railway people and places
We’ve launched a new page titled ECML Electrification in the 1980s in the Looking after the Line section. It ‘does what it says on the tin’ by illustrating some of the work involved 40 years or so ago to prepare the main line through the Grantham area for the introduction of electric trains.
We've also rejigged the recently published 'parent' page Looking after the Line.
These newly launched pages take us back to 1960 and 1898. Though separated in time by more than 60 years, curiously both have a connection with Manchester...
A handbill promoting a day excursion from stations in the Manchester area to Grantham, where motor coaches were waiting for a tour of the Lincolnshire bulb fields.
The extraordinary story of a London carriage examiner who unintentionally travelled 105 miles to Grantham while trapped beneath one of the carriages of a Manchester-bound train.
Our most recent new page takes a look at a vital activity, the maintenance and renewal of railway track - 'the permanent way' - in the Grantham area.
In 1950s and 1960s, with the adoption of continuous welded rail on the main lines, mechanised methods of track maintenance and renewal were being introduced in parallel with manual techniques practiced since the 1840s, when railways developed as a national network.
Looking after the Line compares the old with examples of the more recent: the complete renewal of the Down Main Line at Grantham South in the 1980s and of the track through Gonerby Tunnel in 2016.
We are grateful to retired railway civil engineer Eric Jeyes for his interest and contribution of photographs and explanation.
We've just added a new page to the Tracks through Grantham website. It's all about the memories and recollections of two people who, quite literally, lived right next to the railway. You can read more here.
Season's Greetings to all our friends and contributors! Thank you for your support and encouragement during 2025. Lookout for new content to be added during 2026 and, as always, your continued feedback and ideas are most welcome.
Dear Friends,
Further to our previous post, Fred’s grand-daughter Debbie has asked us to circulate information about his funeral and to say, on behalf of his family, that all who wish to join them in remembering Fred are very welcome to attend.
Fred’s funeral will be held at Grantham Crematorium on Monday 21st July at 1.30pm, and it will be followed by a wake at the Railway Club.
Details of the venues are as follows:
An obituary notice can be found on the website of Robert Holland Funeral Director here, including contact details for messages, donations etc.
We’ll be grateful if you will forward the above information to anyone you’re aware of who may have known Fred, especially if they are not contactable by Tracks through Grantham.
PS. The date of Fred’s passing was incorrect in some versions of our previous message. It was Thursday 3rd July.
Regards,
Mel & John
Dear friends,
We have been very saddened to hear, from his grand-daughter Debbie, the news that Fred Harris passed away on Thursday 3rd July 2025.
When he was able, it was good to see him regularly attending and enjoying our bi-annual gatherings at the Grantham Railway Club. During the lunchtime interval Fred’s beckoning finger would always guarantee a previously unrecorded, often amusing anecdote about his life on the railway. The original foundation stones of our Tracks through Grantham project are built around the many personal railway stories that people like Fred kindly related to us.
Fred’s working life on British Railways began on Monday 15th August 1955 at Grantham, heralding the start of a near 48 year shift and during which he saw many changes. When he retired in 2004 Fred was qualified for driving and firing steam locomotives on the national network as well as a good range of more modern traction. He had widespread route knowledge based on Peterborough. Here is a link to the page on our website where Fred relates the story of that railway life.
Thanks for the memories Fred…..
Regular readers of the monthly magazine BackTrack may have seen a story about Grantham in the April and June issues. The story appears in a series of articles titled Britain's Railways and the Boer War 1899-1902.
The April issue includes, on page 213 in Part One of the article, an Edwardian photograph of Grantham station (which may be familiar as it appears on the Tracks through Grantham website).
Part Two appears in the June issue and describes (on page 346) how a train carrying members of the West Riding Regiment Volunteers, travelling from Halifax to board a vessel at Southampton for South Africa, arrived at Grantham at 3am to be met with a generous supply of refreshments to cheer them on their way.
The April issue also includes, in a feature The LNER in Colour, two photographs of A3 No. 2582 Sir Hugo in the down side engine spur at Grantham (on the front cover and page 224).
Current and previous issues of BackTrack, if not available at newsagents, can be ordered online here.
In its February and March 2025 issues the magazine British Railways Illustrated (BRILL) featured an article titled Interlude at Grantham by Roderick Fowkes. In each issue there are six pages of black and white photographs taken at or near Grantham in the mid-1950s by the late M.E. Kirk. Many of the pictures show the same stationary passenger train before and after a locomotive change has taken place. However, some have added interest. For example, an O4 seen on an ironstone train from High Dyke where each of the first four wagons visible is of a different design, all bottom-discharge and including one with a wooden body; by the 1960s this traffic was being handled with a fleet of standard steel wagons of 'tippler' type.
Two of the pictures feature C12 4-4-2Ts on station pilot duty.
Two of the photographs were taken some miles north of Grantham, but the caption writer hasn't identified the locations; they are a B1-hauled fish train approaching Clensey Lane bridge from the north (p262) and the Royal Train with A3 No. 60044 Melton passing Hougham northbound (p265).
John Clayson
Our next get-together for people interested in Tracks through Grantham will take place in Grantham in mid-April. These events are an opportunity to meet for a few hours to enjoy a varied and, we hope, informative programme. Our meetings are usually held twice a year, in spring and autumn.
If you are already on our list of email and postal contacts you should recently have received the meeting programme and invitation. Please remember to let us know if you hope to be with us.
If you are interested in attending but haven't received a programme/invitation please get in touch, using the Contact Form here, providing your name and email address along with either a phone number or a postal contact address. We will add you to our list of email contacts and send a programme and invitation which gives the date, time and venue. It will also request a reply if you intend to join us.
We don't publish the meeting details for all to see on the website because both we and our host venue need to know how many people to expect.
The programme this time will include presentations on named trains which ran through Grantham in the early 1960s, on the stories of two women who were brought together by fate as a result of the Grantham rail disaster of 1906, and on how the pastime of trainspotting attracted hordes of boys to the station in the 1950s and 1960s.
For several months some users of our website have been experiencing poor loading of images. The main symptom has been blank white rectangles appearing where images should be. Thanks to some really valuable advice and suggestions we think this problem may largely be sorted. However, to be more certain we’d appreciate some feedback on our website’s current performance so, if you have a few moments, please open some pages and check whether images appear where they are supposed to. If you experience problems please get in touch using the Contact Form on this page, briefly describing the symptoms, and tell us the type of device you are using and whether you are in the UK or elsewhere in the world. At this point there’s no need to be any more specific; we will get back to you if it will be helpful to know more.