Walking the PE-GY

Memories from a private collection

by Jeremy Satherley

Just some of the name tabs from "dolly" lamps and signalling instruments, examples of which sit on shelves will bull-head and flat-bottomed rail sections, glass accumulators, culvert numerals, mercury pots and a thousand-and-one pieces of other railway hardware as a wonderful tribute to the self-sufficiency and in-house craftsmanship that kept the Midland & Great Northern Joint and its associated companies on the rails.

It takes us back to a railway world all of its own, where only afficionados know when a chair is not a chair, can tell their peggers from their non-peggers, and instantly recognise the term "PE-GY" as the codename for the Peterborough to Grimsby line, rather than a corruption of a girl's name.

But even with this knowledge, you can still stand and admire the mellow wooden control telephone cases, block bells, the signal arms in red-and-white enamel (including an early wooden "minor"), ranks of paraffin and carbide lamps, LNER tea towels, scrubbing brushes, a hedge cutting knife, straw bale books, fog detonators, guards whistles, stern but colourful cast iron notices threatening multi-shilling fines for not closing the gate, an engine coal hammer, M & GN uniform buttons, or brass identity tokens for collecting one's wages.

All these items and countless more were once everyday objects that would have been taken for granted. But if it hadn't been for the initiative of a south Lincolnshire railwayman who had the foresight and awareness to save these relics from the fire, skip or scrap heap as stations and lines closed, our local heritage would have been much the poorer.

However this is a private rather than a museum collection, so I am sure fellow enthusiasts will understand when I say that, given the vulnerability of our neighbourhoods to larceny nowadays, I would prefer not to name the collector or give his address. Let's just refer to him as SLR (south Lincs. railwayman) from now on, and be content at all this wonderful stuff that exists and is in the most caring of hands.

SLR recently retired after 50 years and 10 months service - a pretty impressive track record in these days of redundancies and downsizings - by which time his masters were GT Railway Maintenance Ltd. He began his career at a crucial time, as the railways were being nationalised and the M & GN itself had already been controlled by the LNER for 11 years. it reflected a period of mix-and-match, motley rolling stock and a general - some say deliberate - lack of investment in the Holland area of the line. This culminated in the closure of the passenger services in 1959 and a general winding down of goods traffic by the mid-1960s, after which SLR moved to Signals and Telegraph duties on the main line at Spalding, so for more than half his career, was in a constantly-recurring position of rescuing what was bein thrown out.

At Boston for instance, he saved from the flames "GNR Drawing No. 6 - Wrought Iron Signals - Details of Dolls and Ladder". Dated from 20th March 1919, this masterpiece from a draughtsman's board is a thing of simple beauty. The gantries and dollies (uprights) are picked out in a delicate china blue on a cream background; even a railway ignoramus would want to frame it as a fashionable enhancement of his or her room decor. Also included with this are countless vintage power supply and linework diagrams, some as blueprints on waxed linen, depicting among others the Claylake Box circuit. Morse apparatus is well represented, including Frankenstinesque equipment from Spalding displaying receivers for each part of the line, all suitably code-labelled as to their source. "PE-GY" as I have already defined, while the rest of the board is marked "NG-UI" (Spalding - Sleaford), "HF-LC" (March - Lincoln), "NG-K" (Spalding - King's Cross) and "NG-LV" (Spalding - Liverpool Street).

The first parrafin or "dolly" lamp ever cleaned by a very junior SLR is included with several others in the collection, some, like a Holbeach example, still with their brass station names attached. There were also known as eight-day lamps - an indication of their capacity - and were used to illuminate the signals, care being taken not to turn the wicks up too much to avoid over-sooting. The oldest lamp in the collection is a GNR example from the 1880s used at Sutton Bridge Junction. It is accompanied by a GN Boston swing bridge equivalent, while the example from the long-extinct Spalding No. 4 box is also of interest. Most are in excellent restored condition and can be made to work, including one of the carbide lamps.

Below there is a selection of signal return wire weights, ranging from 9lb upwards. "Some GNR versions weighed over a hundredweight and a half," commented SLR, His most treasured find in this category was a rare E & MR weight discovered between Welland Bridge and Spalding. There's a lot of weighty ironware on this shelf - wisely the bottom one - in the form of "chairs" which attached rails to sleepers. Like so much else of period railway hardware, they are conveniently personalised to the rail company and dated in raised lettering on their sides. There are three M & GN chairs dated 1907 and 1908 respectively, an 1882 GN version, while the oldest is a GN & GER, cast in 1880. Apparently the sidings in Sleaford were all at one time supported by M & GN chairs.

