The LNER Encyclopedia

Now, if they could just give it a repaint into LNER Silver and put a proper A4 corridor tender behind it – we can all dream!

as opposed to the non corridor tender it has, which has been converted to corridor status you mean?

A proper streamlined corridor tender as opposed to the 1928 pattern corridor tender that were transferred to some of the A4s and is the style Bittern has, although brand new. Bittern never had a corridor tender in BR times of course.

It is a great shame that none of the streamlined corridor tenders, built specially for the A4s, were preserved. They matched the locomotives a lot better, being specially built for the purpose, and didn't have to have bits welded on the top to make them look streamlined. The lack of beading especially makes them look much neater and the curved backs matched the passenger stock. They were built in two batches and were initially attached to 2509-2512 and 4491-4497 – with differences between the two batches.

Hi folks,

You're right with your research, in fact you appear to know more than us- Jack Luty was indeed christened John and is the person from Grimsby you've identified. Jack was my great uncle, I am Jonathan Foyle's sister and daughter of Norma.
Norma says that Jack retired as Running Foreman at King's Cross. FYI Jack's brother, Tom, was District Signals Inspector at Doncaster before his death in 1968. Jack and Tom's father was not called John, he was James, Tom's middle name was James. She also thinks that their mother's maiden name was spelt Hewlett. Norma was aware of the Silver Link connection and has a poster of it in her home. Thanks for the interest and I hope this info helps.

Karen

Hello Karen - thank you for coming onto the forum and sharing the information about your family. It's good to hear from you, and if you should want to know anything about railway life, people and times on the LNER/BR this is the place to ask. I know from personal experience that the folk here are most generous with their knowledge and expertise.

In one of the posts Spamcan81 says: As you probably know, 60019 Bittern is a sister locomotive of Silver Link so in case you are interested there is more about this anniversary special on its operator's (Steam Dreams) website (including provisional timings): http://www.steamdreams.com/content/view/272/52/

Best wishes

Thank you for the information 61070, I wasn't aware of that.

Karen, thank you for confirming that it was 'Jack' Luty. It's good to know that the name that will appear on my print of Silver Link will be correct.

As I said at the beginning of this thread, it is nice to honour the people who did the work on record runs – especially the fireman!

Just come across this topic. When I started my railway career on New Year's day 1962 at Top Shed, Jack Luty was one of the locomotive foremen at the shed until its closure in 1963. With everybody else at that time, he moved down to King's Cross station as running foreman, where he could often be seen patrolling in his blue dust coat and bowler hat. Arthur Taylor had retired before I joined, but his son, also named Arthur, was in charge at Clarence Yard Diesel Depot for a period. Jack was certainly not a cockney as he had a strong Yorkshire accent although I don't know his origins.
I was very lucky to be able to fire "Silver Link" on my very first trip on the main line in the summer of 1962 on the 16.21 "Parley" to Peterborough & return with "39 Stock" from Westwood Yard to King's Cross & again the following day with "Silver Fox," in place of the regular fireman who had reported sick.

Hermit 109

(In the winter of 62/63, 60109 Hermit which had been withdrawn with a cracked frame, was berthed at the bottom of Hornsey Sidings and used as additional carriage heating. We junior firemen spent many a cold shift keeping steam up & water in the boiler. A sad end to a grand loco)

I have a very fine photo of Silver Link on the record run, it was taken at Potters Bar and shows spectators at the lineside waving as the train passes.

I purchased it at the old Ian Allen bookshop at Hampton Court, probably in late 50's, but it has copyright Locomotive Publishing Co stamped on the back and I'm not sure if it can be reproduced in this forum. I've never seen it printed anywhere else.

Getting back to Arthur Taylor, if perhaps a little off-topic. I was a Fitter at Finsbury Park DMD (Clarence Yard - 34G) from 1965 to 1967. As a shift worker we used to get outposted to Hornsey (34B) from time to time, covering the three shifts.

The Foreman Fitter there was none other than Arthur Taylor, son of the Arthur Taylor of 1935 'Silver Jubilee' fame. A grand gentleman, and a pleasure to work with.

