King's Cross Second Man: A Sixties Diesel Career

PREFACE

Iwanted to be an engine driver when I was 8. I wanted to leave school and do this when I was 15. But things called G.C.E. exams thwarted that plan. Ten years later I realised this ambition when I just beat the age barrier to become a ‘second-man’, diesel locomotives, King’s Cross. Although it was a job which only lasted some four years it was the only job of my many which was more than ‘just a job’. I recorded every shift I worked in foolscap diaries; times attended, drivers with, locomotives worked, diagrams booked, what actually occurred. That was just 50 years ago now; but those few years still stand clear in my memory, and some events are still as vivid as if they had happened yesterday.

But as I prepared to write up and share these memories I realised that there could be much more in them than the mere repetition of my shifts worked on diesel locomotives, for those locomotives in the mid-1960s were still a new form of motive power, they had only recently replaced about 150 years of steam power, and although my journeys rarely took me far from King’s Cross they took me through over a century of King’s Cross Area railway history and into railway places now long gone; the many goods and carriage sidings, forgotten goods and passenger stations, much changed King’s Cross station itself. And I was ‘second man’ at a time when modernisation was actually rewriting railway history, a process which is still the case today when the current Railway Upgrade Plan is busily building a new national railway system, not the least of which is a brand new railway for the East Coast Main Line and the King’s Cross Area. I have incorporated brief histories of these now long gone railway places and also accounts of the ‘new railways’ of 50 years ago and today into my account of the small part I played in the railway modernisation of the 1960s.

One of Gateshead’s big ‘Sulzers’ an Eastern ‘Peak’, sadly failed, opens my account in late 1964. Here, some ten years later, a sister ‘Peak’ thunders out of Hadley South tunnel and through Hadley Wood station under the new overhead electric wires on the climb out of London, still in front-line ECML service but surely towards the end of her days. (Colour-Rail)

Gateshead ‘Peak’ D174, sister to the cause of my initial discomfort on the ‘Passenger Loco’, drops back past King’s Cross box onto a Summer 1965 departure in platform 5; both alert second-man and keen young enthusiast who’s ‘bunked’ onto York Road platform ‘keep a sharp look out’. (RCTS)

CHAPTER 1

KING’S CROSS - PASSED CLEANER

One of Gateshead’s big ‘Sulzers’, an Eastern ‘Peak’ (TOPS class 46), had failed, almost, but not quite, on King’s Cross ‘Passenger Loco’s’ exit stops, just enough for its north end bogie to be skewed on the curve of the approach road to the stops out of the shed yard. She had died completely, would not answer to the starter at all. They’d brought a ‘Brush-4’ (47) down on top of the failed ‘Peak’ in order to couple them. As there wasn’t room for the two big engines to approach the exit stops together, the ‘Brush’ would then drag the ‘Peak’ back into the middle of the shed yard before propelling out past the exit stops into the ‘milk-yard’ - usually the way onto the shed - thence ‘rightaway’ to ‘Clarence Yard’, Finsbury Park TMD; an apparently easy solution to an inconvenient situation. But when the ‘Brush’ came up to the skewed north end of the ‘Peak’ to be coupled, of course the ‘Brush’s’ south end was also skewed on the curved approach to the exit stops, thus while buffers touched on the inside of the curve, a considerable gap yawned between the outside buffers of the two locos. It was somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. on a mercifully dry November morning in 1964 when one of King’s Cross MPD’s rawest recruits was sent down from the crew room on platform 10 (today’s 8) to assist in the resolution of this situation. Passed-cleaner Hill, the foreman called into the room where some half dozen shed-duty men whiled away their time, some hoping something would turn up, others, with only a couple of hours to go, fervently hoping the rest of their shift would not produce a job. It was my first duty in the exalted capacity of ‘passed cleaner’, having only the week before passed out in basic signalling, hand and lamps, and had been deemed capable of preparing and running locomotive steam heating boilers, and, as I was about to find out in no uncertain manner, of coupling locomotives to trains and together. I stood up attentively. Go down to the ‘Passenger Loco’, continued the ‘inside foreman’, and act as a rider on a failed engine to Clarence Yard. Even with my 25 years, a lifetime, of railway enthusiasm, I wasn’t exactly sure what this order involved, but obediently descended the stairs from the room and walked quickly along to the end of platform 10.

I could see the two big engines standing together just off the shed exit stops as I walked down the platform 10/11 end slope and approached the little knot of men gathered round the junction between the two locomotives. I saw the shed running foreman, the ‘outside foreman’, and declared myself, name, rank and mission. Ah, well, said foreman Alf, before you do your riding you’ll have to do a spot of coupling, get in there, he indicated the dark and dirty gap between the ends of the two big diesels with a wave of his ‘bardic’ hand lamp, and tie these two together.

