The Enginemen, Chapter 2

Chapter 2: March 1961

The two men stood fidgeting in their denim blue oily overalls outside the governor’s door.

“What the hell does he want us for?” muttered the more thickset of the two to Nellie Bristow, the Shedmaster’s secretary and mother-confessor to generations of drivers, firemen and other ranks who had been hauled up before the boss over many years.

“He didn’t say. He just asked me to get each of you from Link 3 to see him before you next signed on for duty.”

“That’s not like you - not to know, that is,” replied George Munday, the experienced and conscientious union official and secretary of the depot drivers’ LDC. “Haven’t you sussed out the new man yet?”

“Now George, don’t push me”, she bantered, “I’ve only had him a week. I’m still training him in our ways. He hasn’t revealed any surprises yet. Go on, get in there, he’s waiting for you.”

The man looked up from behind the vast polished wooden desk that dominated the square room. Framed drawings and photos of locomotives hung in the spaces round the walls that were not occupied by the dusty and begrimed windows looking out straight on to the shed departure lines. Before he could speak, a deafening hissing of steam from cylinder cocks heralded the slow passing shadow of a locomotive easing its way towards the water column before running light to Paddington to pick up its next working.

The man waited. He was a lot younger than the previous boss, perhaps in his mid forties, dark wavy hair, horn-rimmed glasses, dark grey suit, dapper almost. A big contrast to his predecessor, a large overweight scruffy but beloved boss, who had been there so long that even the oldest drivers had seen him as a father figure. The men stood. Normally they would have sat down in the chairs that used to be beside that great desk. However, the chairs had been moved to a small table beside the rack of maintenance manuals and Working Timetables at the side of the room.

After an age, the noise of the departing engine subsided and Philip Doig, the shedmaster, spoke.

“I won’t keep you long, because I know you’re both on duty shortly. I know you, George Munday, as we met last week when you introduced other members of the LDC to me. You must be James Peplow,” he said turning to the thin rakish driver who had so far been silent.

He did not wait for him to reply, but went on, ”I wish to introduce a new system of engine allocation at this depot. I’m concerned to retain the morale of the men here during the changes that will be forced on us over the coming months. I want those of you working in the senior steam link to be allocated your own engines. I’ve operated this system in Norwich for several years. I know it works. I’ve selected a batch of our best ‘Castles’ for this. In my previous experience we allocated a locomotive to two crews as we could not afford a loco to be underutilised, but we have more than enough good engines at this depot, now that so much is dieselised, so I can let each driver in Link 3 have his own engine exclusively. I’m asking Arthur Higginson to reorganise Link 3 into two new links. One half will cover the ‘King’ turns on the remaining Plymouth and Birmingham runs. I can’t allocate individual engines to drivers for this, as many of the turns involve remanning by crews from other depots before the diagram is complete.”

“Sir,” protested George Munday, “you can’t do that without the agreement of the LDC. The make-up of the rosters has been negotiated over years to see that it’s fair to everyone. Before that, we were always having disputes about inequality of earnings and work allocated to the foreman’s favourites.”

“I know, I know. “ Philip Doig held up his hand to cut off the agitated driver. “I’ve asked Arthur to set up a meeting next week to finalise this. He’s already drafted a plan which I think will reassure you that the work has been allocated fairly.”

“Well, sir, you can’t presume agreement. You cannot make any changes until we have a signed minute.”

“Mr Munday,” he reposted, “all I’m doing now is to give you and the other drivers in this link a forewarning of what I’m planning. How can you represent the men’s views at the meeting if they have no inclination of what is intended and have a chance to express their views to you?”

“It is normal for plans like this to be put to the LDC first and we put it to the men.”

“Well, that’s not the way I’ve done it in the past. I’ve always prided myself on an open communications policy with all my staff. Of course, I’ll reach decisions on any changes through the proper machinery, but I have the right to tell everyone in the depot what is happening.”

“Have you told the Running Foremen? What do they think? It’ll make their jobs more complicated.”

