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Full text of "Sounds of the Railways and

their recording"
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And Their
Recording

PETER HANDFORD

is

§*

SOUNDS OF RAILWAYS AND

THEIR RECORDING
Peter Handford

Sound is a unique sense. Unlike photography,

which can take either split-second pictures
to record visually a moment in history or a
succession of pictures to trick the brain into
seeing moving pictures, sound can be sensed
only as a continuous sequence which can
begin and end. Nothing can transmit the
impression of movement and power more
than the sound of a steam locomotive hard
at work. From his young days Peter Handford
was fascinated by railway sounds and his
working life as a professional film recordist
not only gave him ample opportunity for
mastering studio and location recording
techniques but also strengthened his resolve
to record railway sounds, despite the heavy,
bulky equipment which was all that was
available in the early 1950s.

The success of his superb recordings of

the steam age, which he obtained despite
many disappointments and technical diffi-
culties, can be gauged by the fact that more
than forty-five mostly long-playing titles are
available on disc in the Argo-Transacord list
for posterity, to delight enthusiasts who
never heard the great days of steam. This
book tells the story behind the recordings,
the problems, the tribulations, the ones that
got away and the successes.

IS8N 7153 7631 4

y v?G
Sounds
of Railways

and their recording

Peter Handford

DAVID & CHARLES

Newton Abbot London North Pomfret (Vt)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Sounds of railways and their recording.

1. Locomotive sounds - Recording ana reproducing

I. Title

621.389'32 TJ608

ISBN 0-7153-7631^*

e Peter [landlord 1980

AH rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored
in retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission
of David & Charles (Publishers) Limited

Photosei by Northern Phot otypeset ting Co, Bolton

and primed in Great Britain

by Biddies Ltd, Guildford, Surrey

for David & Charles (Publishers) Limited

Brunei House, Newton Abbot, Devon

Published in the United States of America

by David & Charles Inc

North Pomfret, Vermont 05053, USA

Contents

Introduction

1 The fascination of sound

2 Sounds of war

3 Transacord is born

4 Steam sounds in Britain

5 Progress with Argo

6 Recording in Europe - and Asia

7 The art of railway recording

Discography

Index

19

32

46

91

100

123
138

147

Introduction

On a bitterly cold December night the late John Gale, author

and Observer journalist, stood with me on a hillside above
Hawick, listening to a train struggling up the steep gradient from
the now abandoned station: 'I never realised before what vivid
and varied sounds a train can make,' he said. 'I'll have to write
this scene into a book.' Perhaps, had he lived, he might have
written this book for me; certainly his enthusiasm for sounds
which he had never bothered to listen to before was inspiring,
and it is the similar enthusiasm of many other people who,
during the past 25 years, have shown an appreciative interest in
railway recordings, which has inspired the issue of so many
records of the sounds of the steam age and eventually led to the
writing of this book.

Some people find it amusingly incomprehensible that

anybody would want to listen to records of railway sounds. This
book is not for such people; it is for those who find the world of
railways, and particularly their sounds which convey so much of
the atmosphere, interesting, exciting, or simply nostalgic.
Railway sounds have always been all those things to me, since
long before it became practical to record them, and it is the
sounds of steam age railways during the past 45 years or so, in
Britain and abroad, which form the main theme of this book.
The viewpoint of a sound recordist is inevitably different from
that of a photographer, as are many of the problems and
experiences involved in making recordings; some of the
experiences may interest railway enthusiasts and possibly others,
and some of the problems may be of interest to those who have
listened to records of railway sounds, or have made their own
recordings.

The power of sound is consistently overlooked and

underrated. It is, for instance, a. strange fact that, though
blindness is normally a subject for sympathy, deafness is all too

INTRODUCTION

often treated with inconsiderate amusement. To be sightless is

certainly a tragedy, but to be deaf is surely an even greater
deprivation because, whereas a sightless person still has the
means to form varied mental images inspired by sounds,
anybody deprived of their hearing is denied this, one of the most
potent means of stimulating the imagination.

So many people have been of inestimable help in making the

railway records and in the writing of this book. Some are directly
mentioned in the text; it might be invidious to mention others,
but my thanks are due to them all - most of all to the many
railwaymen of all grades and nationalities whose work has
provided the material for the records and who have so often gone
out of their way to be helpful. A great deal has been written and
said about the sadness which enthusiasts experienced at the
demise of the steam locomotive and the closure of numerous
railways; far less has been heard of the reactions of those whose
working life was spent on the railways, among steam
locomotives, and if they would consider it as a compliment, it is
to them and of course to my endlessly patient and long suffering
family, that this book is dedicated.

Peter Handford
Hast Suffolk. Summer 1979

Chapter 1
The fascination of sound

The sounds of railway operation, like the sounds of the sea, are
so instantly evocative that, for many years, they have been
widely used in film and radio productions, to influence the
imagination of the audience.

Since the earliest days of film production, directors have made

frequent use of the enormous visual potential of railways and
particularly the steam locomotive. Originally it was as a simple
demonstration of the ability of the film camera to show
movement, then to exploit the obvious dramatic potential of, for
instance, a heroine tied to the railway lines during the final
moments of a serial episode, or the frustration of a villain on
horseback, thwarted by the superior speed of a train which, after
a thrilling race, beat him to the level crossing. Later, as
productions became more sophisticated, images such as
thrusting piston rods, whirling wheels, the rise and fall of
gleaming connecting rods and clouds of smoke and steam, were
more and more widely used, often purely symbolically, to create
or enhance a dramatic effect.

The advent of recorded motion picture sound immediately

brought a new realism to the visual image and as technique
improved, provided a valuable means of enhancing the impact of
the image by the imaginative use of sounds which were not
necessarily directly connected with that image.

The long, haunting whistles of American locomotives have

been heard in countless Hollywood films, in many cases where no
train is ever seen on the screen. The sounds of engines, whistles
and clanging trucks in a shunting yard; the bustling sounds of a
busy station; the shrieking whistle and clattering wheels of a
passing express; the slow passage of a distant goods train; all
these and many other railway sounds have been used time and

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

again, more frequently than pictures of similar subjects, to set a

scene or to create or sustain an atmosphere. Such wide and
frequent use of railway sounds is evidence of the influence which
they can have on an audience.

The wonderful variety of sounds and rhythms associated with

railways have fascinated and inspired many composers. Berlioz,
Honneger and Villa Lobos, among others, composed music
which had been inspired by railways. Railway rhythms can be
found in some of the compositions of Dvorak, who is known to
have been a keen railway enthusiast whose students were
expected to share his enthusiasm and accompany him to the
nearest railway station where, during his visits to America and
no doubt in other countries, he spent much of his spare time,
between rehearsals and performances, watching and listening to
trains.

Johann Strauss junior and Eduard Strauss both composed

polkas with railway titles, based on railway rhythms and many
years later, in the late 1950s, some very different dance rhythms
such as Skiffle were introduced on the BBC Television
production Six Five Special by a signature tune of the same tide,
clearly based on railway rhythms and given an added railway
emphasis by the accompanying introductory film sequence,
which included scenes on the footplate of a steam locomotive.

Duke Ellington frequently worked on his compositions during

train journeys, the sounds of which he found inspiring, and more
recently such composers as Arthur Butterworth, Ron Grainer
and Richard Rodney Bennett have written music which
suggests, or is inspired by the sounds of railways. A modern
ballet, devised by Jill Gale, was performed in London in 1977
entirely to the rhythmical sounds of various steam locomotives
and at a university in Australia, Tristram Gary is working on
some compositions in which railway sounds are integrated with
more conventional types of music.

This considerable interest of musicians is not in the least

surprising, because railway sounds themselves possess many of
the attributes of music, the definite rhythms, some simple others
more complex; the controlled power and a great range of
contrasts in tempo and intensity are all there in railway sounds,
8

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

just as in music and can be equally worth listening to for their

own qualities.

The sounds of a train climbing through the countryside, for

instance, can be likened to a symphony in three movements,
played without a break: first, pianissimo, the birdsong and a
distant whistle emphasise the silence out of which the train is
heard approaching, perhaps with a brief and abrupt change of
tempo when the wheels slip; the train comes closer at a steady
and now slower tempo, reaches a crescendo as it passes by, then
climbs away into the distance, now pianissimo again, with maybe
a long, lonely whistle as a coda. Sounds such as these are surely
as evocative as a musical composition and can be equally
emotive; certainly they are a most worthwhile subject for
recording and for the production of a series of gramophone
records.

Records of railway sounds are sometimes referred to as Train

Noises; this can be deliberately derisive but is more often simply
thoughtless. No sound recordist will be pleased if his recordings
are called noises, unless he is doing some work for the admirable
Noise Abatement Society. The distinction between sound and
noise is important, though sometimes hard to define; generally a
sound which is unpleasant or objectionable to the listener is
called a noise, therefore one person's sound can obviously be
another person's noise. The merry toots of a car horn in a street,
late at night, may be a cheery sound to a motorist leaving a pany,
but it will be an intensely irritating, unnecessary and illegal noise
to all those woken by it; the new motorbike, roaring up and down
the road, delights the rider with its powerful sounds while the
residents are infuriated by the noise; the extravagant Concorde
may sound splendid to a jet set executive cossetted in a
soundproofed cabin but it makes a painful and possibly
damaging noise for those unfortunate to be anywhere near the
flight path.

Certain sound is always described as noise - the penetrating

stab of pneumatic drills for instance. The noise of pneumatic
drills, at work near Big Ben, was one of the sounds which
delighted listeners to an early recording produced to
demonstrate the wonders of stereophonic sound! Perhaps the

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

noise of juggernaut lorries, so intensely irritating to unfortunate

victims living alongside through roads and motorways, is a
delightful sound to road transport interests.

