Trainspotting in less salubrious areas.

[TheSignalEngineer]

4 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Moving forward to my PW days at Clapham - it was quite common to get pot-shoted at Clapham Junction and West London Jn from the tower blocks opposite - air rifle pellets at very extreme range so generally harmless but still un-nerving

When I was Signal Works Engineer covering LMR lines around London I was shot at when inspecting some new netting we had put on a signal at Camden Road. The sound of pellets pinging off an OLE stanchion is a bit disconcerting when on a signal ladder.

 

It wasn't the first time someone had a go at us. My first experience was when working with the signal gang in 1966. Myself and Alan, one of the fitters, had hitched a ride from Bordesley Junction to Saltley Stores on a returning bank engine to get some small bits and pieces to finish off a job. We walked back up the line and just aproaching the Birmingham City ground Alan said stop when we are under that bridge, there are two kids up there."  I duly stopped then Alan took a step out and immediately jumped back. A second later a half-brick landed where he had been standing. He jumped out again, grabbed the brick and lobbed it back onto the bridge. "Don't expect we'll see that couple for a while" he said. Alan was a native of Bomb Alley at Bootle and very adept at the Bouncing Brick trick.

[pH]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

When Belfast was bombed during WW2, the Dublin fire brigade attended to assist, another example of cross-border co-operation, this time from a neutral country to one at war.

Which may have resulted in a retaliatory bombing of Dublin:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dublin_in_World_War_II

[The Johnster]

This is quite possible but it is doubful that it could ever be objectively confirmed or denied.  The assistance to Belfast was not in contravention of the 'rules of war' and could not be claimed by Germany to have been of any assistance to the British war effort; it was a humanitarian act and may well have been undertaken by the Dublin emergency services concerned without instruction or clearance from their government.  My father, who had a very low opinion of de Valera, claimed that he simply jumped on the bandwagon of a fait accompli with the 'our people' comment, which of course could be uncharitably viewed as promoting of a 'one Ireland' Republican propaganda.  But the Germans would I'm sure have been annoyed by it, as it would have reduced the effectiveness of their air raid.

 

I know from my own experience how difficult it is to navigate by sight in an aircraft in any other than perfect visibility, and how easy it is to get disorientated.  There was an experienced and competent Luftwaffe pilot who landed an FW 190 at Pembrey RAF airfield during the war after a daylight sortie over Plymouth, in absolute conviction that he was returning to his own base in Brittany, 180 degrees out; you'd have thought that having the sun on the wrong side of his cockpit would have put him right, but he'd convinced himself that the North Devon coast was Normandy and that Gower and the Lougher/Gwendraeth estuaries were Brittanny.  So it is also feasible that the attacks could have been genuine mistakes and that the intended target was Liverpool or Preston. 

 

Dublin Bay, with Howth to it's north and the southwestern backdrop of the Wicklow Mountains, is pretty distinctive from the sea approach, but may be less so from the air,  at night, and perhaps in less than perfect visibility.  The fact that the (West) Germans paid compensation after the war would suggest that they were happy to accept that an error had been made and a neutral country mistakenly attacked, and this could be said to be given credence by the fact that Nazi Germany had nothing to gain and much to lose from attacking Eire at a time when stoking anti-British feeling (not difficult in Eire) and promoting an alliance with the Irish would have been more to their liking.  OTOH, it could be a move to avoid or defect the charge of deliberate bombing of a neutral territory, which would have been a war crime.

 

It's not as if anti-British sentiment had not already made a mark on Eire's response to the war and the period leading up to it, notably in the matter of the denial of the British request to be allowed to use the old Queenstown (Cobh) naval base during hostilities.  Had this been available to us, it would have made a very big difference to the protection of Atlantic convoys in the Western Approaches.  I can fully understand the Irish view on this, as apart from the understandable (in view of the activities of the Black and Tans in what was then very recent history and many other abuses going back over hundreds of years), it would have made Cork a target for German bombers.  And the Nazis certainly made overtures to the Irish seeking alliance, fortunately for us unsuccessfully, and had a contingency invasion plan for Eire.  Had that happened before Pearl Harbour we would have been in a very precarious position!

