No. 1552
RETIRED RAILWAY OFFICERS’ SOCIETY
www: rros.org.uk
Minutes of Meeting
held in the Union Jack Club, Sandell St. London SE1 on Monday 9th May 2011.
Present:
President: Chris Austin
Hon Treasurer: John Sellar Hon Secretary: Richard Malins
Don Anderson / Malcolm Grant / Graham King / Andrew SalisburyStephen Bennett / Chris Green / Andrew Leleux / Brian Sandham
Chris Blackman / Nigel Green / Ray Loft / David Sawyer
George Bowden / Bob Greening / Don Love / Larry Shore
Bob Breakwell / Brian Hammond / David Maidment / Dennis Simmonds
Vivian Brown / Mike Harvey / Ian Markey / Les Singleton
Ken Burrage / Ken Haysom / David Marsden / Robin Smith
John Castree / Donald Heath / Jim McKie / David Stimson
Richard Cook / Alan Hobson / John Meara / Ken Streak
Ian Copland / Lesley Hodsdon / Chris Mew / Peter Sturt
John Craik / Maurice Holmes / Roger Morgan / Gerald Summerfield
John Cronin / Richard Horne / Burnard Mules / Roger Temple
James Crowe / Peter Howarth / Peter Northfield / John Tidmarsh
Reg Davies / Ian Hurst / Ian Osbourne / John Trathan
Ray Dean / John Jagger / Peter Owen-Jones / Charles Vicary
David Dixon / Mike Johns / Michael Papps / Mike Vincent
Derek Doling / Brian Johnson / Gordon Pettitt / Derek Webb
John Dunn / Stan Judd / Ron Puntis / Peter Whittaker
Les Giles / Alan Keitch / David Rayner / JohnWilson
Alan Goldfinch / Clive Kessell / Chris Richardson
Hugh Gould / David King / Trevor Rimmer
1. Confirmation of the Minutes of the Meeting held in York on 4th April 2011.
These minutes were approved without comment. The President apologised to members for the difficulties currently being experienced with the Society website. This had been caused by a fire at the data centre, the result of an instruction manual covering the air vents, which destroyed the server. This has led to an updating task, a lot of test e-mail messages and some on-going difficulty in posting news items.
2. News of Members.
The President noted with regret a number of deaths, of members:
R P (Bob) Constable sometime of Freightliner and Parcels on 26th March aged 68, the funeral was at St Peter’s Church Southborough, Kent on 13th April. Frank Hudson formerly works Engineer (Projects) BRB on 11th April aged 85.
Of non-members: John Gent of the LT Planning team and Secretary of the BR/LT Liaison Group during the Network SouthEast era on 3rd May aged 79, the funeral is in Croydon on 24th May.
Brian Chandler, sometime a Civil Engineer with Transmark in Hong Kong and latterly with the KCR, in Tuen Mun Hospital in April aged 78. John Williams, Terminals Director of Freightliner, on 9th April aged 62, funeral at Great Bardfield, Essex on 19th April.
Members stood for a few moments in silent tribute to their memory.
3. Welcome to Members Recently Elected.
Lesley Hodsdon, Mike Vincent, Robin Smith and Michael Papps were attending a meeting of the Society for the first time and were accorded the customary warm welcome. Mike said that while he might not be good with words, the Society represented a community he was pleased to have been and to remain a part of.
4. Proposed New Members.
The detail of the following applicant’s career was shown in the Agenda and his election was approved:
Name: Address and Telephone Number: Sponsors:
Ian Kitching 1 Main Street, Nether Poppleton, York Donald Heath
YO26 6HS 01904 784748 Richard Malins
5. Pension & Travel Facilities Matters.
On Pensions, John Mayfield was unable to be present due to a hospital appointment and will give more information at the June meeting.
John Meara said the East Coast dining saga continues with no more official information, beyond the fact that it will be possible for staff to pay for food by some means yet to be confirmed.