“Yes, I have told them, and the Maintenance Foreman and the Roster Clerks. They will co-operate. It’s my job to ensure all of us play our part in delivering a good service for our passengers. That comes first.”

Doig suddenly turned to Driver Peplow.

“Well, what do you think? You’ve not said anything. Do you feel that you’d be more satisfied in your work if you had your own engine allocated to you for all your rostered turns?”

James Peplow was silent for a moment. He didn’t want to say anything that would challenge his LDC secretary, but the thought of his own engine attracted him.

“Yes, it sounds alright as long as the LDC agrees.”

“OK, then, let’s leave that for a moment, shall we? I wanted to let you choose your locomotives now, so that they can be thoroughly examined and ensure they are to your complete satisfaction before you take them on. Hold on, George, I’m not prejudging our official discussion, but I need to get all the chosen engines into the ‘Factory’ over the next six weeks before the new rosters come in.”

George Munday said nothing, but took in a deep breath and gave the Shedmaster a meaningful look. Philip Doig, perhaps a little nervously, ignored this.

“Right, Bill Halford has had the fitters examine all the ‘Castles’ that have less than 40,000 miles on the clock since the last general overhaul. Several of the 70XX series post war ‘Castles’ are in the batch, and we have three ex works 50s with four row superheated boilers and newly fitted with double blastpipes and chimneys. 5008, 5032 and 5034 it says on this bit of paper. Can you let me know which you select by the end of the day, as I’m seeing more drivers when they book on tomorrow?”

The Shedmaster indicated that the interview was at an end. He could sense Munday would have said more, but he was anxious not to prolong the debate, he had papers to prepare before a meeting at the Divisional Headquarters at Paddington.

“Well,” said Nellie questioningly, “was it what you expected? Good or bad news?”

“I hope he knows what he’s doing. Just because something worked in Norwich doesn’t mean that it will work here. He wants to change the way he allocates locos to link 3 men. I’ll have a word with the lads in the Running Foreman’s office, see what they think. It’s bound to make their job harder. I can see all sorts of problems coming. And he’d better not make a habit of trying to cut out the LDC or he’ll come a cropper.”

Nellie said nothing, expecting a further tirade.

“Anyway, I must be off. I’m on the Gloucester this morning and my mate will think I’ve left him to oil up which won’t go down very well. Oh, by the way, James, you choose which loco you want. I’ll take any of the ex works ‘Castles’ he mentioned, but leave a note for me in the lobby, I’ll pick it up on my return and let the boss know which one I’ve picked.”

James Peplow was left alone with Nellie. “Let’s hear the unofficial view, James. Leaving the depot politics aside, what do you really think?” Nellie was used to being a spy in both directions, a source of gossip and news to the drivers and clerks, but also a reliable feeder of feelings and brewing issues to her boss.

“I think it’s a good idea. I’ve got a couple of hours on preparation duties before I’m on the road. I’ll ask the foreman to get one of the junior spare men to cover me for a while and I’ll look over any of the engines he’s making available to us and make my choice. If they’re on shed, that is.”

Peplow drifted out of the office into the great roundhouse. The early spring sunshine shafted through the gloom and steam onto patches of rainbow coloured spilt oil. He went first to the huge blackboard in the lobby where engine allocations for the day were chalked. He saw George Munday had 7001 on the 11.05 Gloucester. 5032 was booked out on the 1/18 Bristol and Cheltenham, so she should be on shed somewhere, probably round turntable 1 nearest the office. 5008 was marked off to the Factory, so the Shedmaster had already given instructions for the new system, as she was only just off Swindon works and certainly not due for any routine examination yet. 5034 was not shown on the board, which meant she was probably lurking somewhere on shed, as yet unallocated.

Drivers walked past him to book on at the lobby window, firemen passed on their way to the Stores to collect cans of thick treacle-like dark green lubricating oil for their mates, but no-one spoke to him and he spoke to no-one. He was absorbed in his own thoughts and others left him to it. He was not one of those with whom everyone passed the time of day. He did not respond to banter. He was not a ‘Jim’, or ‘Jimmy’, always a correct ‘James’, out of place in this gregarious small city of human activity.

