THE BARROW HILL ENGINE SHED SOCIETY MAGAZINE Spring 2016 Price £2.50 Issue 50 HLF Award Delight See page 4 A Barrow Hill ghost story Page 46 My memories of Barrow Hill pages 29-37 More photos and stories inside including a DPS update See pages 15-17 Opening Shot... A glimse of steam in the Roundhouse. Photo: Dale Holford Top: Various preserved diesels and electrics crowd around the turntable during an ART DK photography evening on 25th February. Bottom: Class 40 D212 pictured on the same evening. Photos: Nick Wheat CONTENTS Chairman’s Notes 4 Headline News & Newslines 6 - First steaming of Swanscombe No.4 - AGM - ‘Big K’s’ Last Stand Events Update 10 - Roundhouse Open Day - Village Open Day - Rail Ale 2016 Diesels, Electrics and Gas Turbine Locos 12 Deltic Preservation Society Update 15 Dave Darwin Remembers 18 Steam Locomotive Department Notes 22 My Memories of Barrow Hill... 29 From the Archives 38 I Married A Loco Man 40 Volunteers’ Report 42 Money Matters 44 Alf’s Last Shift 46 Historical Corner 48 Dave Darwin making smoke with 03066. And Finally... 52 Photo: Dale Holford FRONT COVER: Butler Henderson, J17, and Henry bask in the sun inside the Roundhouse. Photo: Dale Holford And that celebration can start with the – and then the work will begin on the HLF From the Manager announcement of some fantastic news. project. We have an enormous amount of After a huge amount of work and effort work ahead of us but it will be worth it. We Obituaries from a small team here at the Roundhouse, will keep everyone informed of our plans and Welcome to a milestone Barrow Hill the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded progress over the next few months. ARTHUR GREEN was a long time member of Newsletter… us £1,170,000 to repair the fabric of the After 27 years I am very pleased - and very Barrow Hill and provided many photographs for building, build a new reception, kitchen and proud – of the position the Roundhouse our publicity which he had taken in the 50’s and …the 50th! And how very appropriate that meeting area and interpret the building and holds, thanks to the efforts of many people, 60’s. He passed away on 21st March 2016 and it is a milestone Newsletter as 2016 has the Roundhouse’s history and its story. The our condolences go to his family. and the HLF funds will ensure the security of already proved to be a very special year repairs are much needed and the reception indeed. that standing and move us forward again. RAY TOWELL was the Curator of Operations and cafe will be an invaluable addition. at the National Railway Museum and he brought In February of this year it was 25 years However, I must stress that we will retain I have said this many times before and I make many NRM locomotives to Barrow Hill events. since the Roundhouse closed to British the authentic atmosphere of the building no excuse for saying it again.......I would like He became a good friend of the Roundhouse Rail and 27 years since I started the project that makes us so popular with visitors and to give a heartfelt and very big thank you and a great friend of mine. Our thoughts go to to save it. We have come a long way since volunteers alike. It is a fantastic step forward to everyone who has played a part in our his family. He will be sadly missed. then and to celebrate that anniversary and and is explained in more detail later in this success - here’s to you all and here’s to the Newsletter. future. Cheers! Mervyn Allcock – April 2016 the fact that in that time we have produced fifty newsletters, we intend to make this We will be holding our ever-popular Rail Ale Mervyn Allcock Designed and printed by Newsletter a celebratory edition! festival in May – this year over full three days design print web signs General Manager Tel: 01777 860579 www.burgessdesignandprint.com 2 3 CHAIRMAn’S NOTES It is usual to start a 50th make the shop a more attractive place for celebration by looking back, and visitors to spend money and provide more We hope to make a start on all this in June The development of this project has Barrow Hill has plenty of things space for us to work on our collection of this year and complete the whole project involved a lot of people giving their to look back on with pride and artefacts, documents and photographs. The by the end of 2019. Building work will time and enthusiasm, and we have been celebration. However there will existing eating area will be made a more start later this year and be completed in fortunate to have had a superb team of be lots of that in this edition, comfortable space but its character will be time for Rail Ale and a celebratory event advisors, most notably Anita Hollinshead. I and I want to look forward. maintained, together with its coal fire! including the Community Play in mid 2017. am most grateful to all of them and to the Heritage Lottery Fund for their support We could not have had a better way to The main Roundhouse area will be largely There will obviously be disruption during and recognition of the quality of our celebrate this edition than by reporting untouched, although we will provide more the programme and it will be necessary proposals. It is because of all these people that our Heritage Lottery Fund application information on the locos that are there, to close the Roundhouse and the site that Barrow Hill can look forward to the has been successful and we have been probably by means of a traditional chalk to visitors during part of the time. We future with confidence. awarded a grant of £1,107,600. To this board. We will refurbish the engineering shall keep that to a minimum and will be we can add our contributions in cash and workshop and its equipment and hope to providing activities for volunteers during Here’s to the next 50 editions! kind and the donations which we hope to set up some training for engineering work. that period. Details will be worked out achieve, giving a grand total of £1,393,244 The approach to the site will be made once we have architects, contractors and Mike Kennedy, Chair more visually attractive, and there will be a Project Manager in post. We shall keep A lot of money, more than we ever easier access for people with disabilities. you all in touch with the detail via this dreamed of back in 1991 and probably Newsletter and our website. more than even Mervyn dreamed of! What We also want to tell the story of Barrow are we going to do with it? Hill. Not just the history of the work it did One of the major concerns that some and the locos that were stabled here, but people have is that the character of the site Firstly we want to deliver some tender also the stories of the people who worked will be changed. We are very concerned loving care to the Roundhouse. It was in the depot and of their families and of the to make sure it won’t! Barrow Hill will sadly neglected during the last years of community they lived in. An Interpretation remain a working depot. The commercial BR’s occupation and, although the roof Consultant will be employed to devise new activities are vital to our business plan and was replaced in the 1990s, there is a lot interpretation material and equipment. we hope some of the new facilities will that needs to be done to make sure that it help them, for example better conferencing survives for another 100 years. In particular Two full-time employees will be recruited and meeting rooms. The Roundhouse itself we need to make the building watertight. for the duration of the project. One will will also remain a working area and not Rain is getting in via some concrete wall be a Project Manager to ensure the very become a sterile museum, so that visitors slabs that were put in when BR altered the complex programme keeps to time and will still say “this place looks, feels and roof alignment. We also need to clean and budget, and the other will be an Education smells right”. protect the roof structure and carry out & Learning Officer to devise programmes some essential re-pointing of the walls. of learning for all. We shall also need At the end of the project we hope to have more volunteers for all this, particularly secured the continuing future of the site We want to add some new facilities the education programme. This will and building, to have retained all the best that will make the site more attractive include assistance during school visits and bits, to have retained our existing audience to visitors, including a new kitchen and costumed guides who can show visitors of rail enthusiasts and to have attracted an eating area and some much needed toilets around the site. If you are interested in additional audience to Barrow Hill so that at that end of the building. We shall also helping with this, watch out for more we can continue to improve the site over information. the years. The first Newsletter, printed 1998, provided refurbish the main toilet block. We want to courtesy of Martyn Brailsford.