6. Any Other Business.
The President mentioned the War Memorial, originally dedicated to North London Railway staff who died in the First World War, and installed on the concourse at Broad Street station, until demolition. It was then moved to the station car park at Richmond. The Railway Heritage Committee designated the memorial and TfL has restored and relocated it to the new East London station at Hoxton. This is a good example of the work of the RHC. The memorial is to be rededicated on its new site at 09.30 on Tuesday 7th June in a short service, hosted by Peter Hendy, Transport Commissioner at TfL, and conducted by Rev James Westcott of St Chad's Church. TfL extends an invitation to all RROS members who might like to attend and support this event.
7. Talk by David Morgan, Chairman of the Heritage Railway Association on Railway and Shipping Heritage Worldwide.
The President introduced David by saying that going through his CV would take up the best part of the meeting, but in real life he is a lawyer whom he has known for 20 years through an association with heritage railways. David is an office holder at a number of them, but said he remains in awe of professional railwaymen. His involvement with railways went back he said to the age of 10, when in Devon somewhere between Sidmouth Junction and Tiverton Junction where his grandfather had a butler called Bridger. Bridger had been a railwayman, but it was the young Morgan’s discovery of his fondness for whisky that earned him illicit footplate rides on the Hemyock branch, as well as the chance to hold parties in the gas-lit carriage that was still in use on the line. In 1964 he joined the M&GN Joint Railway Preservation Society which in time became the North Norfolk Railway with him as Company Secretary. He discovered how easy it is for rifts to arise in voluntary organisations and an early task that came his way was to bring together the Association of Railway Preservation Societies, led by Captain Peter Manisty, and the Association of Minor Railways under Alan Garraway. The latter were the companies that had escaped the Grouping in 1923, like the Festiniog.
The HRA is now a lobbying group or trade federation, voluntarily staffed with a small income and over 150 members, covering not just standard and narrow gauge railways but tramways and cliff lifts, as well as Ireland. These members account for over 13m passenger journeys a year with substantial local economic benefits and a huge number of volunteers but some of the challenges of the 21st Century can make progress difficult. Britain is way ahead of most other countries in this, Germany with a larger economy and some fine railway heritage only generates 2m but France too, although some lines like the Vivarais were lost, is beginning to catch up. There is now both a European and a worldwide heritage railway movement, and getting these organisations going has taken David to some interesting and exotic places. At this point his narrative was interrupted by a mobile phone call, which proved to be from Gordon Rushton. Well, he should have come to the meeting. FEDECRAIL, the Federation of European Museum and Tourist Railways was founded in 1994 and has members in 28 countries, although Britain accounts for 30% of them. It organises visits and conventions in unlikely places from Argentina and Cuba to the Vatican City, the latter including a special train on the world’s smallest state railway which has no rolling stock. Extending less than a km from a junction with FS in Rome and behind a big sliding door it has a 2 track station in the Pope’s garden. Built in the Mussolini era 1929-32 following a Concordat with the Italian government it was presented to the Holy See in perpetuity but has seen little use since then. Two Pontiffs are known to have used it in 1962 and 2002, but now with a Papal blessing a steam special sets off for Orvieto. A steam run to Mulhouse (home of the French national railway museum) with priority on SNCF was also an occasion to remember.
As pioneers in the railway preservation movement (the Talyllyn has just celebrated its 60th Anniversary) Britain has an educational duty to perform, especially in respect of the French - but Jean Arrivetz is a good friend. The market appears still be growing, helped perhaps by holidays taken at home. While the motivation for older people remains nostalgia, the young are being drawn in both as visitors and volunteers. There is also an appeal among the retired who were not railway enthusiasts, so the challenge is more in the area of specific technical skills, such as riveters and boilersmiths, where safety considerations are also significant. Keeping firms like Israel Newton of Bradford in business will be vital to the future. Real cost escalation is also a threat but with labour the largest element in a transport budget, the use of volunteers offers some relief from that and community involvement will be key.
