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Published on Leave a comment on Tracks through Grantham: July 2022 Update
We're going back 60 years almost to the day, to the afternoon of Thursday 12th July 1962 when the prototype Brush diesel electric locomotive No. D0280 Falcon calls at Grantham station with The Sheffield Pullman.  The man in the cab wearing white overalls is probably the manufacturer's technical representative.  Photograph by Cedric Clayson.

Hello all,

We hope this finds everyone well, enjoying some fine summer weather and - depending on where you are of course - coping with the heat.

First, and perhaps most important, we’re very pleased to announce…

Our next Tracks through Grantham meeting: 12th October 2022

We’ve arranged a get-together in Grantham on Wednesday 12th October.  If you are already on our Contacts List you should recently have received an email giving additional detail.  If you haven't received that email and would be interested in attending please get in touch using the Contact Form on this page, include also a postal address and/or a phone number, and we'll add you to our list of email contacts. 

The programme will include a presentation by Chris Nettleton called Steam in and around Grantham.  Chris has assembled a really good selection of photographs taken locally by several railway photographers at different periods.  Chris edits the Gresley Society’s journal The Gresley Observer and he is also the society’s membership secretary.

So please note the date in your diary; during August we’ll circulate a detailed programme and invitation to people on the Contacts List.

Now for some updates and news…

Updated Website Pages

Tracks through Grantham continues to develop in size and scope, and our website has gained some more photographs and memories including:

  • Chris Pearce found a splendid photograph of a group of young men at Grantham Loco standing with one of their main line locomotives in the early 1920s.  One of the lads is Chris’s grandfather, ‘Sam’ Pearce, and we’ve added the picture to Sam’s page.
  • We’ve added a photograph of a single line key token used on the High Dyke branch between Colsterworth and Skillington Road to retired signalman John Pegg’s page My Early Recollections of Working on the Railway (where there was already a photograph of the token instrument in Highdyke signal box for the Highdyke-Colsterworth section).  A similar key token was recently sold as lot 415 in the auction highlighted in item 3 of ‘Other News’ below.

Other News

1.  A forthcoming conference in Grantham, themed on Lincolnshire Railways

The 2022 Lincolnshire Railways Conference organised by the Industrial Archaeology Team of the Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology (SLHA) will take place at the Guildhall Arts Centre in Grantham on Saturday 19th November.  The programme will include a series of talks on various aspects of railways in Lincolnshire.  Mel and I have been invited to present a talk in which we will explore the role of the railway in the story of Grantham since 1850 and describe how, with the support and encouragement of many people, Tracks through Grantham is gathering and presenting this history.

For more information about the conference, including the other talks, go to this page on the SLHA website, scroll down to November and download the booking form.

2.  The future of Grantham Cottage Hospital

Grantham’s Cottage Hospital has played an important role in the town’s railway history on several occasions, most notably following the high speed accident of September 1906 and the disastrous collision between Peascliffe Tunnel and Barkston South Junction in January 1936.  So it was good to read recently that, following concern raised by local groups about the currently disused building’s future, its value has been officially recognised, as announced in The Grantham Journal:

There’s a link here to an account of the hospital’s role caring for accident casualties in the autumn of 1906 which was publicised far beyond the town.

3.  Going, Going…

On 2nd July Talisman Railwayana Auctions of Nottingham sold 515 lots of railway relics, mostly of Lincolnshire origin, at Navenby.  If you’d like to see what went under the hammer and the prices realised, visit their website:

July 2022 Lots 1 – 50 | Talisman Railwayana (talismanauctions.co.uk) and following pages.

Items of Grantham area interest were spread through the sale in lots 10, 25, 73, 81, 128, 134, 234, 302, 317, 415, 432, 462, 465 and 502.

4.  Gone... Grantham’s bid for the Great British Railways HQ

As part of its latest plan to reform the railways the government proposes to establish an organisation to be called Great British Railways (GBR).  Last October they announced a competition to identify a location for the organisation’s HQ.  Grantham was one of 42 places to submit a bid, but when the shortlist of six was announced on 5th July the town was not among the successful candidates:

There’s more about GBR and the process for selection the location of its HQ at National Headquarters Competition for Great British Railways | Great British Railways Transition Team (gbrtt.co.uk)

5.  Online Photo Archives

When you have a few minutes - or even an hour or two - to spare, try putting ‘Grantham’, ‘Barkston’, ‘Ponton’, ‘High Dyke’ / ‘Highdyke’ or other location of your choice into ‘SEARCH’ on these archive websites and see what comes up:

Remember that you’re very welcome to stay in touch with us…

via the Tracks through Grantham website:

  • for feedback on a specific page, use the 'Comment' box under 'Leave a Reply', which appears at the bottom of most pages;
  • otherwise, use the general Contact Form found here.

