It was all Ken Howard’s fault…
Introduction
Inspired by the threads “Back in the Day” and more recently about crossing the Inner German Border into the former DDR, I thought I would put together my memories of my first ever Continental bashing trip, from December 1981 to January 1982. Strap in – it’s a long one, over the next few days …
At that time, I lived in London, after dropping out of music college / university and deciding my career lay in railways, not music. I had managed to get a job first as a CO1 booking office clerk at Hadley Wood, then variously at Potter’s Bar and Oakleigh Park. Eventually I managed to escape the minimum wage single shift drudgery of ticket offices, and worked instead as an “Assistant Controller” at Willesden and Euston PSBs. The work was mostly what used to be called a “Booking Lad” i.e. noting and reporting the arrival and departure times of trains. At Euston the job also involved operating the arrivals and departures Solari boards, and making train announcements.
Working for BR (as it was then) had some distinct advantages. Firstly, I was actually earning money, instead of living hand to mouth on a student grant. Whilst the wages were (especially by London standards) rather low, the swap from booking office clerk to Assistant Controller came with the benefits of shift allowances and regular overtime, so I was able to start saving a few pounds each week, rather than running further into debt. The other major advantage was the travel facilities. I was able to apply to my staff office for a limited number of free passes each year, which were valid for three months and – if unused – could be returned to the staff office so they didn’t count against your annual quota. Most ticket inspectors would overlook the need to punch a hole in a staff pass, so with a bit of luck and ingenuity the travel possibilities were virtually endless.
Whilst bashing in and around the London area, I often crossed paths with Ken Howard. He was a signalling engineer employed by the London Midland Region in their Cardington Street design offices near Mornington Crecent. We shared an interest in bashing English Electric traction, such as classes 37, 40, 50, and 55, but also a wider appreciation of railway operations, infrastructure and performance. Ken was quite an eccentric figure. He was usually fairly dishevelled, with wild hair, and occasional opinions to match! He had a medical condition which required him to use a colostomy bag, so conversations with him might be interrupted as his stomach contents made their way out to his bag. Thus, whenever sharing a compartment with him, especially overnight, it was a wise move to open the compartment window! Despite that, I found him to be an informative and erudite travelling companion. We used the BR internal phone system to exchange info on any notable workings, or upcoming events.
Ken was about 12 years older than me, and so had experienced the last of BR steam. He had travelled several times to Eastern Europe chasing the last working steam locos on passenger services, especially in Poland, Hungary, and East Germany. He explained to me how he always travelled to Europe over the Christmas / New Year period. By using a careful combination of weekends, public holidays, “additional days”, and annual leave, it was possible to take about 2 weeks holiday whilst only using a 3 or 4 days annual leave. This appealed to me. My family anticipated that I would return home for a traditional family Christmas, as I had always done in the past, but in 1981 I announced that I would be spending Christmas in Poland chasing steam locos instead. As you might imagine, this was not received particularly well, but they grew to live with it. (Ken’s family background was a bit more complicated. He had been raised in some obscure Christian sect which believed that 25th December was of no special significance and had nothing to do with the Birth of Our Lord, so had no compunction with escaping the festivities associated with Christmas, and no family urging him to do the “traditional” Christmas).
Early in December 1981, Ken and I lodged visa applications with the Polish Embassy in London in preparation for a 2-week trip over the Christmas / New Year period. We had to purchase money exchange vouchers to the value of £8 per day that we wished to be in Poland, excluding day of arrival and departure. The leave was booked, our Continental Free Passes were ordered, and it was all looking good. I was really looking forward to my first Continental steam bash.
On December 13th 1981, General Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland “to avert anarchy”. Obviously, any non-essential travel to Poland was immediately barred, so we had to go back to the Polish Embassy and collect our passports – in which the visas had been stamped then crossed out – then reconsider our options. The result was an urgent visit to “Berolina”, the East German State Travel Agency, and the hurried booking of hotel accommodation in Saalfeld, which was one of the last strongholds of standard gauge steam in East Germany. We knew there would be much less to bash around Saalfeld than in Poland, so we decided to restrict the visit length there, then maybe travel around East Germany for some narrow-gauge steam, and perhaps take in some Hungarian steam as well.
Before we headed East, there were some urgent matters to deal with in the UK. December 1981 was the end of the Deltics in normal service, so I had my last run with 55017 on the 1405 from Kings Cross to York on Sunday 20/12/81. The rest of that day’s tale is covered in post #2449, and my return from Plymouth to London (after a placatory pre-Christmas family visit) #2477.
So off we went, at the busiest time of the year, to a different country than the one we intended, and with me knowing next to nothing about their railways, or the languages. I was entirely guided by Ken Howard, bless him for his patience and forbearance. We set off from Victoria to Dover Western Docks, then by night ferry to Oostende. After a fairly uncomfortable crossing, it was a first lesson in passport checking queues for me.
(Tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode).
