Never a Dull Moment! , livre ebook

Never a Dull Moment!
working on Britain’s railways 1962-1996
Terry Collins


Never a Dull Moment!
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2020
Tel: +44(0)1227 472 874 www.theconradpress.com 
 info@theconradpress.com
ISBN 978-1-839780-75-2
Copyright © Terry Collins, 2020
The moral right of Terry Collins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
Illustrations by B. Day
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley


Foreword by Peter Hancox
I really enjoyed reading this fascinating book. As a typical commuter I had no idea what went on behind the scenes and the number of dedicated, caring people involved in making the journey safe and on time. Terry Collins spent his whole working life as a railway man, as did his father before him. How he still remembers it all in such detail I don’t know. But he does, and now it’s here for us to share.
Terry has an engaging narrative style covering detailed and complex technical operations in a way we can understand, as well as a welcome fund of anecdotes – hilarious at times. It is reassuring to read about the meticulous safety procedures put into place when there is an incident and how problems are thought out and resolved, very often against the clock.
This book extends the horizons of railway enthusiasm and should make any train journey more interesting – a voyage of discovery. What happens in signal boxes and control centres? How is the track made safe for those workers down there? There is much more of course.
Forget train spotting and collecting numbers. Find out instead what really made our railways and their history the envy of the world.
PJH - June 2020
Peter Hancox is a professional proof-reader and an experienced commuter by rail


Introduction
T his account is not intended to be a technical treatise. Nor does it purport to be an absolute authority on the procedures concerning accidents or incidents and their investigations and recovery. Where technical matters arise, as they inevitably do, I have tried, drawing from my personal experience, training, and knowledge, to be accurate and correct in my descriptions. Other publications will have far more technical detail contained within them.
In this account, I have tried very hard to avoid any embarrassment to colleagues past and present, and in many of the incidents I am about to relate, I have referred to people only by their first names. In some cases, names have been omitted altogether.
The purpose of this book is to share with readers some of the many incidents I have been involved with in some way or another, to highlight some of the wonderful characters I have been privileged to work with, men and women, who were real railway people, to whom the job was not just a job but a way of life, as it was with me.
They were, and some still are, people with a lifetime of experience, who knew what to do in any crisis, who were immensely professional, and who were always willing to share their experience and knowledge with me. It really was a privilege to work with them and learn from them.
The other reason for this book is to show what life on the railway was really like from the inside, from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. It includes the Beeching era, the gradual changeover from lever frame signal boxes to panels, super panels and computerised I E CCs. It includes the last days of main line steam locomotives and the coming of diesel and electric traction. It begins with wagon load freight traffic and ends with block load freight trains, It begins with a publicly owned railway and ends with a privatised one.
It was against this background that I experienced a career of over thirty-four years. Most of the time I enjoyed it. Most of the time I found it very challenging and very rewarding. Sometimes it was frustrating and there were some sad times too. But sometimes it was hilariously and almost unbelievably amusing.
Through it all, through all the adventures – and misadventures – runs the thread of the real professionalism and expertise, and the camaraderie of the people I worked with.
I really enjoyed my career. It was much more than a job. Without exaggeration I can say with complete honesty that it was a way of life.
Most of the railwaymen, and women, who appear in these pages will understand and agree with that view. I have enjoyed writing about it and preserving accounts of the many incidents, and those who helped me so professionally in dealing with them. I hope you, the reader, enjoy reading it.
Terry Collins May 7 2020


Chapter One - How it all began - and nearly ended!
W hen I left school, reluctantly, in July 1962, there were only two choices open to me. I had wanted to stay on and do the Sixth Form courses, as did my teachers, but we were not a rich family and it simply wasn’t possible.
The two jobs open to me were a position as a clerk in a builders’ yard or a position as a clerk on British Railways. My father Arthur (1899-1968) was a lifelong railwayman on the Southern. He had joined in 1919 after leaving the Royal Horse Artillery at the end of World War One.
He became at first a South Eastern Railwayman in 1919, then a Southern Railwayman in 1923, and finally a British Railwayman (Southern Region) in 1948. He retired as West Yard Inspector at Tonbridge in 1960. He was considerably older than my mother, this being his second marriage. My mother Esther (1919-1973) also worked on British Railways (Southern Region) and that’s how they met.
Given this background, it was almost inevitable that I should choose British Railways. And so it was that three days after my sixteenth birthday, on the 8 th August 1962, I was introduced to Mr George Wright, the Goods Agent for Tonbridge.
He was second only in seniority to Mr Stan Burrows, the Station Master for Tonbridge, a fine railwayman, a Christian, and acknowledged by even the toughest railwaymen, to be a real gentleman. He was to play a vital part in my career.
Having completed my Induction Course and passed the Medical Exam at London Bridge, I was assigned to the Chief Clerk, Mr Stevens. At the same time, an old school friend of mine, Alan S also joined and for a short time we worked in the same area, although not the same office.
Tonbridge East Yard and Goods Depot was a fascinating and very busy place. It was where the goods traffic was transhipped to and from the trains. All day long, three-wheeled Schammel tractors towed trailers into the Goods Shed with consignments from outlying districts around Tonbridge. Those same trailers were then loaded with goods from wagons from all around the British Isles and from the Continent too.
To deal with all this traffic there was the main Goods Office, which dealt with the movements of the goods, liaised with customers, dealt with matters of Insurance Claims, Demurrage, where goods were held in wagons waiting customers to collect or accept, and for which a variable charge was raised, costing the movements of goods and issuing waybills and invoices, the movement of livestock and liaising with the various veterinary services, paybills for the clerks, shunters, Schammel drivers, and what is now called ‘Human Resources.’
We rarely saw Mr Wright, the Goods Agent, but we were in awe of his deputy, the Chief Clerk, that is until my friend Alan, who was carrying a tray of full teacups, tripped and spilt quite a lot of it down him. Apparently he took it all very calmly.
The Depot also had a British Transport Police Office and also a separate Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise Department, for the continental traffic.
In addition to the traffic brought in and out by the lorries, what was known as a ‘raft’ ran once on the early shift and once on the late shift. This consisted of wagons that had been loaded in the East Yard Goods Shed, being taken to the West Yard to be shunted into trains that would take them to their destination.
Each ‘raft’ returned with wagons loaded with goods destined for Tonbridge and District, which had come into the West Yard from various starting points, and which were to be unloaded in the Goods Shed and put on the trailers for the Schammel lorries to take to the customers. Each raft would comprise between thirty and fifty wagons, hauled by a diesel shunting locomotive.
Often a little 0 – 4 – 0 class 204hp locomotive was allocated (known as a ‘coffee pot’ because of its odd shaped funnel) and when this loco was used, the signalmen were instructed to give it a clear run through the station because if it stopped with such a full load on, it might not be able to start again.
Later I was often able, from the signal box, to watch this little locomotive, waggling from side to side as it struggled with its heavy load. Pathways through Tonbridge Station could be difficult to find, but it was important to run the raft as early as possible to give the West Yard Shunters time to insert the wagons in the right order on the appropriate train.
The primary function of the West Yard was to marshal the ‘wagon load traffic’, so that these wagons were in the right order on the trains, and when they had to detach wagons in yards and sidings on their routes before their final destinations, those wagons were easily accessible and caused the minimum of delay.
Other factors affected the order of wagons. If for example a large crane or other heavy plant was being conveyed, this, regardless of the order of the train, had to be marshalled next to the engine, so that when the train was compelled to brake, the weight would not bear down on the more lightly loaded wagons.
I hope this gives the reader some idea of how the West Mars