Class 40 nostalgia to Stranraer

[RochdalePioneers]

A few years back I read a splendid "I was there" nostalgia piece with a guy who rode a 40 from Doncaster to Leeds to Carlisle to Stranraer towards the end of the class in general use. I can't find it now - does anyone have a link?

After Stranraer he rode the 40 back to Carlisle (via a reverse outside Glasgow Central) followed by a run from Crewe to Holyhead and back on a Sunday...

 

[Train Maniac]

A few years back I read a splendid "I was there" nostalgia piece with a guy who rode a 40 from Doncaster to Leeds to Carlisle to Stranraer towards the end of the class in general use. I can't find it now - does anyone have a link?

After Stranraer he rode the 40 back to Carlisle (via a reverse outside Glasgow Central) followed by a run from Crewe to Holyhead and back on a Sunday...

You'll need to trawl through the many (MANY) posts a bit but the thread you are looking for is https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/back-in-the-day.183327/page-2

 

[NorthWestRover]

You'll need to trawl through the many (MANY) posts a bit but the thread you are looking for is https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/back-in-the-day.183327/page-2

It's likely to be @CW2 who was the lucky lad to do this move.

 

[Magdalia]

If you can track down a copy, then I recommend Railway Magazine January 1975, which includes an article describing a journey from Ayr to Stranraer in the cab of 40044 during a storm. The author is Derek Cross, the renowned railway photographer: he can write excellently too.

 

[CW2]

It's likely to be @CW2 who was the lucky lad to do this move.

Not Guilty m'Lud.
I only ever managed one class 40 into Glasgow Central before they were prohibited after a derailment.
I did enjoy a few 40s to Stranraer on various services from / to Carlisle though.

 

[Springs Branch]

. . . does anyone have a link?

I remember that account well - a cracking yarn from the heyday of hellfire thrash (when possession of a ticket seemed entirely optional).

The author was Phil Durrell, the title was "Did I Ever Tell You About . . ." and the link was www.dreadful.org.uk/PD_Page1.htm.

Unfortunately this particular link is now dead, and the URL is apparently up for sale again. Maybe there's some way to recover the webpage via Wayback Machine, or something similar?


It was such a good read that, on 22 April 2010, I thought to myself "better print that one off in case the website disappears" - which I did (courtesy of my employer's laser printer). I get regular earache from Mrs. S.B. about the messy & apparently chaotic state of my study - but on seeing this thread I was able to go straight to the correct pile of dog-eared papers, old timetables & dusty DVDs and pull out the required yellowing bundle. I'm probably not quite as good as I might think, however, because the last page or two have become detached from the staple and lost (P.D's story ends with departure back from Stranraer)

 

[david1212]

I remember that account well - a cracking yarn from the heyday of hellfire thrash (when possession of a ticket seemed entirely optional).

The author was Phil Durrell, the title was "Did I Ever Tell You About . . ." and the link was www.dreadful.org.uk/PD_Page1.htm.

Unfortunately this particular link is now dead, and the URL is apparently up for sale again. Maybe there's some way to recover the webpage via Wayback Machine, or something similar?

.....

Yes on Wayback Machine / Internet Archive ( which is back up again after being 'attacked' )
Here is Part 1 then just follow links to the next part at the bottom.

 

[WesternLancer]

I remember that account well - a cracking yarn from the heyday of hellfire thrash (when possession of a ticket seemed entirely optional).

The author was Phil Durrell, the title was "Did I Ever Tell You About . . ." and the link was www.dreadful.org.uk/PD_Page1.htm.

Unfortunately this particular link is now dead, and the URL is apparently up for sale again. Maybe there's some way to recover the webpage via Wayback Machine, or something similar?


It was such a good read that, on 22 April 2010, I thought to myself "better print that one off in case the website disappears" - which I did (courtesy of my employer's laser printer). I get regular earache from Mrs. S.B. about the messy & apparently chaotic state of my study - but on seeing this thread I was able to go straight to the correct pile of dog-eared papers, old timetables & dusty DVDs and pull out the required yellowing bundle. I'm probably not quite as good as I might think, however, because the last page or two have become detached from the staple and lost (P.D's story ends with departure back from Stranraer)

Scan and post in this thread! All is resolved.

 

[Sultan1056]

Yes on Wayback Machine / Internet Archive ( which is back up again after being 'attacked' )
Here is Part 1 then just follow links to the next part at the bottom.

That is a very good read.

 

[Rescars]

Splendid sequal to D L Smith's Tales of the Sou' West!

 

[RochdalePioneers]

Yes on Wayback Machine / Internet Archive ( which is back up again after being 'attacked' )
Here is Part 1 then just follow links to the next part at the bottom.

That’s the one! Thanks very much!

 

[GarethW]

A superb story, very different times just a few years before I started bashing.