SLR invited me to try their considerable weight, and related how it was often in a day's work to load a great number of these by hand into a truck - excellent training for putting the shot ! I was particularly taken by the pair of miniature horns used by lookouts to warn trackmen of approaching trains. These looked like ornate Victorian objects fashioned in silver, but were in fact BR instruments finished in cromium. Equally intriguing and a pleasure to handle was a huge NE wooden rail clamp, the threads of which had been painstakingly unsiezed by SLR. An M & GN spanner of almost absurd size looked after the coach screws holding down the rails, while a giant E & MR screwdriver bore the name of its lineman owner, S. Curtis, on the blade - bo chance of "half inching" this one ! The presence of E & MR artefacts in such good condition is particularly significant, since the company was only in existence from 1882 to 1893 as part of the several amalgamations leading up to the formation of the M & GN Joint.

But SLR's hard labours didn't end with track work. Maintenance of telegraph poles and their wires was also an essential part of the brief, beginning with a regulr tapping of the poles at their base to check for hollowness. Leather straps were designed for use as temporary footholds, and scaling the poles was no mean feat, especially at Grantham where they could rise to 70ft or more. Wires often came down in the winter, and the worst stretches were Peterborough to Grimsby (coded, you will recall, "PE-GY"), and Spalding to Nottingham ("NG-NH"). "Many's the time we walked that Peggey stretch only to find that the trouble was at the far end," remarked SLR. And even in the pre-yob era, vandalism sometimes interfered: "I remember once finding that some kids had thrown a rope 'round the top of the wires and bunched them all together....."

There is a small stock of tablets - tokens passed between drivers and signalmen as a safety proceedure on single-line sections - some in solid brass, from Cross Keys Bridge, Long Sutton, Holbeach East, Moulton, Gedney, and Narborough and East Winch on the Norfolk side. Two of their leather carrying pouches have also been preserved. There is also a leather cash bag for sending ticket takings to a main station, sealed with wax beforehand.

There is a number of period timetables, a few in full size from station poster sites. There's a handbill promoting day returns to London in April 1936 at 5/6 (28p) return from King's Lynn - and exhorting you to "Save to travel by the instalment plan and make sure of your holidays". Meanwhile 4/6 (23p) was enough in September 1953 for a return 3rd class fare from Spalding to see the Skegness Illuminations. Mementoes, once routine items of no particular note, are now rich in interest, such as the one addressed to Spalding and Peterborough Accountants Office, dated 31st May, 1937,. It reads: "Disused Stable: Spalding M & GN. £6p.a., Geo. Dobson, Smithfield Market, Birmingham. Please arrange to collect 10/- (50p) monthly on account of the above-mentioned tenancy." Twop signal finials from this station, like outsize Prussian helmet spikes, arrest your attention. A BR (E) cattle-feed bucket from the Spalding pens also survives, in company with an LNER fire bucket, renovated to new appearance with an improvised wooden bottom.

Elsewhere, the many handbooks and instruction books testify to the enormous amount of knowledge a railman was expected top absorb. Rates are given for sending goods trucks of particular weights to all stations in the country from Surfleet, and M & GN's Loading of Freight Trains, 6th April 1936, advises that three and a half trucks loaded with ordinary goods, such as fruit, meat, fish and cattle, "must be reckoned as equal to two wagons opf minerals." Naturally, there is a pristine condition collection of M & GN cards intended for display on agon sides to identify the cargo, such as: "M & GN POTATOES 3 - to London Farringdon Street from Twenty."

The BR manual of Engine Whistle Codes, 27th April 1952, is a feast of information. Did you know, for instance, that at Grantham Barrowby Road Box, "Up express trains drawn by Pacific engines requiring water at Grantham Up platform" were to give "one long pause and three short" whistles, while Down freight trains "requiring to run through Newark without stopping" emitted "one crow and two long" !

And would you have expected a place like Cuckoo Junction to be suggestive of drama and romantic adventure ? It's all there in the Occurrence Book. A longhand note on Sunday, 30th July 1957 records: "Box struck by lightening at 10.6pm. Fused all electric lights." While on 9th May, 1958: "Seven Bells from Twenty at 4.29pm, door open in middle of train - 1.45 from Birmingham." Sounds like an alternative introduction to The Lady Vanishes, with Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne dashing through the corridors in a fruitless search ! That same chronicler, sighnalman Kenm Allen, adds a message of sad finality to the Cuckoo Junction Log Book on 1st March, 1959: "Points clamped in favour of Spalding direction. Stop signals removed and distant signals fixed at caution. Gate locking disconnected to enanble gates to be opened by train crew." Then, scrawled underneath in large letters, comes the denouement: "That's Yer Lot !".

There seemed no end to the treasure trove. I even found myself reading a 1933 copy of The Hotspur - ideal for browsing over in a c"Composite 3/3/1/1/3/Lav". However, tempus fugit. Back in the present, the GR clock above us, renovated with a roman-numeral BR face, ticked away. But the train of delights of which it is a part lives on, untouched by time. I am indebted to SLR for allowing the Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire Transport Review this exclusive opportunity to view.