REFLECTIONS OF A RAILWAY CAREER
AN EXTRACT FROM J.M DUNN'S BOOK
J.M. DUNN WAS A RAILWAY SHED
WORKER AND EVENTUALLY "SHED MASTER"
IN NORTH WALES DURING THE THIRTIES. HE WAS FOREMAN FITTER AT 6G
BETWEEN 1935-1939 , AND WAS EMPLOYED AT MANY OF THE STEAM MOTIVE POWER DEPOTS,
IN WALES, DURING HIS CAREER.
THE FOLLOWING GIVES AN INSIGHT INTO THE EVERYDAY LIFE DURING THE EARLY DAYS OF LLANDUDNO JUNCTION SHED.
LLANDUDNO
JUNCTION
On
Saturday the 2nd February 1935 I went on duty at Llandudno Junction Shed for the
first time and spent the best part of the morning looking round. The shed, which
was of the “through” type with doors at each end, had four roads each 297
feet long and was the “Concentration Depot” * for North Wales established
under the recent re-organisation of the Motive Power Section of the Chief
Operating Manager’s Department, the “Garage Depots” being Holyhead,
Bangor, Rhyl and Denbigh. The mechanical equipment comprised the following
modern machine-tools, all driven by electricity:
Wheel Lathe with attachment for truing-up journals supplied by Craven
Bros.
12 inch centre Axlebox Lathe by Dean, Smith and Grace.
7-inch centre Lathe by George Hatch.
Radial Drilling Machine, Type A, by Swift and Sons.
High-speed Vertical Drilling
Machine with 1-inch chuck capacity by Alfred Herbert.
Hydraulic Press by Rice and Co.
Emery Wheel by Luke and Spencer.
Tube-cutting Saw Bench.
Blower by Aland & Co.
Whitemetalling Hearth.
Coppersmith’s Hearth.
Blacksmith’s Forge.
7 ½ ton Chain Hoist by Herbert Morris.
Worthington-Simpson Centrifugal Booster Pump.
Some
of these had independent motors and others were driven through shafting.There
was also a L.N.W. “pit-type” hydraulic Wheel-Drop with table 9 ft. 0 in.
long.
*
Known as the ‘Motive Power Area Locomotive Supply, Repair,
Concentration & Garage Scheme’ inaugurated in
1933 , see The Railway Gazette for April ,6th, 23rd and 3oth, 1937.
I
had not been long at Llandudno Junction before I found that Mr. P... stood in
very great awe of “Crewe” and got into a state bordering on terror if anyone
from the Divisional Office at that place came on a visit. The people at the
latter were aware of this and most of them improved the occasion whenever
opportunity offered! He knew of my friendship with Tucker and that did not add
to his comfort though I was always careful to avoid mentioning the latter if I
could. On his part, P... when he had to refer to Tucker always called him “a
person I will not name”! The staff were just as frightened of P... as he was
of “Crewe” and matters were not improved by “Q” who was one of the most
cantankerous and cross-grained men I have ever met. He invariably arrived in a
bad temper and the first member of his staff that he set eyes upon received the
full measure of his spleen. Likewise he did not consider he was doing his duty
if he did not have at least one member of his staff “on the carpet” in P.
‘s office every morning when the latter would do his best to frighten the life
out of the victim. From this it will be seen that the atmosphere was not a
particularly pleasant one though as “Q” told me that he had, himself,
refused to go out to breakdowns with Ardern owing to the latter’s behaviour,
the general conditions prevailing before that gentleman took his departure must
have been very much worse and can be better imagined than described. They were
bad enough at the time of my arrival: every time Mr. P... came out of his office
he banged the door and every time the door banged, all the members of the
mechanical and shed staff began to shiver and shake like a lot of rabbits that
had been frightened by the report of a gun! There was little I could do about it
until “Q” was promoted and took his departure in March 1936 because both he,
the chief clerk and most of the senior members of the clerical staff who were
persona grata with P.. . were already, for some unknown reason, obviously and
bitterly jealous of me and it was no good making bad worse.
However
as soon as “Q” had gone I bearded the lion in his den and said “Do you
know, Mr. P .., that every time you go out into the shed and bang your office
door all the staff begin to shiver and shake?” He looked at me in silence for
a few seconds until he’d got over the surprise and then said “Well, that’s
how it ought to be!” I replied “I beg your pardon, but that’s how it ought
not
Having
related this episode I must retrace my steps and mention the other leading
lights at Llandudno Junction. The second man, Llewellyn Williams who was
designated Running Shed Foreman was my enthusiastic supporter and consistently
did all he could to make things pleasant for me, as also did the two Running
Shift Foremen Parry and Sims, The chief clerk was known as “Blue Dick” and
by that name I will refer to him in these notes. He made a special point of
keeping as much of’ an eye on me as possible and reporting the result of his
observations to P. . . with whom he and two other clerks were on very friendly
terms. The chargeman-cleaner was one “Wingy”, a one-armed man, whose
principal use was as a medium for the conveyance of information to P... when,
for any reason, we did not wish to impart it directly. In other words Mr.