Noise is one of the most evil and intrusive pollutants of

modern life and it is sad that it is given so little consideration by
politicians and planners. Aircraft and heavy road vehicles are
among the worst and most persistent polluters, by comparison
with which the noise caused by any railway is insignificant. The
publishers of this book occupy offices adjoining Newton Abbot
railway station, on the West of England main line; in such a
situation it might be thought that the noise of the railway would
be most disturbing. However, although there obviously is noise
from the railway at times, it is always of short duration and is
much less intrusive than the endless and variously irritating
noise from the roads.

Even in times when railways carried much more traffic than

they do now and steam trains on jointed track were noisier than
those with electric or diesel traction on welded rails, the noise
from a main line was only intermittent, of short duration and
because of its different nature less excrutiating than that of
aircraft or road vehicles. The making of recordings for railway
records, at such remote locations as Barkston or Shap Wells,
which was then far from a motorway, provided opportunities to
compare the type and amount of noise created by road and rail
traffic. The ceaseless grind of whining lorries on a main road,
some miles away, often formed a continuous background to the
silence of the lineside at such locations, particularly during the
night; the railway, in contrast, was completely silent except
during the brief passage of trains carrying many times the load of
the intrusive road vehicles.

Sometimes, if the wind blew from the direction of the road,

recording at such locations became impossible and at other
locations, such as the climb to Beat tock summit, it was virtually
impossible at any time, because the incessant racket from the
road drowned the sounds of the trains, even those with two hard
working engines, except during the short time when the train
passed by.

The pollution of aircraft noise is even more intrusive than that

10

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

from roads, spreading over a wider area to the remotest places.

Aircraft noise is one of the worst problems which a sound
recordist has to face, for it is quite unpredictable and no location
can be considered safe from it since, in places over which
commercial aircraft seldom fly, the armed forces, immune to
most criticism, may ensure that silence is regularly and brutally
shattered. Usually they choose the normally most peaceful and
naturally most beautiful areas, such as Wales, Yorkshire, the
Cotswolds and East Anglia, over which to make the most hideous
noises at' the lowest possible altitude.

Modern railways are most concerned about noise and its

effects on passengers and the environment. ORE, an
international test and research organisation of 43 European
railways, with headquarters in Utrecht, is at present
investigating ways of reducing noise. Unfortunately there is little
evidence that any similar concern is shown by road or aircraft
operators, unless, as in the case of initial Concorde landings in
America, their operations are directly threatened by excessive
noise.

It is impossible to think of a sound which will not become an

irritating noise to somebody in some circumstances. Railway
sound, like certain forms of music, will be merely noise to some
people. They will almost certainly be irritating noises to those
who have been subjected to a non-stop nightly performance of
shunting sounds within a few yards of a bedroom window, but to
any railway enthusiast the various sounds of the railways will be
an interesting and evocative form of music. People other than
railway enthusiasts usually react to records of railway sounds
with, at worst, amused tolerance and rarely with hostility or
indifference; even the indifferent can sometimes become
interested, if they can be persuaded to read the record sleeve
notes which set the scene and then listen attentively to a properly
presented sequence of railway sounds. Never having paid much
attention to such sounds before, they can be surprised at their
reactions. They may find the rhythms interesting, even exciting,
or possibly the sounds will recall some past experience; there
have been cases of complete conversion from indifference to real
enthusiasm.

11

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

One of the commonest reasons for interest and enjoyment in

listening to railway records is that, because so many people have
had experiences which are directly or indirectly linked with
railways, listening to these sounds recalls nostalgic memories.
Those who grew up between the wars had the advantage of
knowing a country not then widely infested with lorries and
aircraft ; the everyday sounds were then more distinct and less
raucous and it was possible to hear them without being deafened.

Railways were then the accepted way to move passengers or

freight and railway journeys were often something of an
occasion; the holiday train journey, or the day excursion, was a
real adventure for children, so much more exciting than piling
into the familiar family car and however long or late the train
journey, surely less of a strain for parents than an overnight
drive, ending in a traffic jam on a bypass or motorway exit.

There were few places not within reach of railways, which had
become an accepted, useful and seemingly permanent part of
everyday life. Trails of steam across the countryside were a
normal and natural pan of the landscape and in the same way
the sounds of the railways were a normal and accepted part of
the pattern of everyday sounds.

It was strangely comforting to hear a distant train while lying

in bed on a winter night and many countrymen made use of the
sounds of the railway as an aid to local weather forecasting: 'the
trains sound that close tonight, there'll surely be rain before
morning.'

To people who knew that period the appeal of railway records

will be nostalgic, and for those of a later age the recordings have
considerable value in their ability to convey, in sound, the nature
of life in the railway age.

Unfortunately the comprehensive recording of the sounds of

the true railway age, in the same manner as that scene was so
well captured by photographers and artists, was not possible; the
tape recorder arrived too late and earlier methods of sound
recording were delicate, complex, costly and generally too
cumbersome to be used on location, other than for expensive
specialised purposes, such as film or radio productions.
Fortunately, however, the sound scene changed more slowly

12

than the visual; the addition of a British Railways number and

emblem made no difference to the sound of a pre-grouping
engine and much of the atmosphere of the steam railway age
remained in the sounds of railways in Britain in the 1950s and
considerably later in some other countries.

The world of railways has always had much to offer to those

who work in it and to the interested observer. It is an
individualistic world, somewhat detached and in some ways
almost secretive, but the secrets are well worth looking for and
railwaymen, who have an interest and pride in their work, can
usually be persuaded to share at least some of the secrets with an
enthusiast.

Innumerable contrasts - drama, humour, peacefulness,

excitement and an inexplicable sadness - all exist in the sights
and sounds of the railways. There is the sense of occasion and
excitement in the departure of a long distance express train; the
peacefully unhurried charm of a rural branch line; the lonely life
of the signalman; the enormous power under the control of the
engine driver and dependent upon the expertise and physical
efforts of the fireman; the drama of an engine struggling with a
heavy load in adverse conditions; and the sense of humour of
railwaymen, often most evident when things are at their worst.
Such things are an inseparable part of railway working, a
difficult, dedicated, demanding and sometimes dangerous way of
life. The difficulties and demands were certainly at their peak
during the steam age, but they can still be evident now in some
unexpected crisis, such as the 1978 snowfalls.

Sounds have always been important in railway operations.

The bell codes in the signal box are an obvious example; engine
whistles also use significant codes, to indicate a train destination
when approaching a junction, or between one engine and
another in the case of a train with banking or pilot engines. Some
engines, on the GWR for example, were fitted with two whistles
of different notes, one of which was intended for use only in an
emergency. Certain drivers and firemen sometimes used the twin
whistles for other than emergency purposes and crews at
Aylesbury shed devised a signature tune which was played on the
twin whistles of ex GWR engines with varying degrees of skill,

13

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

and more frequently, used the two whistles to produce a

creditable imitation of a lusty cuckoo; such cuckoo notes were
often answered by a spirited rendering of the opening notes of On
Ilkley Moor baai'ai when diesel multiple-units first appeared on
services from Marylebone.

The whistles of engines, guards, platform staff and shunters

and the use of detonators as the ultimate warning of danger, all
have their places as audible signals, even when nothing can be
seen, and the siren and bell signals of the automatic warning
system in the engine cab, a useful aid at any time, become
invaluable in such conditions as fog or falling snow.

Sounds are of particular importance to engine drivers,

especially on steam locomotives; the sounds of a working
locomotive give a useful indication of performance and the
various sounds heard from the engine, from the track and
reflected from the lineside, all provide an experienced driver with
an indication of his whereabouts, particularly helpful at night or
in bad weather when, even if he leans out from the cab, the
driver's view of the line ahead can sometimes vary only from fair
to appalling.

Several drivers, including such well known characters of the

steam age as Sam Gingell and Bill Hoole, listened to recordings
made from, or near the footplate during various journeys; if they
were told the starting point and then listened to the recordings
i heir judgement of location, at any time, was practically
infallible, even in some cases when the recording had been
interrupted for a change of tape reels. This assessment of
location by sounds was not confined to British drivers; a French
driver and fireman listened to recordings of their streamlined 4-
6-4 No 232 S 002 made during a journey between Paris Nord and
Aulnoye and their judgement was equally accurate.

The steam engine, said to be one of the very few inventions

which have been used solely for the benefit of mankind, is
certainly one of the most individual of machines; it possesses
many human attributes and despite its size and strength, is
internationally considered to be feminine in temperament. The
relationship between a steam engine and driver can be very close,
similar to that which existed between ploughman and horse.

14

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

The steam locomotive must be one of the most widely written

about, most frequently pictured and probably the best loved
machine which has ever been produced and it is inevitable that
steam locomotives should be the star artistes of railway records;
they are by no means the only performers, however, for the large
and varied supporting cast is also important. The rhythms of
wheels over rail joints, points and crossings, the clang of buffers
and couplings, the voices of railwaymen and station announcers,
particularly when detailing services to stations now long since
closed, the whistles of guards and shunters, the clatter of signal
arms and the sounds of bells and levers in signal boxes; such
sounds as these add atmosphere and character to the recordings
of locomotives and trains. The sounds of nature set the scene in
the countryside where railways, blending naturally with the
landscape, have long offered a natural environment for wildlife,
infinitely safer and more agreeable than the verges of a main
road, with constant heavy traffic and attendant noise, fumes and
litter.

Much of the variety has disappeared from railways in recent

years, as have most of the steam locomotives and in this country
far too many of the lines. Yet there is still much of interest in the
sounds of modern railways, particularly in the differences
between old and new, as illustrated in such records as Changing
Trains, which contrasts the sounds of various steam and diesel
locomotives during the transition years, and This is York, a
record which contrasts the sounds of York Station in the steam
age, in 1957, with those of the diesel age, in 1977, the centenary
year of the present York Station.

