 6pm Waterloo had disappeared in section between Gillingham and Templecombe and the last connecting trains for Bath and Bournemouth were waiting impatiently with their meagre passengers, both Standard 4 2-6-4 tanks blowing off steam furiously. The express was an hour overdue by now, and we were just about to set off on foot to see if it had met with an accident in Buckhorn Weston tunnel, when the problem solved itself and the train appeared on the horizon. The locomotive (unusually an unrebuilt Battle of Britain rather than a Merchant Navy) had slipped itself to a standstill on the approach to the tunnel and had taken coaxing by the fireman hand-feeding the rails with sand to get it going again.

For me, the operation which epitomised the rural culture of the line was the late afternoon school train from Gillingham to Salisbury. We had a Grammar School in the town which served children from a wide area and every school weekday, the empty stock - four coaches - would arrive behind a tender first Standard 4 2-6-0 from Salisbury depot, run round on the down side of the station yard and draw back into the up platform. The train would fill up with exuberant children - boys in the first two coaches and girls into the rear two, and the corridor gangway between them was locked (we were spoil sports in those days!). At Semley we gravitated(!) a loaded milk tank from the dairy private siding onto the back of the train for its connection at Salisbury to the main West of England – Clapham milk train. We never had an incident as far as I’m aware in the gravitational movement but I wouldn’t like to propose such an operational ploy to the Railway Inspectorate these days! At each station en route the station time varied from 6 to 15 minutes to enable the lone porter and train guard to load mountains of watercress punnets, no ‘Brutes’ or pallets here. The cress was grown locally in disused wartime underground storage bunkers. I often travelled on the train to assist because at the peak times, we could lose time even on this schedule. We would finish soaked through with sweat and water from the produce. All this activity was carried out under the bantering gaze of the schoolkids hanging out of the windows and cheering on the porter and guard as they flung the sodden punnets into the brakevan. You won’t be surprised to learn that the 760XX Standard 2-6-0 took its allowed 79 minutes to do the 22 miles to Salisbury (average 16.x mph) – was this the slowest scheduled train on BR at the time? It was certainly an opportunity for the children to do their homework, but I never noticed any such activity on my patch.

The milk tank traffic got me into hot water during my brief stay at Gillingham. One of the porters told me that the Dairy was tarmacking an area round the loading point to allow the rail traffic to be replaced by a road tanker and during the first grand tour of his new domain by the WR General Manager (the affable but astute Gerry Fiennes) I mentioned this intelligence to him. He clearly took action because a couple of days later I received an anonymous phone call from someone - presumably in the Plymouth Divisional Marketing office - threatening my future career if I corroborated my statement to the GM. Clearly someone had been taken to task for not discovering this themselves. This was the only time in my railway career that I received such pressure and I am glad to say I stuck to my guns. In fact, we lost the milk traffic to road shortly afterwards.

Despite seeming to be from another age, there were aspects of the operation that were totally admirable. I remember the reliability with which the Brighton - Plymouth and Plymouth - Brighton through services used to pass each other at speed through Gillingham station with a regularity that was uncanny. I remember the sheer excitement of the down Atlantic Coast Express thundering through our little station, whistle howling, at the foot of Semley bank hitting the dip under the road bridge where the gradient changed abruptly, and seeing the pacific appear to bounce several times vertically in reaction. My most vivid memory of this is the extreme speed of 35016 on one occasion - I was so startled that I assessed its speed by the rail joint noise as its train passed over and got a reading of around 96 mph!

At the end of April my three year training scheme came to an end six months early and I was told to report to the Divisional Manager at Cardiff for appointment to a permanent job. However, a couple of months later, I had another encounter with Gerry Fiennes. It was customary for Traffic Apprentices to be interviewed by the General Manager at the end of their training, and although my session had been postponed, I found myself and my fellow trainee, Stan Judd, summoned to Paddington in June. My interview was at midday with Stan to follow half an hour later. When I was sent into the sanctum, I was greeted by the General Manager with the words, ‘Do you like cricket?’ When I affirmed this, Gerry Fiennes said, ‘Oh, good!’ and took a transistor radio from his top drawer and we listened to the Lords Test Match for twenty minutes. In between overs he plied me with very acute questions, then we were interrupted by a newcomer, introduced to me as his sister-in-law back from a Harrods shopping spree. After a ten minute pleasant three way conversation she left and he admitted that he was terrified of women like her who sat on school governing boards and ran half a dozen charities! We then checked the lunchtime score before Gerry Fiennes realised he had another interview to conduct and I was ushered out to allow poor Stan to enter who must have wondered what on earth was going on.

There is a postscript to this period of my career. In the summer of 2009, I saw an advertisement in the railway press about a proposed celebration of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the railway at Gillingham. I got in touch with the organiser and found myself invited, as a former railwayman employed there, to partake in a march from the town centre to the station along with the town band and other dignitaries. On arrival at the station, I was asked, with the mayor, to unveil the blue plaque on the station building commemorating the digging of the first sod with a silver shovel that still exists. After the ceremony I was introduced to a middle-aged lady and her husband whom I’d known 45 years previously. She was then the very shy granddaughter of the couple with whom I lodged and I’d developed a rapport with the auburn haired four year old involving surreptitious hide and seek games to reading her bedtime story. Afterwards I had a stall for the charity Railway Children in the old goods yard alongside the other stalls and displays by the local townsfolk and their children. I recognised the pathway from my digs to the station and the station building and signalbox were familiar, but everything else had changed - in particular the 159 series diesel units bore little resemblance to the thundering restaurant car expresses and the wastefully overpowered stopping services of yesteryear.