After a long hesitation, a brooding indecision, he pushed his head round the glass-fronted door of the lobby office and sidled up to Matt O’Brien, who was scribbling down the numbers of engines being advised by the Stafford Road Running Foreman - engines working up from Wolverhampton that would turn round at Ranelagh Bridge sidings opposite Royal Oak Metropolitan Line station, a couple of hundred yards from the Paddington station throat.

Matt was listening hard, and repeating “six t’ousand and eight for the two ten, six t’ousand and eleven for the five ten, six t’ousand and one, six ten, fifty twenty two for the Salop parcels.” Then without hesitation, although he could see the waiting driver, “for you, six t’ousand fifteen on the eight twenty down, six t’ousand twenty two, nine o’clock, seventy t’irteen on the ten ten through to Salop, six t’ousand on the eleven ten, seventy o’ four twelve ten. One ten and on, not yet allocated, will ring you in a couple of hours. OK, lad, that do you? How’s tricks?” A long pause, listening. “Pissing down, is it? F***ing sunshine here, mate. Get me geraniums in this afternoon if it keeps up. Got to go, someone waiting, cheers!”

Then, and only then, he acknowledged Driver Peplow. “Want something, mate?”

“Could you do me a favour? Have you got a spare man to cover my ‘prep’ duties? I’ve only a couple, but the governor wants me to look at a couple of locos for him.”

“Sorry, mate, speak up, there’s a bloody din in here. What did you say about the boss?”

“He wants me to look at a couple of locos right away.”

“He didn’t tell me. Sounds like a f***ing good excuse to me.”

“Surely you’ve got someone spare doing nothing? I’ll owe you one.”

“OK, if you must. I’ll remember you when I’m stuck. Hey, you, Rick,” he shouted at the office junior, “go round to the brew-house, root out Wally Jenks, tell him to ‘prep’ the ten ten and the ten fifty five for the Landore men, just say the booked driver’s not available.”

O’Brien then started dialling again, dismissing Peplow with a vague gesture. The driver shrugged, then slipped out of the lobby, closing the door carefully behind him and escaping before the Running Foreman could change his mind.

He picked his way to the edge of the covered turntable under the main shed roof which vaulted over four electrically operated turntables, a depot built early in the twentieth century and of exceptionally light and airy construction compared with most Victorian engine sheds which were like hell’s caverns in comparison. As a result, the sunlight bounced off the shining boilers of the assembled engines facing inwards like wild game huddled round a watering hole. Every stall was occupied, the faces of several ‘Castles’ gleamed showing signs of the recent attention of one of the cleaning gangs. Old 4075 was there, one of the earliest built at the time of the Great Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, when sister engine ‘Caerphilly Castle’, the first of the breed, had stolen the show alongside its more illustrious neighbour from the newly formed LNER, ‘Flying Scotsman’.

His eye moved round taking them in, 5035, one of ours, old reliable ‘Coity Castle’, a bit travel stained now, although she’d been one of the regular ‘royal’ engines a few months ago. 7009 from Swansea, you could tell she was from Landore as the buffers and smokebox door hinges were painted silver as were all that depot’s fleet of Castles.

Then he spied 5032. As he walked to the centre of the nearest turntable over the wooden planks that covered the pit and circumference rails - around which the edifice rotated in an unusually fast and rather offputting way for anyone stepping onto it without checking its imminent movement first - he saw the object of his search half obscured by another Old Oak Castle. Sulphurous brown smoke was curling from the chimney, some finding its way to the wooden cowling in the roof and adding to the polluted air of West London. An occasional eddy would suddenly cause the pungent smoke to descend and swirl around the engine’s front end, reeking of acridity. James Peplow wandered over to the engine and gave it a long hard look. She was not quite the ‘virgin’ newly released from Swindon Works that the Shedmaster had inferred. She was clean, had obviously been oiled and polished by the gang, but probably the night shift, for a layer of greyish dust was already settling on the boiler and running plate.