During the making of the 1977 recordings at York there were

many contrasts; the greatly reduced traffic on the railway was
depressingly obvious and the departure of Inter-City 125 No 254
002 on a northbound crew training run, was smoothly
impressive and produced some interesting sounds, but did not
really create such a powerful impression as the departure of an
A3 Pacific, slipping its heart out with a northbound train, on an
equally wet day 20 years earlier. The roar of a diesel locomotive
heading a southbound train through the station under the great
roof was certainly powerful, but a good deal less graceful and

15

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

rhythmical than an A4 Pacific doing the same thing in 1957.

There were similarities between 1957 and 1977; Mrs Grace
Robinson, the station announcer whose voice was frequently
heard during the making of the 1957 recordings, was again on
duty in 1977, though she no longer greeted arriving trains with
the long-famous announcement 'This is York'. The familiar
voice from the loudspeakers did something to create an
atmosphere of stability and continuity at York Station, as did the
friendly interest and helpfulness of the railwaymen, which was
just as welcoming and welcome in 1977 as it had been in 1957.

Given the use of imagination by the listener to the same extent

as it should be used when listening to a radio drama, there is no
doubt that more of the whole atmosphere of railways can be
conveyed by sound recordings than by any other medium; even
the sound film, its closest rival, is limited to that which can be
seen by the camera and by the comparitively short lengths of
time for which the camera can see a moving train. It is a common
problem, when matching the sound and the picture of a filmed
railway sequence, that the useful duration of the picture is
invariably far less than that of the equivalent sound track.

A still picture, however excellent, catches only an instant in

time within the limited angle and focus of the lens, whereas a
recording, made in reasonable conditions, can effectively
capture the whole atmosphere of a location for a considerable
time, even when the subject is hidden from view. The absolute
angle and definitive focus of a lens does, however, give it a great
advantage which is not shared to anything like the same degree
by microphones, the ability to exclude completely unwanted
objects from the picture.

It was always an exciting and moving experience to spend a

night by the lineside, near Ribblehead or Shap, for example, or
on the Scottish border, beside the now closed and destroyed
Waverley route. Such experiences could only be conveyed by
words or sounds, or possibly paintings, since photography or
filming would have been impossible without the aid of lights
which, even if their use had been practical, would have
completely ruined the whole atmosphere of the setting.

Far away an approaching train came out of a silence

16

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

emphasised by the bleat of a restless, unseen sheep, or the hoot of

an owl; there was nothing to be seen until the train rounded a
curve from behind a shoulder of a hill, then, from the frequently
opened firebox door, there was a sudden glare, reflected from the
billowing trail of steam and smoke and indicative of the endless
physical efforts of an expert fireman, as the engine plodded up
the steep, continuous gradient at the head of a heavy train.
Minutes later the train came past, briefly outlined against the
night sky, making steady progress until the driving wheels
suddenly slipped on the dew dampened rails of a curve; the
slipping was immediately brought under control by the driver,
fully alert in the middle of the night, after some time already
spent on a far from comfortable, noisily vibrating footplate. The
engine settled down and climbed away into the distance, towards
a signal light which, despite a shrilly protesting whistle,
remained obstinately yellow, threatening the possibility of
having to make a difficult start from the next signal, maybe even
of stalling on the slippery rails of the continuing climb.

On the Central Wales line, when freight trains worked

through the night, an 8F class 2-8-0 banking engine assisted
heavy westbound trains on the long 1 in 60 climb from
Knighton, past Knucklas, to Llangunllo. The sounds of the two
hard working engines filled the valley for minutes on end as they
slogged up the single line towards the long, curving tunnel
through which the line runs over the summit, and then down
through a cutting to the tiny station and passing loop at
Llangunllo, where the oil-lamp lit signal box was manned day
and night. Streams of glowing cinders shot high into the air
above the valley, and in the glare from the firebox the crew of the
banking engine could sometimes be glimpsed, with scarves or
handkerchiefs tied across nose and mouth to give some
protection from the impossible atmosphere of the tunnel, filled
with choking fumes from the leading engine. Some time after the
train had disappeared into the tunnel the banking engine would
reappear, now running tender first, and away it went, down the
gradient towards Knighton, with clanking coupling rods and
wheels making a gentler and totally different sound to the
barking exhausts of the climb.

17

THE FASCINATION OF SOUND

The Central Wales line is still open now, but the freight trains
have long since vanished; so much of the power and excitement
of their working lay in the sounds, and only by recordings can
such scenes be brought back to life.

Equally exciting and in complete contrast, whether by day or

night, are the sounds of an express passing at speed with a
sudden crescendo, emphasised by the rapid tattoo of wheels over
rail joints and points and perhaps by a whistle, changing its note
as the engine roars past. This and many other things could be
heard at a main line station, such as Hitchin, Bletchley,
Templecombe, Basingstoke or Grantham, which, particularly
between early afternoon and the early hours of the morning,
provided an endless variety of sounds and sights.

There were main line expresses, some tearing past, others

stopping, perhaps to change engines, then starting out from the
station, local trains, making main line connections, and the
various freight yards, gradually coming to life during the
afternoon and reaching peaks of frenzied activity as freight
trains arrived to detach or pick up wagons, A sudden silence
then, as everything seemed to finish at once and nothing much
happened anywhere. Soon points moved, signals changed to
green and the night mail roared past, lights blazing at the side of
the mail vans, from which the mail pouch and net were extended
for exchange at the nearby lineside post. A newspaper train
followed, made a brief call and started vigorously away from the
station, heading north as a southbound fitted freight train
rattled past. A tank engine moved some vans towards the station,
then the first heavy sleeping car expresses rushed by and away
into the darkness out of which a loose-coupled freight train
appeared, slowly clanking and squealing to a stop in the down
yard, which now came back to life with a good deal of backchat
between train crew and shunters.

So much of all this drama, humour and excitement, which is

inseparable from the day and night world of railways anywhere,
can best and sometimes can only be conveyed by sound
recordings, listened to with imagination.

18

Chapter 2
Sounds of war

One of the few compensations for going back to school was that
the journey was made by train; one of the even fewer
compensations for staying there was the busy railway, from
Horsham to Littlehampton and Shoreham, which ran through
the grounds and was directly responsible for many dropped
catches and missed kicks on the adjoining playing fields. The
railway was within earshot of dormitories and classrooms, but
not within sight, which was just as well for the academic progress
of railway enthusiast pupils.

Railways and steam engines fascinated me from the earliest

age and their sounds were always a major pan of their
attraction. This fascination with sounds and a later developing
interest in films gave me the, then very bizarre, ambition to
become a film sound recordist. Such a strange idea brought an
immediate and strong reaction from the school authorities, who
well-meaningly considered that they had more than the normal
responsibility for my future, because my father, a country
parson from whom I inherited enthusiasm for railways, had,
after a long illness, died during my first term at school. In any
case, sound recording for films was not one of the professions
considered to be suitable for ex pupils.

Strenuous efforts were made to dissuade me from such an

unsuitable and impractical choice of career, but each such
lecture merely increased the determination and eventually led to
obstinate and open rebellion; such behaviour could obviously not
be tolerated, so it was decided that something drastic must be
done and arrangements were made for a course of treatment by a
psychiatrist, who was most intrigued by the case of a stubborn
boy with eccentric interests and curious ambitions.

The visits to the psychiatrist were by no means a punishment,

19

SOUNDS OF WAR

for his consulting room was in London and that meant extra
train journeys, in school time, to the envy of railway enthusiast
friends. The psychiatric sessions were totally ineffective and
usually quite short, so that there was often time to spare for some
illicit visits to one of the London termini, to see and listen to
trains, or occasionally and even more illicitly, for a quick visit to
a cinema, before train time; on the train to Horsham, usually
hauled by one of the former LBSC Marsh Atlantics, there might
be the additional luxury of afternoon tea in the third class
Pullman car, if there was any pocket money to spare.

Persistent letter writing eventually brought one or two

interviews with film companies and finally, by a lucky chance,
the offer of a job in the sound recording department of Alexander
Korda's London Film Productions. In the spring of 1936 the
school finally abandoned its efforts to encourage the choice of a
more suitable career and, to the relief of all concerned, allowed
me to leave.

The job, at the then newly completed Denham Film Studios,

involved making tea, loading and unloading film magazines for
the use of the optical sound recording equipment and being
generally useful. At the same time, I was trying to learn, in what
was then the only possible way, by experience and example, the
elements of the complex science and art of sound recording and
the intricacies of the equipment and processes involved in
recording and in its application to film production.

Denham Studios had some advantages for a railway

enthusiast; they were within sight and sound of an interesting
and then very busy main line, labelled on all the noticeboards by
its full title 'Great Western & Great Central Joint Committee'.
Even the studio grounds had something to offer, for a railway,
about a \ mile long, had been built there, complete with a station
which was frequently revamped to suit the setting and period of a
particular film, be it English, such as South Riding, or Russian,
such as the Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat film Knight
Without Armour. The line was worked by an ex LNER J15 class
0-6-0 which, like the station, was altered in appearance to suit
the film; the shedmaster at Kings Lynn, where the engine had
last been based, would never have recognised his J15 when it was

20

SOUNDS OF WAR

credibly made up, in all respects except size and a change of

gauge, as a Russian locomotive.

I soon found local digs, as close as possible to the railway near

Denham Golf Club Platform. During the 3| years I spent at
Denham the GW&GC line was a constant source of interest,
used by a variety of engines hauling heavy traffic by day and
night. The erratic hours of work involved in film production
gave me opportunities to see and hear the passing trains, even if
only from a distance or during cycle rides to and from the
studios.