I looked into the dark, cramped place beyond the buffers, between the locomotive couplings, lit fitfully in the beam of the foreman’s wavering lamp, looked briefly back at the foreman, round the circle of cold, unsympathetic faces, then ducked under the buffers into that black hole, crouching between the two big coupling hooks, also cold and unsympathetic, on each side. Take the Brush’s brake hose off first, came a voice from the outside world as I reached up to do just that; to unship the assisting engine’s brake hose from its plate on the engine’s buffer-beam, thus making sure that the brakes would remain applied no matter what any idiot in the cab might do, and so further ensuring that the ‘Brush’ would not move - which eventuality could make conditions between the two engines very much more uncomfortable! I pivoted round, back towards the Brush, and unhooked the ‘Peak’s hose in turn - just in case she came to life and made an unexpected move back towards the shed! The two fat hoses hung opposite each other like two elephant trunks reaching for a proffered bun, and still further restricting room to work in the cramped gap. I knew that once I’d hooked the engines together I would have to couple the two hoses together when, hopefully, the ‘Brush’ would then be able to release all brakes and so move the ‘Peak’ - after I had wriggled out from between the engines! From the shouts of advice directed from the waiting group of enginemen outside it was obvious that they were convinced that I was unaware of this necessary order of events. Closing my ears to the shouts I took hold of the top link of the ‘Brush’s heavy coupling chain which was correctly stowed on its hook on the buffer beam, heaved it forwards and upwards to drop over the ‘Peak’s hook, but it didn’t reach and fell back with a clang against the buffer beam, narrowly missing my braced knee in the process, then hung, swaying slightly from its attachment on the engine’s drawbar, cold, unsympathetic and liberally covered in grease and lube, some of which had already transferred itself to me. I turned my back half towards the Brush, stooped, and again took hold of the first link of the dangling coupling chain; lifted with both hands, offered the coupling across the gap towards the Peak’s hook, but the end of the coupling scraped up the curved point of the other locomotive’s hook and stopped before it reached the top as the whole chain came up taught, would not reach, was too short. The full weight of the chain became too much for my tensed arms as I expected the chain to drop over the hook and so take its weight off them; but I dropped it again and, again, it narrowly missed my tensed legs as it clanged back against the buffer beam.

‘Brush’ ‘Type-4’s became a familiar sight from Land’s End to Thurso. A ‘Brush-4’ rescued the failed ‘Peak’ during my first eventful shift. Here D1511 is brand new in that handsome two-tone green at Finsbury Park TMD on 20th March 1963. (RCTS)

Unscrew it, yelled a voice from the outside group. Try the Sulzer’s chain, advised another. And, indeed, I did try everything. I unscrewed the great links of the Brush’s filthy coupling chain and tried to sling it, again, without success; I heaved off the ‘Peak’s chain, unscrewed and slung it at the ‘Brush’s hook, all the time knowing that the chains would never reach because of the way the locos’ bogies were skewed on the curved road, the great gap between the far-side buffers; surely ‘they’ could see that, but who was I, new recruit, passed cleaner, to advise all these experienced locomen who gawped and shouted at me from their own outside world?

What’s goin’ on? The whole jobs stopped. It was a new voice above the babble, Well, why doesn’t one of you go in there and give him a hand? A new face peered in at me as I gripped a greasy coupling once more and prepared my aching, shaking arms for another throw. I recognised Johnny Wissen, a tall young driver, not long passed out, who I’d exchanged a few words with up in the room but never really spoken to - well, on a first night shift, with my peers all on days, I hadn’t said many words to anybody! Johnny bent his long height in two and pushed his way into my cramped, greasy and, by now, sweaty, world. He surveyed the scene, dappled by the fitful gleam of the ‘bardic’ lamps shining in from that world outside.

I reckon, said Johnny, that if we both take hold of the ‘Brush’s coupling, between us we can just about get it on that hook. His head nodded towards the dead ‘Peak’, looming large over us in the gloom. Can you get over the other side?

I doubled myself up once more.

How long have you been here? asked Johnny as I crept underneath the cold cruel hooks and those elephant-trunk hoses.

Dunno, lost track of time, I replied, now facing Johnny across the hooks, between the hoses, with that wretched gap between the far buffers behind me.

No, said Johnny patiently, at ‘The Cross’, on the job?

Well, I replied as we automatically took hold of each side of the coupling link, a month or so’s cleaning and this is my first shift passed out.

After three, said Johnny, did the count, 1-2-and-3 and heave, and the coupling scraped over that cruel hooked point and dropped with a satisfying ‘clank’ into the shank.

Well, said Johnny Wissen, "let’s screw it up tight and get out of here. A bloke would have to be a sight bigger and stronger than you or me to heave that over on his own."

