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Tag: Grantham station

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Hello all,

If you were able to get along to our last meeting at the Grantham Railway Club you'll have heard Nick Pigott, the longest-serving editor of The Railway Magazine, relate in fascinating detail how the seeds of his future career in railway journalism were firmly planted when, as a small boy, he was standing with his mother beside the W.H. Smith & Son bookstall on the southbound main line platform of Grantham station.

Nick has kindly offered us the opportunity to publish his specially written recollections on our website, and you will find them here.

We’ve included photographs and other images which support the story.

It’s well worth a read, whether or not you heard it ‘live’ in April.

Regards,

John and Mel

PS: if you find images reluctant to load on the page please try the 'Refresh' button or equivalent in your browser.

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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...

'Tulip Time' - Manchester to the Bulb Fields in May 1960

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.

From King's Cross to Grantham 'Under the Train' in June 1898

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.

Header image: a train from London King's Cross to Manchester London Road pauses at Grantham in the 1890s.  The Great Northern Railway locomotive will hand over to a Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway engine for travel onward via Retford, Sheffield and Penistone.

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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.

Published on Leave a comment on When a Troop Train called for Refreshments at Grantham in 1900

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.

Published on Leave a comment on Interlude at Grantham – a recent magazine photo feature

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

Published on Leave a comment on Marking LNER’s 100-year Anniversary at Grantham station
Above: LNER staff at Grantham in 1920s costume with the CENTURY Azuma train (named at York on 15th May) passing by on the main line (The Grantham Journal)

On Thursday 28th September there was a big surprise in store for people travelling through Grantham station.

During 2023 today's LNER has been celebrating  the centenary of the formation of the original L&NER, on 1st January 1923.  There have already been events at some of the route's major centres of operation, but the company wanted to include one of the smaller stations in the programme and they chose Grantham.  Penny Bond, LNER Internal Communications Manager, explained that "The event is about celebrating our centenary with our customers, who are the very heart of our business."

Tracks through Grantham supporters were invited, and between 09.00 and 13.00 we were treated to:

  • a jazz band playing 1920s music
  • LNER staff from across the business dressed in 1920s attire
  • an exhibition of photos from the 1960s in one of the customer lounges (waiting rooms) prepared with the support of Tracks through Grantham
  • a newspaper stand with a copy of the LNER Gazette with LNER facts and history
  • historian David Turner in attendance to talk to people about railway history
  • a group of re-enactment actors playing 1920s passengers
  • re-printed LNER posters from 1923-1924  on display
  • London King’s Cross customers receiving replica ticket modelled on a 1923 Edmondson-style ticket.
Left to right: Becky, normally an LNER dispatcher at Newark, in the role of 'Mabel', a 1920s housewife; an on-duty LNER dispatcher at Grantham; an LNER colleague in the role of a 1920s soldier ('Mabel's husband'); Sharon Wyatt, LNER Station Delivery Manager at Grantham.

LNER's Managing Director, David Horne, was present throughout, and the Mayor of Grantham, Councillor Mark Whittington, called in.

Centre: Penny Bond, LNER Internal Communications Manager; right: David Horne, LNER Managing Director.

To see or hear more of what went on follow these links to online and broadcast coverage, including photographs and video:

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With the kind permission of the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) we are very pleased to re-publish, here on Tracks through Grantham, an article written by John F. Clay in 1966 for The Railway Observer.  The article draws on the author's extensive local knowledge as he relates how the town and its people contributed, collectively and individually, to fostering the widespread recognition of Grantham as a premier railway centre on the East Coast Main Line. 

The writer concludes by pondering the desolate, cleared site of the loco sheds and yard, querying the wisdom of 'Dieselisation' and wondering, from the perspective of the mid-1960s with the prospect of continuing post-Beeching closures, what future profile the railway would have in Grantham.

This link will take you directly to the page:

Grantham - The Rise and Decline of a Railway Centre

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At Tracks through Grantham we've been discussing how we might 'do our bit' to mark the close of the modern Elizabethan era.

It was in 1953 that the world's longest regular non-stop train service was retitled The Elizabethan to mark the coronation of the new monarch, HM Queen Elizabeth II.  Since we heard Richard Cumming's presentation Steam on The Elizabethan 1953-1961 at our meeting in October 2021 it's been on our minds to feature The Elizabethan on our website.  Now seems an opportune moment to realise this aim.

So we've gathered together photographs of The Elizabethan train service in the Grantham area from our website image library for a new page called At the Dawn of a New Era: ‘The Elizabethan’ in and around Grantham.  We think it’s an appropriate gesture and we hope you agree.

You can find the new page here, in our website's Traffic and Trains section.

All the best,

John Clayson and Mel Smith

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It's time for our second selection of photographs taken exactly 60 years ago on one of a series of visits to Grantham station by my father and me.

The Tracks through Grantham time machine takes us back to Thursday 16th August 1962.  Go to the Sixty Years and Counting header page and scroll down to the link.

John Clayson

Published on Leave a comment on Sixty years and counting: Grantham station photographs on their diamond anniversary

We're publishing some new pages of photographs taken at Grantham in the early 1960s.  Each group of pictures was taken on a visit made to the station by my father and me on a Thursday afternoon, and it will appear in a new page on or around the 60th anniversary of the trip.  The time span is between August 1961 and July 1964.  Our visits took place between spring and autumn, on 19 occasions in total.

The photos will be added to the Grantham Railway Galleries section of our website.  To find the first group, from Thursday 12th July 1962, go to the header page and scroll down to the link.

On the header page, with the note of each new group of pictures, there will be an invitation to look out for the next group.

We hope you enjoy the photos as they appear.

John Clayson