A Line On Locos And Their Men (13 January 1978)

To those who might have noticed that my column has been missing from the last two issues of the Gazette, I must explain that I have been enjoying a holiday of practically 14 days among my favourite foreigners in Scotland.  They said they were glad to let me in and doubtless they were equally glad to let me out again.  So here I am, back in Bletchley and wondering what the heck to write about, after all Ye Olde Stuffe written by the Gazette’s regular staff in recent issues.

Talking about stuff and staff reminds me of when I worked in the Bradford office of a Leeds newspaper.  Stuff from Bradford was usually labelled “From our Bradford Staff” in the paper.  Then, one morning, it was labelled “From our Bradford Stiff.”  And that ended it.  The label, I mean, not the paper.

Well, we have just started on another year and I never think of a New Year in Bletchley without being reminded of the chorus of whistles from steam locos standing in the Bletchley yard that used to herald each New Year as regularly as the church bells.   They seemed particularly pleased with themselves at the start of 1948 – now 30 years ago, would you believe it?  That New Year saw the inception of the National Health Service, but it also saw the takeover of the railways by the nation, which was an event of even greater interest as far as this railway town was concerned.

Nationalisation of the railways had been advocated for years in some quarters, but it took the Second World War to bring it about.  During that war the railways and their rolling stock had been run nearly to death in the country’s service and I verily believe they would have died from lack of capital to re-equip them and men to run them had they not been nationalised.

But as I was saying before I interrupted myself, the steam whistles blew a merry tune and they had hardly finished before I stepped into the loco depot time office and asked some of the men there how it felt to be civil servants.  (I was dead keen in those days, a midnight walk in the sleet was nothing, if some copy might be got out of it).

Mr Bill Nash, who had been listening to the engines, came into the gaslight and said the occasion called for a celebration – “but we’ve naught to celebrate with.”

Waiting to drive the 1.15 [am] brick train to Sudbury, Mr Harold Alderman, puffed at his pipe and reflected on his 43 years’ service.

I started here as a lad and in seven years I will retire,” he said.  “I’ve seen a lot of changes, but I don’t think I shall see a great improvement before then.  There have been amalgamations before.  They have broken some places and made others, but I’ve been at Bletchley all the time.”

Mr Ted Scott, a fitter, said: “Personally, I hope to see a lot of improvement.  One thing is certain:  things can’t get much worse that they have been these last few months.  It will take time, of course.  Re-organising traffic is fairly easy, but to bring power and rolling stock up to scratch again is different.  However, the mines seem to have turned the corner (they had been nationalised the year before) and I expect the railways to do the same.”

How strange and far-back those hopes and expectations sound in the light of all that has happened since.  Can it be said that either the mines or the railways have really turned the corner yet?

In the matter of the speed and number of passenger trains more progress was made in the first 40 years of the railways than in all the years that followed up to electrification and re-tracking.

It was in the late 1830’s that trains began making their slow and unwieldly way from Euston to Birmingham and some of the local branch lines were not laid until the 1850’s.  Yet, by 1877, according to a timetable published in a Leighton Buzzard Observer of that year, 48 trains a day left Euston from 5.15 am to 9.25 pm.  Twenty-eight of them did not stop at Bletchley, but 20 did.  Trains calling at all stops took 2 hours 15 minutes to reach Bletchley.  But the 7.30 am reached Bletchley at 8.39 am, including a stop at Willesden.  And the 12.10 pm did even better, reaching Bletchley at 1.17 pm, including the Willesden stop.  Those faster times were not much improved upon 70 and 80 years later, were they?

About the year 1910 many railways were celebrating their diamond or golden jubilees and the question cropped up of whether it was possible to travel over 1,000 miles in 24 hours.  The Railway Magazine that year listed many ways.

A Halifax man actually travelled 1,008½ miles in 22 hours, 25 minutes, between one midnight and the next.  His itinerary was:  midnight express from St Pancras due in Leeds (195¾ miles) at 4.03 am; returned by the 4.10 am from Leeds due in London at 8.15 am; took the 9.30 am to Carlisle (308 miles) and arrived back in London at 10.25 pm.

Another possible journey covered 1,118½ miles in almost exactly 24 hours on the LNWR line running through Bletchley.  It was:  Euston 7.45 to Carlisle; Carlisle 1.50 to Rugby; Rugby 6.53 to Stafford; Stafford 8.20 to Euston; [Euston] 11.13 to Rhyl; Rhyl 3.38 to Euston, arriving at 7.45.

These days of inter-city trains it may be possible to smile at those figures.  But it must be remembered that it was before most present people were born and that nearly all the country’s internal traffic in passengers and goods was also via railroads at the same time.