Tuesday Treasures

We are very fortunate indeed here at Didcot Railway Centre with our vast collection of historic locomotives, artefacts and memorabilia that forms our world-famous museum telling the story of the Great Western Railway and its employees. For our volunteers and staff there are objects of great interest everywhere around the centre, each item unique to keeping the greatest railway company on the rails.

Our Tuesday Treasures blog is designed to share this vast and historically important collection so enjoy our deep dive into the rich history in our Museum and Archives.

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TUESDAY 5 MAY

Delivering the Goods – 10

We periodically explore the GWR and BRWR provisions on this vital traffic and today we look back to matters in the West Country in May 1905.

From the Great Western Trust archive we illustrate an illuminating notice issued to relevant GWR operating staff covering extra trains and special arrangements on Tuesday 16 May and Thursday 18 May. That it was Notice No 135 gives further demonstration of the frequency of such notices, their importance and of course the level of traffic being handled, month by month, day by day. Seasonal traffic was an added consideration, and our example today, is dominated by one important annual event, the Devon County Show.

The front page of this double sided notice reveals the very precise arrangements of livestock freight trains and the numerous stations they cover to pick up each wagon from. Fancy trying to replicate that on a train set? The sheer investment in train running, wagons and men, is beyond belief, but that county show was an annual landmark event worthy of such GWR investment.

Had the notice only covered that traffic it would have been interesting enough, but it had to cover any other important, out of standard arrangement trains, and the illustrated reverse side of the notice shows an altogether different traffic! A convict escort from Paddington to Princetown no less, plus sailor trains from Keyham to North Road, Plymouth!

‘Delivering the Goods’ clearly had a wide interpretation, and whatever was being transported, due detail was essential. Quite who the ‘prisoner or prisoners’ were is intriguing, but all we have is their necessary separation from normal, law-abiding folk, by the party being given a separate saloon carriage! Quite a comfortable journey for persons then locked up in the bleak Princetown prison on Dartmoor!

The sailor trains probably related to navy personnel based at Plymouth Naval Dockyard. Dual-braked vehicles would be required for the journey on 16 May to Hebburn on Tyne because the North Eastern Railway used Westinghouse air brakes, rather than vacuum brakes.

Finally, it is worth noting that the GWR used a local printers, Latimer, Trend & Co of Union Street Plymouth for this and numerous other such notices. No doubt that was then a valued and regular custom for a local business.

TUESDAY 28 APRIL

Conference Ticketing Arrangements

Our Blog today turns to a new subject based upon the Great Western Trust collection, and probably today, seems hardly credible to think that the traffic involved deserved such extensive consideration.

We look back to a humble Staff Circular, of which in each year, many hundreds were produced by the various departments within the GWR and then duly sent to all relevant staff to be pasted into their ‘Guard Book’ ledgers as reference copies, and then receipt acknowledged by return of a detachable slip to the originator. Clearly a mountain of paperwork alone, simply to give out definitive instructions!

We illustrate the title page of Circular number 3127 from the Superintendent of the Line, then Charles Aldington, dated 28 April 1913. It not only lists no less than 30 Annual Conferences of mainly church organisations, but also disparate groups such as Esperanto, Shorthand Teachers and Commercial Travellers. The circular points to the special price GWR ticket arrangements for them, by referring to separate GWR circulars for specific details! Butterley station, which features, now lives on within the Midland Railway Centre.

As it extended to three sides of a four-sided pamphlet, it went on to cover the Bristol Eisteddford from 19 to 24 May, the Welsh Miniature Rifle Meeting at Wrexham in May, ‘The Queen’s’ Regiment Annual Dinner in London, and even Golf Meetings including the Ladies Open Golf Championship at St Annes on Sea!

Today, any or pretty much every one of those organisations or events, has to create its own travel arrangements, which will only include rail travel, if any, organised and paid at standard fares, by individual attendees.

So much for progress? The key change of course is the motor car and coaches. In 1913, privately owned cars were strictly for the wealthy and it’s a fair connection to say that until the post WW1 demobbing of men trained as mechanics and drivers, and mass-produced cars from America, combined to set the seed for the very different multifaceted transport options we enjoy today. 

TUESDAY 21 APRIL

The British Workman

From the Great Western Trust collection, we focus upon a remarkable publication with a very eye-catching artist’s recreation scene of a railway erecting shop. Sadly it’s clearly not drawing upon a Great Western Railway workshop scene, but we think the image is very typical of that era, even to the extent of practices that would not pass scrutiny by today’s health and safety guidelines!

The publication title rather misleads its real content and purpose, at least to our untutored times, in that it was the annual summary edition in hardback of a monthly journal with the full title of ‘The British Workman and Home Monthly’. Our example covers the year 1912 as a retrospective collection of its monthly editions for that year. It was clearly a popular and financially viable publication given that this 1912 year, was proudly its 58th volume!

