Ray T
master brummie
Hello, everybody,
Glad to be a new member here. This seems a good place to share my memories childhood trainspotting in Birmingham. Perhaps other "steam fanatics" will add their own recollections of certain places or locos.
I grew up in a back-to-back house in Long Street, Sparkbrook, and was a steam train fanatic from probably about 1958 when I would have been eight years old. I remember having the Hotspur comic with its regular tales of adventure on a railway somewhere up north. Every week I would read about a train robbery, a brake failure or a speeding train whose driver was unaware that a bridge up ahead had been brought down by bad weather. Sometimes the story might contain a combination of all three! It didn't matter to me the limited storylines available. Engrossed in the read, I was for the time being in another world, a world of steam and smoke.
My regular "pitch" for train spotting was below the rail bridge in Montpellier Street not far from my home. When not at school I could hear the approach of a steam train from inside the house, and that was when I'd snatch up a pen, notepad or a "ref" and run for the bridge, where I'd arrive in good time to get the engine's number as it came over. A "ref" was probably short for "reference book", and it was the soft-covered book most of us spotters had containing loco names, photos and some technical information. They cost 2-and-6-pence (half a crown) and a for a kid like me, with about 6-pence-a-week pocket money, they were treasured. Refs were issued for all the main regions: Great Western, London and North-Eastern, Southern, and London Midland and Scottish (LMS), which is the one I had for Montpellier Street. Later, I had enough money (ten shillings!) for a "combo", which was a "combined volume" containing all of the main rail regions in one and, like the "refs", published by Ian Allen.
Sometimes, I'd just stand for hours below the Montpellier Street bridge, occasionally in company with other spotters, most times not. From my spot and standing on my toes, I could just make out the old platform canopy of Camp Hill Station along from the bridge, abandoned since just after the war. It always reminded me of one of those stations in wild west movies for some reason. There are quite a number of old photos in online forums now showing the station in use from Edwardian times and abandoned as it was in the 50s. Some show the Montpellier Street bridge as seen from the platform, a view I never had. There was a water tower by the bridge and a water hose connected to it on the side nearest my spotting place. Sometimes a locomotive would stop on the bridge to stand beneath its smoke and to give off hissing steam as I'd look up to watch its crew flip open the cover on its tender and drop in the water hose. After quite a while, water would spill furiously over the tender as a sign of a full tank. Then the hose would be swung back and the train would be on its way.
Famous trains I recall as regulars to the Montpellier Street bridge were the Pines Express and the Cambrian Express, whose coaches all bore the name boards of identification. Lots of freight passed through too, and I remember watching the passage of fuel trucks that seemed so long I thought they'd never end until, eventually, the solitary guards van at the rear appeared and vanished. My most memorable moment below the bridge was in 1962 (I think that was the year) when as a twelve-year-old I watched as the "peg" (signal) dropped with its usual clunk and I waited to see what was on its way. Soon, there came steaming slowly towards Birmingham centre a beautifully clean "9F" resplendent in its black "blinkers" (smoke deflectors) and green livery. Then I saw the number on the front as being 92220, with the name "Evening Star" emblazoned in gold on a blinker and I couldn't believe it. To see such a loco on my little back street line was akin to seeing the Beatles play in Farm Park. I told my spotter friends later and at first they thought I was making it up, then one of the more savvy ones did some checking and found Evening Star really was in the area that time.
When not at Montpellier Street, I often sat on the bridge by Small Heath station collecting Great Western numbers from locos that sometimes thundered past hauling expresses. King George V was a very regular visitor, being easy to spot at a distance by the glint of "gold" from the brass bell on its front buffers, a memento of a trip it made to America. Other Great Western numbers could be had at Snow Hill Station, where we lads would often ask the drivers of some "Castle" or "Grange" if we could "cab" it and more often than not we'd be invited onto the footplate while the engine waited time before pulling out again. Always a thrilling experience, and not one likely to be allowed in these days of obsessive health and safety! Similar experiences were had at New Street Station, of course, where LMS held sway.
Ah, those heady days of iron giants belching smoke and letting off steam beside grubby platforms. When I think back to those days and find myself again beneath some darkened station canopy, I can still smell the oil and the sulphur. Bliss!
