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9: Burton Loco and Other Stories Burton loco (or fuelling point as it became in 1975) was finally closed in 1982, bringing to a close another chapter in the town's railway history. By mid-1979 I was second-manning locos off and on there. An ex Burton driver - Bill Clemson - stayed on after 1975 to attend to engine movements and preparing and disposing of locos. We second men would assist the fitters by putting fuel and water pipes on and filling loco sandboxes, which we did by means of a specially-adapted can with a long thick spout. Our assistance was greatly appreciated by the two regular fitters and their mates - on one shift the Fern brothers Jack and George and the other shift Barry and Maurice. Some second men would help by changing the air filters on the Class 56s, but it was such a filthy job that most of us steered well clear! One day, whilst putting the fuel pipe on I witnessed a second man get sprayed with diesel fuel. The non-return valve had become unseated and he was drenched from head to toe. Diesel fuel is horrible stuff when in contact with the skin, so I really felt for the poor devil as he hosed himself down and did his best to soap it off. When he'd got off as much as he could he donned an old pair of overalls and was taken straight back to Coalville. A new uniform arrived for him within a week. As the weeks went on I booked on and off at Burton quite often, typically with Charlie Farren who got the 08.00 ferry every three weeks. Quite often there were locos that had been left overnight and were required to go back to Coalville. The TCS would phone up Charlie to tell him to go straight down to the loco. He would then pick me up and we would fetch the engines. This also happened with the 18.00 ferry, though not as often. Another reason many of us would sign at Burton was for Sunday ballast trains. They had numerous Burton drivers to use. These would sometimes double up. A few second and passed men who lived locally would also be asked, along with a number of guards, so when these engineers' trains were required in the Burton area we were used. I booked on at Burton many times, sometimes as many as three sets of us. At the end the locos were stabled back onto the depot awaiting ferrying up the branch. On a couple of occasions, due to severe weather, they allowed us to book on there and a light engine would run down the branch to pick as many as a dozen of us up. So even though I can never class myself as a Burton man, I can say that I've booked on there many times. At Christmas we would leave all of our allocation of locos on there, then fetch them back after New Year. I sometimes wondered why they ever shut the place. Many early days were had taking locos down, then going straight home. Thinking back to my childhood, at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve the town's church bells were joined by diesel horns from the loco, all in loud chorus to celebrate the new year. One morning, as we waited for our engines to be done, a class 50 loco came onto the depot. It was to be the first of many over the coming weeks. The reason was that Saltley men had started training on them. They would run up to Burton light engine, the crew would have their grub, then go back sharing the driving. That first day, still being a bit of an enthusiast and with a liking for that class I stood there admiring it. A voice roared out behind me in a strong West Midlands accent. 'Haven't you seen a 50 before then? They're not much different to another engine. But do us a favour and take it round to the departure road. And swap the lights round while you're about it, there's a good lad. We're having our grub now.' Thrilled to bits, I did as I was asked - the one and only time I've ever driven a Class 50 and on my local depot too. 1975 marked the 150th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. As many as fourteen steam engines were supposed to be coming through Burton on their way to the celebrations. A group of us spent the night on the roof of a hut opposite the sheds. But no steamers came through and by 6 a.m we sat surrounded by frost. Seeing us there, cold and tired, a driver on duty took pity on us and brought over a steaming can of hot tea. It soon brought us back to life. 'I've been watching you daft buggers all night,' he chortled. 'I bet you're freezing.' It turned out that we'd been wasting out time - the steamers were all coming through during the day! We found out later that the driver's name was Jack Dockerty, a pleasant little chap who had once been in a bad train crash in Wolverhampton when his driver was burned to death. One of the Coalville TCSs turned out to be Ronnie Harrison, an ex-Burton supervisor who I remembered from my old spotting days. He'd stuck in my mind because of something he had done to me... A Clayton loco had turned up on the branch one Sunday afternoon. No one knew what it was doing there, but we saw it go into the loco. Never having seen such an exotic sight before we left my Auntie's house and headed for the depot. By the time we got there the Clayton was stabled and shut down. Its crew were walking over the boards towards a car. Slinging our bikes against the wall of the office, we walked up onto the yard for a better look. At this time the depot was still manned but no foreman had been on duty for weeks and we thought we'd be OK. After a good nosey round the engine we walked back to our bikes. To our horror we saw they had been padlocked to a large cast-iron drainpipe. We walked round the office building several times shouting plaintively. 