These photographs show Stockton Station and the railway just outside of Billingham during the long winter of 1963. Courtesy of Gordon Armes. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
These photographs show Stockton Station and the railway just outside of Billingham during the long winter of 1963. Courtesy of Gordon Armes.
The tool vans on that day had been to a derailed loco on the beck branch and had been shunted there to allow the rerailed loco to go to Thornaby shed.
Possible that it is lifting track from the parcels bay on the right hand side of the picture as part of the run down and demolition works…
I should have stated in my previous message that in between the two jobs I worked for Head Wrightsons at Dungeness Power Station. The snow, frost and ice made it impossible to do our job and were cabined up nearly all the time. Just before New Year we were told we could go home to celebrate the New Year but had to be back after that. The weather was so bad we were transferred to another job in London. It was still bad so I finished that job and then it was Newby Wiske. I mention this to show that it was really bad continuous winter weather throughout.
Remembering 1962-63 winter The snow started in October. I was going to work by car up the old A19 passed the Billingham Motors and going over the Davis’s Bridge and became stuck in snow going up the bank. At the end of the week and being in the building trade I was laid off. I started a new job on the 23rd Feb 1963 and the following week going on a 3 month course at Newby Wiske. All through March the snow was still standing on the roads. It was into April before we started a proper Springtime.
Wonder what the breakdown crane is doing at Stockton Station – problems? The 1963 winter – one of the worst ever – was a nightmare for railwaymen with weeks of sub-freezing temperatures and snow and ice, from late December until early March. Trying to keep tracks and pointwork clear at all hours and in all weathers was a continuous job. On the passenger side many of the new diesel locos had problems, particularly steam heating their trains and steam engines had to be called upon in many cases to deputise. One sight I remember that winter were two emergency coal train workings one Sunday morning, headed by two A4 class streamlined Pacific locomotives. They left their trains, from the Newcastle area, in the goods yard at Stockton. Coal suppplies were at a premium – no North Sea gas then – and of course the icy, freezing, weather made unloading them an appalling job.