The Locomotive Publishing Company was bought by the Ian Allan company around the mid-1950s. Around this time I met the railway photographer H. Gordon Tidey - active from about the turn of the last century- who must have been 80-odd when I met him. He lived in The Walk, Potters Bar and may well have taken this photo, and was particularly upset because many of his 6" x 4" glass plate negatives had been on loan to the LPC, and they all inadvertantly went to Ian Allan's as a result of the take over.

If I understand it correctly, copyright lasts for 75 years, so if correct, on September 28 you can publish the photo freely.

Incidentally, H. Gordon Tidey's married daughter, Mrs. Rafferty, lived about 150 yards away from me in Georges Wood Road, Brookmans Park.

Around 1985/6 I was clearing out the locker of a fitter at Hornsey ODM (actually the north end of 34B shed) with a young electrician. This fitter had retired through ill health and let's just say when he was at 34G he didn't get the top jobs. Amidst the mass of chipped, bent and battered tools, was a small brass plate, about 5x3 inches and just over 3/16th thick. From previous chats with ex 34A staff, I knew instantly what it was.

"What's that old thing?", the electrician asked. I told him it was a scribing or "back end" plate, used for marking when setting up valve gear. I said they were manufactured out of scrap brasses and on one side there is "L" & "R" stamped in each top corner and on the other side the words "fore" and "aft". But it was the name stamped on the side that blew me away - "J.Woodcraft".

Jack Woodcraft was a fitter at Top Shed and, according to old hands, was married to a famous drivers daughter who also worked on the railway. I knew exactly who that was - Grace Goddard (nee Taylor) who was the Guv'nors secretary in the office where I started my career - Rm 125 West Side.

Grace had retired by the time I found the plate. Why this particular fitter kept it I'll never know but he would have been an apprentice in the early 1950's at 34A. Jack apparently died young and Grace remarried John Goddard in the late 1960's, sadly only to be widowed again within a few years.

But how many times was this plate used by the son in law to set up Silver Link, driven so well on that momentous day by the person who later became his father in law? We''ll never know but it's a nice thought that it would have been so used. A prized possession indeed and one that will eventually end up at York.

I met Arthur Taylor, the son, a few times when retired as he used to come and see Grace at work. He was still at Hornsey when it closed in 1971, apparently.

An Arthur Taylor Jnr story at Hornsey, mid 1960s. A Gateshead D200 (later Class 40) came on shed one Saturday afternoon. Arthur examined it and noted that the cover over the commutator and brush gear on one of the traction motors was missing. Arthur 'phoned Finsbry Park DMD and asked them to send a replacement cover. Two arrived, one for a D1000 and the other for a 'Deltic'. Neither fitted, so he made an entry in the Repair Book "For attention at home depot.". Gateshead never had a good reputation in steam days, and one that they managed to maintain as a week later the same loco came on shed again - still minus the cover. Somewhat incensed, Arthur found some scrap sheet metal, knocked one up and fitted it.

This is one of those wonderful threads that only this kind of forum seems to generate every now and then.

Thanks very much to all contributors; without your personal input we would be far less well informed.

John

(P.S. It is my personal opinion that the £700 million wasted on the Millennium Dome would have been far better spent establishing an online and searchable database of personal memories such as this, which would have allowed those from a past era to have given us all an insight into the real details of what life was like many generations ago)

Back on another case with 61070, following up on above census return. Parkwood springs was a self contained community with strong railway connections. The MSLR main line divides Parkwood springs from the Neepsend area and the slope of the hill behind is the other natural defining boundary.
The depot at Bridgehouses was not far away and there were various rail served industries and coal merchants close as well.
The housing was demolished completely in the late 1970s although the roads still remain there is some industrial development but in the main the area now has the Sheffield artificial ski slope and an urban park.
Over the weekend i will poke my nose in the area to try and find the location of the house mentioned and take a pic.
I must warn anyone else thinking of visiting as the place is watched by the police due to its proximity to the red light area so have your reasons for visiting at hand in case you are stopped for acting with suspicion.