 

[citycat]

So, what did this bloke do for buying tickets, especially in the middle of the night on those mail services to and from Newcastle? Or were tickets not required back then for adult bashers?

It would probably cost a fortune these days to make all those moves.

 

[GarethW]

So, what did this bloke do for buying tickets, especially in the middle of the night on those mail services to and from Newcastle? Or were tickets not required back then for adult bashers?

It would probably cost a fortune these days to make all those moves.

Dunno, I started bashing in 81 and tickets were needed and checked at least down South and West.

There were regional rovers for some areas then and £5/10/15 tickets on YP railcards to destinations countrywide in the Eighties on certain days, which could allow some “flexibility”.
I used to do Preston-Penzance when I was at Poly there and remember getting some grief when I tried to travel back via Reading or on the Exeter-Waterloo route via Salisbury.

Reading that story from 75 it does seem as though having a ticket was very much an optional extra then.

 

[Bevan Price]

Dunno, I started bashing in 81 and tickets were needed and checked at least down South and West.

There were regional rovers for some areas then and £5/10/15 tickets on YP railcards to destinations countrywide in the Eighties on certain days, which could allow some “flexibility”.
I used to do Preston-Penzance when I was at Poly there and remember getting some grief when I tried to travel back via Reading or on the Exeter-Waterloo route via Salisbury.

Reading that story from 75 it does seem as though having a ticket was very much an optional extra then.

I recall seeing several "chancers" amongst bashers back then. Some reused tickets that had not been gripped; others used "out of area" rovers and hoped that grippers would not look too closely at the ticket.

 

[Springs Branch]

So, what did this bloke do for buying tickets . . .

I've enjoyed reading about a good few of these sorts of marathon bashing escapades from the hellfire era - and often wondered the same.

Maybe it was easier when ticket inspections usually occurred only at barriers when entering or leaving stations, and less frequently on the trains themselves - especially long-distance services out of prime 'business hours'. Once you were 'inside the system' it was relatively easy to roam far and wide.

One exploit I read about - which was possibly quite niche and more than a bit unlawful - depended on the prevalence of manual inspection of paper tickets by a bloke in a BR cap with a set of nippers in hand standing in a sentry box by the barrier. It seems that used tickets collected here were accumulated through a slot on top of a locked container for later secure disposal or auditing. And the 'locking the box' part of the procedure could be observed - as they say - in the breach.

So, any crank with sufficient brass neck, or who was an early adopter of the 'recycling' ethos, on finding an unlocked collection box at an unattended barrier, could 'harvest' generous handfuls of tickets, to be sorted at leisure for potential repurposing. The writer reported one day finding the Willy Wonka-style Golden Ticket - a totally ungripped London to Inverness First Class return, with remaining validity for the best part of 3 months.

 

[CW2]

Indeed, cranks of that era were early adopters of the recycling ethos. Of course their actions were fraudulent and illegal. At that time when tickets were collected at ticket barriers, they would be bundled up and sent to a central regional auditing location. That was partly for statistical reasons i.e. to give source data on traffic flows, but also to double check that there was no fraud taking place in the booking offices.
The attraction for cranks was a ready supply of used tickets which could be reused with care and knowledge of the system. Knowing which pattern of ticket nips was used at what location was also invaluable. A photocopy publication named "Gripper's Guide to the Galaxy" was circulated (copied from an official BR publication) so that you could decipher where a ticket had previously been checked and nipped.

In Phil Durrel's excellent account of that epic trip to Stranraer, he mentions in passing deciding to alight at Crewe for reasons he doesn't wish to explain. Crewe was a major collection location for ticket audit bags en route to the audit office in Derby. The bags would be left unattended on a BRUTE to await the first DMU of the day to Derby. Draw your own conclusions.

 

[citycat]

In the days when I was a British Rail staff dependant and it was the blue free passes before the boxes came in, I would do whatever I could to avoid having my free pass gripped so it could be used again and again or returned to the office for a credit.

A lot of the train guards were good old boys who would just examine the ticket and hand it back, ‘understanding’ the system. But you just knew if a TTI with all the gold braid on his cap got on board, you were done for and those deadly nips would come out.

I used to enjoy going from London to Jersey a lot to travel on the British Rail ferry from Weymouth or Portsmouth. I would never take the direct boat trains but would always take the stopping services, just to try and avoid the grippers.

On mainline trains, I would keep the blue ticket in a see through wallet so that the guard could see it, but hopefully not be too arsed about taking it out of the wallet to grip it. A lot of times this subtle trick would work and you would get from London to Penzance or Glasgow and back without a single nip.

It was a real game to try and keep the blue passes intact on various journeys until the BR boxes came in and took the fun out of it.

On one occasion though, I had a pass from London to Wick and it seemed every guard wanted a piece of the action. By the time I got back to Euston, there were about seven nips taken out all around the edge of the pass. It looked quite artistic with all the different regional nip designs. Wish I’d kept it now.

