An image gallery of Stockton Station when it was extremely busy with people who had come to see some famous locomotives.
Photgraphs and details courtesy of Gordon Armes.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
An image gallery of Stockton Station when it was extremely busy with people who had come to see some famous locomotives.
Photgraphs and details courtesy of Gordon Armes.
Nearly 45 years ago, frightening – seems only like last year. I am in the crowd down on the platform(s). I still have some awful black and white photos of this event, too many heads in the way, plus nervous camera shake from crowd buffeting. I would have been better off on the bridge. Flying Scotsman No.4472 at Stockton, early morning on Saturday 25 May 1968. That morning I also logged 1110, 175 and 9013 – The Black Watch, possibly the arriving Deltic seen above (on the morning King’s Cross perhaps). The early blue diesel multiple unit colour scheme with the half yellow front did not last long either, replaced by a full yellow front and a brighter blue. A good view of the freight avoiding lines around the back of the station. They were still well used in 1967/8, especially by independent brake tender coupled BR Darlington/Sulzer built Type 2’s (later Class 25) and English Electric Darlington/Vulcan Foundry built Type 3’s (later Class 37). Type 1 workings were often double headed needing the additional power to get up Stockton Bank.
Note the water tower for steam engines still in place on the yard lines. WD 2-8-0′ s were often found watering and simmering here the summer before. Great view of the back of the Queens Hotel. As a kid I got my black and white train photos developed at a chemist in Norton High Street, and if they were truely awful (and they often were due to my ‘Secret Sam’ basic box camera for kids, just press and take) the chemist would take pity on me and not charge me for developing them. Later I got an English ‘Ross’ camera that took brilliantly sharp black and white photos, until it was one of many objects ‘nicked’ off a locked coach at Liverpool Lime Street Station during a ‘Dalescroft’ shed bash tour from Stockton to the North West. These tours from Stockton in the early 1970’s were manic, full of the same teenagers from all the local schools, and locally organised by a guy in Fairfield. Did many of these tours all over the UK, often travelling through the night. Back at school on Monday all my companions were so exhausted they would often fall asleep.