Sheffield Steam Sheds Article in Steam Day Magazine

[hillsbro]

More memories here, of course. I'd forgotten the 1/8d day return to Doncaster but you're quite right. I never completed my A1s or A4s (Kingfisher was an A4) even after two trips to Scotland but I was a regular at Doncaster. I do remember going over the North Bridge at Doncaster to see the back of the Plant, and a bike was useful for peering over the wall into the paint shop. In 1966-67 I was at college in Doncaster and my landlady's garden in Sprotborough Road backed on to the freight avoiding line - even then there was the occasional steam loco, usually a WD. The "rarest" engine I ever saw in the Plant in c. 1959 was a K1 from Scotland, 61997 McCailin Mor. I went to Crewe several times in 1961-64 but maybe you were going there a bit earlier than me, as I remember the total of the two day returns was 8/3d rather than 8 bob. I once went via Derby and copped some useful stuff around Uttoxeter etc. Barrow Hill was quite good - in 1965 the newly-built Clayton Type 1 diesels (D85xx) were stored there; they didn't last long apparently. Crewe South was indeed very easy, also Gresty Lane. I was in Crewe a few years ago and found that there is a breakfast cereal factory on/near the site of Gresty Lane shed. And where we used to sit on the wall at Bernard Road is now somewhere in mid-air above the Parkway. How times change...

[CHAIRBOY]

A4s indeed - "streak" would be the cry on St.James's Bridge! I have corrected it - just a blip - Kittiwake was an A1. Talking of factories near stations; Warrington Bank Quay was famous for the soap aromas coming from the Lever factory and Wigan Low Level was much better "Uncle Joe's Mint Balls"! On the low level at Wigan, you could see the Preston- London line over a bridge - a bit like Tamworth. I went to Wigan, one day, needing four Coronations for a full book - I copped three of the four just leaving 46235 City of Birmingham outstanding on my retirement! What's

3d to us? It was about the same time as yourself. I remember bending the knees at the ticket office to get a 'half'.

Those Scottish engines were just a dream - MacLeod of MacLeod - etc. only seen in T.I. pictures. Even with my time in Scotland, I was east coast and never made those Highland lines.

[hillsbro]

My goodness, CHAIRBOY, we could continue this "conversation" for ages. Maybe we should meet for a pint in in the Boilermaker's Arms or some other suitable watering-place! Somewhere I have a 1961 photo of a Coronation pulling the "Royal Scot", taken at Warrington Bank Quay with Lever Bros. huge tanks as a backdrop. It would be funny if it were "City of Birmingham" - I'll have a look when I am "home" on Sunday. I never went to Wigan, but Wolverhampton was another place where you could position yourself on the Low Level station and see trains at both levels, likewise Tamworth. Only rarely did Scottish engines such as 61997 venture south, except for major repairs at Doncaster etc. We did use to see the loco for the "night Scotsman" at Millhouses shed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. It was usually a Polmadie engine, and more often than not a Clan. I copped Clan Stewart and Clan MacKenzie there. One one occasion we were surprised to find a Jubilee rostered for the train, but it was a good one - 45697 Achilles, off Carlisle Kingmoor. I also used to pore over my Ian Allan books at the exotic-sounding names of locos that hauled trains on obscure, scenic branches in the Far North. Names such as Edie Ochiltree, Luckie Mucklebackit, Lord of the Isles, Laird of Balmawhapple and Lady of the Lake. Memories...

[CHAIRBOY]

Absolutely, the distinctive feature of those Carlisle "Jubilees" was that they had larger numbers. Millhouses used to be hectic on a Sunday morning if there was a 'Clan' on the sleeper.

A person on the go then, I have seen talking about Sheffield Transport issues on TV, is called Peter Fox - we called him 'Foxy' but 45 years on, he hasn't changed.

The link line by Bernard Road was called The Nunnery Line, wasn't it? I always tried to go to Wolverhampton from Snow Hill station - I loved those Western engines.

One other point of note was when there was a cup-tie, say Sheffield W v Bournemouth, you might get a surprise engine pulling the football excursion train. Do you remember those excursion plates on the front of the boiler.

Trainspotting is oft derided but when you look at today's alternatives it was wonderful and had knock-on educational benefits and disciplines. I am amazed today when bright pupils haven't a clue in which counties towns lie - or the name of stations, airports etc, plus the planning of trips etc.