Regards to all, Ray.
Glad to be a new member here. This seems a good place to share my memories childhood trainspotting in Birmingham. Perhaps other "steam fanatics" will add their own recollections of certain places or locos.
I grew up in a back-to-back house in Long Street, Sparkbrook, and was a steam train fanatic from probably about 1958 when I would have been eight years old. I remember having the Hotspur comic with its regular tales of adventure on a railway somewhere up north. Every week I would read about a train robbery, a brake failure or a speeding train whose driver was unaware that a bridge up ahead had been brought down by bad weather. Sometimes the story might contain a combination of all three! It didn't matter to me the limited storylines available. Engrossed in the read, I was for the time being in another world, a world of steam and smoke.
My regular "pitch" for train spotting was below the rail bridge in Montpellier Street not far from my home. When not at school I could hear the approach of a steam train from inside the house, and that was when I'd snatch up a pen, notepad or a "ref" and run for the bridge, where I'd arrive in good time to get the engine's number as it came over. A "ref" was probably short for "reference book", and it was the soft-covered book most of us spotters had containing loco names, photos and some technical information. They cost 2-and-6-pence (half a crown) and a for a kid like me, with about 6-pence-a-week pocket money, they were treasured. Refs were issued for all the main regions: Great Western, London and North-Eastern, Southern, and London Midland and Scottish (LMS), which is the one I had for Montpellier Street. Later, I had enough money (ten shillings!) for a "combo", which was a "combined volume" containing all of the main rail regions in one and, like the "refs", published by Ian Allen.
Sometimes, I'd just stand for hours below the Montpellier Street bridge, occasionally in company with other spotters, most times not. From my spot and standing on my toes, I could just make out the old platform canopy of Camp Hill Station along from the bridge, abandoned since just after the war. It always reminded me of one of those stations in wild west movies for some reason. There are quite a number of old photos in online forums now showing the station in use from Edwardian times and abandoned as it was in the 50s. Some show the Montpellier Street bridge as seen from the platform, a view I never had. There was a water tower by the bridge and a water hose connected to it on the side nearest my spotting place. Sometimes a locomotive would stop on the bridge to stand beneath its smoke and to give off hissing steam as I'd look up to watch its crew flip open the cover on its tender and drop in the water hose. After quite a while, water would spill furiously over the tender as a sign of a full tank. Then the hose would be swung back and the train would be on its way.
Famous trains I recall as regulars to the Montpellier Street bridge were the Pines Express and the Cambrian Express, whose coaches all bore the name boards of identification. Lots of freight passed through too, and I remember watching the passage of fuel trucks that seemed so long I thought they'd never end until, eventually, the solitary guards van at the rear appeared and vanished. My most memorable moment below the bridge was in 1962 (I think that was the year) when as a twelve-year-old I watched as the "peg" (signal) dropped with its usual clunk and I waited to see what was on its way. Soon, there came steaming slowly towards Birmingham centre a beautifully clean "9F" resplendent in its black "blinkers" (smoke deflectors) and green livery. Then I saw the number on the front as being 92220, with the name "Evening Star" emblazoned in gold on a blinker and I couldn't believe it. To see such a loco on my little back street line was akin to seeing the Beatles play in Farm Park. I told my spotter friends later and at first they thought I was making it up, then one of the more savvy ones did some checking and found Evening Star really was in the area that time.
When not at Montpellier Street, I often sat on the bridge by Small Heath station collecting Great Western numbers from locos that sometimes thundered past hauling expresses. King George V was a very regular visitor, being easy to spot at a distance by the glint of "gold" from the brass bell on its front buffers, a memento of a trip it made to America. Other Great Western numbers could be had at Snow Hill Station, where we lads would often ask the drivers of some "Castle" or "Grange" if we could "cab" it and more often than not we'd be invited onto the footplate while the engine waited time before pulling out again. Always a thrilling experience, and not one likely to be allowed in these days of obsessive health and safety! Similar experiences were had at New Street Station, of course, where LMS held sway.
Ah, those heady days of iron giants belching smoke and letting off steam beside grubby platforms. When I think back to those days and find myself again beneath some darkened station canopy, I can still smell the oil and the sulphur. Bliss!
Regards to all, Ray.