Early one morning the inhabitants of Higher Denham were

woken by a tremendous noise from the railway. Naturally this
got me out of bed and I hurriedly dressed. In a field of cabbages,
not far from Denham Golf Club Platform, a cloud of steam was
rising above a GWR 2-8-0 which, while heading an up goods
train on the down line during a period of single line working, had
left the track at some crossover points; the driver and fireman
had jumped clear while the engine pulled most of the train into
the field and rolled over onto its side, where it now lay.
Unfortunately it was time to go to work at the studios before all
the interesting clearing up operations began and by the late
evening everything, apart from a number of wagons, had been
cleared away.

The hours of work at Denham were long, often excessive, and

there were few days off, apart from most Sundays. On Sundays
there were many remarkably cheap excursion trains, from
London to any number of destinations, even as far as Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, with an overnight return, and I spent many free
Sundays travelling by train, preferably over a previously
untravelled route to the furthest destination that could be
reached in a day; the destinations were not always particularly
attractive, for there was not a great deal to do on a winter
Sunday afternoon in Mansfield, Grimsby, Derby or Kings Lynn.
It was often a relief to rejoin the train, but the journey was the
main attraction and there was always the interesting variety of
engines which hauled the trains or could be seen from them. The
loads of these excursion trains were frequently heavy and delays
from Sunday track work often added to the hard work and long

21

SOUNDS OF WAR

hours of the engines and crews.

Army call up papers arrived in the autumn of 1939 and soon

after Christmas in that bitterly cold winter, the ill-equipped
Royal Artillery battery to which I had been posted, sailed from
Southampton on the LNER ship Amsterdam to join the British
Expeditionary Force in France-. After some months of inactivity
based at a village near Rheims, where we had been taken in a
train including some of those '40 men or 8 horses' wagons,
German attacks began. After numerous moves around North
West France eventually we were ordered on to a coal boat and
found ourselves at Southampton to learn for the first time of the
evacuation from Dunkerque and of the armistice between
France and Germany.

In 1941 the powers that be decided that a film unit should be

formed in the army and other services, with the object of making
documentary films and photographic records of any future
campaigns in any theatre of the war, for immediate propaganda
use and future historical records. No doubt the decision was
prompted by the fact that the German forces had such units from
the very beginning of the war and from material which they
supplied a large number of extremely effective propaganda films
had been produced and were widely distributed in neutral
countries, which were also well supplied with still photographs of
German forces in victorious action. As soon as a decision was
announced to form a film unit in the British Army, any and all
personnel with professional experience in film production, or as
photographers, were ordered to report immediately to their
commanding officers; I need hardly add that I duly reported!
Interviews followed at the War Office and all those selected were
then transferred to AFPU, the Army Film & Photographic Unit,
which had established its headquarters at Finewood Studios,
which had been requisitioned earlier in the war and were now
shared with the Crown Film Unit and the newly formed RAF
Film Unit,

After a year or so based at Pinewood, spent mainly in

recording sound tracks for various films made up from material
sent back by AFPU cameramen, many of whom were already
actively engaged in the Western Desert and elsewhere, there

22

SOUNDS OF WAR

came a demand for the training of additional cameramen, who

would be required for future offensives, such as the much
discussed Second Front. There followed, for all of us who
volunteered, a period of training in the use of still and 35 mm cine
cameras. Those who passed the preliminary tests were then put
through various infantry training courses, battle schools and
invasion exercises, armed with a revolver, a still camera (made in
Germany and captured from intercepted cargo ships) and an
American-made cine camera, with the object of learning how to
make effective use of the cameras in battle conditions and to
produce useful film footage and still photographs, without being
a hindrance or becoming a liability to others involved in the
operation. The setting up of specially posed or staged incidents,
away from the battle area was, at all times, a severely punishable
offence.

During the long period of preparation which led up to D-Day

there were endless assignments to film invasion exercises and
airborne landings, but then came an unexpectedly pleasant
assignment to film the movement of equipment and supplies on
the railways. This was a wonderful experience and making full
use of such a heaven-sent official opportunity, I lost no time in
making arrangements for my first properly authorised footplate
trips. Footplate passes had to be obtained in the usual way, from
the individual railway companies. There was, though, one
occasional advantage over the issue of footplate passes in more
normal times for it was not always possible to spare from more
important duties a locomotive inspector to accompany me on the
footplate.

One memorable trip I had was on the footplate of LNER No

8876, a Claud Hamilton 4-4-0, with a trainload of Sherman
tanks from Newmarket. The train was so heavy that even after
backing up to compress the buffers, the opening of the regulator
produced hardly the slightest forward movement; assistance had
to be called for and was provided by another Claud, hardly the
most suitable engines for such a job, but together they managed
it well. The pilot Claud had to be detached at Cambridge,
leaving No 8876 to carry on alone. During the subsequent
journey south the train had to be divided after a signal check,

23

SOUNDS OF WAR

drawn forward in two separate sections to the next station,

reassembled there, and not without effort started on a more
favourable gradient; small wonder that wartime trains were
subject to unforseen delays!

Another interesting journey in East Anglia was on General

Eisenhower's special train, made up entirely of impeccably
varnished LNER Gresley stock; a footplate journey was also
made on B12 4-6-0 No 2819, which hauled the train once.

On the LMS main line there was a journey on the footplate of

a Stanier Black Five 4-6-0 at the head of an army supply train
from Willesden to Northampton. This trip produced a great deal
of interesting film footage and many photographs of the engine
and train and the scenes from it. Because of the incredible
density of traffic, in both directions, this train, like others on the
freight lines, worked block to block for much of the time and the
journey of 60 miles from Willesden to Northampton Castle took
no less than seven hours.

Even the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Railway, one of

the Colonel Stephens lines was busy with ammunition trains
operated by the Royal Engineers, based at Kinnerley where the
strange little locomotive Gazelle, still carrying S&M lettering,
stood on a short siding near the Royal Engineers* headquarters.

This fascinating railway interlude came to an abrupt end on

21 May 1944, when the AFPU detachment moved to Wentworth
and from there to a pre D-Day concentration area near
Southampton, for attachment to the 4th Royal Marine
Commando, with whom we were to make the D-Day landings.

This time there was no train journey after landing in France

and apart from the rusty rails of a local fine which ran parallel to
the beach, it was not until more than a month later, in Caen on
17 July, that I saw French Railways once again.
The destruction in Caen was appalling; the railway station,
yards and locomotive sheds were a total shambles of twisted rails
which spiked into the air, wrecked coaches, wagons and engines
were up-ended, flung onto their sides, or precariously balanced
on the edge of bomb and shell craters, filled with water after days
of torrential rain.

Eventually the weather improved, as did the military situation

24

SOUNDS OF WAR

when a pincer movement closed the Falaise gap. On 14 August I

was in a detachment of four AFPU cameramen ordered to move
south through Vire, Fougeres, Laval and Le Mans to link up
with American army units and then goon to Rambouillet, to join
General Le Clerc's Free French Division and move forward with
them to Paris, which we entered on Friday 25 August.

The Parisian welcome was ecstatic and unforgettable, but

some street fighting and sniping continued sporadically,
culminating in an attack on the quite unshakeable General de
Gaulle, from snipers high above the square outside Notre Dame,
during a triumphal parade on 26 August. Below ground the
Metro was running a service and with tickets freely given, like so
much else in liberated Paris, it was on the Metro that we had our
first train ride since leaving England.
On 28 August we rejoined the British XXX Corps at Vernon
and with them pushed on into Belgium, where we were met with
another rapturous welcome in liberated Brussels, which we
entered on Sunday 3 September.

Trams ran everywhere in Brussels, and in other parts of

Belgium there were some much more individualistic and
interesting steam trams which hauled trains of four-wheeled
coaches and a brake van, along the roadside tracks and along
paved streets through towns and villages. There never was time
or opportunity to ride on one of those trams which, though their
sounds were not particularly interesting, were always a welcome
sight.

Back in England it had been decided that sound recordings

made on artillery ranges and during battle exercises were not
adequate or authentic accompaniment for the sometimes all too
realistic film which was being sent back from various fronts by
AFPU cameramen. Many war actuality and commentary
recordings had been and were being made by the BBC, using
portable disc recorders developed by the MSS Company. The
BBC engineers contrived to make many remarkably fine
recordings on this equipment, but it could be temperamental in
such rugged operating conditions, had certain limitations as to
sound quality and most restricting drawback of all, the
maximum recording time available was extremely limited. The

25
SOUNDS OF WAR

German combat film units were believed to be recording on film,

which gave superior sound quality with a continuous recording
time of up to ten minutes, as against three or four on disc.

The Western Electric Company in England offered AFPU the

use of a complete set of optical sound film recording equipment
which, by the standards of that time, was as transportable as it
could be, consistent with good recording quality, and was driven
by the minimum possible number of lead-acid batteries in
transportable metal cases. All this equipment was despatched to
Brussels in the charge of John Aldred, then an AFPU sergeant
and subsequently responsible for the recording of many
important British films. He was also the author of Manual of
Sound Recording first published by Fountain Press in 1963.
Together we installed the equipment in a suitable army utility
vehicle and prepared to record the sounds of battle on 35mm
optical film. The first recordings were made at night, with the
53rd Division, during an attack across the Escaut Canal at
Lommel, on the Dutch border.

We later saw and recorded the Airborne troops passing

overhead on their way to Nijmegen and Arnhem and made many
other recordings during the strongly opposed advance along the
narrow corridor to Nijmegen. The link up with the Airborne
troops at Arnhem was never made; mist settled over the desolate,
flat countryside, then came the rains and later snow and ice.