We screwed up the coupling, clipped the brake hoses together and rejoined the group outside, back in the big real world. I followed Johnny Wissen out and, hard on his heels though I was, Johnny was already in full flow, turning the big real world blue, as I straightened up beside him.

This man, Johnny Wissen was saying, is working his very first shift, you all must know he hasn’t been around for long, yet you send him in there to couple up two skewed engines - on his own - don’t even try to help when anyone can see a man with fifty years’ service couldn’t sling that hook on his own. What a lot of horrible, useless, b - - - - - - s. Johnny went on at great length using many a pithy adjective along the way; men slowly melted away, most of the crowd had trapped locos to get off the shed, in fact there must, by now, be locos in the station waiting to get onto the shed, even in these wee small hours. The crew on the assisting ‘Brush’ were already ‘making a brake’ and preparing to move the sulking ‘Sulzer’, and Johnny Wissen’s audience dwindled down to the engine-movements crew who could move no engines until the Brush had taken the Sulzer out of the way, and were enjoying meantime the spectacle of foreman Alf, mouth agape, being dressed down by a very junior driver in the company of a very grubby, greasy and extremely junior passed-cleaner.

With a sudden loud and satisfying hiss the brakes of both engines came off and the big ‘Sulzer’ groaned in self-pity as the ‘Brush’ eased her gently away from the stops. The Brush’s driver stopped the movement and climbed down in order to change ends before dragging the Sulzer back into the shed yard and then propelling back into the ‘milk-yard’ and so gaining the down slow road into Gasworks tunnel. She’ll roll now, Alf, he called to the foreman as his second man walked back into the yard to set the road.

Further intervention by Johnny Wissen and the agreement of a homeward-bound fitter to ride in the Sulzer to Clarence Yard (luckily no union reps witnessed this transaction) saw me and driver Wissen return to the crew room for a clean-up and a welcome ‘mash’ of tea. Johnny had no rostered second man that night so young driver and even younger passed cleaner stayed and chatted as a team for the rest of the night although no other jobs came their way.

And thus my first shift as ‘passed cleaner’ at King’s Cross M. P. D. I had started cleaning at King’s Cross on the 16th of November 1964 after a transfer amidst considerable shows of amazement and incredulity by clerical colleagues and superiors in the Midland Region’s Audit Office in Melton House, Watford, together with much head shaking and ‘here he goes again’ comments from friends and family. But an advertisement for ‘second men’ at King’s Cross Motive Power Depot, British Railways, King’s Cross, in our local Potters Bar Press offered an invitation to realise a long outstanding ambition - and off I went.

My visions of climbing all over diesel locomotives with hoses, buckets of water, swabs, cloths, heavy duty detergent and the like were soon shattered, perhaps with relief, when the cleaning turned out to consist in merely scrubbing locomotive cab floors and cleaning cab windows in the ‘Passenger Loco’; heavy external cleaning of diesel locomotives already being mechanised. The rank of ‘engine cleaner’ had become a short-term introductory grade to a ‘footplate’ career, although the honourable word ‘footplate’ was now much scorned by the ex-steam men - and that included all of the drivers, whether newly passed shed-duty or top-link Newcastle ‘lodge’ men. But I would soon discover that, as with so many innovations, new methods of operation could not be put in place overnight and in the mid-1960s diesel locomotives were still to a great extent maintained on traditional principals which had evolved during more than a century of everyday steam usage.

And so, after this dramatic introductory shift, things settled into a steady routine of jobs around The Cross, worked in shifts around the clock, 24/7, as they say today, repetitive jobs but never ever boring for me. As a ‘passed cleaner’ - meaning that I had passed the initial hand and lamp signalling tests, and had a basic idea of the different fixed signals which controlled the movement of trains upon the railway - I assisted in the ‘shed duty’, No.8 link, where the jobs were rostered under such exciting titles as: ‘As Required’, ‘Relief’, ‘Ferry’ and ‘Engine Movements’. By the dieselised mid-1960s these jobs all consisted of much the same activities, generally involving the ‘preparation’ or ‘disposal’ and movement of light engines around King’s Cross station and centred upon the extremely cramped loco refuelling and stabling shed, known as ‘The Passenger Loco’, squeezed between the north end of the suburban platforms and the mouth of Gasworks Tunnel on the west side of the station yard.

