Charfield in the 1960s

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:18 pm

Hi all,

I am in the process of constructing some web pages in which I am detailing my recollections of the years immediately before and after the closure of Charfield (and the other ex-Midland line) stations in the mid 1960s. As a start to this I have put together a collection of photos which I took as a lad at Charfield. None are particularly good, technically or subject-wise, taken as they were with a cheap 828-format camera, but at least they provide a flavour of what the years were like, especially as steam made way to diesel. I just wish I had taken more photos of the station and its staff and, seeing as I spent so much time in the signal-box there, the interior of the same.
In the coming months I shall be adding a lot of verbage to put the pictures in context, and also track diagrams, and when I find it in the piles of junk in my garage, pages from my notebooks and also of the signal-box train register including the page on which the station-master wrote those final, doomed words ,Station Closed' in Jan 65.
Anyway, the link to the fledgling site is

http://s279723315.websitehome.co.uk/rail/charfield.php

Thanks, and enjoy!

Ron Perry

PS Any additional contributions, in text or photo, would be very much appreciated. Your contributions will be acknowledged of course!

tonyperks · Post by **tonyperks** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:22 pm

Ron Thanks very much it makes achange to see some very different Photos of charfield, and indeed the brickworks, which are very rare thats the first I have seen.

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:22 pm

Tony - what I wasn't able to photograph (because it was removed before I got a camera) was the siding connection into G H Downing's brickworks from the down loop. It made a trailing connection into it about 100 yds before the south end loop points. There was a ground-frame adjacent to the connection which I think was unlocked with an Annett's Key held in the signalbox. I have no idea how much rail traffic was generated by the brickworks - I never remember seeing wagons parked there or a loco entering the siding, but that was post-1960.

While I think of it, you made reference in another thread to the scarcity of traffic using the loops at Charfield. Up until the late 60s they were both used extensively, many times each 24 hours, mainly because so much of the freight traffic was slow moving and Charfield was a key location as far as traffic regulation was concerned. The loops' strategic importance reduced enormously with the gradual take-over by diesels, a greater proportion of continuous brake fitted rolling stock enabling faster running and an overall decrease in freight traffic (due in large part to the conversion to natural gas thus making gas-works and the coal flow to them redundant).

tonyperks · Post by **tonyperks** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:42 am

The loops at charfield are used, i would like to say Often but recently I would say Rarely, more so, it would seem since they have relaid them with new FB rail and steel sleepers, fastline used to recess there every friday lunchtime, but not heard or seen anything in 'My' loop since before christmas but i must miss a fair few as the lines are shiney ish. The up loop seems to get more use probably due to the longer section from here to Haresfield I would guess, the Nukes when running late at lunchtime seems to get chucked in there quite often.

jules · Post by **jules** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:59 am

Fabulous pictures and thanks for sharing them!

I particularly liked the 60s students - boots and turn-ups and probably newly into The Beatles, The Who and Rolling Stones and all things future - waiting to board the soon to be gone steam-hauled train. Day in a life moment really.

I'll bet their college was teaching them about the "white heat of technology" - and not a Smartphone in sight!

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 2:45 am

I particularly like the 60s students...

Yes - we were all in the 4th form at what was then the local grammar school in the days when we were actually called pupils. (It's probably not PC to call school-children of 11+ 'pupils' any more, which is why I referred to them as 'students'!)
It was a couple of months after I took that shot that practically the same group of us used the trains on the last day (2nd Jan 65?) of local services between Bristol and Gloucester. We got back to Charfield in the dark on the 18:30-ish from Bristol (2M74), it being the very last train (hauled by a Peak). There was hardly a soul to notice its passing - local apathy I guess. The train drew away at 19:16, the station oil lamps were extinguished and that was it - the end.

jules · Post by **jules** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 7:44 am

We got back to Charfield in the dark on the 18:30-ish from Bristol (2M74), it being the very last train (hauled by a Peak). There was hardly a soul to notice its passing - local apathy I guess. The train drew away at 19:16, the station oil lamps were extinguished and that was it - the end.

Very poignant. Especially your mention of the lack of people and how little attention the final closure drew. Just imagine how well used Charfield would be were it still in use today?

Back then I am thinking people were already well used to preferring their cars and the local train was seen as slow, old fashioned, dirty and - well, rather "public" (yuk!) A case of use it or lose it and when it finally passed, as you say, hardly anybody could be bothered to notice.

Buses would have been put in place to replace the trains. Do you remember what arrangements were made, how you got to school after the closure and how it compared with the lost rail service?

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 9:18 am

Buses would have been put in place to replace the trains. Do you remember what arrangements were made, how you got to school after the closure and how it compared with the lost rail service?

It didn't affect school journeys as these were by bus anyway. The main links to Gloucester and Bristol were already well served by bus (Bristol Omn Co, route 26) although journey times were much longer. Even with steam a train journey to Gloucester was only 45 mins, by bus it was twice that.
The crazy thing was that after the station closure BR instigated a 4-times each way a day DMU service (Worcester - Gloucester - Bristol) running non-stop Gloucester - Bristol in addition to the established express timetable. The DMUs sped through the recently closed stations at 70mph rubbing salt into the wound. We NEVER saw a DMU on the local stopping services - had they introduced them in the early 60s more people may have been tempted to use the stations. But being ex-LMS, the Gloucester line was never comfortable under WR control. There was still a them-and-us attitude 15 years after nationalisation.
Incidentally, the withdrawal of local services between Gloucester and Bristol created one of the longest sections between stations anywhere in the UK!

tonyperks · Post by **tonyperks** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 11:57 am

Ron would you pen a little piece for the local newsletter 'chadra' about the station reminices as a lad, there is a article on memorys of staff at the station in nearly every issue, a couple of your photos would be nice. you can email me direct if you prefer my address a.perks666(at)btinternet.com put the usual @ in the right place!