Back at Eindhoven, where unit HQ had been established, a

diminutive 0-6-0 tank engine, NS No 7743, shunted busily
around the station yards, where it was later joined by two WD 2-
8-0s fitted with air-brake pumps. Nobody saw any trains actually
leave the yard to go anywhere, but the sights and sounds of
shunting were a welcome change from those of battle.

There were all too few opportunities to watch the shunting at

Eindhoven during those winter months, in which we recorded
the bitterly opposed advance to Venraij by the 3rd Division and
the attack on S'Hertogenbosch by the 53rd Welsh Division.
Artillery barrages from both directions, flame throwers, tank
guns, street fighting and the petrifying sound of 'Moaning
Minnies', the German multi-barrelled mortars, all combined to
produce a fantastic pattern of sound which often continued for

26

SOUNDS OF WAR

hours on end, day and night. It might then be followed by sudden

silence, which was almost more unnerving; sometimes those
silences were broken by the howl of a demented dog, or by cries
and shouts.

At times the equipment was set up in the basements of ruined

buildings, or in dugouts, but this was done only if there was no
sensible alternative, because of the obvious possibility of being
overrun in such. an immobile situation. On another occasion, at
the suggestion of and accompanied by the superbly intrepid BBC
war correspondent Chester Wilmot, the equipment was set up in
a Sherman tank of the 8th Armoured Division in order to make
recordings during a tank battle. A locomotive footplate seemed
quiet by comparison with that tank; unfortunately all the
recordings were useless because there was considerable electrical
interference, and little else could be heard but the tank.

A week before Christmas 1944 German forces led by Field

Marshall Von Rundstedt launched a surprise offensive against
the American forces in the Ardennes. The British 53rd Division
was moved south to support the Americans and we moved with
it, to make recordings of the sounds of fierce fighting in the
deeply snow covered and frozen country around Marche. As the
infantry, perfectly camouflaged in hooded white suits, crawled
and plodded through the snow, the sounds of shells and mortar
bombs which burst among them, and of machine gun and rifle
fire from all directions, echoed from the pine-covered hills. In
such surroundings and weather conditions the recordings were
totally different in character from those made earlier in the flat
lands, towns and villages of Holland.

The German offensive in the Ardennes was smashed and in

the middle of January 1945 the British XXX Corps started an
attack across the Roer in appalling weather conditions; then,
when the 52nd Division, supported by the 8th Armoured
Division, made a slow and difficult advance towards Heinsberg,
we made the first recordings in Germany.

Those recordings in Germany also turned out to be among the

last, for it had been decided that the recording equipment had
served its purpose in building up a reasonably comprehensive
library of battle sound recordings. In February John Aldred

27
SOUNDS OF WAR

returned to England with the equipment, somewhat scarred but

more or less intact and I became a full-time cameraman again.

Moving up through Xanten, we sat down and waited to cross

the Rhine; the artillery came up behind us, the barrage began
and the RAF came over to bomb Wesel out of existence. It was
frustrating to be in the middle of this incredible barrage of sound
without the means to record it; filming and photography were,
though, possible by the practically continuous light from gun
flashes, bursting shells and bombs, rockets and tracer bullets. On
23 March, 161 days after D-Day, we crossed the Rhine near
Wesel, with the 15 th Scottish Division.

Once across the Rhine, although there was occasional fierce

opposition, as at Bocholt, the German retreat became at times
something of a rout and often we drove unopposed along roads
down which straggling groups of German uniformed soldiers
hopelessly wandered, waving improvised white flags and
helplessly trying to give themselves up to the passing enemy.

At Celle railway station the platforms and yard were littered

with the contents of goods trains, which were being eagerly
looted by civilians and slave workers, the displaced persons who
came from all over Europe; many from Russia were labelled with
the word 'Ost\ These bewildered people seldom had any clear
idea where they were, or what was happening and when their
masters had fled, they had simply picked up their few pitiful
things and started walking, anywhere and everywhere.
Near Celle there was Belsen concentration camp, to which all
available AFPU cameramen were sent as soon as its existence
was discovered. There is nothing that has not already been said
about such places as Belsen and in any case, no words can
adequately describe it; even films and photographs appeared to
be so unbelievably unreal that they failed to capture the full
horror and evil of the place and the people who had charge of it.
Sound recordings, for once, would have contributed nothing to
any attempts to convey the impressions that Belsen made on
those who went there, for there was little to be heard. Few of
those who were still alive, physically at least, spoke or made any
sound; there was no point.

Pushing on to Luneburg we passed shattered goods trains,

SOUNDS OF WAR

some of which carried V2 rockets the length of a large truck. Just

beyond Luneburg was the last major river barrier, the Elbe, but
we did not cross that until later, by a bitterly contested
bridgehead at Lauenburg south-east of Hamburg in the VIII
Corps sector, today on the border between West and East
Germany,

After a brief dash back to Holland, to cover the final attack on

Arnhem by the 49th Division, we returned to Germany in late
April, to join the XXX Corps attack on Bremen. The German
troops had a disconcerting habit of infiltrating back behind the
British advance, but by the third day we had reached the
outskirts of the city and cautiously occupied Bremen Neustadt
railway station. The station was deserted though, strangely, not
too heavily damaged. In the stationmaster's office was a list of
railway dialling codes by the side of a telephone; I dialled the
code for Bremen Hauptbahnhof, got an almost immediate reply,
asked in English what time the next train left for Basingstoke
and hung up!

The way in which the German railways had managed to keep

going in one way or another was, as we saw later on, quite
extraordinary; maybe they were inspired by the exhortation that
'Wheels must roll for the victory', which was so liberally
stencilled on railway buildings and rolling stock.

During the final days of the advance through North Germany,

towards Kiel, we passed trains of all descriptions - troop trains,
hospital trains, passenger trains and freight trains, some of
which were protected by light anti-aircraft guns mounted on
open trucks. Some of these trains were headed by still simmering
engines, usually 2-10-0s, often in surprisingly good condition; in
several cases the drivers and firemen were still on, or near their
engines.

On 5 May at Kiel, several trains, which included coaches

in which some of the windows were understandably devoid of
glass, stood under the equally glassless roof of the badly-
damaged main railway station, then made cautious exits over the
frequently repaired and somewhat uneven track, hauled by such
4-6-0s as 38-1765, or by one of the ubiquitous 2-10-0 Kriegsloks.
The whole situation was extraordinarily confused during the
28

29

SOUNDS OF WAR

closing days of the war in Germany; there were pockets of

unexpectedly strong resistance, usually from isolated SS units,
but in contrast there were incidents such as that at Ratzenburg,
where five British soldiers in search of billets walked into a large
building, which turned out to be full of armed German troops in
hiding. The Germans meekly lined up outside, their weapons
were collected and locked up and they remained, quite docile,
under guard by two men until arrangements could be made to
deal with them.

On 3 May there were reports of much coming and going by

German officers, seeking an armistice. Emboldened by these
reports and by the general confusion, six of us in two jeeps made,
on 4 May, what seems in retrospect an incredibly foolhardy and
stupid expedition, to Eutin and Pldn, twelve miles behind the
German lines, where we magnanimously accepted, filmed and
photographed the surrender of the towns by the respective
mayors, who were extremely relieved that we were, after all,
British and not Russian. With the arrival of a German Panzer
colonel and his impeccably uniformed attendant officers, all of
whom also seemed anxious to surrender, it seemed wisest to
retreat before they realised we were on our own and changed
their minds. Back at HQ we learned that German radio had
reported Eutin and Plon as captured by strong enemy forces,
believed to be heading for Kiel! Such is propaganda; it seemed
unnecessary and unwise to answer HQ's enquiries as to what
possible grounds there could be for the German radio report and
by the time the films and photographs told the true story, it was
too late for any, fully justified, reprimands.

At 08.00 hours on 5 May 1945 the 21st Army Group was

ordered to cease fire; the subsequent silence was impressive,
almost eerie. The relief of the cease fire for those who endured
the infinitely more appalling ordeal of the first world war must
have been far greater and one wondered how they had retained
their sanity, while immovably incarcerated in muddy dug outs
and water filled trenches, and bludgeoned by an endless barrage
of lethal noise.

On 7 May six of us were ordered to leave Kiel in two jeeps and

drive north, through Schleswig and Flensburg, accompanied by

30

SOUNDS OF WAR

a German liason officer as far as the Danish border. Having

crossed into Denmark we drove on through Odense to Nyborg,
from where the lj hour crossing to Korsor was made on board a
DBS train ferry, accompanied by some rail wagons which had
been shunted on board by a smart little 0-6-0 tank engine with an
unusually large dome and tall chimney. On 8 May, the day of the
armistice which ended the war with Germany, we entered
Copenhagen and were given a tumultuous and prolonged
welcome.

During a stay of nearly three weeks in Copenhagen we filmed

the arrival of General Montgomery for a parade on 12 May and
the ceremonial handing over of German naval vessels, which
included the pocket battleships Prim Eugen and Nurnberg;
there was also time to see something of the neatly clean Danish
railways and to enjoy a short ride on a train to Helsingor, from
where a train ferry crossed to Helsingborg, clearly visible on the
shore of neutral Sweden. That crossing was forbidden in 1945,
but I made it many years later, during a train journey from Hook
of Holland to Roros, in Norway.

After returning to Germany, I spent some time in various

parts of the country, photographing and filming such things as
the repatriation of vast numbers of displaced persons of all
nationalities.

Back in England, in the spring of 1946, the time for

demobilisation came eventually after 6| years in the army and,
having gone through the last rites at a discharge centre in
Lancashire, I caught a train from Oldham, Clegg Street, to
Manchester, London Road, carrying a demob suit and overcoat
and armed with a free rail travel warrant.

