Water, Water Everywhere

The dank, moist climate of Britain in the first half of the 20th century seemed eminently suited to the steam locomotive, with its voracious appetite for water. During the steam age, columns, tanks, towers, troughs and hoses were to be found everywhere that there were lines. Engines could take water once they had brought their trains to a stand at the hydraulic buffers of King's Cross. Many smaller stations had water columns at the end of the platform--a nightmare during the coldest days of winter when coal-fired braziers had to be kept alight by the side of the columns in order to stop the water supply freezing up.

Here are two short anecdotes about locomotives and water--excesses of water, in fact. The first is culled from page 84 of Patrick Whitehouse's and David St John Thomas's LNER 150, while the second comes from Volume 2 of Richard Hardy's reminiscences, Railways in the Blood, page 15.

The renowned Leslie Preston Parker was Divisional Manager of the former GER lines (the Eastern Section) of the LNER during the interwar years and he continued under BR until his retirement in 1953. This formidable man, who never raised his voice but still succeeded in terrorising the workforce, was seldom to be seen in the running shed. However, one day in the 1930s he was making his way in bowler hat and spats, furled brolly in hand, across the Jubilee Shed front at Stratford while one of the depot's hundreds of tank engines (an 'N7', perhaps) was having its side-tanks filled with water. Suddenly, the water cascaded over the side, the motion, the axle-boxes and the tracks. The fireman dashed away from his tea-making to spin the stopcock shut. Parker cast his reptilian eye over the hapless footplateman and said "Tell me, fireman, when you are at home, do you allow your bath to overflow?" The reply, in broadest East-End Cockney, must have been one of the few that got the better of that formidable railway administrator: "Barf, Guv, barf? I ain't got a bleedin' barf!"

In the second instance, an 8A Edge Hill crew were working one of the London to Merseyside expresses one evening with a 'Princess Royal' Pacific, perhaps no. 46201, 46204, 46207 or 46208, all of which were Edge Hill engines. At a set of water troughs on the West Coast main line the fireman let down the scoop but could not wind it out in time. Cascades of water washed lumps of coal across the footplate. Sheets of spray soaked everything, including the driver. He turned around and, with incomparable Scouse irony and timing asked "Did we gerrany?"

Stories also abound of the effect on the first coach of a passenger train when the fireman misjudged the water intake from a set of troughs. It was not an uncommon event and often it washed the grime off the front of the first coach. Passengers were treated to the sight of a small waterfall down the windows. However, the effects were decidedly different on warm days when the windows were open. The filler cap, invariably at the train end of the tender, would fly open and fountains of water would cascade out. If the first coach was a van that housed the guard he would know he had to shut the windows in time, but it was a different matter if it were a passenger coach. The first compartment could fill up and soaked passengers would stagger out into the corridor on a tidal wave of water, waving soggy newspapers and cursing the railway. It is remarkable what passengers put up with during the steam age. They protested, but they seldom demanded compensation and rarely if ever sued. Moreover, sympathy was rationed among the poorly-paid front-line staff of the railways who had to deal with the luckless travellers.

Perhaps the worst such case occurred on the Great Western Railway and involved the company's only Pacific, no.111 Great Bear. Its tender, like the loco larger than life, was a ramshackle contraption of unpredictable gait. Over a set of troughs it directed a jet of water at the first passenger vehicle with such murderous force that it blew a hole in the coachwork and half filled the carriage with water. No doubt the aftermath involved more than a "please explain" notice. Churchward must have had his bad feelings about the Great Bear confirmed by the incident. When Gresley's first 'A1' 4-6-2, no. 1470 Great Northern, was outshopped, Churchward is reputed to have said "What did that young man want to build a Pacific for? We could have sold him ours."

Langley Junction

Langley Junction, where the loop line to Hertford North joined the East Coast main line, was a place of numerous attractions. An ancient iron-plate girder bridge spanned the line. Next to it was a modern concrete bridge carrying a dual carriageway and beside that was a spacious GNR signal box with a frame of about 80 levers. On the other side, next to the road to the coal merchant's sidings was a fence adorned with an old cast-iron sign, thick with innumerable coats of paint that had faded to a pale purple, on which the GNR informed the public that 'Trespassing is prohibited--By Order, 1913'. The message was a stern reminder of Edwardian probity. Towards Hitchin there was a set of water troughs, 594 yards long. They invited one to stand on the oak fence at the side of the lines and throw small stones at the long furrows of water. The plop and clunk when they hit the mark was very satisfying.

In the late 1950s the troughs were still an important installation. On the down side of the main line just after the junction there was a water-softening plant that consisted of a huge cylindrical tower, about 40 feet tall, fed by a pipe from a large open-topped tank located further up the slope on a set of brick arches. The steel-plated side was covered with faded rust-inhibiting paint that had weathered to a matt pinkish-maroon not unlike old Wedgwood china.

A steel staircase ran in a spiral up the side of the tank and someone had written 'Vote Labour' in large letters on it. As an aside, one day in the early 1960s Sir Alec Douglas Home took some time off from huntin', shootin' and fishing on his Scottish estate to address the masses, in his clipped, condescending patrician accent, from a rostrum in the town centre. Nobody actually shouted "Wot abaht the workers?" but he was roundly booed and whistled in that stronghold of support for Wilson's Labour. Simply not done, old boy.

Adventurous children would shin up the metal ladder of the open-topped water tank and jiggle the levers that controlled the water syphon. From that point there was an excellent, if somewhat vertiginous, panorama of the main line with in the foreground an acre of scummy water upon which mats of brilliant green algae floated. Occasionally, the syphon would block and for hours on end water would cascade spectacularly over the side of the tank and down the slope to the lineside, where it would disappear into the cess.

British Railways built a curious structure of yellow London brick and reinforced concrete that straddled the siding by the water tower, apparently so that locomotives could have water-softening powder poured directly into their tanks. On occasion in the late 1950s an ancient 'J6' 0-6-0 from Hitchin 34D shed would be stationed under this building for several hours, hissing gently and waiting its turn on a pick-up freight. It would be given water from the enormous tank that supplied the troughs, which also had a filler pipe complete with the usual leather bag.

In the early 1960s these installations were dismantled and demolished. Suddenly the insides of that huge maroon tank, which had seemed so mysterious and so permanent, were laid bare. The central syphon was coated with decades of lime incrustation; the white of the chalk deposits was stained a patchy brown with rust. No one could believe the change in scenery when it was all gone. No more would the East Coast expresses send up that great travelling cloud of spray as they dropped the scoop at 60 mph.

One night I was invited into Langley box by the young signalman. We sat there in the 25-watt glow of his lamps with his tape recorder playing, appropriately, old "Shadows" hits. For a short while it was possible to imagine that the decline of steam had not happened and the 'A3s' and 'A4s' would still be rushing past the home signal outside.