 

 

[ikks]

On 14/10/2023 at 02:24, APOLLO said:

 

The spiders will get you !!!!!!

 

Brit15

Nah.........the snakes et em all😧!!

[monkeysarefun]

24 minutes ago, ikks said:

Nah.........the snakes et em all😧!!

And the  Tarantula Wasps....

 

[Southernman46]

13 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

We walked back up the line and just aproaching the Birmingham City ground Alan said stop when we are under that bridge, there are two kids up there."  I duly stopped then Alan took a step out and immediately jumped back. A second later a half-brick landed where he had been standing. He jumped out again, grabbed the brick and lobbed it back onto the bridge. "Don't expect we'll see that couple for a while" he said. Alan was a native of Bomb Alley at Bootle and very adept at the Bouncing Brick trick.

Happened to me in 1998 at Grove park station with a full can of coke off the footbridge ....................... the little shi!e was really surprised when I then chased him in full orange up the station platform eventually pinning him against a wall and pouring the contents all over him with some suitable words to boot - very, very satisfying. Could have had repercussions but the little oik knew he'd done wrong and it had bitten him on the arse ................... you could do that sort of thing back in the pre mobile phone, lets get involved in other peoples business and be outraged days.

[beast66606]

On 14/10/2023 at 15:41, APOLLO said:

One last Liverpool tale. Back when the twins were born in 2002 we visited The Stanley Sunday Market in the old, listed Tobacco warehouse off the Dock road. The thieves market as it was (rightfully !!) known.

 

Previously known as Paddy's Market but in a different location - as mentioned in my post above

[TheSignalEngineer]

23 hours ago, The Johnster said:

It's not as if anti-British sentiment had not already made a mark on Eire's response to the war and the period leading up to it, notably in the matter of the denial of the British request to be allowed to use the old Queenstown (Cobh) naval base during hostilities.  Had this been available to us, it would have made a very big difference to the protection of Atlantic convoys in the Western Approaches.  I can fully understand the Irish view on this, as apart from the understandable (in view of the activities of the Black and Tans in what was then very recent history and many other abuses going back over hundreds of years), it would have made Cork a target for German bombers.  And the Nazis certainly made overtures to the Irish seeking alliance, fortunately for us unsuccessfully, and had a contingency invasion plan for Eire. 

My belief is that Irish neutrality was largely a case of not pinning targets to their landscape. Handing the naval bases to Britain would certainly have done that and full involvement in the war would probably have destroyed the country. Their embryonic economy had suffered from civil war and the depression. Germany probably couldn't have invaded successfully as the British also had an invasion plan in the event of Ireland siding with Germany. Britain had the advantage of a land border across which it had troops in training and the Royal Navy patrolling the Western Approaches and Irish Sea, so could probably have taken control of Dublin very quickly. 

Ireland had a series of identification points for pilots crossing the coast. These were well maintained during WW2 and were well known to navigators of Allied aircraft on the North Atlantic supply runs. Some are still visible today and our son took us to visit one when he lived near Galway

Edited October 15, 2023 by TheSignalEngineer

[pH]

With respect to Irish neutrality in WW2, not allowing naval ports and protection of Atlantic convoys,  Google “Donegal corridor”.

[pH]

Going back to the original theme of this topic, the only place I had any problem was Radyr. I encountered two “older than youths”, one of whom was very confrontational to an “English ****”. When his mate pointed out that, from my accent, I was Scottish and not English, he backed off a bit. 
 

I did decide not to go round a shed once. I arrived at Wakefield shed at dusk one day late in September 1967. Shed and yard still had many dead engines in them. But there were no staff visible and no lights on. The ‘vibe’ was not comfortable (and I had gone round other sheds at all hours of the day and night), so I just did the nearer part of the yard.

Edited October 15, 2023 by pH
Grammar

[TheSignalEngineer]

14 minutes ago, pH said:

With respect to Irish neutrality in WW2, not allowing naval ports and protection of Atlantic convoys,  Google “Donegal corridor”.

Thanks, I'd forgotten about that bit. 

