Where do I possibly start to tell you of how it used to be. How about Paddington station concourse (commonly referred to as " the lawn "), at about 23.30 on the evening of the 16th April 1982.
I was overflowing with excitement at the thought of spending a whole seven days in the West Country, doing very little else apart from sitting and sleeping on trains, not to mention a bit of underage drinking. Let me explain - I was 14 at the time, and this was to be my first chance to do a bit of serious bashing, overnights and all, well away from the relative comfort of home (yawn! yawn!), and, of course, the folks.
I'd been visualizing the moment when
I'd emerge from the Underground entrance
onto the concourse for weeks. Which magnificent 50 would be atthe front
of 1B02 (23.59 Pad-Penzance, although according to the working
tt this train departed at 00.05) that
night. Or, God forbid, what if it were even one
of those wretched duffs that so often bowled us 50 bashers well and
truly out, due to the relative compatibility
of Western Region diagrams between
47's and 50's. Just imagine - 324 miles of Class 47 haulage.
Something you probably wouldn't scoff
at too much these days, but back in 1982
that was pretty much hell on earth to a serious 50 man.
Anyway, lo and behold, after
a dramatic sprint down platform 3, nestling under
the clear night sky, throbbed a big and blue 50 014. Warspite was
in a right state. She obviously
was due for a visit to Donny Works imminently,
but this fact only added to my excitement,
for many of my favourite haulages were
with battered and tired locos bellowing out clouds and clouds of
exhaust.
At exactly five past midnight the 100%
Mk 1 stock jolted into motion and I was
on my way to one of the best weeks of my life. As predicted, 14 was in
throaty fettle as we accelerated out of
the metropolis and into the night; but
I doubt the sleeping car passengers
were as pleased as I was about this, the
Sleepers being positioned right at the front of the massive 14 coach
formation, and quite how anyone was going
to get any sleep down there I didn't
know. I settled down into my seat to try to get some shut-eye, but the
excitement was too much. I made various
trips to the nearest window throughout
the night, only to make a hasty retreat time and time again due
to the biting wind. What a ludicrous hobby
this is at times - 03.00 in the morning
at 70mph out of a train window. What was I thinking? Bet I'd do
exactly the same now though, given half
the chance!
I did tire eventually, although I don't
think I ever managed to dose off completely,
and the next hazy memory I have is of that familiar vacuum brake
jolt as the train pulled to a stop at Exeter St. Davids - or so I thought!
Another long lean out of the window revealed
the source to be the
attachment of a pilot engine to take
us over the southern slopes of Dartmoor.
31 167 had purred into position, a personal first for me, and within
a couple of minutes the clank of the semaphore dropping at the end
of the platform heralded our swift departure.
Totally unaware at this stage that
this was the norm down here, I excitedly viewed
the pair from the open window along the sea wall for a while before
realizing: 1) It was, as before,
flipping freezing, and 2) This was a totally
futile exercise, least of all because
I couldn't see anything of the traction. It was
still pitch black and I was in coach E, five from the flipping front due
to the Sleepers being coupled (and
locked) between myself and the locomotives.
As morning broke in the West Country,
50 014 was still working tirelessly at the
head of 1B02. 31 167 had been detached at Plymouth along with a few
coaches and we were now well on our way
to the tip of the country. This was
the time to work out a few moves.
I'd arranged to meet Pete, a mate of mine from
school who was coincidentally (not!) down in Cornwall on holiday with
his parents. The plan was that we'd rendezvous
at approximately 12.30 at
Bodmin Road, where he'd then join
me on my 'Railrover' for the week. This would
give me ample time to do a few moves before we met, and the beloved
'bible' came out of the bag to be perused. For ease, I'd already
highlighted all known class 50 diagrams
in yellow, and all other loco hauled
workings in blue, so my Great Britain Passenger Timetable looked
more like an eccentric scientist's notebook
than a train timetable. It became painfully
obvious that going all the way on 14 was a bad move. There was a
limit to what you could come back out
of Penzance on (although, as sods
law would have it, I later found out
about a 09.05 Penzance-Manchester relief
that ran regularly at this time and would have done nicely!). The
decision was made to bail at Hayle - a
desperate shack even by British Rail's
standards - and it was here I waited for 1M85.
