Knaresborough Signal Box, Station and on the right the ex ‘Station Managers’ house, my home pictured mid 1980’s.

Biography

Class A4 60009 ‘Union of South Africa’ storms through Doncaster station with the northbound ‘Talisman’ railtour from London Kings Cross to Newcastle 15th September 2018. – Video courtesy of JDT Trains.

Class 55 Deltic 55018 ‘Ballymoss’ at York Railway Station’. Photographer unknown.

I was born in Shropshire in 1968, my parents’ divorce in 1973 meant relocating to North Yorkshire with my Mother shortly after. Staying initially with Grandparents near Ripon, we settled for nearly 10 years just south of Harrogate, in a small rural hamlet of approximately a dozen houses surrounded by farms.

There were some other boys of my age who lived local and we soon struck up a friendship which lasts to this day. One of the boys lived on a large nearby farm, and it was his Dad who, with his limited time off as a farm manager, sometimes took us to York Station, or to a railway bridge near Boroughbridge in the middle of nowhere called ‘Pilmoor’ on a Sunday evening to see his favourite engines hurtle past. His ‘OO’ model railway, which stretched into two cellars below the farmhouse was equally as spectacular.

The road bridge at Pilmoor stands over the East Coast Mainline between London and Edinburgh – and sits within what’s known as the ‘racing straight’ between York and Thirsk where the current line speed is up to 140mph. Pilmoor once was a junction with a local line heading towards Boroughbridge and Knaresborough (would have been handy) but this closed to passengers in 1950 and completely in 1964, way before my time.

Visiting the ECML in the mid/ late 1970’s – English Electric Type 5 class 55 ‘Deltics’ were clinging onto power on the Anglo Scottish express trains with the introduction of the HST imminent. And so it was, that I quickly became a Deltic fan.

We didn’t have a great deal of money, so it was with the help of summer jobs and birthday money etc that my fledgling interest in railways began. An occasional trip to the National Railway museum in York for birthdays etc. and it cost nothing to cycle up to Harrogate station on a weekday afternoon in the school holidays to see the daily direct service to London laying over in the station – often a Deltic. Easter and Summer holidays to the South Coast to see my Father was also an excellent opportunity for some more train spotting, along with the regular summer bike rides to Pilmoor with a packed lunch and a radio to keep us company. Life seemed quite simple in those days.

As I got older, trips to Sussex involved detours via Willesden and Old Oak Common depots in London, and we would often purchase a week long South Coast rail rover ticket – giving access to lines from Kent all the way down the Sussex coast to Portsmouth Harbour on the old slam door VEP’s – more of that later. A school friend’s parents rented an apartment in Porthmadog for a week in the summer. They went walking up hills and we volunteered for a week’s work on the Ffestiniog Railway – the highlight of which was assisting the fireman on locomotive ‘Prince’ for a day.

School and Sunday League football got in the way of having more adventures further afield and financial constraints meant that I couldn’t travel on any of the 1981 Deltic farewell railtours, and somehow missed the tour that came through Harrogate? A gloomy day in Doncaster on the 2nd January 1982 to see the last BR Deltic special was about as good as it got, but even then, my camera broke and I had nothing to show for it.

Class 55 Deltic 55009 ‘Alycidon’ pictured at Cattal Station hauling ‘The Deltic Executive’ Railtour on 29th December 1981’

We did manage some ‘Yorkshire Ranger’ rail rover tickets during the school summer holidays (funded by seasonal work at ‘The Great Yorkshire Show’) – which allowed a week’s travel (after 09.30hrs I think) across Yorkshire - enabling plenty of loco hauled trains to be travelled on in the Leeds, York, Sheffield and Doncaster areas. There were no mobile phones or internet in those days, so it was very much a case of turning up and seeing what was running on the regular loco hauled diagrams, or you might hear somebody saying this was working here or there. Does anybody else remember carrying about one of those ridiculous ‘all line’ timetables? Weighed a ton!

1984 brought the first railtour experience where three of us did a weekend travelling round the Scottish Highlands and getting stuck down remote branch lines rarely used – hotels you say? – no – we slept in our seats on the train. An ‘at seat’ dining service? No - we dined on pot noodles, crisps and McDonalds. More on this here...

Grampian Highlander

1984 was also the year we moved into what was the old Station Masters house in Knaresborough that my Mum and Step Father were renovating. It was a huge house, cold and damp with no central heating – but I couldn’t complain with a bedroom that had a fantastic view of the railway station and a small window that opened up directly above the tracks facing the signal box. A friend who worked in the agricultural world bought one of those heat lamps farmers use for lambing – kept the bedroom above freezing - but not sure about the electric bill! The garden backed onto the famous viaduct and I soon struck up a relationship with the two regular signalmen Joe and Bryan – who always kept me up to date with anything special heading our way.