31
Chapter 3
Transacord is born

The final destination for the travel warrant, issued on discharge

from the army, was left to the choice of the individual, and
during those last free journeys friendly officials usually
overlooked all but the most outrageous deviations from
authorised routes or accepted pleas of innocent ignorance.
Railway enthusiasts had a splendid opportunity to celebrate
their freedom by choosing some unlikely destination, which
involved the longest possible trip or offered the chance for a
leisurely, but complicated exploration of some hitherto
untravelled lines. An enthusiast friend, who lived at
Twickenham, was not alone in selecting Wick as his destination,
but having reached there, after several days and various
diversions, he had to use part of his gratuity to get home.

My own rather more conservative choice, which would allow

an exploration of some previously unknown lines, was
Carmarthen, reached after 2\ days of intermittent travelling
from the demobilisation centre at Oldham, via Manchester,
Chester, Oswestry, Moat Lane Junction and Builth Road Low
Level; at that point there was time to spare to stay on the train to
Three Cocks Junction and then return to Builth Road High
Level, before continuing the journey over the Central Wales line
to Llandilo, changing there for the final 40 minute, 14-^ mile
journey on the LNW line to Carmarthen.

During that first journey on the Central Wales line, looking at

the superb scenery and listening to the Fowler 2-6-4 tank engine,
bravely slogging up the gradients from Llanwrtyd Wells to Sugar
Loaf tunnel, I wished, not for the first lime, that it was possible to
make recordings as easily as one could take photographs, and for
the same reasons, to prompt memories of such experiences which
should never be forgotten.

32

TRANSACORD IS BORN

It would then have seemed a ridiculous dream to imagine that

years later I would make recordings on the footplates of 5MT
and 8F locomotives making that climb to Sugar Loaf tunnel with
passenger and freight trains. Moreover it would have seemed
incredibly unlikely that in May 1964 I would be making lineside
recordings of some of the last workings of steam locomotives on
the Central Wales line. All of those recordings can now bring the
long vanished steam locomotives vividly back to life on that line.
Army pay, such as it was, having ceased abruptly, the less
ordered realities of civilian life now had to be faced and
employment found. Not unusually the British film industry was
in an uncertain state; Denham Studios had been taken over by
Rank, and London Film Productions had decided to link up with
MGM at Borehamwood, but soon changed that plan. However,
the much respected Crown Film Unit was still, somewhat
uneasily, at Pinewood and offered a job as sound recordist for
documentary films, which I gladly took.
Work for the Crown Film Unit provided much valuable
experience, on many different locations in widely varying
conditions. The range of subjects was equally varied and
included an interview with Winston Churchill, testily impatient,
and another with George Bernard Shaw, who chose to be filmed
in the garden of his house at Ayot St Lawrence; once he had
started talking he would not stop, even to allow film magazines
to be changed every ten minutes, until a violent thunderstorm
finally drowned the endless flow of words and the film unit.
Other assignments varied from the recording of music composed
and conducted by Benjamin Britten, to location filming at such
diverse places as a science laboratory in Bristol, the Lord
Mayor's show in London, a village school in Derbyshire, and the
interior of a submarine, submerged off the Scottish coast. Sadly,
none of the subjects was directly concerned with railways,
though I recorded steam locomotives and pithead winding gear
when filming at a Nottinghamshire colliery-
Later in 1946 the future of the Crown Film Unit suddenly
seemed most uncertain. Fortunately MGM had offered to me
what then seemed a wonderful opportunity to be one of its sound
recordists and I signed a contract to work at the almost

33

TRANSACORD IS BORN

completed MGM studios in Borehamwood, even though it would

entail a long and, with petrol rationing, difficult daily journey
from and to Princes Risborough where, as far as practicable
from London, I had recently managed to buy a house within
sight and sound of the soon to be nationalised Great Western &
Great Central Joint line.

Listening to the engines, starting away from Risborough —

some working up the steep down line because of a landslip -
brought more frustration at the lack of any means to make
recordings of such dramatic sounds. This frustration was
increased by the fact that I spent every day at Borehamwood
studios, surrounded by new recording equipment which, because
of the vacillations of MGM policy, was completely idle for
months on end.

Sometimes it was possible to escape from the strongly security

guarded studio around lunchtime and spend an hour or so beside
the LMS Midland main line near Elstree station, watching,
listening to and sometimes photographing passing trains. The
main event for a time was the appearance of the new LMS diesel
locomotive No 10000 which, for a while, hauled an express from
St Pancras which passed Elstree in the early afternoon. At that
time it was a great novelty to see No 10000 hurrying past with
seemingly little effort, making an unfamiliar sound. The sight
and sound of the diesel was little more than a novelty, which did
not compare with the excitement of a Jubilee or a Compound
bursting out from Elstree tunnel j certainly none of us watching
the new diesel thought of it as a threat to the supremacy of the
familiar steam locomotive.

The sterile and demoralising situation at Borehamwood

suddenly and unexpectedly changed. One of the first of what was
later to become a flood of American films made in Europe was
being produced in Rome, where the unit was having serious
problems with sound recording. To avoid the expense of sending
in American technicians, MGM at Borehamwood was told to
send two technicians to Rome to son out the difficulties, in
whatever combination of languages that might be appropriate
and available. Naturally I asked if it would be possible to go by
train as flying is bad for the ears - mine anyway, but as usual we

34

TRANSACORD IS BORN

should have been there yesterday and had to fly. The flight, from
Northolt to Rome, Ciampino, with a stop at Nice, took over eight
hours.

In Rome the situation was anything but boring, indeed it was

totally chaotic, especially so far as sound recording was
concerned. The Western Electric equipment had been seriously
mishandled by sundry people, who tried to communicate in
various languages, and we had to send for new equipment from
the nearest source of supply, Switzerland. The film concerned
alleged events in the lives of Cagliostro, Mesmer and assorted
European royalty, most of whom spoke with strong American
accents. The director was nominally Gregory Ratoff, a most
likeable but totally unpredictable Russian, much given to
shedding tears of alternate joy and rage. The part of Cagliostro
was played by Orson Welles, who had his own individual and
unusual ideas about the way in which the film should be made.

The originally intended short visit to Rome became a stay of

many months, because we were asked to take over the recording
until the completion of the film. There was little time to spare
from work, not even for proper sleep at times, but Sundays were
always free which I usually spent in making a journey on one of
the railways out of Rome. Nearly all these lines were still
suffering the aftermath of war, as indeed did life in the city. It
was not possible to go far in one day, timekeeping was uncertain,
and progress over sometimes dubious track was slow, in trains
hauled either by UNRRA locomotives, or by one of an
assortment of Italian engines, mostly in various states of
disrepair.

By 1952 we had moved house to another in Princes

Risborough, this time, though, backing on to the GW&GC main
line near the London end of the station. It was beside the down
line at the foot of the steep gradient from Saunderton, where the
up line separates to run on easier grades on the climb into the
Chilterns. At that time Princes Risborough was an excellent
rural Buckinghamshire railway centre of great interest to any
enthusiast. Apart from the Joint line itself, carrying a variety of
through trains of both GW and GC origins between Paddington
and Birmingham, and Marylebone, Sheffield and Manchester,

35

TRANSACORD IS BORN

there were the branches to Watlington, Oxford and Aylesbury.

Highlight of the day was the passing of two down expresses
within a few minutes in the early evening, the first being the
6,10pm from Paddington and the second the 6.15pm from
Marylebone. GC line drivers nearly always ran hard and
occasionally the 6.15pm would get to the convergence at
Northolt Junction first, where at least one of the signalmen,
whose loyalties I fancy sometimes lay more towards his GC
origins than his new Paddington Western Region masters,
sometimes slipped the 6.15 down in front of the 6.10 from
Paddington, against all the standing instructions. One night the
pair of trains made national headlines next day when the
Ashendon Junction signalman, where the GC line train turned
off the Birmingham main line, misunderstood a message as to
which one was first and promptly sent the Western's crack
evening express for Birmingham towards Sheffield, which then
stopped a mile or so beyond the junction and halted the entire
service until it could all be sorted out. Then we had a slip coach
off the 7.10pm from Paddington, all adding to the distinctive
railway sounds which I managed to record in years to come.
Soon after moving house we built a small wooden signalbox
beside the line at the bottom of the garden, ostensibly for the
amusement of my two daughters. The / Spy Signalbox, equipped
with one small signal, was often manned to over capacity during
school holidays and became well known to passing engine crews
who often saluted any occupants with a superb variety of
whistles. Those whistles were just some of the many railway
sounds we could hear from that house and garden. There were
opportunities for photography but, regrettably in retrospect, I
seldom made use of them because there was little hope of
approaching the superb results achieved by other, more expert
photographers of the railway scene. In any case, even the most
evocative photograph could not capture the sounds which, to me,
convey so much of the atmosphere of the railway. When it
eventually became possible not only to make railway recordings
but also to issue them on records, Western Region Driver Stone
bought one of the records, noted the address on the label and
wrote: ' there is a small wooden signalbox at the bottom of

36

'

TRANSACORD IS BORN

a garden near Princes Risborough Station. It has a little distant

signal which is nearly always off and I wonder if it has anything
to do with Transacord. There can hardly be any drivers and
firemen on that line who don't know of the I Spy Signalbox - in
fact some firemen will call out to the driver "OK, the distant's
off" as they approach the litde box.' We had been noticed!

During film work on locations in Britain and abroad there

were occasional opportunities for recording railway sounds,
directly or indirectly linked with the production. The journeys to
film locations were still usually by train and the excitingly
different sounds heard during trips abroad increased my
frustration, because of the impossibility of making personal
recordings. I resolved to make such recordings if ever it became
possible, but unfortunately by the time I was able to return with
practical recording equipment, such things as the steam-hauled
Mistral and Blue Train and the double-headed climb to Annecy,
had all disappeared with electrification.

