My memories of steam at Harpenden on the Midland in the late 50's and early 60's are of filthy engines with steam leaks often smoking really badly from rubbish coal and slack firing. If ever a clean loco came by it must have just come out of a serious servicing. There are more beautifully kept steam locos to be regularly seen now than ever there were then. I was regularly in the Harpenden Junction Box and having studied BR signalling at the local railway club I signalled trains and pulled the signals all except the far down distant at the station which had an intermediate 'pendulum' afair which had to be swung to get enough leverage, so the signalman did this. When trains went by I ducked out of sight (which could be while if it was a long slow coal train) until the Guards Van passed and if the bell code came for the Station Master coming from the station I was out of the back and away down the Nicky Line Branch before he got there on foot. Great times, loved it.
I’m with you on the filthy locos… all I ever saw, except at Bolton (video coming up very soon) now I find that I prefer less than pristine locos, probably due to my mis-spent youth🤣🤣 I do envy you your time in the signal box, something I never managed, and I didn’t know about that, thanks. Great to hear your story and thanks for the comment👍
That was good, I remember visiting Eastleigh shed, and a day at Bletchley watching Staniers, also, my grandmother’s garden ran down to the railway south of Oxford, very fortunate. We didn’t know anything much about the locos, but they were great and it was a fine time to be a small boy. Look forward to another video….
Thanks very much for your comment, Steve. It’s good to hear of other peoples experiences. Your granny must have been very popular! I agree, steam locos have a very deep effect on us, I can remember my emotions as a wee boy, realising that I would follow steam, the die was cast! Oh, and another video is almost finished…
Crawled around Rosegrove Shed 1965 train spotting. Manchester Victoria was the filthiest railway station that I ever visited during the steam era. Thank you. 👍🏻🏴
Very accurate narrative - even the point about engine men not saying much. Manchester Victoria was never fully repaired from an air raid in 1940 - Liverpool Exchange was in a similar state of dirt and half repair. Bolton shed was usually clean, as was the interior of Springs Branch - Edge Hill was messy, with tools and bits all over the place. After 1963 little or no maintenance was being done. Stanier black fives on express work sounded like a bag of spanners.
Thank you, appreciate that! Yes, Victoria was a shambles and very dirty, wasn't it? Yes, I remember, Bolton was special, very tidy. I wish I'd known the railways in their heyday!
Thanks, I do like your format it brings a lot more to the subject matter than other Rail videos from this period. Your narration makes for a better viewing experience. See you on the next one 😊
Thank you so much for sharing your vivid memories recalling the demise/end of steam. It bought a tear to my eyes. Your film is brilliantly narrated,and the imagery poignant of a time that we can now only see in films/photos like yours. Thank you for sharing.(👍).
Thank you for your lovely comment, Derek. I wish we’d all been able to afford cameras and film, my efforts are lamentable. But as you say, the memories burn brightly. 👍
My wife used to live close to Luton Station and she and her mates would get access to platform 4 and mess about in the Waiting Room on cold winter evenings with just a solitary gas light for comfort.
Grew up in the 50's and 60's in Eccles and Salford. So Patricroft was my local 'shed'. I clearly remember "The Four Bridges", which is what the locals called an enormously long footpath bridge over the the main lines and marshalling yards. It had lattice sides of steel, so was great for train spotting. Once a lad decided to stand in the way of the smoke from a passing train. He reasoned it was OK as it was white smoke. He emerged looking like he'd just climbed through a very sooty chimney! What his mothr had to say when he went home I dread to think.
What a fabulous place Patricroft was… I only knew it in the later days of steam, the mid- sixties, but even then it was special. Great story about the lad! Thanks for the comment👍
This brought back a lot of memories of the early years of my 45 years on the railways.A lot of the places pictured were known to me. I started as cleaner in 1966 but I only helped clean one engine ( at Patricroft )we were told it was for a visit by the late Duke of Edinburgh after that we were pressed into service as firemen/second men.
