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First of all, we hope this finds everyone keeping well and successfully staying out of harm’s way.

We’re especially pleased to launch our latest new page.  During a period when many of us are 'confined to barracks', we thought it would be a pleasant diversion to get ourselves out and about, historically speaking, on the Tracks through Grantham section of the East Coast Main Line.  So we offer a trip in space and time exploring 13 miles of the line, centred on Grantham, through the lens of photographer Tom Boustead's camera.

Tom’s pictures span five decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s, so they show the effects of sweeping change which affected everyone who worked for, travelled on or lived near the railway.  The photographs also trace the imprint of the East Coast Main Line on the landscape of South Kesteven.  We enjoy many viewpoints discovered by Tom, often with the benefit of his lineside photography permit.

So escape from Lockdown and enjoy Highdyke to Westborough in Fifty Pictures.

We'll be glad to receive feedback on all aspects of Tracks through Grantham so, if you'd like to leave us a note via the site, please do so as follows:

  • for comments on a specific page (which may be included with the page after moderation), use the Comment box under 'Leave a Reply' which appears at the bottom of most pages
  • otherwise, use the Contact Form here.

Published on Leave a comment on Grantham Railways Online and In Print

Here are links to a few mentions of railways in the Grantham area which we've come across recently.

On the Grantham Matters website:

Trainspotters in the 60s

Track relaying, November 2019

Aveling-Barford's locomotive

The Harlaxton ironstone quarry line

Barrowby Road Bridge repairs

Track relaying, February 1987 (at nearly the same location as in 2019 above)

Passenger numbers at Grantham station in 2017

Renewal of Barrowby Road Bridge, 1955

The Up side goods yard, 1936

Grantham Guard Montague Ogden, Mayor in 1966-67

Barrowby Road Bridge is hit by a truck, February 2020

... and in the current (March 2020) issue of Steam World magazine:

pages 28 to, 33 carry an illustrated article titled 1962: a Spotter's Year by Bruce Laws, with his recollections of places including Colwick shed, and Nottingham Victoria and Grantham stations.  Photographs include an A3-hauled passenger train on the Up goods line, a view of the Loco yard and Grantham B1 61389 bringing a goods train off the Nottingham line.

Please let us know (via our Contact Us form) if you come across similar items, so that we can share them.

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It's Sunday 27th June 1971 and Grantham Yard signal box is about to close.  Leaving the box for the last time, someone reached into a drawer or cupboard for an old scrapbook which had been lying there for years.  It contained circulars and memos received by the signalmen at the Yard Box between 1900 and 1945, each carefully pasted into a page for possible future reference.  They would be needed no more but maybe someone, someday, might be interested...

At Tracks through Grantham we have recently seen this remarkable survivor.  It truly is a fascinating archive, with many stories to tell about things that mattered to the railway and to its employees.

A new page on our website draws on this resource for the first time.  Fresh Fish Daily! is an insight into the importance of the Scotch fish traffic to the people who operated the Great Northern section of the East Coast Main Line in the early decades of the 20th century.

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Published on 1 Comment on A Sense of Time and Place…
by John Clayson

Do you sometimes have one of those moments which takes you back to a place and a time long ago, and it feels as if it was just yesterday?  Watching the first part of the series The Trial of Christine Keeler on BBC1 last night took me back to Grantham station (where else?!) on 3rd October 1963 and a photograph my Dad took during one of our outings there.  It's 4.05pm (by the clock on the wall) and at first sight it's a simple study of a man in the down side buffet reading his newspaper, probably the London Evening Standard.

The location is long gone.  The building which housed the buffet on the down side was swept away when that side of the station was rebuilt in 1985-86.  In fact it had almost been swept away 30 or so years earlier, when a 'hard shunt' into the bay platform (now platform 3, then platform 4) forced a coach over the buffers and into the north wall of the buffet in June 1954.

...but I digress, as dear Ronnie Corbett might have said.  The connection becomes clear on reading the front page headlines:  MISSING CHRISTINE WITNESS MYSTERY 'Paul Mann has no plans to return' and ‘LUCKY’ GORDON IN BOX TODAY, accompanied by a photograph of Mandy Rice-Davies.

Photograph taken by Cedric Clayson.

The enquiry report by Lord Denning into 'The Profumo Affair’ had been published in September.  Christine Keeler's trial, in which she was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice, had just commenced.

I do remember, at the age of 9, wondering what all the fuss was about, and my parents changing the subject when I persisted with enquiring what 'a call-girl' was!

In search of the real Christine Keeler, focussing on this new portrayal of the scandal by screenwriter and novelist Amanda Coe, is on the BBC website here.

Published on Leave a comment on Farewell to the Inter-City 125 or HST (High Speed Train)

Introduced in 1977 as the Inter-City 125, HSTs (High Speed Trains) were last used on LNER scheduled services on Sunday 15th December 2019.

The final LNER service operated by HST, the 19.35 from London King's Cross to Leeds [1D30], departed from Grantham at 20.50 on 15th December.  So Monday 16th December 2019 became the first day without an HST operated service through Grantham since May 1977.  Another era of Grantham railway operation has passed into the history books!

As a curtain call LNER is running four Say Goodbye to the Inter-City 125 excursions using the BR blue painted set.  The final one is Leeds to London King's Cross on Saturday 21st December with a stop at Grantham.  A photograph of this event will be very welcome.

The customers of successive East Coast Main Line (ECML) operators have travelled through Grantham in HST sets for more than 42 years, a unique record.  Companies other than LNER and its predecessors which have used HSTs to provide services on the ECML through Grantham include Grand Central and, occasionally, Hull Trains.

Although no longer seen at Grantham, HSTs remain active further north on the ECML.  Cross Country continues to operate them between York and Edinburgh, and there are East Midlands Railways (on weekdays) and Cross Country (on Sundays) services operated by HSTs which use the ECML between Doncaster and Leeds.

Setting the achievement of the HST into historical perspective is difficult because they are complete trains, not a locomotive hauling a set of carriages.  Confining the comparison to motive power alone, it appears that no class of diesel locomotive came near to four decades' use on scheduled ECML express services.  Going back to steam days, arguably two classes of locomotive have a comparable record of longevity.  They are the Ivatt GNR Large Atlantics (from 1902 until the 1940s), and the Gresley GNR/LNER A1/A3s (from 1922 until the 1960s).

Can someone update us on any fleets of passenger coaches which were in front line service on the ECML for as long as 40+ years?  Please use the Comment box below.

There are lengthy features on the Inter-City 125 / HST in Rail magazine here and in Wikipedia here.

Below are four photographs by Mel Smith showing Inter-City 125 trains at Grantham in the 1980s.

With thanks to Doug Thompson for alerting us to this significant moment in Grantham's railway history.

Published on Leave a comment on 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

 

Published on Leave a comment on 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

Published on Leave a comment on 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.

Published on

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.