The driver hauled himself up into the cab and surveyed the controls, picking up a piece of rag and gently smoothing it over the regulator handle. He sat on the driver’s primitive tip-up seat and peered out of the small triangular window along the flanks of the firebox and tapered boiler. Then he clambered awkwardly down, gingerly in case he slipped on the oily surface and stared at the nameplate above the splasher over the centre driving wheel. ‘Usk Castle’. The shortest name of any of the class, the brass letters spaced out to fill the sweep of the curved plate above the six foot eight inch diameter wheel. She was OK, she’d do. But somehow she didn’t stir any particular emotion, any feeling of ownership, no special bond.

He glanced at the bevy of locomotives on the turntable to his right. A huge black 9F 2-10-0 was blowing off steam through the safety valves, a deafening, ear-splitting, headache-producing roar. He saw the driver oiling the motion, the fireman shovelling coal steadily into the firebox, the glow reflected in the cab windows. The spire of dark smoke was rising vertically from the chimney, the blower was on, the engine was due off shed any minute now to pick up the raft of empty coal wagons that had fuelled the coaling stage with best ‘Markham’ or ‘Oakdale’ steam coal. Nothing else of interest to him was there, so he picked his way to the back turntable by the driveway from the depot entrance and staff canteen.

En route, he crossed the track entering the shed halfway along the outside wall giving access to locos needing to avoid the congestion at the first turntable. He stopped a moment, stepped outside into the spring sunshine, and observed a couple of the night fast freight engines slumbering in the ‘forty seven hundred road’, named after the group of locos most often found parked there. Their fires were dropped, they snoozed by day, awaiting the next night’s calls.
Back into the mottled sun and shade, he glanced at the array of ‘Castles’ and ‘Halls’ arranged symmetrically round turntable No.2. He checked again to make sure. 5034 was not there.

In the middle of the shed, in the epicentre of the four turntables and the engines artistically draped round them like petals on a giant sunflower, was the small cramped office of the Mechanical Foreman and the clerk who kept the maintenance records of all Old Oak’s engines. James Peplow could see the moving shadows of the occupants through the filthy window lights and decided to seek their opinion on the choices before him.

“Bill,” he called to the Foreman who was slightly deaf, after years of assault by the constant roar of steam from adjacent locomotives, “is 5034 on depot?”

“Why do you want to know?"

“I’m one of the drivers being allocated their own engines under the new governor’s scheme for engine single-manning. I’ve got to choose between 5008, 5032 and 5034, so I’m just looking for them. What do you know about them? Anything I need to be aware of?”

“You can ask Fred here if you like, he’s got the records. Although I doubt if he can tell you much. 5008 and 5032 have only just come back from Swindon, transfers from Stafford Road, and we’re still waiting for the records to arrive. They both look OK. 5034 we’ve had for years, she’s a good’un, but she’s not yet back from the Works, she was advised to us as released yesterday. Doesn’t look as though she’s got here yet.”

Fred, a young relief clerk and a bit of an enthusiast, piped up, “5008’s the oldest, 1927 she was built, but she’s got all the ‘mod cons’ now. You’ll find her in the Factory. I’ll have a word with my ‘oppo’ at Stafford Road if you like, although she’s only just been fixed with a 4-row superheated boiler and double blastpipe, so past reputation is probably no guide. 5032 - that might be easier. She got the mods a couple of years ago, she’s just had a ‘Heavy Intermediate’ at Swindon, I guess the people at Wolverhampton can give me an idea. Both she and 5034 were built in the mid 30s, a good batch, so rumour goes.”

So, armed with this somewhat inconsequential information, Driver Peplow picked his way over coiled tubes, discarded firebars and brake blocks and the tracks from the freight turntable, to the workshop, known as the ‘Factory’, where up to eight locomotives at any one time could be berthed for regular maintenance that required heavy lifting, or for emergency repairs to engines suffering from overheated axleboxes or other serious fractures that could not be repaired in situ in the main shed.

