We hope everyone's keeping well. This update will keep you up to speed with the most recent news on the Tracks through Grantham front as we wait for warmer, longer days and the prospect of some kind of normality returning.
New and Updated Website Pages
New Pages:
- Grantham station's new Booking Office of 1963 - a slightly extended version of the feature in Newsletter No. 10 of December 2020, with the benefit of some very welcome feedback from readers;
- the Grantham Railway Disaster of 19th September 1906 had calamitous consequences for the Robertson family as they travelled home to Scotland. There's a new page about how the fateful journey unfolded and its dreadful outcome here.
An Updated Page:
About halfway down the above page we have a report from the front page of The Grantham Journal of 17th July 1942 about the retirement of one of the signalmen:
Arthur Chalkley retires, 32 years a South Box Signalman
The report outlines Arthur's very active working and home life, leading us to ponder "What wouldn't we give to have an opportunity to talk to men like Arthur Chalkley, born in Great Ponton, railway signalman, NUR local branch secretary, Town Councillor, and much more besides."
Thanks to 'Google' the page was discovered recently by one of Arthur Chalkley's granddaughters. She has been in touch and sent us a wonderful family photograph which we have added beneath the newspaper report.
Further research has revealed that Rosamond Chalkley, Arthur's wife, was also active in local circles and in the mid-1930s she was president of the Grantham Branch of the NUR Women’s Guild (for the wives and daughters of railwaymen). We hope to have more in future.
A New Page in Preparation
On another front, our quest to encourage former Grantham spotters to tell us about their personal stories of visits to the station and other local railway locations has resulted in another set of nostalgic memories being passed over to us. This time Phil Wilson has sent over some of his notes and photographs that were taken by himself in and around the Grantham area during the early 1960s. These notes are currently being pieced together in readiness for a new article that will appear in ‘Spotters' Corner’ so please do look out for it.
Here's a taster...
Photograph taken by Phil Wilson.
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LNER and BR(E) Staff Magazines
A few years ago, as part of our ongoing research, we purchased two very useful DVDs from the Great Eastern Railway Society. The first DVD covers The LNER Magazine from 1927 to 1947, with the second one covering The British Railways (Eastern Region) Magazine from 1948 to 1963. These magazines contain an absolute wealth of information and after many months of painstaking work going through the numerous pages, we have now managed to extract all references to people and incidents that have a connection with Grantham. This also includes the other local stations that are situated within the boundaries of our Tracks through Grantham territory. To hopefully aid future research when developing new pages for the website, this information has been successfully transferred to a comprehensive searchable spreadsheet.
Grantham Station Buildings in Commercial Use
Various rooms in Grantham's station buildings are being used for commercial purposes these days.
Back in April 2016 the former First Class Waiting Room was converted into an estate agent’s office. It's been out of use again for a while, but there's currently a move to change it into a café .
The Whistle Stop micro pub opened in the old Parcels Office in November 2019. Currently it's closed on account of government restrictions, but we gather they hope to reopen their 'Platform Beer Garden' on 12th April.
Perhaps more unused areas of the station will find new roles in the future.
A Recent Magazine Article
If you've seen Steam World Issue 405, March 2021, you may have seen that there's some local interest:
- the cover photo is of Grantham's A3 No. 60056 Centenary at York in 1959;
- on pages 24-29 there's a feature by Nigel Harris titled Around Stoke Bank... It's a selection of black and white photos from the late 1950s and the mid-1960s, all taken by Philip Wells at a variety of locations between Essendine and Grantham.
Something you may be able to do for us...
While using the website, if you notice anything that needs putting right (such as a link that no longer goes to its intended destination, or something that's inaccurate or out-of-date) please send us a note. The site has become so extensive that we aren't able to carry out 'housekeeping checks' on every page as regularly as we used to. More pairs of eyes will be very welcome. Please use either the Leave a Reply form, which appears on most pages, or the Contact Form on this page.
With best wishes to everyone as we hopefully all 'spring forward',
John Clayson and Mel Smith