Thank you, I’m really glad the film sparked a few memories. The transition from steam created some anomalies like the second man situation and subsequent union discussions. Having cleaned a good few locos on a voluntary basis I don’t think anyone should have been made to do that! 45 years on the railway is quite a record, you must be very proud of that, and to have experienced steam plus all the new classes of first gen diesels. Thanks very much for your comment👍
@@iainrobinson6566 it must have been a amazing time having a footplate ride on a run down Black five with your uncle on what might have been the loco's last run before going for scrap. I recently had a footplate on a GWR tank engine on my local steam railway in Cornwall
@@eliotreader8220 It's always an amazing experience, riding on the footplate, I am not surprised that you enjoyed it. My first experience was a little scary because my Uncle was not in the best of moods, he wanted a diesel. But some of the drivers loved steam, thank goodness.
I used to walk home from school past lostock hall shed, I had no idea at that age what it had been, I missed it all. My uncle was a fireman there too he moved on to work on Ribble buses when it closed to steam. I drove past this week with all the vegetation cleared off and all the shed roads visible still.
I shedded Trafford Park in the early 1960s and cabbed a couple of locos. Didn't get caught. But mostly I just train spotted. Mostly around Broadheath and Skelton Junction. Our house was almost surrounded by railway lines. The sound of an early morning engine climbing up the steep bank on the line next to West Timperley line (what was that line called? -memory not so good now) on a damp winter's morning and chuffing as it loses traction will never leave me nor the smell of hot lubricating oil and coal soot. I live in Sydney now - just an old man with boyish memories of things and places far away and long gone. Even the railway embankment itself has gone now as I can see from Street View. Still lives on in my mind's eye. Though that wil be gone soon enough too😂
Oh, thanks so much for that. Where you lived sounded fantastic for a young railway enthusiast! The sound of trains and shunting was the background to our childhoods, wasn't it? Amazing, too, how many of my friends emigrated to Oz... just as well you can't see for yourself how things are being relentlessly spoiled. I really liked Trafford Park depot, it had so much character, even though it was surrounded by the newer Trafford Estate developmentys. Great memories! Thanks for your great comment.👍
@@eliotreader8220 Thanks for your comment, Elliot. It's not a nice thought, but one day there will be none that remember. Let's hope your Mum has a long and happy life! 👍
Thanks again, Iain, for reliving our most glorious past... even down to those smoggy days. Nice to hear a brief reference to my old depot Trafford Park (9E), where I started as a cleaner, sad as this depot barely has much coverage. Worthy of a mention is my profile of those water columns you mentioned. Photo is 'courtesy' from Colin T. Giffords publication 'Decline Of Steam'. Just a couple of caption errors, those of 70032 & 70045, where the names have been transposed... Otherwise - keep 'em coming Iain.
Thanks very much, George. Yes, I really enjoyed visiting Trafford Park depot, it must have been quite something to work from there. Thanks for pointing out the transposition, I’ve no excuse for that- and I also have the Colin Gifford book- what a brilliant photographer, he was in the vanguard of the “arty” photographers back then. I do remember, and should have said, that people at Trafford Park were quite friendly, whether that was down to Dave’s dad or not I don’t know! Thanks again for catching the errors and omissions, I will put them right.👍
In about 1968 I worked in Trafford park I remember seeing loads of railway tracks and seem to be every where and know Trafford park has change such a lot with new buildings and all of the railway tracks have disappeared apart from a small section of track crossing a road and still in situ are the warning x signals and wonder if they still connected.
