News

Above:‘The Plant Centenarian special train marking the 100th anniversary of Doncaster Works is calling at Grantham on the way to King's Cross on Sunday 27th September 1953.  Photograph by Humphrey Platts

Wishing you a Happy New Year!  Here's a news update from Tracks through Grantham, including links to some recent new or amended pages on our website.

Some of you may also receive this update in a direct email from Tracks through Grantham.   This will be because you are both a Subscriber to our website and a direct email Contact for our project.  Please bear with us on this because eliminating overlap between Subscribers and Contacts is much easier said than done. 

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Humphrey Platts

We were very saddened to learn that our friend Humphrey passed away early in December.

It’s coming up to ten years since Humphrey first made contact with Tracks through Grantham.  In his introductory message he told us that he had read with interest an article in The Grantham Journal about what we were setting out to do.  He went on to say that he first came to live and work in Grantham in 1949 and, having an interest in railways, he had many photographs and other information which he thought might be of 'some interest' to us.  What an understatement that turned out to be!

Humphrey and his late wife Diana invited us to their home to share stories of their interest in railways and other forms of transport.  Their enthusiasm was truly infectious and they became keen supporters of Tracks through Grantham.  Humphrey kindly made his superb and evocative photographs freely available to us and they have become favourites with a website audience which extends worldwide.

As he settled in Grantham during the 1950s Humphrey became acquainted with local railway people, sometimes through a shared involvement in local government or in organisations such as the NSPCC and the Rotary Club.  His and Diana's friendship with Stationmaster Harold Scampion led to a specially arranged footplate trip to Newcastle and back for Humphrey on an A3 express passenger locomotive, a sister loco. of the world-famous Flying Scotsman, crewed by a Grantham driver and fireman.  Humphrey always recalled that special day out with real delight, though he said that owing to some particularly dusty coal he needed two baths after he arrived home!

Humphrey regularly joined us at our twice-yearly meetings at the Grantham Railway Club.  In October 2017 he presented a selection of his pictures on the theme ‘roving locomotives’.  Accompanied by his knowledgeable commentary we enjoyed scenes of A5 4-6-2Ts at work on his beloved Metropolitan & Great Central Joint line, not long before some of them spent their final years ‘out to grass’ in the Grantham and Lincoln areas, and Great Northern K2 2-6-0s working in the West Highlands of Scotland.  He returned the following year to treat us to a mixture of scenes covering Grantham, King’s Cross, Shrewsbury and the Southern Railway and Region.

We think that the old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is probably a good way for us to pay tribute to Humphrey’s generous contribution to our project. So here are links to three of 'his' pages on our website which showcase some of the many local railway photographs that Humphrey took between 1949 and the 1970s.

• Photographs from 1949 to the 1960s by Humphrey Platts

• The Plant Centenarian calls at Grantham, Sunday 27th September 1953

• Flying Scotsman’s stopover at Grantham, October 1973

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Tony Newman's photographs at Highdyke Yard and Grantham Loco

Tony got in touch with us recently to contribute some photographs for use on the website.  We've added his three photos of O2 heavy freight locomotives to existing pages, where they complement the content: 

• two taken at Highdyke are in The High Dyke Branch Rediscovered – Part 1, consecutively about 20% through the page (an unidentified O2 and 63932);
• one taken at Grantham shed is in Grantham Class O2 Locomotives, about 70% through the page (63940)

We've created a new page for a set of three pictures of Grantham A3s during the shed's final months (60065, 60112 and 60105):

• A Trio of Grantham 'Racehorses'

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A Half-century in Railway Engineering

At our meeting in Grantham in October Brian Maddison introduced his recently published book Railwayman - Engineer - Diver : Memories of a Lifelong Railway Engineer.

Brian worked in the railway industry as a civil engineer for over 50 years.  He explained how his career began in 1964 in the Peterborough District Engineer’s office, where his first responsible role involved contributing to planning the reconstruction of Bridge No. 2 over the River Devon on the Woolsthorpe Branch (see a photograph and map on this page, about ⅓ down).  Other activities local to Grantham during his career include tunnel examinations at Stoke and Peascliffe (the latter when it was open to normal traffic at 90mph), extending platform 4 at Grantham station (see here on our website), and the experience of being called out to Springfield Road bridge in 1998 after a double-decker bus full of children had its roof sliced off, miraculously without injury.

Having read the book we can recommend it as a really readable and entertaining account of ‘how things got done’ on the railway.  If, for example, you'd like to find out how areas of tunnel brickwork at or near the crown of the arch, and several rings of brickwork in depth, are replaced (working overhead and in apparent defiance of gravity), or how the dismantling of the oft-lamented GC main line girder bridge spanning the platforms and tracks at Nottingham Midland station was planned and carried out with minimal line blockages 'down below', you will find Brian's story a fascinating read.

It's not only from the technical perspective that Brian relates his story.  We see him and others making their way in the railway industry by nurturing business and personal relationships with colleagues and contractors.  At several points along the way he reveals how they countered the tendency of a character nicknamed 'Spannerman' to frustrate their plans.  

Brian’s book, which runs to around 300 pages, is available on Amazon for £17.99.  Profits from sales will be donated to The Railway Children charity, which supports destitute children who turn up at railway stations in many parts of the world.

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Website Performance

We’re aware that our website www.tracksthroughgrantham.uk can sometimes be slow to load.  For example, white spaces may appear where photographs or other images should be.  The issue appears to be both intermittent and inconsistent.  By show of hands at the October meeting there are some people who receive pretty much perfect ‘reception’ most of the time and others – it was about a 50/50 split – who seem consistently to have problems.

We’ve been in touch with our website host to try to understand both what’s going on and how the site’s performance can be improved.  The word seems to be, first, that making a webpage display instantly and equally well on the range of devices that are in use and widely distributed across the globe is very demanding of the world wide web.  We’ll be putting in place some strategies to reduce the stress, such as reducing image sizes.

Second, some issues can be alleviated by regularly carrying out simple housekeeping tasks on our receiving devices, such as clearing browsing history and cookies.  Sometimes something as simple as clicking the ‘Refresh’ icon after a few seconds can do the trick.

The website continues to have a steady flow of visitors from all corners of the world.  Visits per year since 2017 have consistently totalled between 30-36,000, with the exception of a ‘lockdown spike’ of 42,400 in 2020.  The majority of visitors are UK-based but there are also good followings in Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

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Could you help us with some website 'housekeeping'?

As our website grows in scope we’d welcome help checking the pages for such things as links which no longer work. We’re looking for a few people who will occasionally read through a section of the site and report issues to us by email, which we would then resolve.  If you’re able to do this please send us a note using the Contact Form on this page and we'll get back to you.

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