The author stood in Knaresborough Signal Box mid 1980’s’

It was around that time that the three times a week ‘The Scarborough Spa Express’ train started running, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. York to York via Harrogate and Church Fenton onto Scarborough and an evening return. I had a fantastic birds eye view of this both ways – even if it did mean a bedroom full of soot! I think this is probably when I started to appreciate steam a little more as the Gresley A4’s were regularly rostered on this train.

School ended in the summer of 1984, and I despite submitting a pleading letter to BREL at Doncaster for an engineering job (politely turned down as I didn’t reside in Doncaster) I started work as an apprentice coach builder at the local bus company.
Regular holidays in Sussex continued, by now we had figured out that by purchasing a second additional rover ticket – we could extend our trips into Hampshire and see the English Electric Class 50’s running on the Exeter to London Paddington line.

So, it was out first thing, head to Portsmouth via Brighton and onto a Sulzer Class 33 to Salisbury for a day chasing Class 50’s through Gillingham, Sherbourne and Axminster to Exeter.

Whilst being an apprentice I struck up a friendship with another rail enthusiast who owned a campervan. As a clever way of sharing his fuel costs, regular railway themed days out were planned out during the week, and executed on a weekend. This enabled me to visit places further afield like The North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Severn Valley Railway, The East Lancashire Railway and The Midland Railway Centre where my favourite Deltic ‘Tulyar’ was based. A regular wage (starting on £14 a week) and a free bus pass enabled me to get about a bit more prior to owning my own car. Sunday afternoon trips round BREL Doncaster works were a favourite trip.

A new Pentax Super A camera was purchased in 1985 and the quality of my images improved dramatically.

In 1987 diesel engine withdrawals were at their peak, and information suggested that a marshalling yard in Cambridgeshire was where a lot of the engines were being stored prior to disposal. Luckily a friend had a car, so we set off into the Cambridgeshire wilderness on what was to become a number of journeys to a small market town called March.

Walking round the rows and rows of withdrawn Sulzer class 45’s and Brush class 47’s in Whitemoor yard, it reminded me of the famous scrapyard at Barry. If I’d have looked closer at the time – I would have seen the nearby cranes building what was to be a place of work for me in 4 years’ time!

The Author sat in Sulzer Class 45 45005 in Whitemoor Yard, August 1987

Following the end of my apprenticeship in 1988 – I took a job within the bus company in the Leeds depot which required the purchase of my first car. Trips to York, Knottingley, Shirebrook and Tinsley were a regular weekend drive out. A year later following a takeover, and the likelihood of being put on the nightshift - I jumped ship to the ABB (Ex BREL) carriage workshops in York who told me on interview that they had 6 years of orders on their books. They were in the process of building the Electric Multiple Units for the Stanstead Airport Line in Essex, and had got behind with the contract. Before long there were 4 of us ex bus employee’s car sharing from the Harrogate area each day. I worked fitting the internal panelling on the new Class 321’s. It wasn’t a great time as we weren’t particularly welcomed by the existing Staff, and were treated as outsiders – not living in York. Within 6 months I’d decided it wasn’t for me and had applied to follow my Father and join the Prison Service. Two months later and a lost order to Bombardier in Derby - the four of us were laid off – apparently the 6 years’ worth of orders were just what they had tendered for - great! A brief return to the bus company driving in late 1990, whilst my application and assessments were completed, and it was June 1991 when I left for my new career and a compulsory posting to a small market town in Cambridgeshire!

A Panasonic super VHS-C video recorder was purchased in 1989, which at the time was the best resolution available – I look back at some of the footage now and cringe. My phone takes a better image!
Still, I managed to get some good footage of unusual workings through Knaresborough, class 86/ 87’s at Liverpool Lime Street Station, Steam engines on the Settle and Carlisle line and HST’s and class 37/47/ 56’s on the pre electrified East Coast mainline at Pilmoor and Thirsk.

Link To My YouTube Channel

One of the most bizarre things I recorded on the video camera was the London Kings Cross direct train to Harrogate being hauled empty over the Harrogate to York section of the line in the summer of 1990. With the switch from HST to Class 91, presumably the diagram was changed to use the new electric stock – with a slight problem – the Leeds to Harrogate line wasn’t electrified! Some bright spark came up with the idea of attaching a class 47 at Leeds and hauling the stock through to Harrogate, and instead of running round at Harrogate – run the ECS through round to Neville Hill via York? Not a great idea when you are dragging a new ‘state of the art’ electric engine and stock over the most uneven non welded track I’ve ever seen. Even worse was initially they left the class 91 on the stock – this soon stopped after Neville Hill complained that the rough track was vibrating wires loose on the locos!

