Railway history » Trent Station » Memories and Contributions
Memories and Contributions
St Pancras Clock
The clock which now dominates the refurbished St Pancras International station is an exact replica of the original Midland Railway clock. The parts of the old clock were rescued by Roland Hoggard in 1968 after it was dropped while being taken down by British Rail workmen. Mr Hoggard, a former railwayman, now 91, and living in Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire, is a well-known collector of railway clocks. It took him 18 months to the original clock together. His work served as a blueprint for the replacement clock. It was Roland Hoggard who bought the two station clocks from Trent Station after the station's closure in 1968, but he sold those on to a Mr Turner. We are still trying to trace what has happened to them since.
Signs to Trent Station
Anthony S. Taylor gives some information about the location of a sign to Trent Station, pictured in the book. The location of the sign, now in a private collection, had not previously been satisfactorily identified.
Anthony writes:
"I recently received a copy of Last Train from Trent Station for my birthday and, as anticipated, it is a delight! Born in 1940, my trainspotting days began about nine years later when, armed with my Ian Allan ABC, I joined the happy crowd of lads who rushed down the path to Trent on Saturdays and school holidays (sometimes being told off by a policeman if we had dared to cycle on the path). Certainly the Long Eaton area was a wonderful place for railways in those days, though it was always frustrating to be at Trent and see the Derby-London expresses go by on the "Bunker" - too far away to get the number (or name, for the engine would usually be a 'Jubilee').
..."Regarding the sign on page 48, this is almost certainly part of a larger, yellow-backed 'main road' direction sign which stood on Nottingham Road, Long Eaton, between Devonshire Avenue and Station Road. This advised visitors to the two stations to go down Station Road and traffic for the A453 Ashby, A6005 Borrowash and A52 Derby to continue along Nottingham Road. I remember this sign well as I used to cycle past it each day to Long Eaton Grammar School. Presumably the sign was taken down when the stations closed."
Railway sign collector Brian Amos (many of whose photographs are in the book) has in his collection an unusual Trent Station sign which is something of a mystery.
Brian writes:
"The square enamel Trent signs, of which there were at least 14, would all have likely survived: five are definitely known and five others have passed through auctions. I have in my collection a square enamel the same size as the well-known Trent squares, but it is of a different colour and layout. It has a grey background with a maroon totem emblem in its centre, with the name TRENT in white within the totem shape. Although the fixing holes show signs of screws being applied, it was probably never fitted at Trent, but may have been a design exercise that was never carried forward - unless the readers know more?"
Drawings saved
Some 40 years ago Gordon Bowley, of Borrowash, rescued from a skip near Derby stations some survey plans and machinery drawings relating to Trent Sheet and Sack Works and Trent Station. These include an 1884 plan for the foundation of a 46-foot turntable to replace a 40-foot turntable, an 1862 design for the tank house at the Gas Works, a 1900 plan of the new Sheet Shop at the Sheet and Sack Works, a 1930 plan of a drive mechanism for the sack sewing machines, the 1911 layout of Trent Station and lines to the east of it, and an 1899 overall plan of the Sheet and Sack Works to show the fire mains.
John Dabson
Possibly the oldest survivor of those who worked at Trent Station is John Dabson, who was born in 1922, and now lives in Norfolk. He recalls that his mother worked as a cleaner at Trent Station from approximately 1935. When the second world war began she became a porteress, and remained there till 1946. John himself had attended Derby Road School in Long Eaton, and on leaving in August 1936, he tried to get a job at Toton. They would not accept him till he was 16. His mother told the Trent stationmaster this, and it was he who arranged for John to become a signal box lad at Trent. This was the start of a long career in the railways, gradually climbing the ladder of promotion until he ended up as area controller working out of the new power box at Euston, retiring in 1984.
Royal Trent
Mike Wright, of the Burton Railway Society, says that on one of the occasions when the Royal Train was parked on the North Curve Prince Philip wandered into the station. He was interested in the booking office ticket system, and he was allowed to produce tickets. The booking clerk was in trouble the next day when his books did not balance. Prince Philip also decided to walk over to Trent North signalbox. The Trent staff telephoned to warn the signalman he was coming, but the signalman did not believe them. "Look out of the window!" he was told.
First aid
Steve Shaw recalls Trent Station from his engine-numbering days. Incidentally, we never called it "train-spotting"; it was always (and much more accurately) engine-numbering.
