A Driver’s Eye View – 48 Years on the Railway

Tonight, we thank Andy Grimmett for his presentation “A Drivers Eye View – 48 years on the Railway”, having arrived in Hitchin amid a torrential downpour, with parts of the station car park flooded and the slow drive to the venue on water-logged roads. Nevertheless it was a very worthwhile journey, as the presentation was full of very unusual content, compared to most of our meetings. Andy was at Stratford (London) from 1974 for over twenty years, and much longer still on the railways in the area. We started the evening looking at a shot of a permanent way gang track laying in 1962 the old-fashioned way with pick & shovel, no high viz jackets or high-tech equipment. This is where the evening changed, for us, now looking at many innovative wagons & equipment used for track laying, re-ballasting, OHL replacement and many other infrastructure tasks on the system. Andy told us many “secrets” of the job along with photographs of the modern equipment & its special capabilities, whether it's tipping ballast, unloading track, lifting track, ballast cleaning, transporting vehicles to site. Much of the work shown was in the Stratford, Temple Mills, Liverpool Street areas or along the line towards Chelmsford, as a Stratford driver this was Andy’s favoured route, as was his love for the class 31’s, 37’s & 47’s he drove in the area. We also saw odd restored wagons, converted guard’s vans and much more from museums etc. around the country. A fascinating and very different evening for our members, from a very knowledgeable, enthusiastic speaker who obviously loved his work.

Dave Elsdon
Branch Secretary