least theres preserved steam ! i got to ride behind the bloody big beast of a 9F 92134 same enormous beast i saw once at grosmont give its train a shove did find out 46100 royal scot is a bit of an exotic bugger given how well it handles the north yorkshire moors railway gradians as if it was sweet F-A
Thanks, yes, the Royal Scots have always been my favourite locos... that 2A boiler made them into beasts! I must try and get to the NYMR this year....👍
I worked at Longsight MPD during the winter of 62/63, a very long a and cold winter, and left after a couple of years , to join another company, while working for that company ,several years later I was sent on a contract to ICI in Barry South Wales, and spent my first day there walking round the scrapyard, surveying the engines waiting to be cut up, many with parts marked ,and awaiting collection ,from loco societies around the country, some that I had worked on, a very sad day,
Blimey, that must have been hearbreaking. I had the chance to go to Barry, but I couldn’t face it… so sad. Still, at least you had your memories of working on the locos. Thanks for your comment👍
Ah, that makes me feel very old! :-) We used to go on a local train to visit my gran in Mobberley, I still remember the smoke drifting past the windows and the telegraph poles! Thanks for your comment, Eliot!
Brilliant I really enjoyed your photos and reminisces! I was born in 57 and in 1963/4 we went on an excursion to Blackpool we had not left Manchester Victoria/ Exchange long and being mad about steam we passed through a depot with a largish shed wall on the right hand side where there were lines of old tank engines even at that age I knew they were old because they had stove pipe chimneys I think they might have been ex lancs and yorks engines! I have no idea where this was or been able to find any photos of these engines any ideas? Many thanks Phil
Thank you for your very interesting comment. I think the shed you mention must be Newton Heath, it was once the biggest L&Y shed on the network. I visited a few times and the staff were generally friendly, even though there were other spotters milling around. I seem to recall the old L&Y tankies that used to bank at Viccy up Miles Platting bank came from here. It was a very busy shed, even in the sixties. The coaling tower was demolished in 1969 and now the place is a TMD for multiple units! Cheers, Iain.
These are mechanical examinations where a loco would be stopped for a day and preventive maintenance carried out, and valves examined. There would be specific mnileage intervals between X day exams, although could sometimes happen when the boiler was washed out near to the interval. The first exam, called "1X" was at 5-6000 miles. Hope that helps!
What a fabulous series of sixty's scenes
Glad you enjoyed them👍
Thanks for compiling a wonderful look back, loved it.❤
Great! Thanks so much for your comment👍
Your pic with uncle Walter is so nostalgic
I think you missed those beautiful days as a stranger I can feel into the feel of wonderful past
Thank you so much, I see that you understand👍
Thanks for your brilliant memoirs !! You are keeping a lot of old men happy !!
Thank you very much👍that’s music to my ears! 🤓
My memories of steam at Harpenden on the Midland in the late 50's and early 60's are of filthy engines with steam leaks often smoking really badly from rubbish coal and slack firing. If ever a clean loco came by it must have just come out of a serious servicing.
There are more beautifully kept steam locos to be regularly seen now than ever there were then.
I was regularly in the Harpenden Junction Box and having studied BR signalling at the local railway club I signalled trains and pulled the signals all except the far down distant at the station which had an intermediate 'pendulum' afair which had to be swung to get enough leverage, so the signalman did this.
When trains went by I ducked out of sight (which could be while if it was a long slow coal train) until the Guards Van passed and if the bell code came for the Station Master coming from the station I was out of the back and away down the Nicky Line Branch before he got there on foot. Great times, loved it.
I’m with you on the filthy locos… all I ever saw, except at Bolton (video coming up very soon) now I find that I prefer less than pristine locos, probably due to my mis-spent youth🤣🤣 I do envy you your time in the signal box, something I never managed, and I didn’t know about that, thanks. Great to hear your story and thanks for the comment👍
Brilliant
Thank you!👍
Thats different! A unique way of reminiscing! Great!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!👍
That was good, I remember visiting Eastleigh shed, and a day at Bletchley watching Staniers, also, my grandmother’s garden ran down to the railway south of Oxford, very fortunate. We didn’t know anything much about the locos, but they were great and it was a fine time to be a small boy. Look forward to another video….