On location in France, for the Herbert Wilcox film Odette, I

made many interesting recordings of steam-hauled trains on the
SNCF at Annecy, Cannes, Cassis and Marseilles, though not all
were strictly necessary for the film. In England, for another
Herbert Wilcox film, The Lady With the Lamp, the replica train
of Liverpool & Manchester Railway coaches and 0-4-2 Lion
were brought to Cole Green station, near Hertford, where
various scenes involving the locomotive and train were filmed. It
is sad that film recordings, unlike those made for the BBC, were
seldom catalogued, much less preserved and many interesting
recordings, such as those of Lion, have disappeared completely.

Other opportunities for recording railway sounds could

sometimes be contrived on location, or during the few days at the
end of production when recordings were made of any sound
effects which might usefully be incorporated in the final sound
track. It became something of a joke that the sound effects for
films on which I worked usually included a liberal number of
railway recordings, not all of which were entirely relevant. It was
less amusing when the producers of a film, set in a period well in
advance of the invention of railways, demanded an explanation
for the prolonged parking of the 5 ton sound truck beside the

37
TRANSACORD IS BORN

East Coast main line near Hadley Wood! The obvious answer
that the A4s, A3s and V2s made a magnificent sound as they
roared past and whistled into Hadley Wood South tunnel, would
have been unwise, but the dubious excuse of recording birdsong
among the trees I don't think was really believed. Returning to
that remembered location some years later, specifically to record
trains, was a disappointment; most of the Pacifies had been fitted
with double chimneys, the trains were lighter and less frequent
and there was an endless background of irritating noise from
increased road traffic.

The way in which railway subjects are treated by feature film

producers and directors varies, from a crass and insensitive
ignorance to an intelligent and sympathetic understanding
which ensures a proper exploitation of the dramatic potential.

Jean Renoir's pre-war film of Emile Zola's La Bite Humaine,

in which Jean Gabin played the part of an engine driver on the
Paris-Le Havre line who, by reason of an unhappy affair with a
railwayman's wife, played by Simone Simon, becomes finally
demented while driving an express, must rank as one of the best
and most authentic films ever made of a fictional, specifically
railway subject. The whole atmosphere of railway life and work,
particularly on the footplate and around the engine sheds, is
incredibly well conveyed in unfailingly accurate detail, and the
sequences on the footplate, filmed in a most imaginative way, are
from any point of view remarkable. Incidentally, the full version
of the film includes shots of the engine taking water from troughs
on the Paris-Le Havre line, the only line in Prance which had
those facilities. The Czechoslovakian film Closely Observed
Trains, a much later production, directed by Jiri Menzel, made
full use of its rural railway setting and of the humour and pathos
associated with railways.

The American film The Train, produced in France, with some

early scenes directed by Arthur Penn who was later replaced by
John Frankenheimer, included some of the most realistic train
crashes ever seen on the screen; they were achieved by crashing
redundant locomotives and stock supplied by the SNCF and
filming the destruction with a number of cameras.

Some British films made good use of the potential of railways,

38

TRANSACORD IS BORN

either directly or indirectly. The Ealing film It Always Rains on

Sundays included some most realistic and dramatic sequences in
a shunting yard, and there are many other examples of films in
which railways indirectly play an important part, for instance
Brief Encounter, There were, however, two versions of Brief
Encounter and the differences between the two versions
perfectly illustrate the extremes in the ways in which railways
can be regarded by film producers. The original 1946 film,
directed by David Lean, with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard
has for long been widely considered as a classic. One of the main
reasons for its success was the completely authentic atmosphere
of the railway station sequences, filmed at Carnforth. The
sandwiches and penny sponge cakes, under a glass dome in the
refreshment room, the smoke, the steam, and sounds of the
trains were all an inherent part of the pathos of the situation of
the two leading characters. The whole of that atmosphere was
essential to the story which was firmly of that period. The
decision to remake the film and up-date the story to the 1970s
would have seemed incredible, but for the fact that such
unimaginitive insensitivity is not rare in the film industry. The
resulting remake was a disaster from every point of view, from
the casting of the delectable Italian Sophia Loren to play the
part of the housewife, originally played by the essentially
English and wholly believable Celia Johnson, to the choice of a
new location, on the electrified Southern Region at Winchester.
What possible atmosphere was supposed to be created, in sight or
sound, by the occasional comings and goings of multiple-unit
electric trains, at a plasticised and sunlit station, is impossible to
understand. Anybody who saw the original film and then had the
misfortune to see the modern version, must have been amazed
that any producer could be so insensitive as not to realise that the
steam age railway atmosphere was essential to the story.

When steam locomotives began to disappear, the difficulties of

making films which involved steam age railway sequences
rapidly increased and by the time that the brilliant director
Sidney Lumet started work on the film Murder on the Orient
Express there were many serious problems to be overcome.

The unimpressive and overhead electrified Sirkeci Station in

39
TRANSACORD IS BORN

Istanbul was completely unsuitable for fuming and it was almost

impossible to arrange suitable locations and locomotives in
Yugoslavia, so a period Istanbul station was reconstructed in
SNCF carriage sheds outside Paris and all the exterior scenes of
the train were shot in France, The only suitable steam
locomotive of the period available in France was 4-6-0 No
230G353, which consequently appeared to haul the Orient
Express during the whole of the journey from Istanbul. A
historical liberty had to be taken on the part of the journey which
is supposedly in Yugoslavia, when a comparatively modern 14 1R
class 2-8-2, the only other locomotive available at the time,
arrives to assist the Orient Express when it becomes stuck in a
snowdrift which, in an unusually snow-less winter, had to be
augmented by a train load of imported snow!

The authentically confined atmosphere of the interior of the

Orient Express was maintained by filming inside actual coaches
or compartments, or in accurate reproductions constructed from
sections of original panelling. In contrast to the realistic interiors
of the Orient Express, the studio interiors of the train in the film
Cassandra Crossing were almost as ridiculous as most of the
plot; the restaurant car appeared to have the dimensions of a
baronial drawing room and was just as static, as were the
Wagons Lits compartments, which resembled luxury apartments
in a block of flats.

The French locomotive 230G353 also appears in the film

Julia, in a number of different locations and has featured in
many other films, so that by now it is probably the most
frequently filmed locomotive in Europe. Film producers in
Britain are fortunate in having so many preserved locomotives
and railways available for their use, many more than exist in
other countries, although they do not always make best use of
them.

Film directors and railways often make uneasy partners; in

fact there is only one uneasier combination and that is between
film units, ships and the sea, where the possibilities of muddle,
misunderstanding and final chaos are even more potentially
disastrous.

Little understanding is shown by most film directors of the

40

TRANSACORD IS BORN

technicalities and problems of railway operation, as many

professional railwaymen and the operating staff of the K.WVR
during production of The Railway Children, found to their cost.
It is, for instance, seldom appreciated that steam locomotives can
only operate for a limited time without taking water and when,
after repeated warnings that the water level is dangerously low,
the engine is eventually uncoupled and moves off to take water,
there is usually a hysterical outburst and frantic demands that
the railway liason official must 'do something', even if only sack
the driver for inefficiency.

Even less do directors realise the difficulties of stopping a train

on an exact spot, within inches, for each of many takes, or
of making an instantaneous start followed by lightning
acceleration without allowing steam and smoke to obscure the
action. The many problems faced by railwaymen involved in film
making are given scant regard by certain directors who, though
occasionally praised by some esoteric critics, earn little respect
from those who have to work with them; such directors hold the
view that their film is the only thing that matters and the
problems of anyone else involved are of absolutely no
consequence. Such an attitude is summed up by the famous note
on a progress report: 'Shooting then finished for the day because
the sun had moved from the position selected for it by the
director.'

Such single mindedness can have unfortunate consequences

when filming at a railway station which is trying to operate a
normal train service. Some years ago, when filming at
Manchester Central, the film unit had, through chronic
indecision, overrun the lime allowed for the use of its special
train, which moved resolutely out of the station. A vital scene, in
which a group of actors searched for seats before the train left,
had not been shot, so, while the camera was set up on the
platform, the actors were put into a coach of a handy express,
even though it was about due to leave. The station inspector gave
forcible and repeated warnings, all of which were recorded but
otherwise ignored, that he was going to run the railway properly
in spite of the film company and the express promptly left, taking
all the actors on a non-stop run to Derby, from where they
41

TRANSACORD IS BORN

eventually returned much too late for any more filming that day.
For the 1978 version of The Lady Vanishes exterior scenes
were filmed in Austria with OBB 2-10-0 No 50.1171 and a train
of six coaches. All the railwaymen involved were exceptionally
helpful and the driver and firemen, who came with the
locomotive from the Graz Kdflacher Bahn, calmly accepted even
the most extraordinary demands and performed the most
complicated and occasionally dangerous manoeuvres to
perfection. One particularly hazardous operation, most unlikely
to have been given high level management approval, took place
at Feistritz im Rosental, a station on the single line between
Klagenfurt and Rosenbach. It was necessary for the camera to be
on a moving train and for another train to be seen passing in the
opposite direction. The camera was set up inside a coach, hauled
by a diesel locomotive which moved away on the single line to a
position some distance from the station. The 2-10-0 moved the
train of six coaches back to the points at the far end of the station
loop line, then, with all the brakes hard on, the driver put the
engine in full forward gear, opened the regulator wide, whistled
and hoped for the best. The diesel and single coach accelerated
down the single line towards the station and as the diesel
approached the points at the rear end of the loop, the driver of
the 2-10-0 at the far end released the brakes and with an
almighty roar the engine took off, taking the train through the
station on the loop line, at the end of which the points had been
hurriedly changed as soon as the diesel had passed over them.
This extraordinary operation was repeated three times,
mercifully without any disaster!

