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At Tracks through Grantham we've been discussing how we might 'do our bit' to mark the close of the modern Elizabethan era.

It was in 1953 that the world's longest regular non-stop train service was retitled The Elizabethan to mark the coronation of the new monarch, HM Queen Elizabeth II.  Since we heard Richard Cumming's presentation Steam on The Elizabethan 1953-1961 at our meeting in October 2021 it's been on our minds to feature The Elizabethan on our website.  Now seems an opportune moment to realise this aim.

So we've gathered together photographs of The Elizabethan train service in the Grantham area from our website image library for a new page called At the Dawn of a New Era: ‘The Elizabethan’ in and around Grantham.  We think it’s an appropriate gesture and we hope you agree.

You can find the new page here, in our website's Traffic and Trains section.

All the best,

John Clayson and Mel Smith

Published on Leave a comment on Tracks through Grantham: September 2022 Update
Above: The northbound 'Elizabethan' express from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, hauled by Haymarket A4 No. 60031 'Golden Plover' on Saturday* 14 June 1958.
© Photograph by Roger Bamber

Roger Bamber

We've been saddened to hear that our contributor Roger Bamber passed away on Sunday 11th September, aged 78.

Roger grew up in Leicester and as a boy he made several visits to Grantham station, usually cycling over the hilly A607 via Melton Mowbray.   He became a celebrated professional photographer and photojournalist whose work appeared in many national newspapers and magazines.  Roger won dozens of awards, most notably the British Press Photographer of the Year twice and News Photographer of the Year twice also.

Two years ago Roger got in touch with Tracks through Grantham from his home in Brighton to offer some of his earliest memories and photographs.  They are on our page Haymarket Rarities - captured with a plastic camera.

Several tributes to Roger and his career have appeared on the internet.  In one of them, for the Brighton paper The Argus, his wife Shan says, "Roger loved steam trains, one of the reasons he came to Sussex was for the Bluebell Railway but he ended up in Brighton and decided it was the 'best place in the world' and that's why he stayed."

There's an appreciation of Roger Bamber, illustrating the range of his work, on The Guardian website here.

Tracks through Grantham meeting, October 2022

Just a reminder about this event, which was the subject of a post circulated on Wednesday 31st August.  If you intend to join us please don't forget to let us know.

A Recently Updated Website Page

Gonerby Siding Signal Box

  • Back in March we published a new page about the box at Gonerby after Malcolm Rush told us about his visit there in January 1967 in the company of Grantham Station Manager Alec Wise.  Malcolm told us that Gonerby was the only box, of 184 that he visited, where the operator was a signalwoman.  This set us on the trail of trying to find out who this lady was.

A number of people helped, and we soon identified that she was Mrs Carter, the wife of signalman Albert Carter at Grantham South.  Then, a few weeks ago, an email arrived from George Watson who, as a boy, used to visit Gonerby box.

To read George's fascinating account go to our Gonerby Siding Signal Box page and scroll down just over halfway, to the heading Bett Carter: signalwoman at Gonerby Siding.

Recent features of interest

We keep an eye open elsewhere for items of Grantham area railway interest.  Here are some we've seen recently.

The Facebook Group Rail Thing - REAL Trainspotting (1945-1968)

Please note that the links to Facebook from this section only work if you are logged in to Facebook.

1.  Patrick Clay is posting photographs taken in the Grantham area and elsewhere by his father, John F. Clay.  Follow this link to find the Grantham area pictures, or go to the group on Facebook here and search ('search this group') for 'Patrick Clay Grantham'.

John F. Clay wrote the Foreword of Rev. A. C. Cawston's  book LNER Steam at Grantham, in which he says that as a schoolboy photographer in the 1930s he met Arthur Cawston and Thomas Hepburn on the platforms at Grantham.   In his Introduction to the same book Cawston tells us that John Clay was, for many years, a schoolmaster at Grantham.  John F. Clay's photographs have appeared in a number of books and periodicals, and he wrote an article about Grantham's railway heritage in The Railway Observer.

2.  Our regular contributor Richard Cumming has penned an absorbing account  of a visit to his Uncle Arthur on Merseyside in 1955.  Written in the same style as his popular articles for Tracks through Grantham (they're in our Spotters' Corner section), there's plenty of railway interest plus such things as his impressions of the docks and of attending Anfield to watch Liverpool FC.

Titled A train spotting holiday in Liverpool in 1955, Richard's essay can be downloaded as a Word document called 'Liverpool Holiday.docx' from here.

The Grantham Matters website:

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

Steam World magazine:

In the current issue of Steam World is an item which might interest Tracks though Grantham subscribers:

September 2022 (Issue 423):

  • pages 26 and 27 is a photo feature titled East Coast Main Line Moments.  It's a selection of four colour photographs by Noel Ingram, prolific recorder of traffic on the East Coast Main Line between Grantham and Peterborough in the early 1960s.

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

 

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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, in April and October, but owing to personal circumstances we were unable to arrange one last spring.

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.  We will add you to our list of contacts and send an invitation which includes 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

It's time for our second selection of photographs taken exactly 60 years ago on one of a series of visits to Grantham station by my father and me.

The Tracks through Grantham time machine takes us back to Thursday 16th August 1962.  Go to the Sixty Years and Counting header page and scroll down to the link.

John Clayson

Published on Leave a comment on Sixty years and counting: Grantham station photographs on their diamond anniversary

We're publishing some new pages of photographs taken at Grantham in the early 1960s.  Each group of pictures was taken on a visit made to the station by my father and me on a Thursday afternoon, and it will appear in a new page on or around the 60th anniversary of the trip.  The time span is between August 1961 and July 1964.  Our visits took place between spring and autumn, on 19 occasions in total.

The photos will be added to the Grantham Railway Galleries section of our website.  To find the first group, from Thursday 12th July 1962, go to the header page and scroll down to the link.

On the header page, with the note of each new group of pictures, there will be an invitation to look out for the next group.

We hope you enjoy the photos as they appear.

John Clayson

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