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Saltash Auto to HST

The Memoirs of a Western Region Railwayman

Terry Nicholls

Saltash Auto to HST

The Memoirs of a Western Region Railwayman Terry Nicholls

Over the last fifty years or so I have given numerous slide presentations to various railway societies and camera clubs, often elucidating the question, ‘Why don’t you publish a book?’

With time on my hands during 2020, some serious thought was given to that very topic and which has resulted in putting pen to paper to accompany a selection of photographs taken over the last 50+ years.

Born the son of a former tin miner from St. Just in West Cornwall and a mother from Saltash in East Cornwall, I was brought up in St. Budeaux on the Devon side of the Royal Albert Bridge, moving house three times – always within sight of both the Great Western main line into Cornwall and the Southern (LSWR) main line to Exeter via Okehampton. This is where my interest in railways was first nurtured in the late 1940s, followed by photography a few years later. Leaving school in 1957 these two interests were combined by employment with British Railways at Plymouth Millbay, to be followed by a spell at Laira before promotion took me to the new Divisional Offices at Bristol.

I also became a member of the Plymouth Railway Circle and the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, my photographic interests enhanced by discovering that the BR Staff Association in Bristol had a camera club and a darkroom facility, the latter housed in one of the arches supporting Brunel’s 1840 original GWR terminus with its hammer-beam roof.

The RCTS also had a ‘Photographic Portfolio’ which travelled the country, the various entries being commented upon by all the other members. All of these sources of advice and encouragement, combined with inside access to the workings of the railway, led to a very enjoyable situation. Black and white photography was then supplemented by colour slide film

and a whole new era of photography emerged. My mother’s 1930 Brownie Box camera was sidelined in 1958 when a Zeiss Nettar was acquired for the grand sum of £8, although at the time almost three weeks’ wages for a young railway clerk. The added attraction of taking colour slides in 1962 resulted in the purchase of a 35mm Kodak Retinette which in turn was replaced by a Minolta SR3, a single lens reflex camera and one of the first with a bayonet fitting lens as opposed to a screw thread. Over the years, a variety of Minolta SLRs have seen regular use. The digital age has never caught on with me and a camera has always been my preference to a computer with a lens attached to it.

Over time railway management became aware that I was ‘handy with a camera’ and I was often called upon to attend various functions, as well as accidents and incidents. This occurred throughout my forty-year railway career and, combined with my own enthusiasm for recording the passing railway scene, enabled me to build up my own photographic collection from the steam age right through to that of the HST.

Having worked at Millbay, Laira, Bristol and finally Swindon, my claim to being a ‘Western’ man is fully justified. The combined hobbies of photography and railways have taken me all over this country, as well as many different parts of the world, but that is another story.

Being neither an engineer nor a historian, but having progressed through the clerical grades from Junior Clerk at Millbay to one of the Senior Controllers on the Western Region at 125 House, Swindon, I feel a great sense of pride and satisfaction at being part of a railway family covering some six generations; from the broad gauge in 1870 with my wife’s great grandfather, right through to today with a son, a grandson and a granddaughter all carrying on the tradition as drivers on the WR HST sets.

On the same day, this time it is a

train on the Southern line heading towards Friary with a BR Standard class 4 tank piloting a North British Type 2 on four coaches and a van. We cannot tell if the diesel was working, possibly not, as the usual rule was to couple the steam engine ‘inside’ and so prevent cinders and ash being sucked into the diesel air intakes.

George had booked on yet for his return trip home also comes to mind.

Some of the men were also enthusiasts and just loved their work, one fireman, Jim Mathews, known to book on an hour or so early to prepare his engine, which would be in perfect condition when his driver arrived. Another enthusiast was a fitter named Dick Harvey whose 1930s Great Western spotter’s book is still with me. He would go and sit in the cab of an engine in the roundhouse to have his midday snack in preference to the fitter’s cabin - and one day I joined him. From Dick I learned he had worked at the shed all through the war and was sitting on an engine having his snack one day when he heard a scratching noise and realised it was coming from the firebox. He got down from the engine and went and sat on another engine with a view of the cab of the original one, only to see one of his mates appear and go off around the turntable. A few minutes later, one of the female employees, who was possibly employed as a cleaner or even a ‘fitter’s mate’, appeared and got down from the same footplate...!

