‘JUBILEE’ JAMBOREE
More memories of 1967 from BR manager Tom Greaves
Steam had to go eventually – but it was the way it went out that was so disgraceful.
“We should have been proud of our steam heritage – but instead we said ‘no, we don’t want that, it’s dirty, get rid of it’.” Not the words of our interviewee, but those of famous wildlife artist David Shepherd, in a TV programme produced in 2008 to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of BR steam.
Generally speaking, his description was apt – almost everywhere that steam bowed out, it did so not with a bang but a whimper. The once-proud Swindon machines limping about their last duties on the Western Region, bereft of all decorative brasswork and identity. The vintage ‘J27s’ and ‘Q6s’ being run into the ground on intensive coal traffic in the North East. Last of all, the grime-encrusted ‘Black Fives’ and ‘8Fs’ clanking their way into oblivion in the North West in 1968. One might think that, had it not been for the clandestine cleaning efforts of enthusiasts, steam wouldn’t have died with any dignity at all.
But there were some places where it did get a last fling. After the Southern Region’s Bulleid ‘Pacifics’ went out in a blaze of glory with 100mph-plus performances in 1967, there remained one last farewell for steam on express passenger duties that summer. The surviving LMS ‘Jubilee’ 4-6-0s – including the famous Alberta and the now-preserved Kolhapur – working out of Leeds Holbeck over the Settle & Carlisle line.
And to prove that not all BR managers of the late 1960s had the jaundiced attitude to steam that David Shepherd described, the party responsible for that was the man who’d been sent to dieselise the Leeds division – Tom Greaves.
Diesel trials
At the very beginning of his BR career, as a premium apprentice at Doncaster Works, Tom had the mantra of “availability, utilisation and reliability” drummed into him – the three fundamental things needed to run a railway. Despite his love of steam in general, and Stanier engines such as ‘Jubilees’ in particular, he became just as dedicated to the new motive power – admitting that, in the end, it scored higher in those stakes.
Working his way up the Eastern Region promotional ladder of the late 1950s, following stints as shedmaster at Hertford East and Hatfield, he
arrived at Hornsey – a shed that was, as The Railway Magazine once put it, “a forgotten star of the diesel dawn”. Almost overnight, what had been a humble steam freight shed housing begrimed ‘J50’ 0-6-0Ts and ‘J52’ 0-6-0STs was partially converted into a depot for a motley collection of diesels being trialled on the King’s Cross suburban service.
“The diesels got a rough ride to start with,” says Tom. “You don’t change a culture overnight, and the board weren’t so intelligent introducing them – they spent a lot of money and put them on visible services.”
As he explains in his book The Trials and the Triumph, the level of back-up from the manufacturers determined which diesels performed best – with Swiss firm Sulzer at the top of the league table, and our own North British a definite last.
“My record was being called out 19 nights on the trot,” he remembers, “though not all because of North British locomotives!”
It was a challenging time, especially as he had just married his wife, Shirley. “I was teaching at the time,” she says, “but then there was a bus strike, and he had to take me to work before going back to work himself – it was difficult.”
High-speed ‘Spaceship’
But his enthusiasm for railways never waned, and in his spare time he would go out photographing at the lineside with a fellow shedmaster – the famous King’s Cross ‘gaffer’, Peter Townend. “We were good friends,” he says, “and maintained neutrality regarding steam and diesel – Peter was the most fervent steam enthusiast in higher management there’s ever been!”
Tom got a taste of life at ‘Top Shed’ when he and Peter came to an agreement with Colin Morris, the district motive power superintendent, for them to each cover both King’s Cross and the new diesel depot at Finsbury Park on alternate Saturdays, so the other could have a weekend off.
Summer Saturdays at ‘Top Shed’ invariably presented Tom with the challenge of finding enough locomotives to cover all the extra relief trains – and it was on one of his stand-in watches that the famous incident of the 90mph ‘9F’ took place.
For a return trip to Grantham on August 16 1958, Tom offered driver Ted Baur a choice of a run-down Gresley ‘V2’ 2-6-2, or a newly run-in ‘9F’, No. 92184. Ted picked the Riddles 2-10-0 but, knowing that ‘A4’ No. 60034 Lord Faringdon was
available at Grantham after an unbalanced working, Tom asked the Lincolnshire shed to provide that for the return trip – on which, he also knew, a party of Eastern Region senior officials would be travelling, including general manager Gerard Fiennes.
