Locos at Lincoln

The only two pictures I have from those days at Lincoln:
1. A3 60065 Knight of Thistle on a Sunday diversion for East Coast main line track maintenance.
2. B1 61405.
I think I had one of those nasty little Kodak plastic cameras, although at the time it would have been a precious object to me! As you say, tiny viewfinder and no adjustments at all, shutter speed couldn’t cope with moving objects.

Many thanks, Pete! I turned 16 in August 1959, left school and disappeared into the RAF in September, trainspotting days ended for good then!

That’s it! Archibald Sturrock! Memory begins to fade after 55 years! More Grantham pictures, if you please. When I was much older I lived for a couple of years next to the East Coast main line when the Deltics were running, but hardly glanced at them.

A4 Pacific Dwight D Eisenhower

I just happened to drop in to the Rail Museum at Green Bay, Michigan, as one does (especially when one lives in Sweden) in 2003 and was flabbergasted to see this apparition!
I hadn’t seen her since she was at the buffers with an up express in 1960something at King’s Cross!
The only jarring thing is that the Americans had PAINTED the motion with thick silver paint! Sacrilege, especially as you can see she is standing in a restaurant now and hardly likely to rust.

Tomcats at Oceana September 2006

Does this mean that all these, photographed just 6 weeks ago, have already been scrapped? Hard to believe.

I was living in a children’s home in Grantham in 1956, pocket money 1/9 per week, enough to go to the pictures and buy a bag of sweets! We used to scramble up the bank on the northwest side of Grantham station and put pennies on the rails to see them squashed to double the size by the Pacifics that were waiting; Grantham was I think an engine change stop for expresses to Scotland. The very first I saw was (A2?) “Archibald Russell”, I’ll never forget that either. Of course we were often chased away by the railwaymen but it was a magnet for us anyway! Health and safety would have a fit nowadays, but I survived and so did my mates. Later I lived in Lincoln and often cycled to Newark, some 15 miles away, just to look at the East Coast main line and collect some numbers for a couple of hours. I don’t suppose any children today would do such a thing! I am still an anorak and proud to be one, but diesels do nothing for me!