Another consideration was that a large number of Irish workers came to the UK and besides what they contributed to the war effort their wages were probably keeping the Irish economy afloat.

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 13/10/2023 at 23:16, APOLLO said:

Manchester, and the folk there was just miserable, really miserable.

That's why some of us refer to it as Moanchester.

 

On 13/10/2023 at 23:16, APOLLO said:

It's by no means not all bad in Liverpool - Just go with the flow etc. My son and one twin daughter got their Masters degrees at Liverpool Uni (Mech engineering & Biology) They love the place.

Our daughter did her degree at Liverpool and really liked her time there. She spent two years living in Wavertree and had a part time job at Edge Lane and never had any problems. Where she shared a house with four others the local supplier of mind bending substances used to keep the street under control. One day she saw a scroate leaving another student house with a video player under his arm. The dealer also clocked it and cornered him in an alleyway. Scroate's free arm was placed in a rather un-natural position and he was marched back up the street to return the loot to its rightful owner, telling him it was an unwise thing to do because if the police were called they may discover what mixture he liked to smoke.

[ikks]

21 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

And the  Tarantula Wasps....

 

Could have done with one as a mate one day, I was cutting Proteas at the time and I felt something on the back of my neck. Instinctively I put my hand where I felt the movement and grabbed the bl00dy thing.........it was a huge huntsman spider and like a lot you see in these parts it was a very dark orange..........scared the living cr@p out of me, no bite though.🫢

Mike

Edited October 15, 2023 by ikks

[TheSignalEngineer]

Enough meanderings, back to the original question. 

We had a Railway and Canal club at school. One Sunday per month we took advantage of the excursion fares available from Birmingham to visit other parts, travelling between shed by bus. By the age of 13 I had done trips to Manchester, (Trafford Park, Patricroft, Newton Heath, Gorton shed, Reddish, Longsight, Stockport Edgeley}, Liverpool (Bank Hall, Walton-on-the-Hill, Edge Hill, Speke, Allerton DED, even managed Brunswick) and London (Bricklayers Arms, Stewarts Lane, Hither Green, Nine Elms, Old Oak, Willesden).

One of our members lived next door to a man who owned two Bedford coaches so as numbers grew we spread our wings with road trips to South Wales, Thames Valley, East Midlands and Lancashire. In the space of three years we covered about 75 sheds.

My Mother was a bit apprehensive but we survived without incident.

 

I worked in quite a few rough locations where the antics of the ladies of pleasure provided entertainment during the night shift. There were also many places where nowadays you would take your life into your hands to visit. Besides the incidents I mentioned earlier one I particularly remember was Bestwood Park signal box on the Robin Hood Line. We had continual problems with thefts of materials and equipment on that job but the high point was one Sunday night when I was testing the frame after some layout alterations on a relaying job. A policeman came up the box steps and told us to get down as there was an armed siege in progress in the houses opposite and we may have to evacuate. He looked out of the window and said the gunman can't see the box from the house he's in so carry on working but be ready to move fast if there were gunshots.

[The Johnster]

'Birdie's Lane', a footpath between the Ely and Fairwater estates in western Cardiff that crosses the River Ely and passes beneath the SWML, was notorious in my railway days for stone-throwing, as well as a good many other nefarious activities.  It is well-known to BR2975 of this very parish as ever is, the cultural* centre of his old 'patch'. 

 

One day, week before xmas, 1974 probably, I'd worked a train of empty tanks down to Llanelly with a driver and secondman, and the back working was delayed so we had some time to kill in Llanelli, which we used up by ambling around the shops.  The secondman, bit of a character by the name of Eddie Angove, bought a plastic replica Winchester repeating rifle, Billy the Kid's gun, in Woolworth's as an xmas pressie for his nephew, who was into al that Wild West stuff. 

 

Anyway, the back working eventually showed up and we set off for home, relief by Gloucester men at Canton Sidings.  It was getting into the December afternoon now and light was starting to fail as we passed St Fagan's, Plymouth Woods, and closed on Birdie's lane.  The line crosses the river near the footbridge and there was a typical specimen on the bridge parapet, taking aim with a housebrick as we coasted up at 60mph... 

