Shadows in the Steam

by David Brandon

  The late Sir John Betjeman neatly captured the feeling of the Fens at night with these lines from A Lincolnshire Tale in his New Bats in Old Belfries published in 1945:

  The remoteness was awful, the stillness intense,

  Of invisible fenland, around and immense;

  The line through French Drove which once witnessed the romantic boat train that ran from Harwich Parkeston Quay to Liverpool suffered as the volume of coal and general freight traffic on the railways declined in the 1970s. The boat train itself was diverted away to travel via Peterborough and Nottingham in 1973, and the rot then really set in, the local passenger services between March and Spalding being withdrawn in 1982. The last freight trains followed not long after.

  Grantham

  A horrific accident occurred at Grantham on a September night in 1906. An Anglo-Scottish express conveying sleeping carriages, ordinary passenger accommodation and some parcel-vans had left King’s Cross at 20.45 and called only at Peterborough where a relief footplate crew and fresh locomotive took over. It was a calm and clear night, the train was on time and the two men on the footplate were known to be steady and conscientious. The locomotive was a large-boilered Great Northern Ivatt Atlantic, No.276, which was a ‘good-un’ and in tip-top mechanical condition. The next scheduled stop was Grantham, about thirty-five minutes away.

  The station staff at Grantham were making ready for the train’s arrival and a handful of passengers were standing waiting, poised, if at all possible, to find empty compartments and compose themselves for undisturbed sleep. To the consternation of all on the platform, the train entered the platform road at a speed of about 40mph, clearly with no intention of stopping. Consternation quickly turned to horror and dread as the train took the turn-out for the Nottingham line and then a reverse curve. The tender derailed, hitting the parapet of a bridge and making a sound like an explosion followed by a sickening and never-to-be-forgotten series of crunching and wrenching noises as the rest of the train piled up behind it. Some of the carriages tumbled down the embankment and caught fire. Even the carriages left on the track ignited as burning coal from the firebox flew in all directions. They were, of course, all wooden-bodied in those days. Driver and fireman, eleven passengers and a postal sorter lost their lives.

  No satisfactory explanation for the accident was ever given in spite of the usual scrupulous inquiry and report. The signals at the north end of the platform were at danger to allow a goods train from the Nottingham direction to have the road onto the Peterborough line, crossing the path of the Anglo-Scottish express. The distant signal protecting these points had correctly been set at caution, but the express, which all the witnesses said had not applied its brakes, went through the danger signals and then fatally took the tracks to Nottingham. These points were of course interlocked with those from the Nottingham direction, and were not intended to be taken at such a speed, but it was almost certainly the following reverse curve that caused the train to derail with such disastrous consequences. ‘Explanations’ varied from the driver and fireman mistaking where they were as the train approached Grantham, driver and fireman engaged in a fight to the death on the footplate, and one or other of them suddenly being taken ill and his mate going to assist him. All these were rendered unlikely given the evidence of the signalman in Grantham South signal box, that when the train passed him both men were correctly at their posts on either side of the footplate observing the line ahead through the windows in the front of the locomotive’s cab. When all possible explanations had been eliminated, the impossible kicked in and there were suggestions that the driver and fireman had been mesmerised by the appearance of a ghost. The exact truth about the accident at Grantham will never be known.

  About twenty years later a keen student of locomotive performance caught a train from London to York. The locomotive was the old 276, now renumbered as LNER 3276. It was a very undistinguished run and the train was about ten minutes late into York. It was not scheduled to stop at Grantham and the observer was very puzzled by the fact that the train slowed to little more than 20mph as it passed through Grantham, even though all the signals were clear. At York he spoke to the driver and asked him why he had proceeded so slowly through Grantham. The driver unblushingly told him that 3276 was a jinxed locomotive and with that particular day being the anniversary of the Grantham smash, he had taken no chances just in case the engine decided to take the wrong road once more. No drivers or firemen mourned the day that No.3276 went off to be scrapped at Doncaster Works.

  Grantham Station looking south. The accident occurred on the curve behind the photographer.

  Grimsby

  In its heyday, Grimsby was probably the largest fishing port in the world. It owed its importance to the railways. In 1845 parliamentary authority was given to proposals for a number of lines in north Lincolnshire which would link up with a projected line to Sheffield. These lines went on to become part of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, and this in turn became the Great Central Railway. The other company that gained rail access to Grimsby was the Great Northern, and this was by means of the East Lincolnshire line from Peterborough through Spalding, Boston and Louth. The MS&LR opened the first fish dock at Grimsby in 1856. By the 1890s Grimsby was handling a quarter of all the rail-borne fish traffic in England and Wales. In conjunction with the development of steam-powered trawlers, the railways effected a huge improvement in the diet of the British working class because they made fresh fish relatively cheap and available across the whole of the country.

  Trains of special vans for the fresh fish traffic were marshalled in sidings between Grimsby and Cleethorpes. These trains were continuously braked so that they could run at the high speed which was necessary given the perishable nature of the payload, the brakes of course being controlled by the driver in the locomotive. For the brakes to work, the vacuum pipes of all the wagons had to be carefully connected to each other and that on the leading van to the locomotive’s tender. The problem was that a section of the sidings where these trains were made up developed a sinister reputation in the 1950s, so much so that some men refused to work in them on the night shift.

