RODS in the PITS?
The imminent redevelopment of Salisbury steam shed may yield a view surprises… or disappointments.
In July 1967, Salisbury shed staff discarded connecting rods from arriving steam locomotives into the inspection pits as they were prepared for transport to the scrap lines. This is where those rods lie - according to the story that’s endured ever since - buried under six feet of brick and concrete rubble, twisted steel girders, ash and asbestos roofing that was bulldozed over them when the ten-road shed was demolished by contractors two years later. Fact or fiction? We’ll get a final conclusive answer soon, because the site’s owners are preparing to sell the four-acre 70E depot site for redevelopment. It is currently a razed wasteland, lost in tall undergrowth and securely fenced off for the good of the local community. However, the heavily contaminated debris may need to be excavated purely on health and safety grounds. Wiltshire County Council is considering its options, and has already taken some test borings to assess the magnitude of the regeneration scheme. In July, it will have been 50 years since the last steam locomotives, Bulleid rebuilt ‘Light Pacifics’ among them, arrived on Salisbury shed after their final workings over the Waterloo-Bournemouth/Southampton/Weymouth routes. The large yard next to the main building was considered ideal as an assembly point pending their removal to breakers’ yards in South Wales, a task that took seven months to complete. Dropping the motion had become a regular practice to reduce the risk of running hot on their final 80-mile journey, mostly to Newport. For disillusioned staff, avoiding the back-breaking task of heaving the heavy rods into the tender coal space or securing them to the top ledges of the water tanks must have seemed a particularly attractive option. So, are the forged steel rods from Nos. 34024 Tamar Valley and 34089 602 Squadron still in existence? Both locomotives are documented as arriving on shed on July 8 for their fires to be dropped, ready for fitters to strip them down for parking up. So could the story be true?
REUNION
The debate will doubtless be revived when the sadly dwindling numbers of staff from one of the Southern Region’s final steam running depots meet up for a special anniversary reunion at the city’s cricket ground in Wilton Road on Friday July 7 to share their memories of the depot’s heyday and, doubtless, more recent times when they turned to driving diesels and electrics. Among the gathering will be Robin Tandy, the last Salisbury fireman still working for the railways, and John Dawkins (now retired) who was one of the last steam firemen to be trained up to become a driver. “The story of connecting rods being thrown into the pits is
one of those stories that’s been doing the rounds ever since I can remember,” said Mike Pearce (59), a driver training instructor based at Basingstoke. He started working for the railway in 1974, seven years after diesel and electric traction took over, and co-authored the book West from Salisbury in 2009 with late colleague Steve Chislett. They collected reminiscences and anecdotes from people closely connected to the locality, and spanning several generations. Guards, signalmen, engineers - even passengers - made contributions and, of course, so did drivers, firemen and depot staff. At its peak, Salisbury shed boasted around 300 staff, including 90 pairs of engine crews and 40 cleaners. Its locomotive allocation at the time of nationalisation in 1948 included Drummond ‘Greyhound’ ‘T9’ 4-4-0s, ‘King Arthur’ and ‘S15’ 4-6-0s, and both ‘Merchant Navy’ and ‘Battle of Britain’ 4-6-2s. It was the first allocation of preserved No. 34051 Winston Churchill.
BORROWED CREWS
Serious decline set in during the early 1960s, when the transfer of control of the Waterloo-Exeter line beyond Wilton South to the Western Region in September 1964 deprived it of most of its work. The WR preferred using its ‘Warship’ diesels arriving from Exeter, and Salisbury was only called upon to provide steam for services to London Waterloo and provide cover for the regular failures. Salisbury shed used a little of its spare capacity to keep its locomotives externally clean and polished, even if they had become run-down mechanically. In the final couple of