Working in the stores was a repeat of my earlier position in Millbay, only there was a lot more of it. There were two stores issuers during the day and the two that come to mind in particular were Bill Webber and Harry Terrell. Bill was a greencarded man approaching retirement and Harry was a former fireman. Harry became aware that I was handy with a camera and asked me to take a picture of him one day.

He said he had been on the footplate, but had never had a photograph taken there. He was duly photographed preparing a King and when he was out of earshot, Bill was asked why Harry had to come off the footplate. Bill’s reply was, and I quote, ‘Come off the footplate? He was too bloody fat to get on it.’ Apparently, he could not get into the cab of a tank engine even though he was one of Plymouth’s all-year-round swimmers and had a fine voice, too.

One of the boring little jobs in the stores office was to add up all the old oil issue chits every day so that stock could be replaced.

Every chit had its loco number on it and one morning a chit had the number of a rare mogul. A prompt tour around the shed was made to see if the engine was still there to ‘cop’ it! Needless to say, it was nowhere to be seen. On returning to the stores, the Stores Manager, Jim Maddocks, and the two stores issuers were standing with big smiles on their faces. They had had a look at my Ian Allan ABC and picked out a loco number which was not underlined.

Another stores job was to go out each day and meet the daily shed trip working on its return from Tavistock Junction with twenty or so loaded wagons of coal and remove one label from each wagon to record the wagon number and tonnage, etc. The other label would be removed by the men hand-coaling the incoming locomotives on the coal stage with 10-cwt. fourwheel tubs and was used to calculate their pay according to the tonnage they had shifted. Incidentally, the clinker and ash from the fire boxes was loaded into wagons by a steam-operated grab and sold to local contractors for hard core, etc. The fine smoke box ash was kept separate and sold to the Electricity Board by the wagon load for burning at a power station. This little trip working was worked by the shed pilot or coal stage pilot which was normally one of the 1361 class saddle tanks, the same as worked in Millbay Docks. On one occasion, whilst collecting the labels, a coal stage shunt was being made up the steep coal stage incline. The little saddle tank was propelling both a 16-ton and a 21-ton mineral wagon at full regulator until about two-thirds of the way up when it was overpowered and came back down still in full forward gear and crashed through the stop blocks, well and truly ‘off the road’.

Whilst working in the office one day, there was the sound of an almighty crash coming from the roundhouse and everyone went to see what had happened. A 45xx 2-6-2 tank engine was observed with its nose in the turntable pit and standing at a 45º angle. Apparently, there were two of these 45xx tanks standing side by side and somehow the turntable had been set for one and the other one driven out. This did not do the turntable any good and also blocked the roundhouse for the rest of the day. Needless to say, a camera would have been useful. Another incident

A view seen by few members of the public - from the roof of Temple Meads.

Terry Nicholls joined the railway as a Clerk at Millbay in 1957. A lifelong enthusiast he worked initially for the Carriage & Wagon Department before transferring to the locomotive department at Laira again in a clerical role. Within a few short years he found himself heavily involved in diesel maintenance and transferred to Bristol where his locomotive experience proved invaluable during the changeover from steam to diesel.

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This is no ordinary story. Instead it is one of a man whose had a passion for the job he undertook and who describes his times and experiences by someone who was on ‘the inside’.

ISBN 978-1-915281-04-3

£24.50

Western Region Railwayman Terry Nicholls

A keen photographer he also recorded the contemporary scene, the last of some, the first of others. having now also taken a role in the Control Office first at Bristol and later in 125 House at Swindon.