Category: Uncategorised
The Grantham 1906 accident – a rare survivor
By pure coincidence following reference to the Grantham derailment of 1906 in our previous post, Mel recently came across a reminder of the disaster for sale on a website for collectors of postal memorabilia. It's a postcard which was among the mail being carried on the train. The card was evidently recovered from the burnt wreckage, slightly singed and water damaged, and delivered to its intended recipient in Derby.
The price asked today is fairly eye-watering, demonstrating the value of rare items in a market embracing both postal collectables and railway memorabilia.
The dealer hasn't quite got the facts of the accident accurate because 14 people died as a result of the accident, not 12 as stated; two casualties died later.
John Clayson
Sitemap for ‘Tracks through Grantham’
We began to construct the Tracks through Grantham website in the summer of 2016. Over the past three years or so the site has expanded to the extent that it can be quite difficult to find what you're looking for. Even we, in our role as editors, occasionally get lost among the pages!
So we've just installed as a trial an interactive Sitemap which we hope will help to make navigation simpler. The new page is here.
It's not yet perfect and we have some ideas to make it better, but we'd welcome feedback before we take it further. Please use the Contact Form on the page.
John and Mel
New photograph of large Atlantic No. 62822
One of our contributors recently let us know about a rather magnificent photograph which has just appeared on Twitter. It was taken at Grantham station in 1949 or 1950 and shows the last GNR Ivatt 'large Atlantic' to remain in service, Grantham shed's No. 62822, taking the empty stock of a Boston or Lincoln train out of platform 2 and past the Yard signal box.
The owner of the picture has kindly allowed it to be added to one of our Yard Box pages. To see it, follow this link and scroll nearly half way down the page.
Tracks through Grantham: October 2019 meeting
Our next regular twice-a-year get-together for people interested in the Tracks through Grantham project takes place in Grantham in mid-October. Always very enjoyable occasions, these events are an opportunity for our contributors and supporters to meet while enjoying a varied and, we hope, enjoyable and informative programme.
If you are already on our list of contacts you should recently have received the programme. 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 do not publish these details on the website because we need to know how many people to expect.
Steve Taylor and John ‘Jock’ Michael
We were very sorry to receive in recent weeks the sad news that these two former Grantham footplatemen have passed away.
Steve and John both appear below in a photograph of former Grantham footplate crew which was taken during the visit of the world speed record holding A4 locomotive Mallard to the Festival of Speed held in the town in September 2013.
Back row (L to R): Tony Stevens, Syd North, Phil Cunnington, Steve Taylor, John Plummer, Maurice Massingham, Don Wade, Roy Veasey, Arthur Curtis
Front Row (L to R): George Fielding, Mick Gibson, Roy Vinter, Alan Grummitt, John Michael, Ken Willetts, Boris Bennett (in front), Nev Eldred
Photograph taken by Nick Pigott
Steve Taylor was a cleaner and fireman at Grantham Loco in the 1950s-early 1960s period. Friend and colleague Roy Vinter tells us that 'Steve and I started cleaning the same year, were the same age and went to King's X shed at the same time on loan, indeed we shared a flat with another lad in Finsbury Park for a while.'
Steve went back to Grantham after 6 months, but Roy stayed on in London as he recalls in his page here. When Roy was still working from King's Cross shed, Steve came onto the footplate of No. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley at Grantham early one morning as Roy and his driver were preparing for the return trip. He 'built up the back corners' of the firebox with coal so as to give Roy a good start for the journey.
Photograph taken by Ted Pizer, signalman at Colsterworth Mines.
John Angus Michael, known as 'Jock' to his railway colleagues and friends, came from the Isle of Skye to Grantham as a young man to work on the LNER. John loved the job, describing how the footplate of a railway locomotive was a special place where the team of driver and fireman held a unique position of responsibility. Writing to us in June 2015 he describes how he felt soon after starting out as a cleaner. 'Seniority meant so much to us in those days. Looking longingly from the lower rungs of the ladder to the dizzying heights of the top link and the rich rewards and status attainable there.'
In 2017 John kindly lent us some photographs taken in 1959, when the Grantham Loco Mutual Improvement Class arranged an outing to the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway in Kent. He told us then - rather poignantly - that he was the only man in the photos who was still living. They are on our page here, along with John's typically amusing account of the trip and more photographs of the day lent by the late Boris Bennett.
John succeeded in attaining the position to which he aspired as a young man, retiring from the railway as a highly respected Grantham driver. He is third from right in the photograph below, which was taken in May 1990 on the closure of the Train Crew Depot at the station.
Back row: Pete Nicholls (Examiner), Maurice Massingham, Jack Tuckwood, Ray Green, M. (Hodge) Collingwood, Roy Evans.
Front row: Michael A. (Ma) Brown, Fred Burrows (retired), John Phillips, Denis (Danny) Wright, John (Jock) Michael, Gerry Edwards (retired).
Photograph kindly lent by Maurice Massingham.
John lent his support to Tracks through Grantham in many ways. He always had a word of encouragement for Mel and me at our six-monthly gatherings at the Railway Club. To quote once more from his letter of 2015, John is referring to a recent get-together when he says, 'Forgive me, John, for reminiscing, but it is so good to meet the few of us who are left and who loved our hard graft with a passion.'
John Michael's funeral will be held in Grantham on Wednesday 21st August. Here is a link to the family announcement.
John Clayson
“Hold on! Where are you going to?”
With those shouted words signalman James Herring tried to stop the departing Up Mail on a moonlit summer's night in 1898. The signalling handlamp pictured below could be the very one he waved from his window at Grantham Yard Box in a vain attempt to prevent a collision.
For the full story and more detailed photographs of the lamp see our page Grantham Yard signal box – people and incidents.
An LNER sign from Grantham station
The sign pictured above was brought along to our meeting on 17th April. Can anyone tell us where on the station this sign would once have been located?
We have several plans of the station, but none of them show a location for the offices of the Traffic Department for the Grantham District.
The sign is made from a framed wooden board and metal letters. It appears to have been fixed into place just inside each corner. Approximate dimensions are 40 x 16 inches (1000 x 400mm). So it's too big for a normal-sized door and would therefore most likely have been attached to a wall.
A Platform Announcement
We're pleased to say that service on Tracks through Grantham appears to be back to normal on all (IT) platforms. This follows the resolution of a problem which caused the non-appearance of some of our images on some types of IT device and was the subject of our post on 8th March.
If you think the website is not 'behaving itself' in any respect please get in touch, using a Contact Form, and describe as clearly as you can what's happening. Some problems, and the recent one is an example, are quite selective in how they manifest themselves, so we may only pick them up through a user's comment.