Thanks very much for your comment, Steve. It’s good to hear of other peoples experiences. Your granny must have been very popular! I agree, steam locos have a very deep effect on us, I can remember my emotions as a wee boy, realising that I would follow steam, the die was cast! Oh, and another video is almost finished…
Really enjoy listening to your vivid and wonderful memories of these long gone fantastic times !
Please Keep them coming 👍
Thank you! Glad you enjoy my videos. I will do my best to keep ‘em coming👍
Brilliant in many ways.
Thank you so much!😀
Crawled around Rosegrove Shed 1965 train spotting. Manchester Victoria was the filthiest railway station that I ever visited during the steam era. Thank you. 👍🏻🏴
I only went there once, sadly. Yes, Viccy was bogging, you had to try and not lean against anything! Thanks for your comment
@@iainrobinson6566 A pleasure. 👍🏻
Interesting anecdotes, photos and film. You're a charming narrator to boot! Keep up the good work. Cheers from Aotearoa New Zealand!
Thank you! I’m really glad you enjoyed the video, and appreciate your kind words👍
Very accurate narrative - even the point about engine men not saying much.
Manchester Victoria was never fully repaired from an air raid in 1940 - Liverpool Exchange was in a similar state of dirt and half repair.
Bolton shed was usually clean, as was the interior of Springs Branch - Edge Hill was messy, with tools and bits all over the place.
After 1963 little or no maintenance was being done. Stanier black fives on express work sounded like a bag of spanners.
Thank you, appreciate that! Yes, Victoria was a shambles and very dirty, wasn't it? Yes, I remember, Bolton was special, very tidy. I wish I'd known the railways in their heyday!
The varying states of those different depots would probably be because of the standards of the supervisors. Some men would like to run a "tight ship".
@@kiwitrainguy I agree, some shedmasters were "on it"...those were the ones that usually chased us off, but their sheds were the best!
Thanks, I do like your format it brings a lot more to the subject matter than other Rail videos from this period. Your narration makes for a better viewing experience. See you on the next one 😊
Thank you! I wasn’t sure, so your words are very encouraging. There’s another one in preparation👍
Thank you so much for sharing your vivid memories recalling the demise/end of steam. It bought a tear to my eyes. Your film is brilliantly narrated,and the imagery poignant of a time that we can now only see in films/photos like yours. Thank you for sharing.(👍).
Thank you for your lovely comment, Derek. I wish we’d all been able to afford cameras and film, my efforts are lamentable. But as you say, the memories burn brightly. 👍
Listening to this makes me wish i was born in the days of steam keep up this good work❤
Thank you so much… I was lucky, although it was sad seeing the end of the iron giants😢 thanks for watching!
I was ( 1944 ) and am still reliving my past. Much to the consternation of my family !!
My wife used to live close to Luton Station and she and her mates would get access to platform 4 and mess about in the Waiting Room on cold winter evenings with just a solitary gas light for comfort.
Good memories of those days 👍
fantastic , thank you so much
You are welcome! I’m very glad you enjoyed the video👍
44845! Fond memories of Newton Heath. I didn’t take numbers either…44910, 44949, 48260, 48678…..
Newton Heath did seem a lot friendlier than most. Thanks for the comment👍
Grew up in the 50's and 60's in Eccles and Salford. So Patricroft was my local 'shed'. I clearly remember "The Four Bridges", which is what the locals called an enormously long footpath bridge over the the main lines and marshalling yards. It had lattice sides of steel, so was great for train spotting. Once a lad decided to stand in the way of the smoke from a passing train. He reasoned it was OK as it was white smoke. He emerged looking like he'd just climbed through a very sooty chimney! What his mothr had to say when he went home I dread to think.
What a fabulous place Patricroft was… I only knew it in the later days of steam, the mid- sixties, but even then it was special. Great story about the lad! Thanks for the comment👍
Always a pleasure now🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thank you, glad you enjoyed!👍
such great memories. still got all my Ian Allen annuals and log books here with me in Queensland.
