Month: February 2019

For nearly five years in the early 1980s Steve Philpott worked for the Royal Mail in Grantham.  Interested in railways, he particularly remembers shifts worked on the station where, until late 1982, mail to and from Grantham and the local area arrived and departed by train.

Steve's Mailbag Memories were previously published in our Christmas 2018 Newsletter, and we are now delighted to share them here, on the website, where the story is enhanced by many more photographs than we had room for in the Newsletter.  There are pictures from Steve's own collection and from the collections of other photographers which have been kindly made available to Tracks through Grantham.

Thanks for the Memories, Steve!

Above: View along the track towards Highdyke signal box c. 1970s.  The sleeper-built buffer stop referred to below is on the right.
Photograph by Peter Green
This image is from the collection of The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) ref. PG00606 and is used here with permission.

This post is a gathering together of recent references and snippets on the subject of railways roundabout Grantham we've discovered here and there.

• There's a two-page colour photo feature A Look at Lincolnshire in the current issue of Backtrack magazine (February 2019, Vol. 33 No. 2), where three of the five superbly reproduced pictures were taken by A J Clarke at Grantham - and a fourth is at Barkston South Junction (on pages 82-83).  Can anyone recognise the driver of 60056 Centenary?

• The January/February issue of Great Northern News (No. 223), distributed to members of The Great Northern Railway Society, carries a short article titled Buffer Stop at High Dyke on page 223.11.  This is based on a GNR drawing from 1888 of a sleeper-built buffer stop, which was discovered in the National Archive at Kew, London.

• The Grantham Matters website occasionally includes pictures with railway interest.  Below are links that will take you direct to the page concerned.  All have appeared since 1st December.
  • Wartime preparations at the station
  • The 05.48 to Nottingham
  • The seldom photographed gas works siding features here
  • The station in 1973
  • The bunting's out at the station in September 1952 - but why?
  • 4472 1983 (it's not a phone number!)

If you've seen something that we've missed just let us know and we'll update the list.