The local line from Knaresborough to Starbeck has quite an incline – so drivers heading from York into Knaresborough knew not to lose too much speed as they hand over the single line token before applying the power to maintain momentum. Made for some great shots of heavy trains heading up to Harrogate on full power.

The new career halted my railway interest somewhat, before a transfer to East Yorkshire in 1993. By 1996 ABB in York had closed which was sad – but I had little sympathy for some of my not so friendly ‘ex-colleagues’ from York that worked there.

Visits to Heritage Railways were fairly rare as family life took over, but another move to County Durham in 1999 gave me an opportunity to work with the fledgling Eden Valley Railway at Warcop which was great.
The 35mm Camera bit the dust in 2000 – and I joined the digital age with a Fuji Finepix F601. The SLR was getting too heavy to carry about with its zoom lens and flash etc.

Deltics returned to the mainline in 1996 – but it was June 2003 before I would sample a Deltic back into London Kings Cross. Watching Deltic 55019 entering Darlington station on a DPS special, and getting on board to head south in 2003 - took me right back into the 1970’s.

Class 55 Deltic 55019 ‘Royal Highland Fusilier’ pictured arriving at Darlington Station hauling a Deltic Preservation Society Railtour on 7th June 2003’

The next 5 years yielded very little - watching a few Deltic tours go past on the ECML and the odd visit to a heritage railway – a frozen Deltic tour around the North West in 2005 and a trip on a 2008 Scarborough Spa Express with my Mum were probably the highlights, as another work move took us to Teesside in 2006.

2010 and I shamefully ditched the Fuji camera and used my iPhone – as it gave better results.

Since 2011 I seem to have dropped really lucky with events taking place right on my doorstep. In 2011 a landmark event took place at NRM Shildon just up the road, that brought together all seven surviving Deltic locomotives for the first time. The 'Magnificent Seven' weekend attracted more than 10,000 people to see the six surviving production locos reunited with the prototype ‘Deltic’. ‘THE MAGNIFICANT SEVEN’

Just before we moved home in 2014 – another event at NRM Shildon called ‘The Great Goodbye’ brought together five A4 locomotives, two of which were due to return shortly to the U.S.A. and Canada respectively. ‘THE GREAT GOODBYE’

I’m lucky enough to travel regularly on the railways but they lack the character of the trains I grew up with – and most look the same.

After relocating to Sussex in 2014 – close to The Bluebell Railway, I was pleased to learn they were relaxing their ‘steam only’ rule and enjoyed the annual Diesel Galas they held with Class 50’s, Deltics and other heritage diesels between 2015 – 2018.

Without doubt though – the biggest coup was an announcement by The Deltic Preservation Society that they were to hold their 40th Anniversary Celebrations at the Bluebell Line in 2017. Of all the places - Four Deltics less than a mile away from home – this was not to be missed! With Deltic enthusiasts staying at my house, you could hear that familiar Napier engine from the back garden. That was a great weekend. ‘THE DPS 40th ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND’

In 2018 as a birthday treat, I persuaded my Wife to come with me on a railtour from London to Newcastle. ‘The Talisman’ was promoted by the A1 Steam Trust and should have used A1 60163 ‘Tornado’ on the outbound leg – but it had recently failed and my favourite steam engine A4 60009 ‘Union of South Africa’ had been drafted in. With a Deltic return this was the best railtour I have ever been on – you can see more about the day here ‘THE TALISMAN RAILTOUR’

Because I never stopped going on about the above railtour, when an opportunity to travel on another A1 Trust tour from Doncaster to Edinburgh in 2019 came up – a group of four of us booked up to travel on ‘The Auld Reekie’. It was a great day out even though the Deltic failed on the return leg at Berwick upon Tweed. ‘THE AULD REEKIE’ RAILTOUR.

With COVID restrictions it was May 2021 before I managed another Railtour from London to Carlisle including the Settle & Carlisle line – you can see more about the day here Cumbrian Mountain Express
2021 and a further move to the West Sussex Coast has taken me further away from ‘The Bluebell Railway’ and the sound of steam from my back garden - but I still intend to visit and travel as much as possible.

I’m lucky enough to travel regularly on the railways in England through work, and also regularly commute from Sussex to central London. The trains may be modern, sleek and smooth – but they lack the character of the trains I grew up with – and most look the same.

Retirement isn’t that far away so a voluntary position on a heritage railway may well be the way to go…..I’ll keep you updated.

Lastly to my good friends Ben, Blair, Martin, Mike and Stuart, thanks for helping out over the last 40 years or so – we’ve had some right laughs along the way, and it's been a blast! Long may it continue?
Summer 2020