In the very first bay stood 5008 ‘Raglan Castle’, gleaming in the reflected sun, as the Factory’s glazing and absence of steam and smoke let in the untrammelled rays. The smokebox door handles were fixed at a jaunty angle, giving the locomotive, as it seemed to James, an endearing personality. The later flush-sided Hawksworth tender, originally fitted to one of the post-war ‘Castles’, made the engine appear sleeker, a thoroughbred. The cab was pristine, floorboards swept free of coal dust, metalwork polished. For some intuitive reason, Peplow knew that this engine was his. It might have been more rational for him to have selected 5034 or one of the 70s, but he convinced himself that his decision was arrived at from logic. He was going to speak to one of the fitters about 5008, but refrained. Perhaps he feared to be told something detrimental that would challenge the decision he’d already made in his mind.

George Munday and his regular mate, Wyn Griffins, who’d fired to him for nearly four years, got back in the late afternoon, dropped 7001 off at the pits where an Irish shed labourer was waiting to drop the fire and clean the build up of ashes from the smokebox. During the day’s shift they’d discussed the Shedmaster’s proposal and agreed that any of the ‘Castles’ offered would be quite adequate. While Wyn went to clean up and brew a can of tea before signing off duty, George went to see Arthur Higginson, the Chief Clerk, a wizened man in his late fifties who’d been in charge at Old Oak for as long as anyone could remember and who’d always implemented all the operational requirements while the Shedmaster occupied himself with politics at Paddington or visitors and generally played trains.

“Whose idea was this, yours or the governor’s? I hope you’ve got the links right or there’ll be hell to pay. How have you divided the link up? What turns are you allocating to the single-manned engine link?”

“Don’t worry, George, I know what I’m doing. I’ll see the boss gets it right. Thought you’d have seen the advantages yourself. You’ve always complained that the fitting staff ignore your repair cards, but you rarely get to follow them up because you never get the same engine two days running. Now you’ll know and I can’t see you letting any of the depot staff get away with slacking on some job you want done on your engine. Here, have a look at this,“ he said, drawing a sheaf of papers from his drawer, “have a preview. You’ll get a formal copy next week before the LDC meets.”

The driver bent over the typed list of rosters. A couple of Bristols out and back, the 7.30 and 1/18. Two Swanseas, 7.55 and 6/55, both lodging turns, the two morning Gloucesters, the 9.15 to Worcester, three Wolverhamptons, the 10.10 Cambrian Coast Express limited load turn, the 12/10 and the 4/10, the only turns on the northern road not booked for ‘Kings’; the Carmarthen Milk Empties and the outward Salop Parcels. And of course, a couple of spare turns when their own engines were in for boiler wash-outs and Rest Day relief jobs. Nearly all good mileage turns, with good pay, though little chance of overtime.

“That seems good, but how is the other link you’ve split from this? I trust you’ve not put all the rubbish there - if so, I’ll get it in the neck, being accused of feathering my own nest.”

“Plenty of good mileage turns there too. There’s a couple of ‘Castle’ turns to Fishguard which are remanned at Newport or Cardiff, morning turns to Wolverhampton on ‘Kings’ alternating with Stafford Road men, night freights with the 4700s, the night Chester via Oxford. They can’t complain. Link 4’s lost a couple of good passenger turns, but I’ve made sure they get some long distance freight to compensate, and some Summer Saturday work on the West of Englands still booked for steam. I’ll start them learning the ‘hydraulics’ soon, so they can share in some of the regular Taunton and Bristol work with the top links.

“Alright, it looks acceptable. I’ll study the detail later. Don’t tell the boss I told you that yet. By the way, has Peplow told you his choice yet?”

“He popped in before he left on the Oxford. He wants 5008.”

“That’s OK then, I’ll take any of the others, 5034 will do fine, she’s always been a reliable one. Wyn and I will be a good team on her.”

“You don’t want to check her over first? They tell me James Peplow spent all morning going over 5008 with a fine toothcomb.”

“No, we’ll make her work, whichever engine we get. As long as we don’t get a dud, and 5034’s never been that."