This was the 07.40 Penzance-Liverpool
which had just recently gone over to operation
by air-conditioned stock. The previous summer I'd had the pleasure
of taking this working daily for the duration of my holiday, and
pressure-ventilated Mk2's had been
the order of the day. Today the train was
in the capable hands of 50 002 Superb, once again in a dark shade of
oily blue. In the rather sterile atmosphere
of the air-cons (more commonly
referred to by us as 'coffins'), I
was hard pressed to hear the state of the engine
as clearly as on the previous haulage. I think it probably goes
without saying - and as anybody
who's done this kind of thing will know - by
this point I was absolutely knackered. After what seemed like ten
minutes of involuntary deep sleep, we
were entering the suburbs of Plymouth,
and time for me to once again de-train. A quick trip to the toilets
for some much needed de-rancidification
(de-rance for short), a dash under
the subway, and up onto Platform 4.
There, as booked, stood another totally
blue hoover: 50 001 Dreadful Dreadnaught.
Things were off to a hellfire start.
Three out of three so far and all of them blue
(not so uncommon back in 1982) and 2B12 looked set to be the best
haulage yet. We had four Mk1's in tow
- outrageously light work for 2700hp -
and it were these formations on the
'locals' that were my personal favourites. This
is what I'd come down for! There were basically a half dozen of these
short formation sets in action on a typical
weekday in the West Country. They
formed virtually all local Plymouth-Penzance/Penzance-Plymouth
services, plus various other assortments:
07.02 Exeter-Penzance, a summer only
Plymouth-Paignton and return, and a summer only Plymouth-Newquay
on two days a week (if the regular DMU
substitution didn't get you). On top of
this they were coupled up to various sets of parcels/newspapers vans to
form some services: notably 06.35
Bristol-Plymouth, 13.15 Penzance-Bristol, and
18.15 Penzance-Bristol, the latter two sometimes being monumentous
affairs of ten or so spare vans (+Mk 1s!)
being worked 'up' to Plymouth and
Bristol, and regulars for double-heading
and piloting. On top of all of this there
were approximately four sets of Mk1's working out of Exeter on locals
to Paignton and Barnstaple, most of these
being 3 - 5 coach formations
which at this time were in the hands
of Steam Heat 31's (hence 31 167 piloting
the previous night). Add to all this the Waterloo-Exeter's, other
Mk2 Inter-City working, and a whole
host of motorail, saga, and relief trains (mostly
Mk1) and you'll have some idea of the scope of possibilities of loco
bashing available in this area at the
time. They didn't call me Dr Vacuum- braked
Stock for nothing (Dr Vacs)!
I was due to take 50 001 up to Bodmin
Road on 2B12 and that was where I'd meet
Pete. All went according to plan, and I was enjoying some pretty
excellent front window thrash until St
Germans when all of a sudden.....nothing.
Silence from the front of the train. We stood at St Germans
platform for a good ten minutes before the guard informed us,
(much to the delight of the duff bashers
in the front coach using this as a move
to get to 47030) that Dreadnaught had suffered the ever familiar
'Cooler Failure'. In the minutes to follow,
I became so bored that I decided to write
a little poem, finished off later in the day by my good mate Pete.
Dreadful Dreadnaught failed at SG,
Cooler failure can't you see......
It was on the 2B36
When it was shortly fixed
Had to get off at Bodmin Road
Cos it could not take the load
Took a duff back to Plym
Which in fact was a sin
Dreadful Dreadnaught failed at SG,
Cooler failure can't you see......
(The quick witted among you will have noted that we substituted 2B36 for 2B12,but we couldn't think of anything to rhyme with 2B12, and 2B36 was the closest similar working we could find in the timetable.)
The problem was duly rectified by the
unfortunate driver and guard, pouring
buckets and buckets of water intothe locomotive; and 25 minutes
later we moved precariously away from
St Germans. Bodmin Road was made
just in time for my meeting with Pete and after exchanging brief
formalities (i.e. "Hello, How are
you") we became deeply engrossed in exchanging
ultra-current gen, and speculating on how the day's locomotive movements
would pan out. One of the greatest advantages of bashing in this
part of the country is that it's basically cut off. Therefore, if a loco
goes west of Exeter, you know that
at some point it's going to return - all you have to
do is work out on which service, if it's required, and then hope that it's
on
a passenger train (and if it's not,
offer a bribe to the controller). Obviously west
of Plymouth the situation is even more simplified.
My conversation with Pete was briefly
interrupted by 37 207 rumbling past on
China Clay hoods originating at the (hopefully) soon to be re-opened
Wenfordbridge. Before we were completely
finished deciding our moves, 47
030 pulled in on a Penzance-Leeds
relief, and in one of those unfortunate moments
where you have to make a quick decision or miss what might have
been a sterling move, we decided to jump
on.