All the best,

John & Mel

Published on Leave a comment on Memories of an enjoyable afternoon at Grantham in 1959

We've just added a new page to the website in which Max Hooley recalls a most enjoyable afternoon spent at Grantham station on Saturday 26th September 1959. Max has also kindly supplied a selection of the photographs that he took on the day with what was then his first camera, a Brownie 127. You can read more about his visit here Memories of an enjoyable afternoon at Grantham in 1959

 

Published on Leave a comment on Tracks through Grantham: April 2022 Update
Above: The Nottingham branch at Gonerby Hill Foot from the 1929 OS 25-inch map showing the track layout at Gonerby Sidings between 1913 and January 1968.

Our April Meeting

Owing to personal circumstances we've postponed the meeting scheduled for 20th April.  We hope to hold it in the late spring or early summer.

A New Page

As we announced in the previous News item we've published a new page:

If you have information or photographs you can share with us about the railway in the vicinity of Gonerby please get in touch.

Some Updated Pages

However, several people have reported difficulty with slow loading of pages, and we're thankful for this feedback too.  The problem may be associated, to some extent, with the migration of the website to https:// which we carried out a few days after the launch of the new page.  It could also be connected with this page, as first published, being very long with multiple images.  We have therefore divided the content into three consecutive pages, with links to enable easy progress from the 'introduction' to 'part 1' (midnight to noon) and then on to 'part 2' (noon to midnight).

  • The RAF wartime career of Sydney Harmston, a clerk in the Stationmaster's Office, took him to Yugoslavia as a specialist in codes and cyphers.  It's newly featured in The Railway at Grantham in Wartime, 1939-1945  at item 4 (scroll down to halfway).

Steam World No. 418, April 2022

This latest issue of Steam World magazine has recently arrived and in it there’s a four-page photo feature (pages 24-27) titled Essendine to Grantham in 1960/61 in which ‘Nigel Harris dips into the superb East Coast Main Line photo-archive of the late Noel Ingram…’

 This is ‘Part 1’ and the photos are all black and white; Part 2 will feature some of Noel Ingram's transparencies, but the author isn't specific about when that will appear.

Also on page 60 (lower photo), in an item called Pick’n’Mix, there’s another of Noel’s photos taken at Little Bytham – a colour one this time.

Rail-Online

In its own words, Rail-Online is a comprehensive online library of high quality railway photographs, from the 1900s to the present day.

Tony and the team are continually adding new pictures from some important collections among which are, for example, the superb photographs of TG (Gordon) Hepburn of Nottingham who made frequent visits to the Grantham area.

Below are links to 17 Grantham area photographs which appear in Rail-Online's ‘recently added’ folder:

Grantham Matters

In the past 3 months this local history website has published a few items of railway interest:

Cheers,

John & Mel

Published on Leave a comment on Track Diagrams of Five Grantham Signal Boxes in 1967- and more

One of the benefits of having an online presence at Tracks through Grantham is that it encourages collaboration with other projects where they overlap with the Grantham area's railway history.

Malcolm Rush has been in touch to tell us about an album on Flickr where he's publishing his hand-drawn signal box track diagrams, photographs and other information. 

In 1965-67 Malcolm visited nearly 200 signal boxes up and down the country.  Each visit had a purpose - to create a record of the box and the lines it controlled.  What wonderful foresight, as a 13-year-old, to record details of so many signal boxes while they remained operational!  Five of the boxes he visited were in the Tracks through Grantham area.

At Tracks through Grantham an ambition is to prepare a page on the website for every signal box in the Grantham area.  Several boxes are already covered, but in few cases have we found copies of a track diagram, a vital item in every box showing the purpose of each lever along with track circuit and other important information.  A key purpose of Malcolm's visits was to create a hand-drawn copy of the track diagram displayed in each box.  Thus his project is a perfect complement to five of our signal box pages and we're delighted to recommend it to you.