[hillsbro]

Yes, the line under the Bernard Road wall was the nunnery line, named after the former Nunnery Colliery that was nearby. After trains to Darnall, Woodhouse etc. changed to Midland Station, the line was relaid and re-aligned to make it into a convenient spur connecting the Midland and G.C. lines. The junction where it leaves the G.C. line is still called Nunnery Junction. From the wall on Bernard Road, as you looked down to your left you could also see the huge stone wall (under which the main lines went) which had behind it a tunnel - there were air-holes in the wall. Until c. 1960 you would occasionally see smoke emerging from the holes and hear the sound of a steam loco pulling a goods train in or out of the Blast Lane goods depot. Access from this to the main G.C. line was near Nunnery Junction. In 1958 I went with my older brother to Wolverhampton, and we took a train from Birmingham Snow Hill - the only time I've been pulled by an ex-G.W.R. engine (I think it was a Hall). I well remember the excursion plates on the smokebox door, also special headboards, such as when I went with the cubs on a "special" to the Jubilee Jamboree at Sutton Coldfield in 1957. Transpotting was certainly educational and encouraged kids to travel and see the country. Also the disciplines were important, as you rightly say. You knew the do's and don'ts, and seeing classes of engines in the Ian Allan books, and carefully underlining them is, I think, what encouraged in me a sense of "orderliness" which perhaps helped with a career on the fringes of I.T. But the main thing is that they were happy days.

[CHAIRBOY]

The Pullman coaches were also educational - I'm sure I've called Persephone (Percy-fone) until I knew better. I would have quit about 1964. The Peak diesels and the D800 "Warships"? Sir Brian Robertson were the first stages of disenchantment. Even with a name, there just wasn't the same magic.

Did you ever get a speck of coal dust in your eye, looking through the window (leather sash belts) with your hand cupped round your eye like a blinker? Do you recall the 2d platform ticket? I also remember the four lines at Millhouses, two main lines and the other pair "up and down Manx". On Sundays, you'd get a tank coming down tender first from Chinley with all the hikers. No corridors in those trains so heavens knows what folk got up to?

What about the stove-pipe chimneys on those Patriots which we may have seen at Crewe? Another thrill was on Doncaster station when the Flying Scotsman went by on the fast line. Guess that was even better at Retford. You could get to Crewe via Derby but I always went via Manchester and past Jodrell Bank.

I am fairly certain that I went to Newcastle as a student (well before Quayside nightlife) as a result of an earlier visit to see the Owls and was so taken by the entrance over the bridges and the station itself. 52A Heaton and 52B Gateshead Bowes Bridge, correct? Then those sub sheds eg Percy Main.

[hillsbro]

Oh, the leather sash belts on the windows. It's the first thing I recognise when riding on a preserved line such as the K & WVR. The names of engines were often something of a mystery. I mean, one of the Darnall locos was BUTLER-HENDERSON, but who was he? For me, one of the uses of the Internet in recent years has been to learn about such people as Archibald Sturrock, Sir Frederick Banbury, Lord Rowallan, Fitzherbert Wright and Andrew K. McCosh. I well remember the 2d. platform tickets (issued by those red machines - see http://railticketsillustrated.digimig.co.uk/p47743787.html) The last such ticket I bought was at Kings Cross in 1979, by which time the price was 4p. The machines might be "born again" if the Midland Station acquires barriers, as per a different thread. The Hope Valley line trains sometimes had no lighting, as well as no corridors, so going through Totley Tunnel could be scary or enjoyable, depending on whom you were with. Retford or Newark were the places to go to, if you wanted to see steam-hauled expresses at full speed. Actually, 52A was Gateshead and 52B Heaton. In 1966 I went on a coach trip with the Warwickshire R.S. to the Tyneside sheds, including Percy Main (52E) where I copped loads of J27s 0-6-0s. I saw one of them again on the North York Moors Railway - 65894, I think. Memories...

[CHAIRBOY]

Yes, that's the platform ticket machine. There did come a time when one was no guarantee to the platform. There was a particularly difficult ticket snipper at Midland Station called Norman Manley who wouldn't let spotters through the barrier.

