Skip to content

Tag: Grantham

Published on Leave a comment on Stoke signal box

For our latest new page we move to one of the boundaries of the Tracks through Grantham 'sphere of interest' in terms of railway geography and infrastructure.

'Stoke Bank' is a legendary location, comprehensively written into East Coast Main Line history as one of the world's most renowned railway racing stretches where speed records have been made and broken.

But what about the signal box at the start of the descent (or, equally, at the summit of the ascent from both directions)?  Many a train timer's stopwatch has clicked there, but few travellers spared much of a thought for the men on duty at Stoke box as they sped past.  Many a loco crew, short of steam on a poor engine, have been thankful when the gradient changed from adverse to favourable as they exchanged a wave with the signalman at the isolated outpost.

Derek Steptoe's evocative memories of the box introduce a fine selection of photographs by Mike Mather and Noel Ingram.

Published on

Fred Harris joined the railway at Grantham in August 1955.  He achieved promotion to driver nearly 30 years later in April 1985, hence the title of the story of his working life on the railway.  Read how a youthful Fred and his driver peered into dense fog one night from the footplate of a slowly advancing 'Tango', looking for signals that were no longer there.  How does a footplate crew respond as a 'Green Arrow' begins to self-destruct at speed on the East Coast Main Line?  Enjoy with Fred a week away at Bridgnorth refreshing his steam skills.  All this and more in our latest new page.

Published on Leave a comment on Another Barkston Discovery

Humphrey Platts recently discovered another very attractive photograph, one of a series of three he took while at Barkston Station one day in the 1950s.  We've just added it to his Gallery page - scroll down to the third image following the introduction.

Published on Leave a comment on Ironstone Mining Rediscoveries

Keeping an eye on the user statistics for Tracks Through Grantham we're used to seeing an occasional surge in interest when we publish a new page.  However, around the middle of July there was a sudden spike in our viewing figures which wasn't set off by new content.  It was thanks to a favourable mention on RMweb of our Railways Rediscovered pages (about the former Woolsthorpe Branch) that, for a period of three days we practically trebled our normal readership.*  If you'd like to see what the RMweb contributors had to say you can find the start of the thread here.

Also recently, Richard Marshall was in touch, leaving a comment on our page The Woolsthorpe Branch Rediscovered – Part 2 and subsequently he sent us some photographs of a building which was connected with the ironstone quarries and remains standing today, near Harston.  You can discover the building by scrolling down to near the bottom of this page.

(* We should clarify that the site stats do not tell us who our users are.  They give the total number of views of each page per day and some indication of how those users have found Tracks through Grantham.)

Published on Leave a comment on Touring Rural Railway Byways

We've said before that often we can't predict where the next idea for a new page on Tracks Through Grantham will appear.

When we showed a page from the Railways Rediscovered section of the Tracks Through Grantham website at our last meeting in Grantham, it led to a short discussion about rail tours which visited the various former ironstone branches, and about which lines had been travelled over on which tours.

In the few weeks since then we've been on the trail of information and photographs, which are assembled in our latest page Rail Tour Rambles round Grantham.

Published on Leave a comment on Leicester Lads found a View from a Bridge

Bob has recently been in touch with an enquiry.

I know I am clutching at straws but here goes!  In the early '60s my friend and I used to travel from Leicester to Grantham trainspotting.  They are fondly remembered days.  We used to walk to a road bridge, climb up the slope at the side and sit on the fence at the top.  The sheds were close by on our left with the main line in front.  I think the road was the route through Grantham to the east coast.
Is it possible that one of your members may have a photo showing either the bridge with a loco beyond or above, or maybe a picture of spotters at the location?
Any help much appreciated.

Exchanging a few emails, and with clues picked up from Mike Bacon's page in Spotters' Corner, we worked out that the bridge over Springfield Road was a perfect match.  Bob kindly filled in a little more background, and we had the nucleus of our latest page: How we discovered Springfield Road Bridge.

One of the pleasures of developing the content of Tracks through Grantham is that sometimes we don't know where the material for our next new page is going to come from ... but we can be sure that something will always show up!  So if you have a memory or a query and have been thinking about sending it, don't hold back any longer!

Published on Leave a comment on Grantham Railway Timeline

We have just added a "Grantham Railway Timeline" to record interesting and notable events in and around the area. This covers the period from 1850 to the present day. We still have lots of gaps to fill in so if you have anything "interesting and notable" that we could perhaps include within this section and want to share it, then just let us know - use the 'Comment' box below. Here's a link to the page.