"My friends and I", Steve writes, "were in the habit of playing cricket on the piece of ground bounded by 'Black Pad', the North Curve, and the Erewash Valley line, while awaiting the next train. This was well in sight of the North Junction signal box, but I do not ever recall being told to 'Clear off'. None of us ever got run over by a train, even though we retrieved long hits off the tracks! Can you imagine that, nowadays? Health and Safety and the Railway Police would go berserk!
"But one hot summer holiday, when diving for a catch, I landed on a sharp piece of wood and gashed my leg open very badly indeed. No-one had any sort of first aid, so I was carried on to the station, almost literally in a faint, where a kindly railwayman raided the 'official' first aid kit and bound me up very well indeed, and gave me a drink of his tea (it was foul!). The injury was serious enough to prevent me from cycling or walking the 2 ½ miles back home in Long Eaton, so I (with my bike) was taken down the steps and under the tunnel, and put on board the next BR workman's bus (I think they brought staff from perhaps Toton, I'm not sure) and I was driven home in style! Doctor, stitches, tea and sympathy put things to rights and the match continued the following week. I still have the scar 55 years later!
"Oh! How I bitterly regret throwing away my Ian Allen Combined Volume with all those red underlinings. Years of 'hard work' destroyed in an instant!!"
Sheet Stores Crane
David Bartropp of Long Eaton recalls when there was a crane which stood at the Sheet Stores site, on the opposite side of the basin. It might have been an original fitting; it was certainly 19th century. But it went for scrap. David has now obtained a similar crane, 1 feet high, dating back to 1870, from the former Gretton station, and has restored it. He is wondering whether the Gretton crane would make a fine heritage landmark if it could be installed in the place once occupied by the old crane.
Ralph Gee remembers
Ralph Gee writes to say he may have been the cricket team member who jokingly shouted to a porter whether they were on the right train for Carlisle (an anecdote by Stephen Best recounted on page 57 of Last Train from Trent Station.
Ralph was Chief Librarian of the Nottingham Evening Post from 1984-1992.
"Before my time", he writes, "the loss of archived material was endemic, but having been appointed by the Managing Director, Christopher Pole-Carew, I had greater authority over journalists than had my predecessor, while giving my staff far fuller discretion and responsibilities than hitherto. With that went pride in protecting our collection. Regrettably 'PC' was dismissed, and in my time my authority lessened until I too was shown the door (in fact I was frog-marched to it). The staff-trimmed paper was then sold to the Daily Mail... As a railway buff myself, I'm sure that in my time I'd have found something useful to you in the files...
Nottingham City Libraries Cricket Team (circa 1960). Stephen is second from the right. I'm the kneeling idiot - then very likely to spread confusion amongst railway staff. (photo taken on the Forest, Nottingham)
"I was delighted to see your reference to my old colleague, Stephen Best, and enclose a very relevant photo of us and that very cricket team that struggled back from Sutton Bonington on which there are two subsequent county Chief Librarians, of Dorset (and later Gloucester) and Derbyshire. In fact eight are all (or became) fully chartered librarians..."
Mr Gee also found an article which he had written about Trent Station for the Nottingham Evening Post in 1989, and which included a last-day picture.
This was the final article in a 24-part series on the "The Midland Heritage", one of many contributions Ralph Gee made to local history.
The article brought forth a letter from a C. Wilkinson, of Long Eaton, who wrote:
"I would like to speak out for Trent Station, featured in your Midland Heritage on February 25, and for a lot of staff who worked there some 40 to 50 years ago. Contrary to your article, Trent was an exceptionally busy station. The booking hall was closed before the end of the afternoon shift, and many servicemen returning to Chilwell would palm off things such as weighing-machine tickets and pieces of card to the duty platform porter. The station had a subway to the platforms, and very good road access - a road which also saw the passage of troops to the adjacent rifle range. Access from Long Eaton was by footpath. A familiar site was the many nuns walking on the path to the nearby nunnery.
Kirtley and Johnson
John Petley comments: "On page 39 of the book you say that S.W. Johnson succeeded the 'even more famous' Matthew Kirtley. Personally, I would have said that Johnson was the more famous, although I would not claim to be sufficiently expert on the Midland Railway to make a categorical statement to that effect."
John also points out that on page 26 of the book there is reference to "British Rail 2-10-0 locomotive 92059". While this is correct, these are universally known as the 9F class.