 

Eddie rose to the occasion magnificently.  He quite nonchalantly dropped the secondman's window on the 47, leaned out with the Winchester, and took a bead on meladdo.  In the failing light it probably looked quite realistic, low sun glinting off that deadly barrel, there was something definitely and unmistakeably purposeful about Eddie's stance and expression, and meladdo wasn't expecting armed retaliation.  His mouth and eyes opened wide in amazement, he took an understandable step backwards, and did a perfect comedy prattfall into the river, arms flailing dramatically, splash!, last seen sitting up to his chest in it still not quite understanding where it had all gone wrong, brick still in hand...

 

We were still laughing when we were relieved five minutes later, and there was a noticeable fall-off in stone-throwing incidents for a while afterwards.  I like to think that it had got around that there was an armed and murderous railwayman on the loose, and Eddie was the sort who'd quite enjoy a reputation as an armed and murderous railwayman!

 

 

*'Cultural' in the sense of an unpleasant possibly fungal growth on decaying organic material...  Drug deals, inter-estate fights, muggery, thuggery, druggery, b*ggery and skullduggery, the odd murder, I wouldn't have gone down there in broad daylight never mind after dark.

[Oldddudders]

23 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Happened to me in 1998 at Grove park station with a full can of coke off the footbridge ....................... the little shi!e was really surprised when I then chased him in full orange up the station platform eventually pinning him against a wall and pouring the contents all over him with some suitable words to boot - very, very satisfying. Could have had repercussions but the little oik knew he'd done wrong and it had bitten him on the arse ................... you could do that sort of thing back in the pre mobile phone, lets get involved in other peoples business and be outraged days.

Good for you! When I was ASM there in the mid-70s, I recall being called out (I lived in Strood!) in the small hours as the constables had detained a chap nicking lead off the station roof. The night-turn Leading Railman had some explaining to do....

 

In the days when London evening papers were sold for money - last time I looked they were free - there was an 'orrible little mouthy skoolboy who ran an Evening Standard pitch in the booking hall. One evening we had a down train delayed with a deceased passenger. The ambulance crew determined he was indeed dead and wheeled him up the slope to their vehicle. As I came back from seeing them off, the boy asked "What happened to him - had he fainted?" "No" I said "he's dead!" The boy was visibly shocked. Nice. 

[Coldgunner]

39 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Evening Standard

 

EVENING STANNIT!

 

[APOLLO]

10 hours ago, pH said:

Going back to the original theme of this topic, the only place I had any problem was Radyr. I encountered two “older than youths”, one of whom was very confrontational to an “English ****”. When his mate pointed out that, from my accent, I was Scottish and not English, he backed off a bit. 
 

I did decide not to go round a shed once. I arrived at Wakefield shed at dusk one day late in September 1967. Shed and yard still had many dead engines in them. But there were no staff visible and no lights on. The ‘vibe’ was not comfortable (and I had gone round other sheds at all hours of the day and night), so I just did the nearer part of the yard.

 

I also did Wakefield shed same month / year (6/10/67). Got there by bus from Normanton. There were many dead locos on Wakefield, a collection point for such before they were carted off, mostly to Hull for scrapping.

 

No bad vibes for me, not a soul anywhere but I had to climb a fence to get on the footbridge over the line.

 

Couple of photos.

 

 

B1 61189 A namer, "Sir William Gray"

 

 

61189 & 61123 Behind

 

 

Wouldn't be Wakefield without a mucky old "Dub Dee" !!

 

 

Happy days, for me, though not the locos.

 

Brit 15

 

[pH]

I don’t know what it was, but I just didn’t feel comfortable. And I’d done Weymouth and Salisbury earlier that month and went on to do West Hartlepool, Sunderland and Tyne Dock the next day.

[Southernman46]

Slightly tangential .....................

Back in ye olde days of the 50's on the WOE - went to the eastern portal of Buckhorn Weston (now Gillingham Tunnel) to take some shots exiting the tunnel lineside from track access path on the cutting slope (less trees then and the morning sun was viable) but after about 30 minutes I just had to flee the place - can't explain it but it had a really, really bad vibe about it. Been back a few times and never experienced the like of it again.