The Illustrated Goods Life – Part 1

We were pleased to welcome Stewart Smith to our meeting on 17 November giving a presentation on The Illustrated Goods Life - Part 1. Upon leaving school Stewart settled on a career on the railways and started work in 1974 as the Goods Inwards Full Loads Clerk at Eastleigh Town Yard where the main traffic handled was copper ingots for the local Pirelli factory and white goods. This job enabled him to photograph the local freight traffic which included Class 52 Westerns on stone trains and trainloads of Ford Transits. A move to Waterloo followed in 1975. This provided many opportunities for photographing the passenger trains from the offices at Waterloo and the surrounding area so we were treated to shots of 4-SUBs, 4-EPBs, the prototype 4-PEP and Class 50s.

Stewart’s career later took him to Euston which provided the opportunity to visit the Liverpool and Warrington areas where the freight included chemicals and fertilizer traffic. A move to Crewe beaconed where parcels and Freightliner trains were seen, and work-related travel took him to Manchester, Carlisle, and Mossend where freight trains and passenger stock such as 142s, 156s, and 158s could be photographed.

The evening concluded having reached the year 1989 when a freight exhibition was held at Cricklewood which showed how the industry expected to develop over the coming years, though most of the ideas such as mini link containers and lorries depositing their trailers on trains for onward shipment failed to take off.

Thanks to Stewart for a most entertaining evening which showed the goods life was a good life. We look forward to hearing another instalment of his career at a later date.