Needless to say, Grantham shed didn’t have the Gresley ‘Streak’ available, and the stand-in ‘Spaceship’ streaked back down Stoke Bank at speeds of 91 to 93mph, according to different sources (Tom remembers the figure as 92mph).
One of the senior officials – Robin Johnson, the new works planning officer for the Motive Power Department – was timing the train, and on arrival at King’s Cross, headed to the engine to congratulate the driver, but was astonished to find the ‘9F’ instead of the expected ‘Pacific’.
Tom’s phone rang at home that evening; on the other end of the line was chief inspector Bill Dixon, with the query: “Tom, how fast can a ‘9F’ go?”
“Pretty fast,” he answered. “It depends where the regulator and reversing gear lay!”
After this incident, an 80mph limit was imposed on the class, and next time he saw Ted Baur, Tom said that he “wanted him to keep time, not break the bloody sound barrier”.
Ted simply laughed and replied: “We just gave the ‘9F’ her head and she ran like a dream.”
The BR ‘Red ’Un’
After Hornsey, Tom was sent to oversee the dieselisation of the Sheffield and Leeds divisions. The former was familiar territory, for he’d acquired his taste for LMS motive power while growing up in Rotherham – but ironically, in his return to the area as assistant locomotive superintendent, he was ordered to bring it into line with the Eastern Region of which it was now part.
“I had a somewhat difficult boss,” he explains. “David Scott, the locomotive superintendent, was a Midland man who’d been brought up on Garratts at Toton – he was a very nice guy, but he sought a peaceful existence. His philosophy was ‘do nowt and you’ll never get into trouble.’
“Cyril Palmer,” the locomotive superintendent at King’s Cross, “said ‘he’s been there too long’ and told me that I was to ‘run it to Eastern Region standards’.”
Every so often, “to relieve my frustration”, Tom would travel on the footplate of the 5.30pm Sheffield Midland-Manchester semi-fast, and, having got to know all 14 drivers in the link, he would take the regulator to see how fast he could ascend the sharp 1-in-100 rise of Normans Bank on the Hope Valley line.
On the day that he broke his record in June 1966, with ‘Black Five’ No. 44888, the fireman was enthusiast and photographer Ken Horan, who, years later, got back in touch with Tom and provided a picture of him on the footplate.
“He rang up and asked Shirley, ‘was your husband a locomotive inspector?’ and said, ‘I’ve never had to work as hard in my life up Normans Bank’.”
The move to Sheffield, of course, had brought Tom back into regular contact with his beloved ‘Jubilees’, including Nos. 45594 Bhopal and 45725 Repulse, both of Millhouses shed and “super locos”.
Readers may remember that several years ago, after ex-Barry ‘Jubilee’ No. 45699 Galatea was turned out in supposedly non-authentic
BR red, Ken’s friend Ted Parker came forward to say that he remembered seeing Repulse in maroon at Sheffield in 1961 (SR422) – but with no photograph to prove it, the evidence was considered inconclusive.
Yes, confirms Tom, it’s absolutely true. A Sheffield ‘Jubilee’ – either Repulse, or possibly Bhopal – was indeed painted maroon “in the very early 1960s”. The yellow lining, he adds, was only applied to one side – but why it was done, he has no idea, and can only presume that it was at the behest of an enthusiastic shedmaster at Millhouses.
Hardy performers
When Tom made his next move, to Leeds, this enthusiastic manager ensured, in similar fashion, that the last ‘Jubilees’ on BR went out in style.
For the summer 1967 timetable, the division required six steam locomotives to work reliefs to Glasgow expresses over the Settle & Carlisle route. Tom, in his capacity as Divisional Traction & Train Crew Manager, picked three ‘Black Fives’ and, famously, three ‘Jubilees’ – Nos. 45562 Alberta, 45593 Kolhapur and 45697 Achilles.
Kept in the best possible mechanical order by staff at Holbeck shed, and in pristine condition by the famous photographers of the Master Neverers Association, the trio wrote themselves into the history books that summer, immortalised on film by the MNA and many other enthusiasts.
Often overlooked by comparison are the other ‘Jubilees’ on Holbeck’s books that year – Nos. 45647 Sturdee and 45675 Hardy – but the former got one last starring role when the MNA persuaded the shed