Malcolm himself explains here how his interest took root, and here is an index of all the boxes he visited. 

Thanks to the support of the then Grantham Station Manager Alec Wise, on Friday 4th January 1967 Malcolm visited the five Grantham area boxes under his supervision.  Follow the links below to find Malcolm's diagrams, notes and photographs.

Grantham area signal boxes in alphabetical order:

Gonerby Siding - a new page

Four of the above boxes were previously featured on our website, the exception being Gonerby Siding box - until  now.  Encouraged by Malcolm's project we've put that right and you'll find our new Gonerby Siding signal box page here.

Published on Leave a comment on We’re more secure!

We have today upgraded Tracks through Grantham with 'SSL', which means that you will see 'https//' instead of 'http//' at the start of our URL on your browser address bar.  This also means that various automated warnings about the website being 'not secure' should no longer appear.

Checks seem to show that the change has gone smoothly.  You shouldn't notice any difference in performance, but if you do pick up anything odd (for example images being replaced by little icons) please let us know by using our Contact Form and we'll investigate.

Thanks,

John & Mel

Published on Leave a comment on 24 Hours at Grantham Station in 1961

We've just added a new page to the website describing a marathon 24 hour period spent on the platforms at Grantham. It's based around the 1961 Summer Working Time Table (WTT) and includes a selection of suitable photographs to illustrate some of the 300+ workings and movements taking place between midnight and midnight. You can step back in time and watch the action here.

Published on
Above: A1 No 60158 simmers in the sunshine before departing from Grantham with an express passenger train bound for London King's Cross. This locomotive first entered service on 17th November 1949 and as can be seen in this 1950 photograph it has yet to receive its nameplates. The name chosen was 'Aberdonian' but the ceremony did not take place until early 1951. Initially allocated to King's Cross, No 60158 had two spells at Grantham (35B). The first allocation was between 9th September 1951 and 7th June 1953, before returning to Grantham again on 2nd May 1954 to 6th June 1957. No 60158 was withdrawn on 26th December 1964 and finally scrapped early the following year.
From the Tracks through Grantham photograph archive (see below)

Hello all,

A very Happy New Year and all the best to everyone for 2022!

Below is an update on our activity during the last few months of 2021.  We hope everyone will find something new and of interest.

First, though, we’d like to thank everyone who attended our get-together at the Grantham Railway Club on Wednesday 13th October, our first since October 2019.  There were over 40 people and we especially welcome everyone who joined us for the first time. Our friends at the Club pulled out all the stops to ensure that all appropriate guidance was followed so that everyone could feel comfortable in the room.  Our special thanks go to Richard Cumming for his presentation Steam on the Elizabethan 1953–1961, several times delayed but certainly well worth waiting for.

Our next gathering is planned for April 2022 – provisionally on Wednesday 20th April.  Confirmation of the date and the programme will be circulated late in February or early in March.

We’re sorry not to have published our bi-annual Newsletter during 2021.  As with many things, the Covid situation has upset normal routines and it’s not been possible to bring everything together, but we do hope to start again with another issue next summer.

1. Some New Pages on our website

Signalling and Signal Boxes

Rob Clipsham remembers a unique experience - travelling from Highdyke to Skillington Road Crossing in 1973 while standing in the tender of the preserved locomotive Pendennis Castle:

Railway People and Places

Other recent additions are aimed at developing the Tracks through Grantham sub-theme Railway People and Places.  Grantham is a town where the railway has been influential in many ways, and we’re glad to demonstrate this by illustrating connections that may not always be immediately apparent:

Trade Unions, Social Life and Sport

Railway Festivals and The Railway Queen

The Grantham High Speed Accident of September 1906: the passenger casualties

On the morning of Sunday 21st November I visited Grantham cemetery to look for the grave of Georgiana Baguley, the only victim of the accident who was buried in Grantham.  It wasn’t too hard to identify because it was repaired and cleaned in 2006 to mark the centenary of the disaster:

How did the town’s emergency services cope when an express train was wrecked and ablaze on an embankment near the station at 11pm at the end of what had, until then, been just another ordinary day?  We discovered a write-up in a respected weekly medical journal describing hospital’s response:

2. Some Updated Pages

The following pages have benefitted thanks to new photographs becoming available:

  • Turntables and Triangles we’ve added a photograph from the M.L. Boakes Collection of class A2/3 No. 60515 Sun Stream on the 70-foot turntable in the late 1940s
  • Sam Pearce there’s now a photo of the south apex of the turning triangle, which was opposite Sam’s house on Springfield Road.  It has evoked more memories of his grandparents from Chris Pearce.