Crewe was an art in remaining on the station, even with a rail ticket.

I went to the ceremony at Midland station when Gold Coast 45610 became Ghana and this was a further facet of education with those names put forth in your previous link.

You had the Western 'County' class and then there were some LNER locos 627--? Banffshire etc which did trips up the East Riding to Scarborough etc. Then there was the Sandringham class from which football clubs bagged the nameplates though they weren't all soccer clubs. I also took photographs but not to any great standard, just private collections but I no longer have them.

I was a one-time teaching colleague of a chap called Ian Wright who retired from Myers Grove to concentrate on his Railway Memorabilia business-aparently thriving!

I'm not into that, in fact I hardly give railways a second thought but remember vividly the happy days experienced in the above as a lower teenager.

[hillsbro]

I didn't know that Gold Coast was renamed Ghana at the Midland Station. I guess that would have been in 1957 or soon afterwards.

 

Yes - Banffshire was 62717, with Kinross-shire 62718. It's amazing how many of these names/numbers are still stored in the old grey matter. As you say, other members of the D49 class were named after football teams, and recently I picked up a small aluminium replica of the SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY nameplate (complete with miniature football under the arc) at the St Luke's charity shop at Crookes.

 

I knew Ian Wright when he also organised postcard fairs at Myers Grove (I collect early postcards showing the Trans-Siberian Railway and wrote some books about them - see for example http://www.bsrp.org/books/cards/siberia.html). I don't think Ian is still in the railwayana business but his auction firm is still going strong under new management - http://www.sheffrail.f9.co.uk/ Three or four years ago Ian was interviewed on TV about the forthcoming sale of the nameplate **** O' THE NORTH in one of his auctions - it made over £50,000. In 1965 I bought from the British Rail stores department (for £1) the numberplate 61249 (Fitzherbert Wright). A few years later I was hard up and sold it to the "B1 Preservation Society" for £5. I wonder where it is now...

[CHAIRBOY]

It's amazing all this. I have written on other threads about 'must haves' in the Christmas stocking viz. football annuals but another must was the Ian Allen Combined volume of numbers - £1 2s 6d?

You spent all Christmas day copying up your book. This brought in another quality of trainspotting - honesty! What was the point of deluding yourself? I can't do it now but at the time, I would liked to have been able to say where I saw x at a given time.

I also had the loco-shed book which gave directions, transport etc. to all the MPDs.

I used to like the orange station livery of the North East and the light blue of what now is termed Scotrail. You'll remember the destination board on the sides of trains. Most of the main trains through Sheffield were London-Bradford and Newcastle-Bristol, given the odd extension here and there, like the one a day to Poole and Parkestone Quay OR to Glasgow St. Enoch - one of the then four Glasgow stations to add to Central, Queen St (from Edinburgh) and Buchanan Street. That's going back to the days when Third Lanark existed!

"What were on t'Temmy"? - I bet you know that vernacular? What engine was pulling the Thames-Clyde express. This was a popular and full service and I'd guess left Midland station about 12.20pm? It got to Millhouses about 12.30 and was usually Jubilee hauled. It was great to watch it from the Woodseats Road bridge heading up to Archer Road - it was quite a gradient up to Totley cutting (another vantage point) and it had to work very hard. It was an important train and how many times have you "wished I was on that"?

The Newcastle-Cardiff train was just after 11am. If Newcastle or Sunderland were playing Cardiff or Swansea on the Saturday, they'd pass through Sheffield on the Friday on this train.

You'd look for those white reservation labels that they put on the windows. Then you could pass your annuals/pictures for signing through those two top windows which pulled apart!

Another memory is the White Rose express which left Doncaster just after 4pm. There was often an A1 on that with a double chimney and it made a lovely sound as the steam wafted around. This, too, was popular. There was often a lot of fuss on the platform as a wedding party was not too far away!

I loved those names: The Palatine, The Northumbrian, Elder- Dempster Line (?) Fred Olsen Line.

In the case of the Thames-Clyde express, we'd probably miss out in Sheffield as a Kingmoor Jubilee would probably bring it to Leeds and then go to Holbeck - whereupon we'd see the usual 55A engine we'd seen many times. It was waiting for the unexpected that made it - and when it happened people thought you were winding them up!

 

Can I add - other people can join us in this discussion.