As
apprentices, we had walked across 'Eagle Bridge' (so called because
of the two eagles at either end) that led from the school into
the works proper, almost daily up until this point to visit the
Canteen in Goddard street. Today was different. One hundred and
twenty 17 year olds were now leaving their school days behind
and facing the prospect of having to make their way in the big
wide world! In the space of a weekend, boys had to become men.
The works had its own colloquialisms, and the first building that
we came to was known as the 'Melts'. A vast structure which once
serviced an era of Locomotives , some 200 meters long and 60 meters
high. It was split horizontally into two bays and each bay had
two overhead electric cranes, once used to lift locos in tandem
but now used for the movement of unwanted engine parts. This was
the largest (unused) building I had ever seen and another example
of the once powerful railways. Today, however, on the 27th July
1978, the building was almost empty. With hindsight, the use that
which this building was now being put, pointed to the future of
Crewe Works as a whole.
Having past
through the Melts, we continued to follow Denise (Mr. Copes secretary)
towards the Erecting Shop. On the way passing the Steel Foundry,
Cubicle Shop, Smithy, Heavy Machine Shop, Traction Shop, New Shop,
the Diesel Test bed and the 150 ton Traverse Table that carried
loco's to any of the entrances in Ten Shop and Blue Room. Not
forgetting the little hut which belonged to the Works Union, led
at that time by Jim Cooper.
What the Melts had in height, the Erecting Shop - or 'Ten Shop'
- has in floor area. A brick, steel and glass structure 40 meters
in height, built in the mid 1800's to meet the
railway specifications of a bygone age - walls 2½ft. thick
and enough steel used in the stanchions and overhead crane supports
to build the QE2. The roof is completely glazed with enough glass
to build the Crystal Palace twice over. In the Summer, a team
of painters were employed to paint the outside of the roof in
the hope of reducing the effects of the sun. Looking up, you would
see them moving in unison along the roof, using yard brushes to
apply the opaque green paint.
The building is split into three bays - 'New Work' where the Inter
City 125 diesels were being built, the 'Overhaul Bay' where various
types of diesels were completely stripped and rebuilt from scratch
and 'Unclassified', where accident damage repairs were carried
out. A total of twelve tracks (belts) in all, that run the full
length of this quarter mile long building. In those days, all
twelve belts were completely full of loco's in various states
of repair and presented an awe inspiring sight!
Bill Steels' Gang.
With the
removal from service of Steam Locomotives and the advent of Diesel-Electric's,
there was a distinct shortage of electricians in the works (not
much call for an electrician on a steam loco!) therefore quite
a few fitters were forced to retrain. There were five teams or
'gangs' of these so called 'Bingo Fitter' electricians, each responsible
for a number of loco's.
Tony Cooper (my fellow apprentice) and myself, were assigned to
Bill Steels and Tony Brertons gang. Bill was a silver haired gentleman
in the true sense of the word, with
a twinkle in his eye and a knowing smile, you couldn't help but
like him immediately.
In the eight years that I knew him, I never heard him swear or
bad mouth anybody, and everyone in his charge respected him.
Loco's came
into the works for overhaul after raveling in excess of a million
miles since the last visit. They were shunted into the Erecting
Shop at the Rolls Royce end onto the stripping pits, where the
work commenced on a 'conveyor belt' system. The roofs were taken
off, all the internal equipment removed and sent to the various
shops throughout the works for repair. The body of the loco would
then be lifted from the bogies by the two fifty-ton overhead cranes
and placed on the first free stands on the belt.
Being new
starters, we were considered fair game as victims for practicle
jokes, such as going for a 'long-stand' or fetching 'sky-hooks'
from the stores in Nine shop, too being
tied up and left for a few hours in a loco's engine room. Any
jobs that involved getting dirty were usually given to the Apprentice,
the worst of which was a de-bogie. No, sorry, the worst was the
de-bogie that involved disconnecting the traction motor underneath
the drivers urination pipe. A million miles of urination buildup
on this motor plus any other collection of human and animal debris
- including missing limbs and other body parts - were waiting
for an unsuspecting apprentice to come along. Friends had even
been known to fight over who wasn't going to do this particular
task.