Perhaps I should explain. The other
thing about bashing in this part of the country
is that, as any study of the timetable of this period will tell you,
trains were pretty much few and far between.
Quite often you could get
completely bowled out and be stuck
festering for a good few hours, inevitably
missing some massive beast working that once-in-a-lifetime service.
Over the next few years, this happened to me on numerous occasions.
Guess who was stuck on a rancid 125 in Penzance when 50149 worked
its only passenger train between Exeter and Plymouth? Anyway, enough
of the sob stories; I'll make myself cry.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the duff
to Plymouth. 47 030 was about as large
a 47 as they came, and whilst not totally taken by this class of
locomotive, I was quite partial to the
odd steam heat or non boilered example,
unless of course they happened to turn up on a hoover diagram,
in which case the metal crosses came out
to curse the things away. A
basher whom we had the good fortune
to meet on this trip was affectionately
known as Rodger the duff dodger, so named after his striking similarities
to the actor Rodger Moore (that's the Rodger bit, not the duff dodger
bit). Now his favourite phrase at the sight of any loco that he took a
dislike to was "don't look boys and
it'll go away ", and with that he'd make a hand
gesture as if using a giant clockwork key to wind the engine up.
Another colourful character was known to us as Miss Red Flares! She was based at Exeter St. David's and I think I am correct in saying that she went on to be platform announcer there. Often she would "feed" smarties to Class 50's by placing the said sweet on the buffers of the locomotive. She would then have her haulage, alight a bit further down the line, and on seeing that the smartie had disappeared she would then proclaim to anyone that would listen that the loco had "eaten" her gift! All this, of course, was done as some kind of offering to the gods (Class 50's) .
Back to the story. We took the said
47 as far as Plymouth where an engine change
ensued. This produced the loco with the longest nameplate in the
country-47 484 Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
She (or should it be 'he') got the right
away in no time and we braced ourselves for a non-stop thrash to St.
David's. After alighting, there was
just time for the customary quick thrash up
to Central on 50033 for 32 back (these two seemed forever on the Exeter-
Waterloo at the time) and all into the
buffet on platform 1 for some much
needed "scran". How different the
bustling St. David's station looked compared
to the scene 12 hours previous, when I was peering out of 1B02.
Some main 50 men then made some derogatory
comments in the direction of myself
and Pete about us being "part-timers". Obviously they'd seen us
getting on 32 at Central for the admittedly
pathetic 0.75 miles to St. David's. Just
as I was about to defend our pitiful actions, in pulled our train.
A dull 47 567 back to Plymouth,
but what a reward when we got there...My beast!
50 040 Leviathan shone in the early
evening sun at North Road. 2B76 was always
an exciting service. The 17.45 Plymouth-Penzance was more often
than not formed of just three Mk1's, and
on weekdays was used to ferry commuters
into Cornwall from Plymouth. Today (Saturday), it was used by the
great hordes (well, 25-30) of Plymouth Argyle fans if they happened to
be losing (I mean playing)
at home. What a haulage this turned out to be: a glorious
evening, the sun setting low in the sky, and as we headed further
and further west, the sky reddened
deeper. Everything seemed for a short while,
exactly as it should be. I know it sounds romantic, but what more
could a guy want? Mk 1's, load three,
my beast, and total freedom. In all my bashing
years I have only experienced that perfect feeling a few times, but
it's what makes it all worthwhile. Needless
to say, we got to Penzance that night
to be greeted by 50 001 and 50 035 double-heading the return overnight
to Paddington - the perfect end to a perfect first day.
Obviously I could go on forever about
"the good old days" , but the point of this
is to remind those of you who can remember, exactly what it was like;
and for those of you who can't, to describe
how it used to be. No doubt there
will be plenty of readers who consider
such nostalgia to be too close to the present,
but for people like myself these times seem far too distant. I'm sure
I'm not alone in thinking that today's
diesel galas are a far cry from the days of
1982. The main appeal of bashing in those days was the thrill of the
unexpected; you never knew what traction
was going to turn up, and an entire
social world grew around this mad pastime.
Of course I'd much rather see diesel
galas take place than not; I'm merely pointing
out that, for me, they will only ever be a pale representation of
the real thing. The last time I
actually experienced that "perfect" feeling was as
recently as 1994, albeit on the Hoovers
of southern Portugal rather than those
that once hammered the banks of South Devon. It is still out there
to be had.....You just have to
look a little harder.
And I, for one, will be out there looking for it.
CAPTAIN GREY
"If it's grey, take it all the way"!