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GORDON HODGSON - PART ONE
A3 ‘Pacific’ No. 60068
Sir Visto, one of the four
long-serving Canal ‘A3s’,
undergoing maintenance
on one of the two
straight roads at the
north side of the
roundhouse in early
1962. PETER J. ROBINSON
I gave some thought to taking the
£300 severance, but I thought that
even driving a diesel was better than
digging holes for the gas board
Clean start
He could have been directed to any of the four steam sheds still
active in Carlisle then - but it was to the former North British shed -
Canal - which provided the ‘south end’ motive power for the Carlisle
- Edinburgh Waverley Route - that he was despatched, starting there
as an engine cleaner exactly a week before Christmas in 1956.
“I was very fortunate in one way,” he reflects, “because I was
already 18 and old enough to go firing, whereas most of the cleaners
- there were about 20 of us - were only 16 or 17. Because of my age,
I skipped at least a year of cleaning, and got my first firing turn after
only five or six months.
“It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1957 - I hadn’t even
been passed out for firing - but the Running Foreman came to me,
told me one of the booked firemen had reported in sick, and asked me
to go out with his driver on a freight to Hawick. I don’t remember too
much about it, except that it was a Canal ‘K3’ 2‐6‐0 - possibly (6)1916 or
(6)1938.” Gordon’s first turn on the shovel passed off without incident.
‘UNOFFICIAL PRACTICE’
“I was always dead keen to go firing,” he explains. “One of the
cleaning shifts we used to work was 6pm to 2am, and shortly after
we finished, there was a goods train - the ‘02.42 North’, waiting in
Canal yard to go to Hawick. On a number of occasions, I’d join the
driver and fireman on the footplate, and they’d have me firing - a
bit of ‘unofficial practice’ if you like - and then we’d work back from
Hawick on another freight.
“Sometimes I’d get to fire over the whole trip. Usually, the booked
firemen didn’t argue much - they were happy to let you take over -
and I got to know and understand quite a few engines this way.
“On the semi-fitted trains, we usually had a ‘K3’ or a ‘B1’ or,
if your luck was really in, you’d get a ‘V2’. They ran through to
Edinburgh, though we’d change over at Hawick with St Margarets
or Haymarket men, and they’d take the train on to Niddrie yard, or
wherever (Millerhill yard hadn’t then been built).
“Funnily enough, my first official firing turn over the Waverley,
after being passed out by the inspector, wasn’t on a Canal engine - it
was on ‘Clan’ 4‐6‐2 No. 72002 Clan Campbell - a very rare visitor
from Polmadie (Glasgow). What brought it to Canal, I never knew.
“I can’t remember another occasion when a ‘Clan’ worked over
the Waverley line. A lot of enginemen didn’t like them, but I got to
know them when I was later transferred to Carlisle Kingmoor (12A),
and I quite liked the way they handled. I never had a problem with
a ‘Clan’. I actually wrote an article for the lads who are building the
new ‘Clan’, Hengist, and I gave a talk at their AGM in Carlisle, based
on my brief experience with the class at Kingmoor.”
The Canal shed that Gordon remembers in the latter half of
the 1950s was a busy depot, but nonetheless had that sense of
‘family’ to it. The allocation comprised some 50 engines and 200
sets of men, who covered not just the Waverley Route but also the
Newcastle & Carlisle - mostly coal trains, working opposite the men
from Blaydon - the Silloth branch, which was among the first to start
using Derby lightweight DMUs in place of steam, and the Waverley
Route branch from Riddings up to Langholm.
Canal’s working fleet in those days included half a dozen ‘B1s’, a
similar number of ‘K3s’, a dozen ‘J39’ 0‐6‐0s, a couple of ‘D49’ ‘Shire’
4‐4‐0s (Nos. 62732 Dumfriesshire and 62734 Cumberland), a single
‘D49’ ‘Hunt’ (No. 62747 The Percy) and a handful of LNER ‘N15’ 0‐6‐2Ts
and LMS ‘Jinties’ - the latter two types being three-shift engines which
worked around the clock in Canal goods yard. But the stars of the show,
as many readers will know, were the four Gresley ‘A3’ class ‘Pacifics’
shedded there, principally for working express and semi-fast (limited
stop) passenger trains over the Waverley.
Between Gordon starting at Canal in December 1956 and the
withdrawal of the ‘A3s’ for scrapping in 1961 and 1962, the four -
Nos. 60068 Sir Visto, 60079 Bayardo, 60093 Coronach and 60095
Issue 467 • MAY 19 - JUNE 15 2017 • 87