Perhaps we can gather quite why it had such a long standing audience through the underlying theme and message of its journalistic contents. That was both a moral and a religious one, extolling the benefits of both, in creating a good character, and by extension, a society of upright individuals being a benefit to the community and god-fearing in moral compass.

So why should it even be in the Trust’s collection?

The answer lies in two specific articles that focus upon matters GWR and the example set by three senior GWR officers who all came from humble roots, to rise to the most elevated ranks through hard, honest and productive work! In fact the editors clearly viewed the GWR as an important source of material, given that it had previous editions recording GWR staff social activities.

The most senior man, then given his own article was Frank Potter, who had just become GWR General Manager though having joined the GWR in 1869 as a junior clerk in the Goods Dept. His career to date was then detailed, including the very important GWR men whom he worked under, on his gradual rise up the ranks. Perhaps the most telling quote is that used in the header to this very full article, namely ‘The Opportunities that our Great Railways offer to Talent and Grit’. Beyond all such detail, comes the other key link to why he is devoted such an article in this journal; he had a strong religious conviction being a Baptist Deacon at his local chapel, and highly respected in that congregation.

If the above isn’t enough about the GWR, this compendium edition also had a shorter article about the appointment of T H Rendell as General Manager of the Barry Railway having previously been the GWR’s Chief Goods Manger, and his being replaced by C A Roberts in that role. The article extols both men’s rise within the GWR ranks from the very similar timelines and with the same admirable work ethic as Frank Potter.

We should record that Frank Potter, went on to be a pivotal individual in leading the GWR through the First World War, and sadly, through overwork and exhaustion died in post in July 1919. His passing reflected in widespread regrets by all who knew him.

The Great Western Trust collection seeks out all manner of contemporary information on matters GWR and its staff, and that means searching far wider than the GWR’s own publications and records. The British Workman’s journal alone, demonstrates the benefit of such an outlook, as its content shows the contemporary view of GWR operations and employees, beyond pure railway operations.

TUESDAY 14 APRIL

Train Spotting – 5

The trains which started at Swindon were probably used as running-in turns for locomotives which had been under overhaul in the works, explaining why Castle (5063), Hall (49XX and 69XX) and Manor (7823) classes were used. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh opened the Chew Valley Lake reservoir for Bristol Water that day, explaining the presence of the Royal Train

In adding to our series of blogs on this subject we are delighted that happenstance allows us to look back almost precisely 70 years to Tuesday 17 April 1956. On that day a young David Castle very neatly recorded a list of the trains he saw that had passed Wantage Road station over quite a long period during the morning. These lists are among the many artefacts that David bequeathed to the Great Western Trust.

2-6-0 No 7341 approaches Wantage Road with a local passenger train on 25 June 1957. Shedded at Oxley (84B) she is quite likely on a running-in turn from the works. Photograph by Aldo Delicata

To try to make this record today would leave the listing perhaps blank for express passenger train set numbers, because the speed with which the IET trains pass prevents reading them! And of course lest we forget, the location where the station once stood to serve the local community is just flattened earth. So perhaps only the freight trains with their American diesels might get recorded, given their very large identity numbers!

The record taken by David was also in the years preceding the diesel hydraulics on the Western Region, so we have both ex GWR and early BR steam locomotives in their dominant numbers.

The first locomotive in this list, No 4062 Malmesbury Abbey, was one of three remaining Star class 4-6-0s. She was to be withdrawn in November that year

David was studious in noting more than mere numbers, by including the type of train and its originating station and time of departure. And blessed with all that we attach scans of his lists.

David’s shorthand ‘UP’ & ‘DOWN’ relates to towards London & towards Swindon, respectively. On the freight train notes, we assume that ‘Fly’ next to No 5675 was the service to stations from Didcot to Swindon delivering and picking up wagons, as required from their local yards.

A fair representation of War Department (WD) 2-8-0s of the 90XXX series in this list. They were known as dub-dees to trainspotters

For those who were once youthful trainspotters, we will allow you to remember the names of the locomotives, and we hope these records will prompt memories of your own days like this and those special occasions you will never forget.

WD 2-8-0 No 90466 with a down goods at Wantage Road in 1962. Photograph by Mike Peart

TUESDAY 7 APRIL

Something of a curiosity, this beautifully cast steel bull-head rail chair, from the Great Western Trust collection, measures only 3½” x 2” at its base and is around ¼ full size. The question is why was it produced? Is it an apprentice piece? Possibly. Was it made as a manufacturer’s sample? Unlikely as they were produced by the million over many years. It has correctly an indication of two holes for fang bolts to attach it to the sleeper, as was Great Western Railway practice, whereas other companies used three coach screws for attachment.

Our best guess, given ‘GWR’ and the year ‘1924’ in the casting is that it was a souvenir paperweight from the Empire Exhibition at Wembley. One can imagine it being given to an influential client of the GWR whilst gazing upon the impressive sight of Caerphilly Castle or, the following year Pendennis Castle, freshly painted after her triumphant work on the LNER during the loco exchanges of 1925.

If any readers have a better theory as to its origin and purpose, please let us know.

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