Sussex Railways - Part Two
LBSCR L Class baltic tank dedicated to the railway’s servants who fell in the Great War. After electrification of the Brighton mainline she was rebuilt as a 4-6-0. All a bit before my time.
STUART CAKEBREAD
A Younger Brother’s Perspective
So my brother Bruce has written a very learned blog about the history of railways in Sussex. He has the advantage over me because he is almost old enough to have witnessed them being built. Whereas young Stuart was born just before the beginning of the last decade of steam.
A short definition here. For those of us afflicted with railway geekitis the history of the world is divided into two parts. The Age of Steam and after the Age of Steam. Nothing much of note happened before it and it has been downhill since it ended.
The Age of Steam officially ended in August 1968 with British Railways’ 15 Guinea Special. And that was when 15 guineas was 15 guineas (or in today’s money £15.75p.). This would have bought you a house (on a deserted island in Scotland may be, but still a house).
Stonier Class 5 45110 hauling the 15 Guinea Special
So young Stuart’s earliest memory, almost, is of standing on the platform of Hove Station with his mother watching a diesel shunter (class 08) shunting the yard.
2 BIL electric multiple unit approaching Hove from Brighton. The head code tells us it is bound for West Worthing. I was standing on the left of the platform in the picture looking across at the yard farther across.
Suddenly along the line between me and the yard came an ex LBSCR (that’s explained in Bruce’s blog) mogul “K” class. I’m pretty sure that was the class. I was admittedly only about 4 and had not yet completed my study of Bruce’s Ian Allen trainspotter’s book, but it fits. It rumbled relatively quickly through the station with its long train of short wheel base wagons and steamed off towards the Cliftonville Spur. I was very, very, impressed. How very much faster and more exciting was the steam engine compared with the shunter (I think it was slightly lost on me that speed was not one of the desirable characteristics of a loco shunting loose wagons with a human shunter standing close by).
Billinton K Class passing Holland Road Halt at the bottom of our garden just to the right out of the picture
The next memory is of the Brighton Works shunter, AIX Terrier (see Bruce’s blog again) No 32635 shunting Brighton Top Yard at Lover’s Walk (be impressed by my remembering the number but it did also happen to be our telephone number in Brighton). My brother used to take me out in my push chair and my favourite trip was to go up the road above Lover’s Walk and watch the trains below. 32635 was sadly homeless since the closure of Brighton Works (see Bruce’s blog). It was so very magnificent as it was painted in Stroudley (Bruce’s blog) LBSCR “Improved Engine Green” which is actually yellow.
32635 shunting in Brighton MPD in 1962
After that are so many memories. Looking down on Brighton Motive Power Depot (75A) by climbing on the sandbox on Terminus Road and watching the trains going in and out of Brighton Station.
View from the sandbox. Note Stepney another Terrier and Brighton E4 radial tank Birch Grove both in LBSCR liveries on tour from the Bluebell Railway
Every evening watching the Lancing Belle pass the end of my garden. The Lancing Belle was actually anything but. As the photo shows it had some of the oldest LBSCR and LSWR carriages still in use and was used to transport workmen from Brighton to Lancing carriage works. It was pulled back each night by 2 or 3 tank engines (Brighton radials, A1Xs etc. to get them back to Brighton MPD).
Lancing Belle leaving Lancing in charge of 2 Brighton radial tanks. “Radial” referred to the trailing wheels having an axle designed to move laterally along the arc of a circle. Birch Grove, mentioned above, was one of them.
Half an hour later I would walk down the path above the goods yard and watch the carriages being put into their siding by one of the locos which had brought them back from Brighton having disgorged their passengers..
I would walk along the path on the far right of the picture and the guard always waived to me. My house was just down the line to the right the other side of the road bridge.
Going to Hove Station most mornings during school holidays in time to see and photograph the Brighton-Southampton-Exeter-Plymouth express, still steam hauled by a Standard 5 or Bulleid Light Pacific sent up in the early hours of the morning from Salisbury Shed (Brighton MPD now sadly being closed to steam).
The Plymouth train at Salisbury in charge of rebuilt West Country Bulleid light pacific 34101 Hartland. Note head code for Brighton to Salisbury train. I may have seen it at Hove on the way. Hartland was allocated to Brighton 75A from June 1962 until June 1963 so she is one of the locos I would have seen often. She has been preserved.
Being at Brighton station to greet the very last run of the Brighton Belle (Bruce’s blog) with Jimmy Edwards blowing his trumpet.
I am somewhere in the video but don’t know where. The train finished its service days in Blue and Grey livery. A unit is nearing completion in preservation for going back on the mainline.
Also greeting, on another occasion, 4472 Flying Scotsman on its only ever trip to Brighton filmed by Blue Peter with John Noakes doing some shovelling.
Gresley A3 pacific 4472 coming into Brighton. I was at the other end of the Platform. Correct headcode for Brighton via Three Bridges
Dashing to Brighton Station in the last days of steam on the Southern to see 602 Squadron well polished on a special.
Rebuilt Battle of Britain 602 Squadron 34089 at Bournemouth on a Waterloo train
And the last and best memory of the Brighton line and steam? Well it was many years after the end of the Steam Age when, in December 1993, Bruce, Edward and I boarded a train at Victoria Station to travel to Brighton and back behind rebuilt West Country light pacific 34027 Taw Valley returning briefly to its birthplace.. On the way back an excited member of the organising team came down through the carriages and told us the inspector on the footplate had cleared us for 60 mph running, the only time I have travelled on the Brighton line at that speed behind a steam engine. Wonderful days.
Rebuilt West Country Taw Valley 34027 sporting West London to Brighton head code