'Excuse me, is anyone inside?' Nothing stirred. All the doors were locked. And so we had no other option but to walk four miles home to fetch our parents. They had to phone my uncle to take us back down to the depot to try and retrieve our bikes. No one was exactly pleased! A little man emerged from the shed office and words were exchanged. We had to admit that we were in the wrong for trespassing, so after a ticking off our bikes were handed back. Now, nearly five years later, I booked on and here he was that very same little man again... 'I recognised you straight away,' he said with a grin. He made no reference to the misery he'd put us through that day and I thought that it was about time I took revenge... On the TCS's desk were four telephones. I swapped around all the handsets so when one rang he had to pick up at least three before getting the right one! By now I was courting a Burton girl and would often call at her house when I arrived in Burton on the 18.00 ferry. I only had till 11 o'clock though, as that was the time we headed back. Once we walked back to the loco hand in hand. 'Come on Tony, the dolly's off!' the driver shouted impatiently. After a quick goodnight kiss, I jumped on to the waiting locos and was off. One Sunday evening Charlie Farren, myself and two riders booked on for the 23.59 ferry, a full set of five locos to be taken for fuel, water and repairs. Joining Leicester Junction opposite the loco we noticed that there were four more engines to go back. Now Charlie liked to get everything finished early and whoever was on with him always mucked in so we could get the locos back a.s.a.p. As we positioned the first loco in the wind tunnel Jack came up. 'You're going to be late tonight, Chas,' he said with a malicious grin. 'It looks like two trips. Them four need to go back up as well.' 'Late?' said Charlie. 'Oh no we won't - we'll take the lot.' We all looked at each other. 'You're not serious!' said Jack. 'You know five's the maximum.' Action stations! The young riders went across to get the four locos ready, whilst the fitters and us got our five done. After some shunting we joined our engine which was right up on the old neck opposite Anglesey Rec. The last loco stood at the departure dolly. Steadily we began to roll off the shed and came to a stand behind the dolly on the bridge. The riders said afterwards that they were opposite the north end of the platform when we finally stopped. We reached Coalville safely but had about two hours of shunting due to the amount and length of the engines. The signalman in Mantle Lane box was pulling out his hair as he pulled off his signals for all the different moves. As we made our way home I said to Charlie: 'The only thing that worried me was - ' 'I know what you're going to say,' he interrupted. 'The viaduct and the weight. It made me think too!' A few weeks previously I'd been with Charlie on a Sunday ballast (Engineer's track maintenance train). We were taken by taxi to the Cadley Hill branch adjacent to the colliery screens. It was a pleasant sunny afternoon as we relieved the day men and they went back in our taxi. We tried to get as comfortable as possible, but on Class 20s that wasn't so easy! We made a few more moves, dropping off stone, then waited until required again. From the west a huge black cloud crept towards us. There must have been a couple of dozen men P-way men working on the line when all of a sudden the heavens opened up. The men scattered, taking shelter in vans, in the plough brake or under the A444 road bridge. At the side of the line was an old concrete fogman's hut, half leaning due to subsidence, into which one of the platelayers dived. Seconds later, much to my surprise, he came dashing out in a panic and joined his mates under the road bridge. Eventually the rain abated and they all got back to work. A couple of hours later the men started to put away their equipment and climbed into their mess truck. The person-in-charge came up and gave us the necessary paperwork. 'You're going forward to Chad Sidings with this lot, mate.' 'Nasty bit of weather you had just now,' said Charlie. 'Yes, it was. But the lads soon scattered.' 'Did you see that one jump out of the old fogman's hut?' I asked. 'He came up to me in a right state,' the head ganger said. 'He'd gone in the place and half lain down on the sloping side. He'd seen a movement in front of his boots, then when his eyes got used to the dark he saw what it was - a bloody snake wavering from side to side!' We all laughed...until we began to think what it must have been like. We fell silent then until with a throaty cough the PIC gave us permission to leave. There have always been snakes round the area. The woods around Drakelow used to have signs nailed to the trees: DANGER! BEWARE OF SNAKES. I grew up around those woods and Dad would always be telling me to be careful, though he said if I ever did come across one I should bring it home for a family pet. That chance arose one Sunday morning when my mates and I found one slithering about in the young green corn. Laying claim to it, I managed to get it coiled around a long stick and set off home with my prize. As Dad came out I proudly showed him our new pet. 'That's an adder,' he said, trying to stay calm. 