MY LIFE IN TRAINS
Engine Portraits - Part One
Wrexham Rhosddu and Oswestry – 2 January 1960
Ramsgate - 28 February 1960
I’d been on a few shed and works visits before I got my camera – with friends at school in our trainspotters club we organised trips to Stoke and Crewe, Newport and Cardiff, and Bristol, and my dad took me on a trip to Swindon and Eastleigh, all by train. I had also met up with a new friend in school who introduced me to the illicit art of bunking sheds, and we had been travelling around London using Twin Rovers for a couple of years.
My first school organised visit with a camera was to Chester, Wrexham and Oswestry on the day after New Year’s Day in 1960. No shed pictures from Wrexham Croes Newydd, but a surprise from Chester Northgate, a few from Wrexham Rhosddu, just before it closed, and Oswestry. Remember – this was the middle of Winter on the Welsh Marches, so don’t expect top quality.
And for completeness, one photo from Ramsgate shed taken at the end of February 1960.
I think most of these featured in ‘My Story’.
All Photographs by Alan Lewis Chambers ©
Chester Northgate, I believe - a 6-wheel coach, DM395125, then being used by Henry Pooley & Son Ltd.
Weighing Machine Contractors to British Railways.
BR Standard Class 3 2-6-2T No 82031 and a couple of GWR pannier tanks on Wrexham Rhosddu shed on 2 January 1960.
Stanier Class 3 2-6-2T No 40205 on Wrexham Rhosddu shed on 2 January 1960.
GWR Dukedog 4-4-0 No 9018 stored at Oswestry on 2 January 1960.
Welshpool and Llanfair narrow gauge 0-6-0Ts Nos 822 'Earl' and 823 'Countess' after their ‘rescue’, languish inside Oswestry Works
on 2 January 1960 after the closure of their line.
Vale of Rheidol 2-6-2T No 8 'Llywelyn' inside Oswestry Works on 2 January 1960.
Vale of Rheidol 2-6-2T No 7 'Owain Glyndwr' inside Oswestry Works on 2 January 1960.
Ready for Kent snow, SECR C Class 0-6-0 No 31004 waits at Ramsgate shed alongside new electric stock on 28 February 1960.
Lovely
Love this website which I found recently via the facebook LNER trains group. I lived in Ilford and spent hours train spotting on stations and trackside between Ilford and Liverpool Street . One of my most vivid memories at 12 (parents in those days allowed their children to do all sorts of things that wouldn’t be dreamt of now) was being on a Liverpool Street platform close to and admiring newly commissioned 70000, Brittania , preparing to depart for Norwich. I got talking to the driver and fireman who asked me where I lived. When I said Ilford, they said they could take me there on the footplate and make a special stop to let me off at my home station. What an incredible experience. Wouldn’t happen in these days of Health and Safety and Child Protection ( not decrying either, just saying) Also remembered BI, Bongo coming into and stopping at Ilford and thought what a strange name: had no idea it was one of a series of locos named after African antelopes. Apparently the drivers and firemen at Stratford shed 30A, were equally bemused and referred to them in broad cockney as ‘them bloody bongos’ ! Also loved the B2/B17 Sandringhams so looking forward to the new build Spirit of Sandringham as none of the class were preserved. Doted on loco West Ham United , my football team, what a combination of my boyhood obsessions! Then at 12 I found out that for a shilling I could get by train and tube to Kings Cross and discovered A4s, A2s, A1s and A3s. Had only known of their existence on paper in my Ian Allan combined volume. First loco I saw there was newly cleaned and polished Pearl Diver in beautiful yellow lined LNER green with polished gold brass attachments, gleaming in the sunshine streaming in through the glass roof, what a sight to behold and forever engraved on my memory,even 70 years )later! Also bunked into top shed 34A, and saw so many beautiful top locos I nearly wet myself! Then got caught and lectured to in the office and sent on my way. Happy days! Now visit the Severn Valley Railway occasionally, not far from Stratford on Avon where I now live and also occasionally see GWR preserved locos on specials travelling between Birmingham and Stratford on Avon.
What a great site and superb photos.
As a very young kid I spent the long school holidays at my grandparents in Wrexham, And I remember train spotting on a bridge which was opposite the train engine sheds which was bliss and happy times that I have never forgot. I went back to Alexandra road too look at my grandparents house and the bridge which is no longer there. Very happy memories.
What a wonderful web site. Fantastic pictures. They bring the memories flooding back.