The ‘Power Box’ no longer dominates the approaches in this 1970s panorama as preparation for the ‘new electric railway’ gets under way at ‘The Cross’. A ‘Brush-4’ brings an express out of 5 while a ‘Type-2’ cousin is station-pilot, resting in the spur by York Road platform. The ‘Passenger Loco’ stands on the far right with the exit road coming into the down slow just beyond the covered refuelling road and the end slope from the ‘V’ of 10/11 beyond again. (Paul Hepworth)

The ‘Passenger Loco’ was opened in 1924 on land purchased from the Gas Light and Coke Company and replaced the loco-yard built initially in 1876 adjacent to the new suburban platform 11 outside the original west wall of the 1852 station and known as ‘Bottom Shed’. 1924 saw the final much needed expansion of King’s Cross Suburban, now an ‘add-on’ station west of the main terminus; the loco-yard was replaced by platforms 13 and 14, and so ‘Bottom Shed’ moved north to become the ‘Passenger Loco’.

‘Bottom Shed’, and then ‘Passenger Loco’, avoided the trip out to ‘Top Shed’, between the tunnels, for engines which could be turned and quickly returned to duty with a minimum of servicing. By diesel days the ‘Passenger Loco’ consisted of two refuelling roads and four cramped tracks for stabling between duties. Refuelling was carried out on the two easterly roads which stood each side of a row of low buildings comprising a range of rooms which provided accommodation for loco stores, engine-movement crews and fitters. The most easterly fuelling road was covered by a modern glass lean-to roof providing the only covered stabling on the depot and directly overlooking the slow roads from the suburban platforms as they entered the western portal of Gasworks Tunnel - which it was necessary for every locomotive to enter and reverse from in order to gain access either into or out of both depot and station.

On the far west, south, arrival, side of the ‘Passenger Loco’, opposite the departure stops, stood the ‘outside’ foremen’s neat modern office whence he could watch all arrivals and departures and plan refuelling, exiting and stabling strategies.

In this 1960s view of King’s Cross approaches viewed from the south-east, York Way, the signal box overlooks all, hiding the ‘Passenger Loco’ while the limited space between the platforms and Gasworks Tunnel can be appreciated. A DMU heads in from the tunnel to the suburban; a station-pilot waits a move in the ‘dead-end’, otherwise, the Cross is unusually quiet. (Paul Hepworth)

Another 1970s pre-electrification scene shows King’s Cross west side. A ‘Brush-2’ brings a suburban train from Moorgate out of platform 16 onto the down slow, the ‘add-on’ suburban station is left of the train, the ‘Passenger Loco’ right, while a ‘Brush-4’ powered EC express leaves 5. (Paul Hepworth)

‘Type-4’ ‘Sulzer’ 2,500h.p. 1Co-Co1. (TOPS 45/46). With the ‘EE-2.000s’ the first early B.R. ‘big’ diesel types, known as ‘Peaks’ in view of the names bestowed on the first 10 of a class total of 193. The ‘Peaks’ (45) were the mainstay of the Midland Main Line but Gateshead fielded half of the final 1961 batch (46) of 56 locos, represented here by D179 dropping back to the ‘Milk Yard’ past the ‘Passenger Loco’ exit in order to access the depot. The ‘outside’ foreman’s office in the left background. (RCTS)

King’s Cross ‘Passenger Loco’ - steam-days’ ‘Bottom Shed’; in the 1960s, unusually empty with ‘Deltic’, ‘Baby Deltic’ and ‘Sulzer-2’ nicely posed. A ‘Brush-4’ stands off in the background and the depot’s portable fuel tanks stand in ‘the corner’. (Colour-Rail)

As their turn came to leave, the ‘Passenger Loco’ locomotives were ‘prepared’ by a shed-duty crew who then moved the locomotive onto the departure stops, identified the loco to the signal box on the departure phone, then came off the ‘loco’, into Gasworks Tunnel – twice to get the east side! - then into the appropriate station platform to join its train. After coupling up by one of the station shunters the main line crew stepped aboard to take the train north, and we menial shed-duty lads returned to await our next ‘preparation’ or ‘disposal’. ‘Disposal’ worked in reverse to ‘preparation’, incoming main line crews were relieved on arrival in the station by a shed-duty crew who, when the loco was uncoupled and the coaches left the station, either as a north bound train but more usually as empty stock for service in the carriage sidings, took the locomotive onto the ‘Passenger Loco’ where, under the direction of the ‘outside’ foreman, it was refuelled, examined by the loco fitters, then ‘stood off’ by the ‘engine-movements’ crew until ‘preparation’ for its next duty. The intricate art of ‘engine movements’ will be looked at more closely when I come to practice it myself.

These ‘shed-duty’ jobs were the remnants of steam days practice and, with steam working completely eliminated south of Peterborough by 1964, operating procedures were in slow transition between the old and new practices and the needs of these two very different forms of motive power. ‘Shed-duty’ jobs had been a vital part of the care and maintenance of steam locomotives. The long, dirty and arduous process of preparing a steam engine for work; coaling and watering, building a good fire, raising steam, lubricating rods and motion; the equally dirty and heavy job of disposal when a locomotive came on shed after work; cleaning or dropping