'You've brought home an adder. Look at the diamond pattern.' We dropped it gently into a large sweet jar and tried to tempt it with some morsels of meat. But it soon lost patience and toppled the jar over, its fangs just inches from my head. Then it slithered across the path and entwined itself around the base of a lilac tree. Mum reckoned that our neighbours had threatened to leave the street if it wasn't caught soon. So the police had to be called to smoke it out and take it away. From then on I steered well clear of snakes! Ironically I was on the last ferry set to go onto Burton loco. I say 'set' but it was one Class 47. Again my driver was Mick Riley. We'd signed on at 18.00 but weren't given the job until half past nine. We left the holding sidings and picked our way down the dark branch with me in the chair. Mick wanted to rush down for a last pint. This was an accepted practice in those days. Although the rulebook outlawed alcohol at work, no one seemed to bother as long as nothing went wrong. Most blokes were sensible and stuck to the rules, but one or two others weren't. 'Come on, Tony, hurry up or we won't get a pint!' With that I pulled out all the stops. We burst into Gresley Tunnel, then out the other end. There were no headlights in those days, just dim markers. Suddenly, quick as a flash, someone hurled themself out of the way. Another dark figure shot forward for a second. There was a dull thud against the cab. My speedo showed 45 mph so we weren't speeding. Mick had seen better than me. 'Bloody hell, Tony. He was lucky. His dog's had it though.' My stomach tightened. An animal lover myself I carried on towards Burton wondering sadly how the owner would be feeling. Mind you, it was a silly place to be walking a dog at night. After a pick-me-up we left the Burton loco for the last time and ambled back up the branch, slowing down towards the spot where the accident had happened. There lay a beautiful collie dog. Shining our lamps we could see that it was beyond help, so we carried on back to Coalville. Burton loco and the dog were now both gone for good. Towards the end of 1979, again on the 08.00 ferry, we were given the job of fetching Desford Colliery's shunters out. There was no longer any work for them and they were redundant. We used a class 08 shunter to trip them back to Coalville. They'd already been sold and were taken away on lorries. Another second man started around that time. He let himself down badly a few months later at a wedding in Birmingham. Whilst making conversation with some of the wedding guests he told them - quite rightly - that he was on the footplate at Coalville. To colour his story though he told them he had been testing the APT (Advanced Passenger Train), which was at that time undergoing trials. Those in the group who knew little about railways were most impressed by the young man. Behind him though was another guest, a Saltley driver, who now stepped forward. 'So how long have Coalville men been testing APTs then?' Once rumbled by one of his own profession the young man made his excuses and hurried off to another part of the room. But the poor devil wasn't going to get off so lightly. Saltley cabin often played host to Coalville men as they awaited empties from Didcot, and the story soon spread. Before long the poor chap had a new name - APT Smith. Some of the young shunters based at Coalville were a bit lively. Some of the tricks they played were downright dangerous. On one occasion they raided the First Aid box and used some plasters to stick lengths of toilet paper to men's jackets and set them alight. They thought it was funny, but most of us considered it a step too far. Another time one of the shunters brought a crossbow to work and started taking pot shots at the mess room noticeboard. But this time they were warned in no uncertain terms to get the dangerous weapon off the premises or face the sack. These shunters were big rough blokes who had a tendency to bully the younger second men. I thought that I might be an easy target, but it wasn't always easy to tell which ones they'd go for and which they'd leave alone. One day though they bit off more than they could chew. Heavy snow lay a foot deep in the yard and between shunting duties they amused themselves by snowballing passers-by in the street below Mantle Lane signalbox. More by luck than skill they hit one chap straight on the side of the head. The shunters were in hysterics. The man glared up at them, then walked on under the bridge. As they waited for another target the man suddenly appeared behind them. Striding across, he punched the biggest of the shunters squarely on the nose. The others thought twice about tackling him, so after giving them a piece of his mind he left. Justice had prevailed. The shunter picked himself up and tried to stem the blood from his damaged nose. As my first year drew to a close one more incident happened. I was on a ballast train with driver Raz Keen and guard Ivor Haskett, taking a train back to Sandiacre ballast sidings. We dropped off the guard and went over the dolly. Once it was off we began to set back. Ivor was my side, so I was relaying signals to the driver. 'We must be in the clear now. Is he still calling us?' asked Raz. 'Yes, he's still calling.' Then there was a sudden surge and we stopped. Seconds later the guard's arms shot skywards. 'Whoaw, Raz, he's stopped us.' Looking back for further signals I saw Ivor pick up his traps (equipment & food bag) and hurry along the train towards us. Panting heavily he climbed up into the cab. 'We've pushed them too far. There's three in the pond!' To this day I'll never know if they actually went into the pond, but he certainly looked worried. 'Is the train secure?' he asked. 'It won't go anywhere will it?' 'Not on your life.' 'Well let's go, Tony. Go and bell out light engines to Coalville.' And with that we left the sidings and nothing was heard about this incident again. |