  The following is an example of the kind of thing that happened all too frequently. One night the shunter had connected up all the pipes, working as quickly as he could because he never liked the atmosphere in this part of the yard. He could never quite put his finger on why he had this feeling. On this particular night it seemed more menacing than ever. When the driver tested the pressure, it was evident that one or more of the vacuum pipes on the vans were not properly connected. Another shunter went along the train and couldn’t find any problem. Still the pressure was way below that required. The engine driver was getting impatient as the time for departure was looming, and these trains were tightly timed. A third shunter volunteered to examine the connections, and as he left the comforting presence of the others he felt as if there was some unseen and malevolent being ready to waylay him. This feeling became stronger and stronger, and it did not help when the light in his powerful torch started flickering and then dimmed. His sense that something sinister was there was bad enough, but then an awful stench assailed his nostrils. It was the stench of bodily corruption. He could not find anything amiss with the connections and he made his way back, almost running, such was his state of mind. The driver checked the vacuum for the third time. The pressure hadn’t changed. By now the driver was hopping mad and he gave the shunters a piece of his mind. They then agreed that he would lead them all for one final check. If there was anything wrong they would find it this time. They had to do so or the train would be late leaving and questions would be asked. With a marked lack of enthusiasm they followed him using their torches to probe the baleful darkness. All the torches flickered and dimmed at the same spot, and then came the smell. Even the driver was affected by the sense of evil; the others were literally sweating and shaking with fear. However, the driver found a loose connection which he quickly put right and they all got
out of that loathsome place, quite unashamedly running in order to do so.

  Some years later a man committed suicide exactly at the spot where the sense of evil was strongest. When it was dark in the sidings, he knelt down and placed his neck on the track. His head was severed as the wheels of a van passed over it. Was there a connection?

  Unfortunately no fresh fish traffic now goes by rail. The line between Grimsby and Cleethorpes is still operational.

  The haunted sidings for fish traffic were between Grimsby Docks and New Clee Station.

  Hallington

  The line of the Great Northern Railway from Louth to Bardney went through the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds. It traversed some remote and beautiful countryside which even in the twenty-first century remains comparatively little-known. It was not very promising territory for a railway, even in the headily optimistic days of the mid-nineteenth century, and the building of the 971-yard-long Withcall Tunnel proved particularly troublesome. The line was sanctioned in 1866 but not opened until 1876. It did not earn enough even to pay the interest on the capital borrowed to build it! In 1883 it was bought by the Great Northern Railway, a trifle unwillingly, at a knockdown price. They didn’t really know what to do with it. It slumbered on providing a useful service for a smattering of local people and being of assistance to the farming communities of this part of Lincolnshire, but the passenger trains were withdrawn as early as November 1951. Goods trains lingered on for a few years but eventually succumbed to the inevitable.

  Hallington is one of several locations in the UK where people claim to have heard the ghostly sound of steam trains puffing through the night many years after services ceased. The sound of a steam locomotive hard at work is pretty unmistakeable. How is it to be explained?

  Hibaldstow Crossing

  Scawby and Hibaldstow was a wayside station on the line of the former Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (later Great Central Railway) from Cleethorpes and Grimsby through Brigg, Gainsborough, Retford and Worksop to Sheffield, completed in 1849.

  A few miles west of Hallington Station was Withcall where the line passed under the Lincolnshire Wolds in a tunnel over half a mile long. This is lonely country and it takes little imagination to hear a ghost train’s shrieking whistle as it emerges from this forbidding tunnel.

  Just north-east of the station, which was mid-way between the two villages it served, a minor road crossed the railway on the flat, and there the railway company built a gatekeeper’s cabin with a small cottage adjacent. Manning this crossing meant a lonely vigil, particularly at night. Emerging every so often from the relative cosiness of the cabin on a wet or freezing night to open and close the gates was not everybody’s idea of the best way to earn a crust. Hibaldstow Crossing was a bleak and exposed spot.

  In the middle of the 1920s the regular crossing-keeper was off work due to illness and his duties were being temporarily covered by a porter deputed from Scawby and Hibaldstow Station. What on the face of it appeared to be a simple task, that of opening and closing the crossing gates in response to indicators from the signal boxes on either side saying that a train was approaching, in reality required alertness and adroit timing. Unfortunately the stand-in crossing-keeper was not up to the job and he was knocked down and killed by a train while opening the gates – unfortunately for him, not quickly enough.

  It seems that the unfortunate man may have died and been buried but his spirit could not tear itself away from the scene of his death. Subsequent crossing-keepers came to hate night duty at Hibaldstow Crossing because their shifts were often interrupted by the sound of very measured footsteps approaching and passing their lonely little cabin. Those men intrepid enough to emerge to issue a challenge were made to look stupid because nothing was ever to be seen. The other men who were understandably reluctant to leave their little haven to investigate the darkness outside looked like simple cowards. These noises were heard on many occasions and by many different men, and the only explanation they had was that the footsteps were those of the ghost of the unfortunate temporary crossing-keeper.