My first job on Bill's gang was a de-bogie with John (Dicko) Dickinson.
John showed me what was required and needless to say that I was
left to disconnect the said traction motor.
The height between the pit and the bottom of the loco is about
4'6" and I'm 6'4''. After an hour of working under that loco,
standing in a pit with a couple of inches of diesel oil, clambering
around between the axles, covered head to foot in grease and urine,
lying on that stinking traction motor in August temperatures in
a greenhouse, and finding a cows eyeball staring at me, I was
beginning to think I could have possibly made the wrong career
move!
John told
me that the de-bogie was a test for new apprentices, if we could
cope with this then every other job would be a doddle, so I persevered
and stuck with it. John and I quickly became friends. He had trained
in the school, and served ten years as a fitter but
had always wanted to be an electrician. When the opportunity came
to retrain he was the first to apply. Being dual skilled, he was
a good man to work with and he taught me the difference between
the 'right and wrong way' of doing a job. I remember seeing John
wrap 20ft. of main power cables on a Class 47 loco with 'elephant
hide', binding it tightly in place with string, leaving no space
between each winding, and then shellacking it all to keep moisture
out. Skills like this are fast becoming a thing of the past with
industry becoming so profit orientated and controlled by accountants
(it is cheaper and easier to use plastic cable ties).
Bill's gang had the reputation of being the hardest working team
in Ten shop, and its
members the most skilled, although the term 'hardest working'
doesn't actually mean a lot when you took into account the competition.
Tony Scraggs' Gang.
Other gangs
that we worked on were not quite as diligent. Looking back, it
is amazing how little work some of the men actually did and how
they managed to get away with it for so long. One such gang was
led by a man called Tony Scrag.
Every job on a loco had been assessed by a 'Time & Motion'
engineer, enabling the railways board to be billed the appropriate
man-hours for that job. I will always remember the time I was
given the task of fitting two AWD's ( Automatic Warning Devices
) in the cab's of a loco, whilst the tradesman I was with went
for a skive somewhere. It took 10 minutes to fit both units, and
when the guy came back half an hour
latter, he threw a dicky fit. It turned out that it should have
taken 2 hours per unit and he was worried incase anyone had seen
me finishing the job so quickly. When the T&M engineer had
originally timed the fitting of AWD's, he had the misfortune of
timing Scraggy, who had been previously 'tipped-off' by a Ten
Shop manager that the T&M was going to take place. Scraggy
made a couple of 'alterations' to the units, removing the 'O'
rings from one and hitting the threads of the retaining bolts
of the other with a hammer. Of coarse, when he started the job
he put on a good show for T&M, cursing that he always
had the same problems with anything repaired in the Cubicle shop,
and spent the next 3 and a half hours walking around the works
looking for replacement rings, and something to re-thread the
bolts.
When apprentices were assigned to the various gangs, our time
was paid for from the Training Departments budget. Therefore,
Scraggy would send us with the 'tradesmen' who did the least amount
of work in the hope that we would increase their output! The man
would tell you what to do and the apprentice would do it, whilst
he would sit with a cigarette in his mouth and bark orders if
we weren't fast enough for him! Once, one particular man made
the mistake of leaving his cigarettes and matches on the floor
in a Rad room whilst he went to the toilet. I quickly took the
opportunity of slicing the end off a match and carefully inserted
it into one of his cigs, you could hardly tell that it had been
tampered with after the tobacco had been put back in place. I
waited for most of the day before he got to the offending cig,
but it was definitely worth the wait! He lit-up just as the rad
room roof was lowered into place, plunging us into darkness. Seconds
later, the end of the cig exploded, lighting up the rad room and
causing temporary blindness to the man concerned. Just as well
really, it gave me time to escape - in fits of laughter. (Short-lived,
I may add. When they caught me, I spent 2 hours locked in a rag
bin outside Scraggys' cabin as punishment:)
After ten
years service in the works, you became entitled to full pay if
you were off sick for a few days. These were known as 'ES' days
(short for Extended Service). Most people only took these ES days
if they were too sick to get to work, but not Scraggies
men! This gang formed a Tote into which everyone paid 50p a week.
