'The Toss of a Coin,, Chapter 6 / 2

More tales of Aberbeeg (cont'd)

Whilst the revised rule at Aberbeeg Junction relieved the pressure a little, we were still bothered by the amount of delay being suffered by trains in the valley. Having little to do in the evenings, Stan and I called in all the signalbox registers from Crumlin to Ebbw Vale, I got the control graphs I’d designed for the Western Valley which were gathering dust on top of a cupboard in the Train Planning Office and we spent several evenings graphing the passage of trains over a three week period. Every signal stop was denoted by a red horizontal line indicating the number of minutes delay and our finished artwork laid across our hotel room floor was peppered with so much red that calculating the total amount of delay was almost superfluous. We took the finished graphs to Jack Brennan and unfurled them on his desk.

Three weeks later there was an emergency blockade instituted, cranes and track specials arrived and a third line between Llanhilleth North and Aberbeeg Junction was ready for opening at 9 o’clock on the Monday morning. This was unprecedented and sealed Stan’s and my reputation with our staff. We owed a lot to Jack Brennan for the speed with which he reacted was unprecedented too. I’ve a suspicion that – as well as eliminating a lot of costly delay – he realised how much this would boost our confidence and obtain the full support of all our staff.

My southern border started under the impressive Crumlin Viaduct and included the derelict station at Llanhilleth and the colliery, which were under the watchful eye of Charlie Corfield, my Inspector there. Charlie supervised the workings there so efficiently that I soon learned to leave things in his capable hands. Llanhilleth station was a mess, the only resident being a large and vicious ram which later was the inspiration for a ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ video (our railway had permanent trespassing sheep - there was no point in stopping trains to warn of animals on the line). This ram appeared to have the old waiting room at the station as its residence and one day Charlie went in to shoo it away, when he slipped on loose floorboards disturbed by vandals, and being a large and heavy man, unfortunately fell through and broke a leg. This accident gave rise to a Court case for compensation, when BR’s lawyers tried to argue, against my advice, that he shouldn’t have entered the room, whilst I maintained he had a perfect right, and indeed duty, to protect our property from trespassers (and marauding animals). I don’t think my evidence was very popular with our lawyer and I’m glad to say Charlie got his compensation.

Another personnel issue, which much exercised me, concerned my relief porter. He’d been rostered to Crumlin station on the morning shift and word reached me that he’d failed to show up. This was not unusual as the man had the reputation of having days off after a particularly heavy drinking session and when I asked to see him the following day, he turned up with a sick note from the local doctor dated the previous day. When I scrutinised it closely, I observed that in fact the note had been dated today, but it had been clumsily erased and the previous day’s date inserted. He had obviously visited the surgery before coming to see me and I discovered that it was the practice of the local doctor to leave a pad of signed and dated blank sick notes with the receptionist for her to write in whatever the caller complained of – the number of miners and others reporting sick were too many to be all seen by the doctor, so he’d allowed this practice to grow up. When I challenged the man, at first he tried to lie his way out but finally in some confusion confessed, so I sent him home while I took advice from the Divisional Office on the action I should take. Someone from the Personnel Section phoned back a couple of hours later to say that the man had been sacked a couple of years earlier for theft and had somehow evaded discovery when he’d applied for a job again only a few months later.

I was instructed to sack the man a second time, which the individual seemed to accept stoically and I thought little more about it until that night somewhere about 3am there was a thunderous rapping at my bedroom door and as my eyes opened this man stood over me, his hair dishevelled, eyes wild and I thought my last hour had come. In fact, sanity returned when I discovered he’d only come to call me as we were off the road again in the yard opposite and my presence was required. I only started later to wonder why he had called me after he’d been sacked, and in the morning I discovered that he’d immediately sought employment as a part time handyman around the hotel. Goodness knows what sob story he’d told Mrs C, the hotel’s ‘mistress’ and she never sought my input on why he’d lost his railway job.

