My first visit to Spalding was in July 1979 and the gas lamps had just been replaced and were stacked up in the forecourt. I can't remember whether I travelled the line but I visited the Spalding flower festival in 1981 and took a photo of a class 47 leaving on the March line.
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March to Spalding
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My first visit to Spalding was in July 1979 and the gas lamps had just been replaced and were stacked up in the forecourt. I can't remember whether I travelled the line but I visited the Spalding flower festival in 1981 and took a photo of a class 47 leaving on the March line.
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Gerry Fiennes said the same, about his first ever trip from Ely to Kings Lynn, where he was to take over as manager, on a bleak windswept winter evening in the immediate postwar gloom.
D1537
Established Member
Travelled over it once as a teenager on a train (Yarmouth-Newcastle) that changed locos at Grassmoor. 47184 (which was stolen from a Liverpool St service to replace a failed 37049 at Norwich) to Grassmoor, 40038 forward.
Forty years? Good grief, I suppose it must be ...
I made the effort to do the route in 1981, some desperate overnight moves on newspaper trains around East Anglia, culminating in me presenting my worn and dishevelled body at Norwich for the Yarmouth - Newcastle.
This was load 13 Mk 1s, with a solo 31236 struggling on the front. I think this was the lowest power-to-weight ratio I ever encountered in the UK.
Thankfully at Grassmoor a superior form of traction was awaiting, 40198. I did that to Spalding (getting the required track for the first time) for 37088 all the way back through to Norwich on the Manchester Yarmouth.
The Yarmouth - Newcastle did have the habit of producing the really rare vacuum braked no heat 40s, for which many of us 40 bashers were eternally grateful.
I made the effort to do the route in 1981, some desperate overnight moves on newspaper trains around East Anglia, culminating in me presenting my worn and dishevelled body at Norwich for the Yarmouth - Newcastle.
This was load 13 Mk 1s, with a solo 31236 struggling on the front. I think this was the lowest power-to-weight ratio I ever encountered in the UK.
Thankfully at Grassmoor a superior form of traction was awaiting, 40198. I did that to Spalding (getting the required track for the first time) for 37088 all the way back through to Norwich on the Manchester Yarmouth.
The Yarmouth - Newcastle did have the habit of producing the really rare vacuum braked no heat 40s, for which many of us 40 bashers were eternally grateful.
MisterSheeps
Member
Why so? The decimation of manufacturing industry, due to the offshoring of production to the far east meant that containerised imports were bound to dramatically increase. If the railway industry didn't see that coming, they were asleep.
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Not sure I actually said that - (quote from someone else) - however in my time , the export trains were well loaded , as indeed the import trains were. The only empty containers moved were by and large empty 20ft boxes going to Scotland for whisky etc flows back.
MisterSheeps
Member
Sorry, I wasn't castigating you, simply writing it was inevitable, get rid of manufacturing and you either do without or replace with imports ... the possible surprise was the rise of (non unionised) Felixstowe over e.g. Tilbury, Hunterston or Liverpool, and that maybe March - Spalding & Lincoln avoider closure was an unanticipated mistake.
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Offshoring production wasn't even a thing in 1982.
Most of the Far East was still primarily agrarian economies in 1982: the Vietnam war had only ended in 1975, Chairman Mao died in 1976, and China had only established diplomatic relations with the USA in 1979.
The only significant industrial countries in the Far East in 1982 were Japan and Taiwan. "Made in Taiwan" was a synonym for cheap tat.
In 1982 the UK was still running a positive balance of trade in goods and services. That continued to the middle of the 1980s.
Diplomatic relations between the UK and China were very fraught in 1982, the year that Mrs Thatcher first visited Chine. It was the year of the Falklands War and China were being belligerent about Hong Kong. The proposition that the UK would be doing huge amounts of international trade with China was incomprehensible.
What changed was financial deregulation in Western economies, the UK Financial Services Act was in 1986, and reform led by Deng Xiaoping in China through the 1980s. Another date worth noting is that China only joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001. Offshoring to China wasn't feasible before it joined the World Trade Organisation.
The global economy now is very different from what it was like 40 years ago.
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MisterSheeps
Member
Not sure I agree; the cotton industry went down the pan from the late 1960s, and Hong Kong was a major exporter, of, yes, tat, but that rapidly improved. Japan was taking over in car making & computer machine tools (NC & CNC), steel was shutting down (Consett & Corby in 1980). I worked for a manufacturing technical consultancy, went to many factories in Lancashire, and the lack of investment, lack of will to modernise, and scale of closures, was huge. Lincoln was full of manufacturing which closed (Ruston Bucyrus, Ruston & Hornsby).
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Having access to the shipping details of both import and export traffics on Freightliner - always took a recce as to what was being carried. In those days , there was a document bag which went with the train - firstly in the charge of the guard (cue - frequent losses and bags going astray which caused many problems - later a welded box on one of the FGA wagons could lock the bag safely away , and the "consist" identified where the bag was on a 5 set - a lifesaver)
The traffics were really interesting - Rolls Royce cars from Crewe , bus chassis for Hong Kong , huge quantities of ICI stuff from Wilton , literally anything and everything that Britain then made. The Coatbridge could be all food and drink - scotch obviously - but even Tunnocks wafers from Uddingstone)
Imports were often semi-manufactered or rawish materials - copper ingots, lead ingots for Octel Antic-Knock compound , cotton for Lancashire in bales , match splints , tinned Canadian salmon)
The traffics were really interesting - Rolls Royce cars from Crewe , bus chassis for Hong Kong , huge quantities of ICI stuff from Wilton , literally anything and everything that Britain then made. The Coatbridge could be all food and drink - scotch obviously - but even Tunnocks wafers from Uddingstone)
Imports were often semi-manufactered or rawish materials - copper ingots, lead ingots for Octel Antic-Knock compound , cotton for Lancashire in bales , match splints , tinned Canadian salmon)
Thanks. This shows UK manufacturing still doing its production at home, sometimes using imported raw materials and semi-manufactures, and exporting finished goods.
Yes, UK manufacturing was struggling against international competition, but it was "old style" losing out in export markets and increased import penetration in its home market, not offshoring.
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