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Published on

We've just added two photographs of the 1874-1942 GNR signal box at Great Ponton.  Photographs featuring that box appear to be quite rare and we haven't had one on the website before now.  Here's a link to the page.  Scroll down to the heading 'The 1874 Signal Box'.

Published on Leave a comment on A Recent Incident at Highdyke

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has issued a news report on its website titled:

Train damaged by collision with an object at Highdyke Junction

The accident happened in the early morning of Tuesday 19th December 2023.

Highdyke Junction is about 4 miles south of Grantham station.  It is where the up slow line joins with the up fast on the approach to Stoke Tunnel. 

Click here to go to the report.

Highdyke was once also the junction for an ironstone branch (c.1917-1973).  For more about the Highdyke branch see here.

Published on

With the kind permission of the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) we are very pleased to re-publish, here on Tracks through Grantham, an article written by John F. Clay in 1966 for The Railway Observer.  The article draws on the author's extensive local knowledge as he relates how the town and its people contributed, collectively and individually, to fostering the widespread recognition of Grantham as a premier railway centre on the East Coast Main Line. 

The writer concludes by pondering the desolate, cleared site of the loco sheds and yard, querying the wisdom of 'Dieselisation' and wondering, from the perspective of the mid-1960s with the prospect of continuing post-Beeching closures, what future profile the railway would have in Grantham.

This link will take you directly to the page:

Grantham - The Rise and Decline of a Railway Centre

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

 

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 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 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 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

2

Published on 2 Comments on A Little Light Reading

When it comes to Grantham's association with the railway, Tracks through Grantham is one of many sources available.   We aim to signpost other people's work recording and presenting the railway history of the town so, for example, there are lists of books, articles in magazines etc. here.

On the Internet, the saying 'other websites are also available' is as true for Grantham railway interest as it is for soap powder or chocolate bars, and below are links to pages which have appeared on the Grantham Matters website over the past six months since the beginning of November. 

There isn't much information with some of the photos, so we've done some research and added notes.  Most of the photos can be seen much more clearly by using your browser's 'zoom' function to magnify the page.

Two fascinating old photographs of work on the line, dated 1921

  • The top picture appears to be the removal of weathered and degraded stone from the east side of Great Ponton Cutting, between Great Ponton station and Highdyke.  When the cutting here was widened on that side for the new Up Goods line, in about 1875, it's likely that its side was left as a steep rock face.  We got in touch with Richard Cumming who says,  'The top layers of Lincolnshire Limestone (which this is) are very weathered, i.e. loose and open, compared with the thicker solid seams down below.  As a result they are prone to the actions of frost and rain.  I think the men are dealing with a landslip, or a potential landslip, and have been removing all loose material from the side of the cutting leaving the rough, exposed uneven face of more solid material seen in the photo.'
    The words on the side of the wagon are G N BALLAST WAGON NORTH DISTRICT.
    Here and here are links to two later photos which show the same site – perhaps just a few yards further south - after the cutting sides had been graded back.
  • We are sure that the lower picture is in the same locality.  There was a bridge here, shown on maps dated c.1904, and it would be numbered Overbridge 232 in the civil engineer's records.  The maps also show signal posts in the same locations; these would be starting signals for Great Ponton box, Up Main and Up Goods.

Running out of rails on one of the Ironstone Quarry Lines

The Ambergate Yard branch railway bridge over Dysart Road being removed

Station Master Harold Scampion in his best uniform welcomes a VIP to the station

  • This photograph is captioned 'Future Prime Minister Anthony Eden entering Grantham station in 1951'.
    The Grantham Journal reports Anthony Eden passing through the station on Tuesday 10th April 1951 to catch the 9.30am to London, having attended an event at Nottingham the previous evening.
    Eden is on the right; on the left is Harold Scampion, Grantham Station Master from 1947 to 1963; in the centre is Stanley Hodgkins, Grantham Division Conservative party agent.  In the background is the now long-gone Station Inspector's house, No. 9 Station Road.
    At this time Eden was in opposition, but he had held important government posts during the 1930s and 1940s including twice being Foreign Secretary, to which post he would again be appointed, in October 1951, in the post-war Churchill government.  Anthony Eden succeeded Winston Churchill as Prime Minister from April 1955 until January 1957.

Not specifically railway, but can you see the route of the main line and the High Dyke branch?

An odd piece of track...

A crowded platform

  • Waiting for the Flying Scotsman Pullman on a Sunday, either 6th or 13th March 1983.

A crowded lineside!

  • What the folk on the platform were waiting for.  The top photo was at Stoke tunnel, not Peascliffe.

Barrowby Road bridge and signal box

A photo of the old Ambergate line terminus