 

[Zerothebrake!]

Dar Fare Evader.

 

[Harpo]

Common 70s/80s parlance for dubious tickets was ‘pieces’ or ‘frog’, as in frogsh*t.

I remember a railtour gripper asking for ‘all tickets’. A renowned deadpan brummie produced a bulging plastic bag from inside his donkey jacket - ‘Yow said you wanted all tickets.’

 

[Falcon1200]

'Back in the day' bashers also got to know where their ticket was likely to get gripped; IIRC Chesterfield had a particularly notorious, or conscientious, ticket inspector....

 

[xotGD]

You also had summer Saturday services with freight guards, who wouldn't be doing any gripping.

Even with some questionable validity from time to time, I am sure BR made plenty of money from bashers.

 

[citycat]

So, the kids and teenagers who would tell their mum they were going from Leeds to York for the day but would end up in London instead, how did they fund their tickets out of their pocket money? It must still have cost quite a bit even in the seventies and eighties.

Or did they just chance it all the time and risk being stranded down in the Smoke with no tickets?

I was spoilt because I was always on Privs or free passes, but I remember there would always be at least one ticket check on mainline routes to and from London. Or were child tickets really cheap back then?

How did they have the money to get around on London Transport trying to bunk London depots and then get back to the North or West? We need a basher to describe a typical day with all the financial details too.

 

[Harpo]

……. I would keep the blue ticket in a see through wallet so that the guard could see it………(edit)……..

It was a real game to try and keep the blue passes intact on various journeys until the BR boxes came in and took the fun out of it.

I remember hearing of sackings for writing box dates on plastic covers!

 

[GarethW]

'Back in the day' bashers also got to know where their ticket was likely to get gripped; IIRC Chesterfield had a particularly notorious, or conscientious, ticket inspector....

Chesterfield had a dreadful reputation back in the day for actual hatred for all Railway enthusiasts young or old. The Blackpool North of its day.

Well out of my areas of interest so only went there once, it lived down to its reputation. Horrible staff throughout.
I actually ended up calling the police on one of them for theft of my camera bag.

Never went anywhere else that was remotely like that. I had letter of the month in Rail Enthusiast recounting my experiences there.

 

[Rover]

'Back in the day' bashers also got to know where their ticket was likely to get gripped; IIRC Chesterfield had a particularly notorious, or conscientious, ticket inspector....

You're right, I knew him well and I worked with him but really he was just doing his job, even if a little over-enthusiastic.

Chesterfield had a dreadful reputation back in the day for actual hatred for all Railway enthusiasts young or old. The Blackpool North of its day.

Well out of my areas of interest so only went there once, it lived down to its reputation. Horrible staff throughout.
I actually ended up calling the police on one of them for theft of my camera bag.

Never went anywhere else that was remotely like that. I had letter of the month in Rail Enthusiast recounting my experiences there.

I spotted at Chesterfield for many years in the 70s and 80s and got to know the staff well, I even ended up working with them. I'm sorry you had your camera bag stolen that's completely unforgiveable. The majority of the staff weren't horrible though, there were some good, decent people working there. Perhaps the people that had a problem at Chesterfield were those that didn't have a ticket.

 

[Halwynd]

Chesterfield was my favourite place for photographing in the 80s.

Memory might be playing up, but wasn't there a sort of waiting room on the Up platform where enthusiasts had to go, or at least were supposed to go, if they wanted to spend time spotting?

I spent most of my time there on the footbridge off Brimington Road, but never had any problems when on the station - I did hear a few stories but never saw any unpleasantness myself.

Great article about chasing the 40s!

 

[Rover]

Chesterfield was my favourite place for photographing in the 80s.

Memory might be playing up, but wasn't there a sort of waiting room on the Up platform where enthusiasts had to go, or at least were supposed to go, if they wanted to spend time spotting?

I spent most of my time there on the footbridge off Brimington Road, but never had any problems when on the station - I did hear a few stories but never saw any unpleasantness myself.

Great article about chasing the 40s!

Yes, it wasn't a room it was out in the open, it was a square area between the waiting room and the up bay and backed on to the goods lines. There was a white barrier with "train spotters compound" written on , grammatically incorrect if I remember correctly.

 

[WesternLancer]

Yes, it wasn't a room it was out in the open, it was a square area between the waiting room and the up bay and backed on to the goods lines. There was a white barrier with "train spotters compound" written on , grammatically incorrect if I remember correctly.View attachment 168636

so that great pic there was sneaked from an unauthorised location then?
A bit like snapping trains in the former eastern bloc I guess

 

[Halwynd]

Yes, it wasn't a room it was out in the open, it was a square area between the waiting room and the up bay and backed on to the goods lines. There was a white barrier with "train spotters compound" written on , grammatically incorrect if I remember correctly.View attachment 168636

Ah, that was it. Thanks for the picture too.