Clergy and railways.

[ChiefPlanner]

Father Deiniol , I believe a Russion Orthodox from Manod in Blaenau Ffestiniog , was very involved in matters of Welsh Railway development a few years back.

 

[John Webb]

All this chat has reminded me that the pulpit in my old church in SE London was on a railway line! The church, built in 1730-something, had been extended by the Victorians at the east end to form a new choir and altar area plus organ loft and Lady Chapel. (Around the 1890s.)
The pulpit was on a pair of rails (possibly 5ft gauge - I never measured it)

It's seen here in its 'Forward' position and could be rolled back by its own length to give a clear view of the east end.
(Taken in 1967 after the church had undergone a major refurbishment - I was singing in the choir at the time but on the side nearest the photographer so can't be seen!)

 

[30907]

The Community of the Resurrection (an Anglican monastic order based at Mirfield in West Yorkshire), has always numbered train enthusiasts among its past and present members.They even run a Railway Retreat each year (open, of course, to the public). One of the attractions is that the monastery is situated on the hillside overlooking the Huddersfield-Leeds section of the Transpennine main line. The current issue of their quarterly magazine features an oil painting of a 1950s steam express seen from the Community garden, and an article by a friend of the Community who is a former BR driver.

And the LNW/LMS reputedly had a conditional stop at Battyeford on its London train (yes, there was one!) to allow the Superior to travel to London.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I was ordained by Bishop Eric Treacy in 1971, and many are the tales of business meetings at Church House coming to a temporary halt as the London express drew out over the Wakefield Arches, and the Chairman's mind drifted elsewhere.

I spent many a retreat watching the trains at The Community of the Resurrection, but in my day, they were Trans-Pennine diesel units, not steam. The view from those seats will be very different now, with the Trans-Pennine Upgrade works progressing.

Good to hear from one who was actually ordained. Were the Class 124 units the ones to which you referred as I always thought they had well-designed modern front ends. I often saw these in my very much younger days at Manchester Victoria station on their journey from Liverpool to Yorkshire.

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Father Deiniol , I believe a Russion Orthodox from Manod in Blaenau Ffestiniog , was very involved in matters of Welsh Railway development a few years back.

I remember Father Deiniol coming to our school with all his incense and smoke swinging it around the class, I could hardly see!! Our RE teacher who invited him actually left teaching to go and be ordained and is also a signal man on one of the heritage railways.

 

[Harpo]

Network Rail has had a Professional Head of Signalling Engineering (Paul Mann) who was also a Reverend at the time.

 

[John Luxton]

Worth mentioning Father Frank Browne of Cork a prolific amateur photographer.

He is credited with taking the photos of the first part of Titanic's maiden voyage.

Booked to sail Southampton to Cobh onc on board he was offered the opportunity to do the full trip to New York.

Fortunately (as it turned out) his church superior wouldn't permit it and he disemarked with himself and his photos intact.

He shot a lot of transport related stuff over the years ships, railways, aircraft and personel.

Many years after his death is negatives were discovered and have appeared in a number of books dedicated to his work.

There are quite a few photos on the fatherbrowne.com web site.

 

[Rescars]

Also Rev A H Malan, who left for posterity such a rich photographic record of the GWR broad gauge.

 

[Welshman]

Good to hear from one who was actually ordained. Were the Class 124 units the ones to which you referred as I always thought they had well-designed modern front ends. I often saw these in my very much younger days at Manchester Victoria station on their journey from Liverpool to Yorkshire.

They were indeed.
They transformed travel between Lancashire & Yorkshire when introduced, but unfortunately by the early 1970s when I observed them[and rode in them], were becoming more unreliable.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

A current member of this band is the Revd Canon Brian Arman, who was until 2015 the Rector of Filton and is the current President of the RCTS.

In the latter capacity, he's a well-known expert in anything Great Western, and gives talks on several aspects of the GWR to RCTS Branches.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Worth mentioning Father Frank Browne of Cork a prolific amateur photographer.

He is credited with taking the photos of the first part of Titanic's maiden voyage.

Booked to sail Southampton to Cobh onc on board he was offered the opportunity to do the full trip to New York.

Fortunately (as it turned out) his church superior wouldn't permit it and he disemarked with himself and his photos intact.

He shot a lot of transport related stuff over the years ships, railways, aircraft and personel.

Many years after his death is negatives were discovered and have appeared in a number of books dedicated to his work.

There are quite a few photos on the fatherbrowne.com web site.

A magnificent legacy in all respects - the telegram from his superior alegedy said - "get off that ship" - so he did ! .

 

[norbitonflyer]

From LTC Rolt's "Red for Danger", written in 1955, describing the Inquiry into the derailment at Wigan in 1873

".....all but one of the passengers who gave evidence said that many times on the journey up from Euston they had been alarmed by the speed o0f the train and the rocking and swaying of the carriages. The exceptiopn, significantly enough , was the Reverend C W Dod. He was a keen student of railways, he said, who frequently amused himself by timing the speeds of the trains. He noticed nothing unusualabout either the speed of its train or its motion - in fact he thought the quality of the riding was particularly good.

Obviously that love of railways which so many pillars of the established church display is no recent phenomenon"

 

[NER1621]

n part, the reason for many clergy having other interests is that for many years in the distant past you could only get a degree by including divinity as part of the degree. An example of this is 'Lewis Carroll' (Revd Charles L Dodgson) who went to Oxford to study mathematics! (Mind you, there was a strong tradition in his family of being a parson.)

Also coming late to this thread, but John’s earlier post above prompts a link with this year’s S&DR200 commemorations, as from 1843 the Dodgson family home was the rectory at Croft-on-Tees, directly opposite the S&DR Croft depot on the other bank of the Tees (so geographically in Hurworth in Co.Durham). The young Charles travelled to boarding school in Rugby and then Oxford by train from Darlington Bank Top. His father died in Croft and is buried in the churchyard there.

(Incidentally, and going OT, Dean Henry Liddell of Christ Church, father of Alice, was a County Durham man, from Ravensworth Castle near Lamesley, and apparently never lost his north-east accent - RP not becoming a thing amongst the upper classes until the later 19thC.)

 

[Calthrop]

Also coming late to this thread, but John’s earlier post above prompts a link with this year’s S&DR200 commemorations, as from 1843 the Dodgson family home was the rectory at Croft-on-Tees, directly opposite the S&DR Croft depot on the other bank of the Tees (so geographically in Hurworth in Co.Durham). The young Charles travelled to boarding school in Rugby and then Oxford by train from Darlington Bank Top. His father died in Croft and is buried in the churchyard there.

One might be tempted to wonder whether friend L. Carroll perhaps had an actual fondness for trains and railways; beyond the "standard" for a Victorian frequent traveller? There is the brief episode in Through The Looking-Glass, of Alice's ticketless-travelling railway-carriage experience, with various insects as her compartment-mates...

 

[John Luxton]

A magnificent legacy in all respects - the telegram from his superior alegedy said - "get off that ship" - so he did ! .

I imagine he wasn't happy when he received that message but I imagine he felt somewhat different later when the news broke!

 

[newmilton]

For if the station is seen as cathedral or chapel, it can also be seen to possess in its heyday a Bible every bit as imposing and sometimes even as impenetrable as the Authorised Version (Bradshaw), incense (steam), and liturgical chanting ('The train now standing at platform 3 is ...', 'Close the doors and stand clear', 'All change'). - Part of a longer discussion about clergy and railways from, The Railway Station, A Social History, Jeffrey Richards and John M MacKenzie, 1986. And yes, I am a priest.