The main activity centred around Aberbeeg Yard and Engine Shed. At that time there were still six working collieries in the area and the provision of empties to the colliery sidings was made by the Aberbeeg trip engines, by May 1964 predominantly Class 37s, although we still had two Churchward 2-8-0 tanks, 5214 and 5218, to cover our 08.00 ‘anywhere’ turn, used to mop up variations in coal production, and stand by for diesel failures. The loaded coal trains made their way down the valley to Rogerstone Yard, still under the iron grip of a Welsh Yardmaster who viewed our goings on with considerable suspicion. Our engines and Aberbeeg men would return with empties from Rogerstone, or even East Usk if they managed to slip past the Rogerstone border controls, and bring them up to our yard for breaking down into manageable loads on the fierce gradients to Marine or Six Bells Collieries.

We had a fleet of pannier tanks - the preserved 9682 was one of them - and three 94XX (9493-5) for banking the heavy coal and ore trains up the five miles to Ebbw Vale steel works, and for shunting the yard between turns. One of my first managerial actions was to replace our 350hp diesel shunter, which spent most of the day idling, by a steam banker awaiting its next turn, a move so obvious that the staff had no argument about the loss of a turn and the Divisional Office rejoiced because they’d been trying to persuade my predecessor to give it up for years. I was therefore uniquely congratulated in the post ‘Stanley Raymond’ era for replacing diesel with steam traction (for a few months anyway)!

Stan and I shared ‘on call’ duties for the Western Valley from Crumlin northwards in the days before mobile phones and bleepers which meant we were tied to the valley for a week at a time, one or other of us escaping alternate weekends on the ‘Jones’ bus (never the Western Welsh option) and the main line to London at Newport. Minor derailments were common - the 37s were a nasty shock to the local S&T lineman whose maintenance of signals and points had to cope with constant colliery subsidence. It was apparently very common for a steam engine to mount the guard rails at points and either drop back on again or be swiftly rerailed with ramps from the yard without bothering the Newport breakdown gang. The diesels had a habit of splitting the points and derailing a bogie and we only tried driving it back on with ramps once. The damage to the under bogie traction motors was not well received.

I had a propensity to invite call outs for some reason - indeed during our stay, Stan was only called out three times, while I had sixteen emergency calls. Within days of my arrival, a diesel and the Guinness tanks from the brewery were on their side fouling three of the four lines approaching Aberbeeg Junction (shades of ‘Whisky Galore’) and I had to open up single line working over a complex junction layout with red-padlocked points now out of use littering the remaining single line open. Charlie Sargeant saw me nervously looking at the mess and said ‘Follow me, boss, stick this red armband on as pilotman, and do what I say’. We never looked back.

During one night of torrential rain, I was called out to an earth slip opposite Marine Colliery on the Ebbw Vale section. Not only the bank, but a large mature tree had slid down the cutting and was now residing in the middle of the line from Ebbw Vale behind which stood a large 2-8-2 tank, 7249, and a full load of 50 vanfits of steel tinplate. We opened up single line working and then had to get the tinplate train to reverse its load to the crossover at Marine Colliery about a mile to the rear. We were way over the load for a 72XX and there was no engine north of us to assist, so we had to try. I shall never forget the crashing and very deliberate exhaust and the rocking motion of the engine as it propelled its heavy train in slow motion without the trace of a slip through the stormy night.

Our constant ‘emergencies’ had their humorous side. Stan and I could occasionally venture out together provided our inspectors knew where we were and we were not too far from reach. Adjacent to Llanhilleth station was a little cricket ground and we had both joined the club and played an occasional match. I can remember vividly one sunny afternoon being at the crease and had just snicked my first runs through the slips when a thunderous voice came from the Llanhilleth Middle Box loudhailer ‘Mr Maidment, you’re needed, they’re off the road at Ebbw Vale’. The scorecard read ‘Maidment, derailed …4’. Turning up at Waunllwyd Sidings in cricket whites was apparently another first!