  Scawby and Hibaldstow Station closed in 1968 and the ‘haunted’ crossing nearby was converted to automatic barriers in 1966, but the line through this area, while still operating, could with justification be described as a ‘ghost railway’. This line, almost incredibly, only operates on Saturdays with three trains in each direction stopping at the remaining intermediate stations of Brigg, Kirton Lindsey and Gainsborough Central. Attempts to close the line in the late 1980s aroused ferocious protests, but when, in 1991, all the other trains were withdrawn and this derisory service was introduced, little or nothing was said. A passenger who missed the last train to Cleethorpes on a Saturday would have to wait seven nights and six days for the next train. In the cold comfort of a bus shelter masquerading as a railway station, this would indeed be a long wait.

  Tallington

  There is a busy level crossing at Tallington where the A16 crosses the East Coast Main Line close to the southern extremity of Lincolnshire. The signaller in the box which controls the crossing can make himself immensely unpopular when he gives precedence to what can sometimes be a long succession of trains on this impressive stretch of quadruple track and equally impressive queues of impatient road-users build up. The station at this point closed in 1959.

  This location is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a man who jumped off the old footbridge. The ghost appears on the anniversary of this event, thought to be 15 January. His wife had died and the poor fellow simply couldn’t handle life on his own.

  MERSEYSIDE

  James Street

  Railway passenger services under the River Mersey between James Street, Liverpool, and Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, began in 1886. Short extensions were soon made at either end. Before the tunnel existed, those wanting to travel between the Wirral and Liverpool and vice versa were forced to take a ferry. The river could be distinctly choppy, the wind cold and strong enough to knock the unwary off their feet, and an impenetrable and damp fog might blanket the river and cause delays as the constant sound of invisible ships’ sirens boomed out, warning of the hazards lying in wait for the ferry which perforce had to cross the shipping lanes virtually at right angles.

  The trains were much quicker and were not affected by climatic conditions, but in the early years the Mersey Railway was steam-operated. The locomotives had to be powerful enough to drag themselves and their carriages up gradients as steep as 1 in 27. They were supposed to consume their own smoke and condense their steam, but in practice they turned the atmosphere in subterranean stations like James Street and Hamilton Square into something so oppressive that travellers rediscovered their loyalty to the ferries. Freezing in fresh air on the ferries seemed preferable to subterranean near-asphyxiation. However, in 1903 the loss-making Mersey Railway was electrified. It became the first railway in Britain to be entirely converted from steam to electric multiple-unit operation. The problem was that travellers from place like Rock Ferry, Wallasey and West Kirby, served by the Wirral Railway, had to put up with the inconvenience of changing trains to join the Mersey Railway for the quick run under the river.

  The possibility of electrifying the Wirral Railway network was voiced time and time again, but the 1920s and ’30s were not good times for many areas of Britain’s economy, including that of Merseyside. Eventually the Government made money available for capital projects to try to kick start the economy. Work on the electrification started in 1936 and the Wirral and Mersey parts of what was then the London Midland & Scottish Railway were integrated. The very modernistic and comfortable electric trains began running in March 1938. People living in the northern end of the Wirral must have thought all their birthdays had come at once.

  In the 1950s two young people, a boy and his girlfriend, had been celebrating St Valentine’s Day by visiting two or three pubs in the city centre of Liverpool. They felt pleasantly relaxed as they made their way to James Street Station to catch their train back to Leasow
e in the Wirral. They descended to the platform and sat down, noticing a woman sitting on another bench nearby. She was certainly rather noticeable. She was dressed in curiously old-fashioned clothes, but somehow managed to be elegant because of the obvious quality of the clothes she was wearing and also because of the way she wore them. She sat stock-still, seemingly preoccupied by her thoughts. The train arrived and the lady and the young couple got into the same carriage, it being empty of other passengers. All three sat down, the woman a couple of bays away. The train doors slid closed and the train moved off along the tunnel under the murky waters of the Mersey. Just before Hamilton Square the couple looked up. The woman had vanished. Except for themselves, the carriage was absolutely empty!

  The lad even got up and walked the length of the carriage. They knew they were not mistaken – the woman had got on with them and had disappeared into thin air. For years after they would ponder over the events of that night. What was the story behind the disappearing woman? Had they seen a ghost?

  The Water Street entrance to James Street Station on the underground section of the Mersey Railway sported this delightful sign advertising its electric trains which ran under the Mersey from Liverpool to the Cheshire shore at Birkenhead. The line is now part of Merseyrail.

  Trains still run under the Mersey, but the new generation of electric multiple units do not have the same style or comfort as the solid rolling stock of the late 1930s.

  Walton Junction

  ‘Walton Junction’ is a curious name for this station because it is not, nor has it ever been, a junction. It is, however, in the Walton district of north-east Liverpool. It is on a line promoted by the Liverpool, Ormskirk & Preston Railway, work on the building of which started in 1847. It eventually came to be part of the empire of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway. The line is still operational, being part of the Merseyrail network as far as Ormskirk.