“Wingy” could always be relied upon to tell both P... and “Blue Dick”
anything he overheard that he thought was worth repeating.
As
to the General Office, I had never been in a place with such a horrible
atmosphere and the very walls seemed to exude evil. This was not merely a
fanciful idea of my own and others have made similar comments about it since. If
ever a place wanted exorcising with “Bell, Book and Candle” that office did!
An
outstanding member of the mechanical staff was the turner, David Price Owen who
had served his apprenticeship at the Dinorwic Quarry works at Llanberis. He was
a wizard with machine
"D.P"
as he was called had a very poor command of English and although he could
understand what was said to him, he had difficulty in replying. He “thought”
in Welsh and then had to translate his thoughts into English before uttering
them.
One
day a member of the staff came and told me that there was something the matter
with the shed cat as she was lying in a pool of water in one of the engine pits.
We got her out and dried her but found she could neither stand nor walk so we
took her into my office and got her a drink of warm milk and brandy while we
tried to find out what had happened to her. Presently someone suggested that she
had had kittens, so we went to look for them and after hearing unusual noises
inside the whitemetalling hearth took it to pieces and found three kittens
behind the gas-rings! To cut a long story short, the mother cat soon recovered
having apparently been gassed and after living with her for about three months
in the stores one of the black, long-haired kittens came to stay with us. He was
christened “Micky” and ruled our household until his deeply regretted death
from natural causes just before his sixteenth birthday. He was a grand cat and a
great friend.
The
engines allocated to the Llandudno Junction District in December 1937 were as
follows:
Llandudno Junction
2—6—2 T.B. Tk.
495
4—6—0 5P.
79, 82, 105, 107.
4—4—0 2P.
5035, 5045, 5048, 5052, 5070, 5219, 5130,
5235, 5236, 5246, 5253, 5444, 5371.
2—4—2 5 ft. 6 in. Tk.
6635, 6667, 6676, 6682, 6713, 6748, 6679.
0—6—2 S.T.C.
27571, 27593, 27597, 27604, 7803.
“Precursor”
25279, 25297.
“George the Fifth”
25348, 25371, 25373, 25392.
18 in. Goods
8337, 8385, 8401, 8503, 852!, 86i6.
Rhyl
4-4-0 2P.
420, 494, 651, 652, 638
0-6-0 4F
4396, 4292.
WATER PROBLEMS
One
of the peculiarities that had to be contended with at Llandudno Junction was the
locomotive water supply, which was obtained from the Gyffin stream, a
watercourse which flows from the hills into the River Conway just behind Conway
Castle. An electrically driven pump was installed in a hut built close up
against the Town Wall of Conway and this pumped water from the stream at a point
where its level had been raised by the construction of an earthen dam. There was
no trouble until there were high tides in the river but when these came along
the salt water would come over the dam, the height of which was restricted, I
believe, by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, mix with the fresh water
and get pumped into the water-tank at the shed. then the fun would begin. The
salt water would pass via the various water-columns into the engine tanks and
then, in due course to the boilers. Then the engines would immediately be
plainly and simply “sick” and vomit like a human being, all the water in the
boiler being thrown out of the chimney. This was frequently followed by the
fusing of the lead plugs and I was told of one classic occasion when poor Mr.
P... found seventeen fused lead plugs on his desk when he arrived at his office
one morning. As the fusing of a lead plug is almost as serious a crime in the
railway world as murder, his feelings can be well imagined. The local residents
got so used to the engines discharging the contents of their boilers through
their chimneys that whenever they chanced to be near the railway and saw an
engine coming they made for shelter!
As
a result of these happenings it was, of course, necessary to endeavour to
prevent a recurrence and to do this arrangements were made to stop the pump
before the salt water got over the dam but it had to be kept going until the
last minute in order to keep up the supply. In the ordinary way the pump was
automatically started and stopped by remote control operated by a float at the
shed tank, so at the time of high tides this was switched out and a man
stationed at the pump so that he could shut off the pump at the critical moment.
On the 17th August 1935 one of the busiest Saturdays of the year, I, together
with P.. and one D. I. Jones who, because of his great reliability, was always
chosen to act as pump watchman on these occasions, spent a very enjoyable
afternoon standing in the long grass on the hank of the stream to make sure that
the pump was kept working up to the last minute as we were short of water. Rain
was pouring in torrents all the time and as soon as the salt water reached the
dam, Jones went to the pump to be ready to stop it when we signalled that the
salt water was near the top. On this occasion the salt water went over the top
and contaminated the water on the “fresh” side: as soon as the tide
-------------------------------------------------------------------