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:50 am

Tony, I'll try to do that. Most of my recollections tend to be a bit 'anorak-ish' rather than stuff of general interest to Joe Public. I could write reams on my hundreds of hours spent in the signal-box but which would render the good people of Charfield comatose in minutes. My father still lives in New Street and worked in the booking office at Charfield from WW2 up to the station's closure. He has got a few amusing anecdotes which I am sure he would relate.
Best I can do is 'how I nearly averted disaster'. As a kid, I lived in Little Bristol where the long back gardens extended down to the railway cutting. It was a very hot early summer day and after getting home from school at about 4:45 was in the garden when a down freight came to a very abrupt halt. I went to the fence to see what was up to discover that the recently-installed long-welded rail up line track had lifted from the ballast and contorted with the heat (no grease on the expansion joint perhaps), and with the up 'Cornishman' due at just after 5:00 I jumped on my bike and pedalled like fury to the station 3/4 mile away where I shouted to get the attention of the signalman. I told him what had happened but I had been pipped at the post - the down goods guard had run back to the down starting signal and phoned the box from there seconds before. Had the freight been 10 minutes later, there would have been certain carnage when the up express hit that spot. I presume it had not yet reached Yate when the alarm was raised.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 7:54 pm

buxton4472 wrote:
We NEVER saw a DMU on the local stopping services - had they introduced them in the early 60s more people may have been tempted to use the stations.
A regualar DMU turn in the final year or so was the 1052SO ex-Bristol. I used to use it from time to time between Bristol and Mangotsfield just because it was a DMU and you got more of a view from the front end!

trafalgar45682 · Post by **trafalgar45682** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:32 am

I believe that the 9.15 Gloucester became a DMU turn from November 2 1964. The engine off this turn normally returned on the 16.18 Gloucester to Bristol. When the 9.15 was dieselised Barrow Road sent a LE to Gloucester at 10.50 to form the return working. They generally used the Castle off the early morning Crewe parcels which later left Bristol at 23.25 back to Crewe. This would have been the final regular Castle passenger train into Bristol. It finished in early Jan 1965 when the local stations to Gloucester were closed.

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:57 am

Robin, I stand corrected. Memory is becoming very selective. Last night I found my old 'loco logs' from a very dusty carton which had lain unopened for 30 years in my garage. They cover the years 1963 - 1965 and from a brief look through them I can see that I clearly recorded instances in autimn 1964 of 3-car suburban/Cross Country DMUs on said up stopper, returning on the next Sats Only down from Gloucester. Looking back through these records makes for fascinating reading. Over the next few weeks I shall make them available for viewing on my website. There, I've said it now I shall have to do it!

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:38 pm

trafalgar45682 wrote:I believe that the 9.15 Gloucester became a DMU turn from November 2 1964. The engine off this turn normally returned on the 16.18 Gloucester to Bristol. When the 9.15 was dieselised Barrow Road sent a LE to Gloucester at 10.50 to form the return working. They generally used the Castle off the early morning Crewe parcels which later left Bristol at 23.25 back to Crewe. This would have been the final regular Castle passenger train into Bristol. It finished in early Jan 1965 when the local stations to Gloucester were closed.

I moved from Staple Hill to Stockwood in July 1964 so I lost contact with day-to-day running details like this, but Patrick's post really got me thinking!

This was a time when the railway was falling over itself trying to save money. You had the BRB accountant, Phillip Shirley, running around like a headless chicken trying to reduce costs. Telling people like Dick Hardy to close one of the two stations at Lincoln (just because there were two - what they actually served didn't seem to come into the equation); implementing the Beeching cuts all over the country, getting the LSW Salisbury to Exeter line singled etc etc, all in the name of economy. Much of it found to be a problem today when looked at in hindsight, but that's another story.

Yet, on the face of it (and of course there may well be more to this story), here we have some bright spark on the WR finding that they had a spare DMU set kicking around, so manufacturing a diagram for it. The DMU in question would obviously have other trains to cover as part of that diagram but, for this section, it is given the 0915 Gloucester stopper to cover within 8 weeks of the service being withdrawn. At the same time, of course, Barrow Road still had the return working still to cover, so they have to send a light engine to Gloucester to work the diagram back.

So in a nutshell, and just taking this case in solation, you have operating costs increased for the last 8 weeks before a service is withdrawn (by needing a driver and possibly a secondman for the 0915 and then having to find a crew to take an LE to Gloucester to cover the return working). Additional wage costs for the additional crew for the additional LE movement, and additional fuel costs because the DMU would need diesel to get to Gloucester and the LE would need coal.

Logic would also suggest that, if this diagram resulted in this one unbalanced working, there would also be at least one other as the DMU pottered on its way around the WR.

The words "disorganised" and "shambles" spring to mind

buxton4472 · Post by **buxton4472** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 3:00 pm

As a lad of 14 I was too immature to appreciate the operational politics and nuances of the day. But I did spend a fair bit of time in the signal-box from which I later 'recovered' the train register for Nov '64 - Jan '65. I have just scanned the up and down pages of the train register for the last day's local Gloster - Bristol service on 2 January 1965 and you can find the images at

http://s279723315.websitehome.co.uk/rai ... arf_20.jpg

and

http://s279723315.websitehome.co.uk/rai ... arf_21.jpg

At 7:30 pm the Station Master signed the up page of the register with the final message 'Station Closed'.

I should welcome any info on the locos which hauled the final day's stopping trains to add to the embryonic web pages I am constructing, as I was riding the trains on the day and did not take any notes!