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Month: November 2020

Published on Leave a comment on Riding back to Happy Days…

Let's forget today's bothersome restrictions on travel for a while and get out and about again in the Tracks through Grantham Tardis.

Richard's Cumming's latest highly entertaining article describes how, in 1956, the arrival of his new bike stimulated an eagerness to push the boundaries of youthful exploration well beyond the horizon of his home town of Grantham.

His first ventures were to the relatively close-at-hand surroundings of local towns and countryside, exploring rumours of unfamiliar breeds of locomotive to be seen on their native territory.  Ultimately, though, the call of far-away engines with strange-sounding names (and numbers) led Richard to the uncharted lands of the West Midlands and Shropshire.

We're sure you'll enjoy travelling with Richard on trips that were inspired by an interest which took root during his earlier enjoyment of the railway scene around Grantham.

If, by way of introduction, you'd first like to read (or to re-read) Richard's previous accounts of Grantham-based spotting adventures, they are here:

There's a link at the end of the first page to take you forward to the next, and then on to the new article.

Or you can go straight to the new page, in which case why not dust off that old bike and get pedalling out of lockdown to share the excitement of Richard and his friends in Train Spotting Bicycle Trips away from Grantham.

(…and don't worry, he'll wait for us to catch up on the hills.)

 

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A new addition to our Tracks through Grantham 'Diesel Era' section is another entertaining account by Steve Philpott, this time recalling several Deltic hauled trips. Using his unique blend of personal observation, with a sprinkling of technical background, Steve looks back at a selection of runs diligently recorded on the stretch of line between Grantham & Newark. These recordings were made on the King’s Cross to York / Hull semi-fast services towards the end of the Deltic fleet's BR careers. You can read more of this here

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We have added some new content to our 'Diesel Era' pages, this time looking back to the late 1950s, when as part of their modernisation plan, British Railways carried out a series of main line tests with a prototype diesel electric locomotive - ‘Deltic’ which had been built by English Electric. The production fleet that followed as a result of these tests came into operation from 1961 onwards, taking over a variety of steam hauled services. They were initially numbered D9000 to D9021 and transformed express services to and from London King’s Cross along the ECML. Later they were renumbered with the class prefix - 55, but we still referred to them as 'Deltics'.  Our aim here is to only provide a brief potted history of the class, thus providing a starting point for specific 'Grantham related' 'Deltic' stories that will follow in the future. You can read more here.