Thanks for your comment, Yes they were great times, glad I reminded you of some good memories!
This brought back a lot of memories of the early years of my 45 years on the railways.A lot of the places pictured were known to me. I started as cleaner in 1966 but I only helped clean one engine ( at Patricroft )we were told it was for a visit by the late Duke of Edinburgh after that we were pressed into service as firemen/second men.
Thank you, I’m really glad the film sparked a few memories. The transition from steam created some anomalies like the second man situation and subsequent union discussions. Having cleaned a good few locos on a voluntary basis I don’t think anyone should have been made to do that! 45 years on the railway is quite a record, you must be very proud of that, and to have experienced steam plus all the new classes of first gen diesels. Thanks very much for your comment👍
@@iainrobinson6566 it must have been a amazing time having a footplate ride on a run down Black five with your uncle on what might have been the loco's last run before going for scrap. I recently had a footplate on a GWR tank engine on my local steam railway in Cornwall
@@eliotreader8220 It's always an amazing experience, riding on the footplate, I am not surprised that you enjoyed it. My first experience was a little scary because my Uncle was not in the best of moods, he wanted a diesel. But some of the drivers loved steam, thank goodness.
Spent huge amounts of time at 9B (Edgeley) when young, 1955 on ... The Riddles BR Standard 9F at 1.33 minutes is taken at 9B.
Edgeley was a great shed, wasn’t it,, with a good few interesting locos. Thanks for the info about the 9F 👍
Thank you for sharing, wonderful.
You are very welcome, glad you enjoyed the video👍
I used to walk home from school past lostock hall shed, I had no idea at that age what it had been, I missed it all. My uncle was a fireman there too he moved on to work on Ribble buses when it closed to steam. I drove past this week with all the vegetation cleared off and all the shed roads visible still.
Thanks for your comment. It must have seemed eerie being able to see the tracks still in place… a long time since I was there. 👍
Lovely presentation😊
Thanks a lot 😊 glad you enjoyed it👍
I shedded Trafford Park in the early 1960s and cabbed a couple of locos. Didn't get caught. But mostly I just train spotted. Mostly around Broadheath and Skelton Junction. Our house was almost surrounded by railway lines. The sound of an early morning engine climbing up the steep bank on the line next to West Timperley line (what was that line called? -memory not so good now) on a damp winter's morning and chuffing as it loses traction will never leave me nor the smell of hot lubricating oil and coal soot.
I live in Sydney now - just an old man with boyish memories of things and places far away and long gone. Even the railway embankment itself has gone now as I can see from Street View. Still lives on in my mind's eye. Though that wil be gone soon enough too😂
Oh, thanks so much for that. Where you lived sounded fantastic for a young railway enthusiast! The sound of trains and shunting was the background to our childhoods, wasn't it? Amazing, too, how many of my friends emigrated to Oz... just as well you can't see for yourself how things are being relentlessly spoiled. I really liked Trafford Park depot, it had so much character, even though it was surrounded by the newer Trafford Estate developmentys. Great memories! Thanks for your great comment.👍
@@iainrobinson6566 my mum was born in 62 but she can just remember the end of steam on the main line
@@eliotreader8220 Thanks for your comment, Elliot. It's not a nice thought, but one day there will be none that remember. Let's hope your Mum has a long and happy life! 👍
Thanks again, Iain, for reliving our most glorious past... even down to those smoggy days. Nice to hear a brief reference to my old depot Trafford Park (9E), where I started as a cleaner, sad as this depot barely has much coverage.
Worthy of a mention is my profile of those water columns you mentioned.
Photo is 'courtesy' from Colin T. Giffords publication 'Decline Of Steam'.
Just a couple of caption errors, those of 70032 & 70045, where the names have been transposed...