3. Some recent magazine articles

Steam World

The editor, Chris Leigh, has featured more selections of colour photographs taken by Noel Ingram on the East Coast Main Line in the early 1960s, mainly south of Stoke summit:

November 2021 (Issue 413):

  • Front and rear cover photos on the main line, plus pages 4 and 5 on the Woolsthorpe Branch.
  • across the top of pages 46 and 47 there's a shot of Grantham's A3 No. 60046 Diamond Jubilee departing from Leeds in August 1961.

December 2021 (Issue 414):

  • page 3
  • pages 54-55: Christmas Pick ’N’ Mix - scenes in the snow, January 1963

Steam Days, January 2022

Beginning on page 40: Travelling from Walsall to Grantham: 1958-62 by Mike Page

4. A recently published book

A Pictorial History of the B12s by Richard Anderson and Dennis Greeno includes many photographs of the former Great Eastern section locomotives which were based at Grantham in the 1950s.  They were used on local services on lines radiating from the town, covering the period between the withdrawal of many 4-4-0s and 4-4-2s of GNR origin and the introduction of diesel multiple units (see, for example, the photograph below).  The section ‘From Grantham’ is on pages 126 to 135.  Published by The Midland and Great Northern (M&GN) Joint Railway Society, price £23.25.

5. For the future

24 hours at Grantham station in 1961

We're continuing to gather information for an upcoming article that will describe events at Grantham station over a 24-hour period. This is set against the background of the Summer 1961 Working Time Table. We hope that the new page will be published early in 2022, so if you have any memories, spotting notes, or even photographs from 1961 there's still time to contribute. Of particular interest is information relating to the practice of engine changes during this period.

Tracks through Grantham Photographic Archive

On another front we have now created and continue to add to a 'Tracks through Grantham Photographic Archive'. This is to ensure that we always have a sufficient library of suitable Grantham related images to call on when needed for future articles.  If you have anything that you think could be included in our archive, no matter how insignificant it might seem to be, again please do contact us.

We leave you with two images selected from the archive, one below and another at the head of this post.

It's springtime in 1953 and here we have a lovely pastoral scene out in the countryside north of Grantham, with B12 No 61541 working tender first and having just left Peascliffe Tunnel with an assorted rake of coaching stock. The cows in the adjacent field are probably used to the passing trains and continue to graze unperturbed. No 61541 was introduced in 1920 and spent most of its working life at Stratford before being allocated to Grantham (35B) in November 1949. The locomotive stayed at Grantham until withdrawal in January 1957.

6. Keep In Touch

Something for everyone, we hope.  We’ll look forward to receiving your comments and feedback either via the Comment Form which appears at the bottom of most pages or, for more general feedback, use the Contact Form form on this page.

(Comments are responses to the content of a page or to previous comments on that page.  If approved,  a comment may be published and become part of the page.  On the other hand messages left using the Contact Form are direct communications to the Tracks through Grantham team, and they will not normally appear on the site.)

Best wishes,

John & Mel

Published on

Our next get-together for people interested in Tracks through Grantham takes place in Grantham in mid-October.  These events are an opportunity to meet for a few hours to enjoy a varied and, we hope, enjoyable and informative programme.  Our meetings are usually held twice a year but, inevitably, they have been 'on hold'.  The last was nearly two years back, in October 2019.

If you are already on our list of email and postal contacts you should recently have received the programme and invitation.  Please remember to let us know if you hope to be with us.

If you're interested in attending but have not received a programme please get in touch, using the Contact Form here, and we will send you information - date, time, venue and programme.  We don't publish these details on the website because we and our host venue need to know how many people to expect.

Published on Leave a comment on The Summer 1961 Working Time Table

We are currently working on a new article for the TTG Website that will specifically  focus on the 1961 Summer Working Time Table (12th June to 10th September 1961). Lots of information has come to light during our research, but we are now actively seeking details relating to Grantham 34F Locomotive Diagrams for the A3 Pacifics at this time. Another avenue of our research covers the engine changes on express passenger trains at Grantham during the same period, so if you can assist with any of the above please do let us know.

Thanks - The TTG Team