David had strayed into ships through a client who was also a rail enthusiast. Ship preservation can be likened to a hole in the water into which money is poured, but there are some successes to report, such as the survival of the Cutty Sark after the fire in which only 2% of her fabric was actually lost, but the cost had been in delays and the toxic side effects. His favourite is the less well-known “Shieldhall”, built on the Clyde in 1955 to a 1924 design with riveted structure and reciprocating steam engines. Now the largest working steamship in northern Europe, she began her life as a Glasgow Corporation sludge carrier. It was the custom in summer for sludge boats to take passengers on a Clyde cruise before depositing their sewage in the Irish Sea, so she was built with passenger accommodation, but this came to an end in 1976 when the practice was stopped. Laid up for a while, she saw some service for Southern Water in the Solent until 1985. Purchased for £20,000 she has been restored by volunteers and offers about 20 public trips a year in the Solent area. Prince Philip was impressed by her and said she compared favourably with Britannia, now also preserved in Leith but not seagoing.
Chris Green gave a vote of thanks for a fascinating and entertaining talk, while wondering how David solved his diary management problem.
8. Spring (Ladies) Luncheon 28th April 2011.
The President introduced Lord Peter Snape as someone he had first met when representing BR in Parliament in 1987, who came from a railway family and had been MP for West Bromwich East since 1974. He somehow survived for many more years as a seconded BR employee and stood down as an MP in 2001, becoming Baron Snape, of Wednesbury in the County of West Midlands in 2004. Peter, whose father was a C&W Examiner, left school at 15 and joined BR as a booking clerk at Heald Green in 1957, later moving to Hazel Grove. At both stations he found the signalboxes of more interest than the ticket office, that at Heald Green (closed in 1958) was immaculate and staffed by two men stuck there because they had worked in the General Strike. He moved to Stockport, first as a box lad at Edgeley Junction no 2. He also worked at Heaton Norris Junction, and both boxes amazingly still survive, if much rationalised, due to the inability of the new Italian Manchester South box to manage something different to Roma Termini. He later became a guard and has for all his years been a supporter of Stockport County FC, of which he is now a Director and a major shareholder. He says he only got the nomination for the West Bromwich seat in the West Midlands because the local rivalry between the TGWU and AEU allowed an NUR man from elsewhere in as a compromise candidate. In similar circumstances he later became a Director of Travel West Midlands (and thus National Express) at privatisation as a default choice for management and unions. His political and railway life was a source for many personal anecdotes, and took in Harold Forster and Tony Cotgreave (over his release for Political service); Peter Rayner (somehow a reign of terror and not using the Call Attention signal); Harold Wilson by 1974 was really past his best; Jim Callaghan was not always Sunny; Mrs Thatcher had no sense of humour but was determined and human; Blair had the charm of a showbiz star, got the PM’s job and didn’t know what to do with it; Prescott and Kinnock could not stand each other but were both underrated by the press; Unions in Australia (where National Express acquired interests) made Bob Crow look like Jesus Christ; Richard Bowker upset everyone. And for all the BR Managers he himself may have upset, there are many he admired and respected and in the end the railway was a fine family to be part of, even if that part of his career was undistinguished. He remains proud that with the late Robert Adley they set up the All Party Railways Group in Parliament, which allowed the railway to be seen in a better light. It now has 100 members and he is still active as Vice Chairman.
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No. 1553 Agenda for Meeting
To be held in the Union Jack Club, Sandell St. London SE1 on Monday 6th June 2011 at 13.45
1. Confirmation of the Minutes of the Meeting held in London on 9th May 2011.
2. News of Members.
3. Welcome to Members Recently Elected.
4. Proposed New Members.
Ivor Warburton will propose and John Meara will second that DAVID PINDER BRICE be elected an ordinary member of the Society. David was born in Brentwood on the twelfth of July 1934 and after graduating as a qualified teacher from Durham University joined BR as a clerk at Brentwood in 1958. He became a Traffic Apprentice on the ER in 1960 and later AYM Temple Mills in 1964. In 1966 he was Station Manager Tottenham and 1967 – 73 Area Manager Southend. He spent 20 years in freight planning, retiring from BR in 1993. He then began a new career as an International railway consultant, with 17 years worldwide and senior level experience in the following countries under widely differing political and geographic conditions:- UK, USA, Malaysia, Russia, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Macedonia, Estonia, Poland, Albania, Kazakhstan, Iran, South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.