Those who
managed to get away with taking the most ES days in the year without
disciplinary action won the pot at Christmas.
Unclassified
Unfortunately,
every now and again a train is involved in an accident in which
the driver is killed, and usually the offending loco would be
brought into the works for repair.
The 'Unclassified' gang had the unsavory job of working with the
emergency services in removing the driver from the cab. The members
of this gang could be related to the cutthroats and carpet baggers
of old, two hundred years earlier and their descendants would
now be Australian nationals! (One
man who stuck out from the rest was Dave who had the nickname
'dunderhead', unfair because he was the only man on the gang who
read books in the lunch hour. Unlike his fellow work mates, he
could hold a conversation and had more than enough intelligence
to strike a match!)
Early
in the morning on a winters day in1979, the BBC announced to the
nation that there had been an accident on the rail network during
the night, in which a "driver and mate have been killed after
a head-on collision involving two goods locomotives", (it
was actually one loco and a brake van). The loco involved was
a Class 47 diesel that arrived outside Ten Shop on the same day
as the accident occurred. Immediately screens were placed around
the engine before the the police and ambulances arrived.
The loco had gone into the back of a slow moving goods train.
The driver had seen the obstacle and applied the vacuum brakes
at full force, but stopping 30 goods wagons each weighing 40 tons
doesn't happen immediately! They say the collision occurred at
no more than 2 mph, but this was fast enough for the back of the
brake van to ride above the buffers of the loco.
The 47 was carried along by the shear weight of its load, the
driver and mate looked at the back of the brake van with horror
as it rose higher from the rails on its frightful short journey.
Everything seemed to happen so fast that the two didn't have time
to leave their cab seats before the approaching brake van made
contact with their bodies!
The
fitters of unclassified relished the opportunity of helping to
recover the mutilated bodies, the story of how they had to remove
the lower bodies that still sat in their chairs would
be added to their repertoire of other gruesome tales, and would
be repeated endlessly over the coming months.
The trains crewe had been severed at the waist, and their upper
bodies pushed slowly through the back of the cab, the radiator
room and at last coming to a mangled halt against the shear bulk
of the diesel engine.
Xmas
The Erecting
Shop had a great Christmas Concert every year. Everyone in the
works with theatrical tendencies would contribute their talents
to the concert. They had Singers, Clowns and Actors playing their
part in entertaining the Works. Everyone would come and watch,
including staff from BREL House and retired workers living nearby.
The food was provided by the works canteen, and almost everybody
would get into the festive spirit with a few cans of beer! There
was a raffle where more Christmas spirit could be won, and Scraggies
gang awarded their tote proceeds to the ES winner.
The star performer of the concert was Marsh, who fancied himself
as a would-be Frank
Sinartra. This was encouraged by the Ten shop lads, who were perpetual
wind-up merchants. Marsh would receive letters from his 'Manager',
sent from many places around the World (depending on who in Ten
shop was traveling furthest afield for their holidays that year),
with the promise of Recording deals being just around the corner.
Marsh would come into work telling the stories of how Barry Manilow
and Neil Diamond were showing an interest in his singing and would
like to meet him. He would tell us that his wife just didn't understand
him and that she thought somebody was taking the Mickey out of
him. Every now and again, Marsh would appear with a black eye,
caused by his wife who was being driven to her wits end by his
early morning singing practice.
Only after she contacted the Works Manager - Mr. DeNobriga - asking
him to intervene, did people realize just how seriously Marsh
was taking this good hearted banter, and how much stress it was
causing to his wife!