The Aberbeeg Shedmaster retired in the autumn of 1964 about two months before the depot was due to close when full dieselisation would be completed. As there was little point in filling the post for such a short time, I was asked to take over the reins there for this interim period and had one brief moment of glory when I managed to persuade the diagramming people in Cardiff to let our Aberbeeg men learn the road and go through to Gloucester with a Mondays Only tinplate train with one of our two 52XXs. I don’t think the route learning costs amounted to anything - the men were so keen, I think they learned the road in their own time! So I vividly remember bowling down the valley in the cab of 5214 on our inaugural run and whistling rudely at Rogerstone Yard as we escaped into the big wide world outside the Valley. I baled out at Newport but rumour has it that some of the signalmen on the Newport - Gloucester line had never seen an old 52XX in such a hurry.

The 37s reigned almost supreme - an occasional Churchward 2-8-0 tank or 9F would foray up to Ebbw Vale from Alexandra Dock to the end of our time there. Our trusted panniers were replaced by Paxman Class 14s, D95XX, we must have had some of the first, and dreadful they were. Their attempts at banking heavy trains to Ebbw Vale were farcical. Around Marine Colliery, halfway up the 1 in 50, the engine would often overheat and trip out, and the class 37 train locomotive would be left to haul the dead D9501 or one of its sisters all the way to the top. I have to say this for the 37s - they were man enough to do this without falling down, so I began to wonder whether they really needed a banker.

One consequence of the switch from steam to diesel was the sudden shortage of coal at all the signalboxes on the patch. We had to start actually ordering domestic coal and the Aberbeeg Junction Box asked for a coal store as they could no longer replenish themselves from the bunkers of pannier tanks. I ordered a breeze block coal house from the District Engineer at Newport and got a quote of £465. I remember being horrified as there was a terraced miner’s cottage in the road just below the box going for £325 and I offered to buy that instead. I don’t think my irony was appreciated, but we did get our coalhouse.

Just before I completed my turn of duty at Aberbeeg - I was made redundant on the introduction of Area Management and was moved to Bridgend as Assistant Area Manager there - I was host with a member of the local press to witness the last steam turn from Aberbeeg depot. It was a Saturday lunchtime turn, a set of coal empties from Marine Colliey at Cwm, to be stabled in our yard. The pressman set up his tripod and 9494 duly appeared round the curve from the Ebbw Vale branch with its string of 16 ton mineral wagons. It had just reached the underbridge at the end of the platform when the pannier tank derailed all wheels and continued to run towards us hitting the paving slabs at the edge of the platform and throwing them like frisbees across the deserted station. The noise was incredible and I backed away quickly out of the line of fire, only to see the reporter haring out of the station. He never did get a photo! Miraculously all the wagons stayed on the line and we were faced with a pannier tank at the signal protecting the junction sitting upright in the fourfoot. Saturday at midday when Newport County were playing at home was not the best time to call out the Ebbw Junction breakdown crew, so our foreman got a set of ramps from the yard and with much creaking and splintering of wood, we drove 9494 back onto the rails. And the local press missed their story!

I often look back at the ten months spent at Aberbeeg as the time I learned most about human nature - not just in the railway activities, but also from the experiences in the Hanbury Arms, now no more. However, that would need a whole new book to describe… The Western Valley not only provided such valuable experience and a rich encounter with some marvellous and generous characters, but it shaped both Stan’s and my railway careers for years to come, in that Stan became a ‘Marketing Man’ and I became an Operator.

The collieries closed in the 1980s and the valley returned to the rural state that existed before the coal and steel industries arrived. It became a commuting area for people working in Newport and Cardiff and in 2008 the passenger service between Cardiff and Ebbw Vale was restored and Stan and I made a pilgrimage to see what remained. The Hanbury Hotel and Aberbeeg station were gone. But Aberbeeg Junction signalbox was still there, derelict amongst of forest of trees that had completely overrun the former marshalling yard.