Otherwise - keep 'em coming Iain.
Thanks very much, George. Yes, I really enjoyed visiting Trafford Park depot, it must have been quite something to work from there. Thanks for pointing out the transposition, I’ve no excuse for that- and I also have the Colin Gifford book- what a brilliant photographer, he was in the vanguard of the “arty” photographers back then. I do remember, and should have said, that people at Trafford Park were quite friendly, whether that was down to Dave’s dad or not I don’t know! Thanks again for catching the errors and omissions, I will put them right.👍
Interesting.
👍
In about 1968 I worked in Trafford park I remember seeing loads of railway tracks and seem to be every where and know Trafford park has change such a lot with new buildings
and all of the railway tracks have disappeared apart from a small section of track crossing a road and still in situ are the warning x signals and wonder if they still connected.
Thanks👍yes, Trafford Park was a fascinating place, with all that infrastructure… “progress”,I suppose, has swept it all away.
It is a pity that there are no regular steam schedules on a lot more routes.
Agreed👍
least theres preserved steam ! i got to ride behind the bloody big beast of a 9F 92134 same enormous beast i saw once at grosmont give its train a shove did find out 46100 royal scot is a bit of an exotic bugger given how well it handles the north yorkshire moors railway gradians as if it was sweet F-A
Thanks, yes, the Royal Scots have always been my favourite locos... that 2A boiler made them into beasts! I must try and get to the NYMR this year....👍
I love a lot of the photos
Thank you, glad you enjoyed the video!😀
I worked at Longsight MPD during the winter of 62/63, a very long a and cold winter, and left after a couple of years , to join another company, while working for that company ,several years later I was sent on a contract to ICI in Barry South Wales, and spent my first day there walking round the scrapyard, surveying the engines waiting to be cut up, many with parts marked ,and awaiting collection ,from loco societies around the country, some that I had worked on, a very sad day,
Blimey, that must have been hearbreaking. I had the chance to go to Barry, but I couldn’t face it… so sad. Still, at least you had your memories of working on the locos. Thanks for your comment👍
my Grandmother went to Crewe once on board a steam train to visit a member of her family
Ah, that makes me feel very old! :-) We used to go on a local train to visit my gran in Mobberley, I still remember the smoke drifting past the windows and the telegraph poles! Thanks for your comment, Eliot!
Brilliant I really enjoyed your photos and reminisces! I was born in 57 and in 1963/4 we went on an excursion to Blackpool we had not left Manchester Victoria/ Exchange long and being mad about steam we passed through a depot with a largish shed wall on the right hand side where there were lines of old tank engines even at that age I knew they were old because they had stove pipe chimneys I think they might have been ex lancs and yorks engines! I have no idea where this was or been able to find any photos of these engines any ideas? Many thanks Phil
Thank you for your very interesting comment. I think the shed you mention must be Newton Heath, it was once the biggest L&Y shed on the network. I visited a few times and the staff were generally friendly, even though there were other spotters milling around. I seem to recall the old L&Y tankies that used to bank at Viccy up Miles Platting bank came from here. It was a very busy shed, even in the sixties. The coaling tower was demolished in 1969 and now the place is a TMD for multiple units! Cheers, Iain.
I enjoyed that, thanks 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it, Thanks for the comment!
A police chief inspector helped you bunk off school? Those were the days. :D
Weren't they just! Dave's Dad was a good 'un. I doin't know how he squared it but never mind, a long time ago now!
Some confusion with Britannia names, but generally very good.
Yes, sorry about the “Brit” names, but I’m very pleased that you enjoyed the vid, thanks👍
Excuse me, what does "x day exam" mean?
These are mechanical examinations where a loco would be stopped for a day and preventive maintenance carried out, and valves examined. There would be specific mnileage intervals between X day exams, although could sometimes happen when the boiler was washed out near to the interval. The first exam, called "1X" was at 5-6000 miles. Hope that helps!