Any railway enthusiast cinemagoer must have seen examples

of almost total ignorance and a general disregard for
authenticity in railway matters. For instance, in a sequence
involving a railway journey, it was not uncommon for a
character to be seen joining a train of GWR coaches which, when
it pulled out of the station had mysteriously become a train of
LMS coaches, hauled by a Stanier Pacific, accompanied on the
sound track by a three-cylinder exhaust beat and the sound of a
Southern Railway whistle; during the supposedly continuous
journey the train might become the Silver Jubilee, hauled by an

42

TRANSACORD IS BORN

A4 Pacific and it could well arrive at its Scottish destination

behind a GWR King, accompanied on the sound track by an
LMS whistle. When sound libraries are asked to provide sound
tracks of trains it is rare for any details to be given, since it is a
widely held opinion that, apart from the obvious differences
between steam, diesel and electric, all engines and trains sound
the same, even in different countries.

There are occasions when there is an opportunity to spend

considerable lime, trouble and care in building up an authentic
and dramatic sound track for a film, only to have the result
swamped by music in the final sound track. In far too many films
music is considered to be all important, even though it may
destroy a carefully created atmosphere by becoming deliberately
obtrusive. It is strange and noticeable that among the visual arts,
the cinema is now almost alone in clinging to the convention that
music is essential to guide or heighten audience reaction. The
theatre has long since abandoned the theory that music is an
essential aid to drama, and intrusive background music is
refreshingly absent from many of the best television productions.

The work of sound recording for films can be intensely

interesting, but it can be equally frustrating. Such frustrations
gave strength to my determination to make recordings of such
personally interesting and important things as the sounds of
railways, as soon as it might be possible. Early in 1953 1 bought a
small disc recorder and although its performance was somewhat
limited, as expected from the experiences of BBC engineers
who used similar equipment for location recording during the
war, I made some railway recordings on the nationalised
GW&GC line. Early results, though better than nothing, mainly
increased my admiration for Ludwig Koch who, in seemingly
impossible situations, had used disc recorders to make his
remarkable birdsong recordings. Blank discs were expensive, the
recording time was limited to a maximum of some 4^- minutes, at
the then standard speed of 78rpm, and, since close attention had
to be given to the cutting of a disc, it was hard to take in any
details of passing trains.
Although I had made a start with the disc recorder, tape would
obviously be more practical and manageable and as soon as I

43

TRANSACORD IS BORN

could afford a tape deck with a reasonably high standard of

performance I bought one and built a tape recorder. The results
from thai first tape recorder seemed reasonable at the time and
although the recordings could not be compared with those made
on optical equipment then still used for film production, they
were certainly better than disc recordings. The increased
recording time available on tape was a great asset and it was, for
a while, satisfying to be able to run cables into the garden and
record the passing trains; such activities were restricted by the
cost of tape, most of which was retained, and the results were
uncertain because of the unreliable performance of the tape
though that was improved quite soon.

One of the most stringent limitations was that the tape

recorder, itself large and heavy, was entirely dependent on a
mains electricity supply. The only alternative to a mains supply
was a converter, driven by a number of large batteries, such as
those used for location filming, but available equipment of that
kind was impossibly expensive and its total weight and the size of
the converter would have made it impractical for personal use.

Yet three tramway enthusiasts, Jack Law, of Decca, Geoffrey

Ashwell, and Victor Jones, had meanwhile been more
enterprisingly successful in solving the problems of making some
personal recordings on location, without using mains. They
succeeded in making recordings of London tramcars at various
locations between 1950 and 1952. They used the earliest
available domestic tape recorder, driven by a battery/mains
converter, which they built themselves from government surplus
supplies. The cumbersome equipment weighed almost one
hundredweight and the tape recorder, running at its maximum
speed of 7£ inches/second (ips), could only be operated for a
maximum of five minutes at a time for a total of 30 minutes.
Using that equipment they made priceless recordings of the last
tramcars which ran over a number of routes around London and
many of those recordings were later issued on the Argo LP record
London's Last Trams.

In 1953 there occurred one of the many crises which were all
too familiar to everyone in the British film industry when, a few
weeks before Christmas, the company for which I worked

44

TRANSACORD IS BORN

suddenly went out of business. There was little hope of any

further work in film production, for some while at least, so I set
up a company with the object of making use of my tape and disc
recorder, for recording such things as amateur music festivals
and competitions, where permission was usually given for the
making of tape recordings of the various performers. From the
tape recordings discs were made for any of the performers who
could be persuaded to order them. These and similar events kept
the recording equipment usefully employed and provided some
income.

Few, if any, of the railway recordings which I had made so far

were of a sufficiently high standard of quality to be
professionally satisfying, but then all had been made purely for
personal interest and pleasure, and for some time to come I never
even considered that the recordings would ever be issued on disc.

The original sole purpose of the Transacord company was to

transcribe tape recordings on to discs and by derivation from
transcribe and record, we chose the name Transacord for the
company, with no thought whatever of the obvious and later
fortuitous connection that the name also had with recordings of
trains and transport.

45

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Chapter 4
Steam sounds in Britain

The Transacord company was by 1954 more-or-less established

as a going concern; it had provided a useful means of livelihood
during a lengthy period of unemployment in the film industry,
but had left no money or time to spare for such things as railway
recordings. Film work would have to be done if and when it was
available and meanwhile the company's other work could be
kept going if and when time allowed, with occasional assistance
from one or other several sound recordists who would welcome
some spare time jobs.

In the early summer of 1954 the opportunity came to work

again for David Lean on the film Summer Madness, with
Katherine Hepburn, which was to be made entirely on location
in Venice. Sound equipment was to be supplied from France and
for the first time in my experience, the sound track was to be
recorded on 35 mm magnetic film. The script implied that a large
number of important atmospheric sound tracks would be needed
and to record those in such a place as Venice would obviously be
a problem unless some unusually mobile equipment could be
used. Eventually it was decided that all of the many non-
synchronous sound effects would be recorded on ^ inch tape,
using a transportable tape recorder driven by a rotary converter,
powered by car batteries.

This equipment, despite the weight and bulk of the converter

and batteries, was wonderfully compact and portable compared
with anything I had used previously. Admittedly it took some
time to set up and the convener had to be carefully watched and
controlled to avoid changes in the recorder's speed, but such
disadvantages seemed minimal in comparison with the hitherto
undreamed of flexibility which now made it possible to record
non-synchronous sound effects in practically any location.

46

The film involved several sequences at Venice, Santa Lucia

railway station and on board a train leaving the station. The line
was then entirely steam worked, except for an occasional diesel
railcar; with permission to go anywhere, there was an ideal
opportunity to make varied recordings with which to build up a
sound picture of a busy, steam worked, international railway
station. A favourite recording position, though not strictly
connected with film requirements, was between the station and
the causeway on which the line crosses the lagoon to Mestre on
the mainland. The climb from the station is quite steep and the
Italian drivers, inclined to be flamboyant in any case and well
aware that there was a film unit about, produced some
monumental wheel slips and similarly spectacular sounds on that
climb, especially with heavy international trains like the
Simplon-Orient Express, then still a train of some distinction,
enviously watched as it left for Trieste, Belgrade, Sofia and
Istanbul.
An unfortunate incident severely disrupted filming and some
railway operations at one time. A low platform had been built
out from the side of the train, to carry the camera, but
unfortunately the height of the platform had been misjudged and
when the train moved out from the station a number of ground
signals were demolished and the camera and crew nearly met the
same fate before the train was stopped.

Some nights later, when filming in St Mark's Square, one of

the technicians tested the playback loudspeakers in the middle of
the night, by reproducing the recordings made at the station; the
sounds of trains apparently leaving the centre of Venice created
considerable excitement among some astounded Venetians!

Needless to say, many more railway recordings were made

than could possibly be used in the film; the producer gave me
permission to keep the original tapes, but disappointingly many
of those early tapes deteriorated to such an extent that they
became unplayable and some others were accidentally erased at
the studios when the film was completed.

Despite the later loss of so many irreplaceable recordings the

experience of that film location was invaluable, because it proved
how much could be done with a tape recorder independent of a

47

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

mains supply. As soon as possible after returning to England, in
the late autumn of 1954, I acquired a small converter, heavy
duty batteries and a new tape recorder. Now, at last, there was
the means to make railway recordings without relying on mains
supplies, though there remained the problems of size and weight,
now increased by the converter and batteries. It was one thing to
use a mass of equipment on film locations, with assistants, quite
another to manhandle it alone and that took up a lot of time.
However, during the following months I made recordings with
varying success at Aylesbury, Princes Risborough, Cheddington,
Tring Cutting and Bletchley and on trains between Princes
Risborough, Oxford and Banbury and on the Banbury -
Bletchley line. Loading all the equipment on to a train and
setting it up for recording was quite an undertaking, which relied
heavily on the goodwill of railwaymen. Some lineside locations
could not, of course, be reached by train and the whole heavy
load was then taken in an uncomplaining 18 year old Ford to the
nearest access ble point and carried to the lineside.

It still seemed hardly credible that there was any serious threat
to steam locomotives in general, though the older pre-grouping
engines were obviously threatened. Apart from the prototype
LMS and SR main line diesels, diesel shunters, GWR railcars
and some new lightweight diesel trains in the West Riding, steam
was supreme. Even the 1955 announcement by Sir Brian
Robertson, Chairman of the British Transport Commission, in
launching the 'far reaching plan to transform our railways, at a
cost of over £1,200 million, into a thoroughly modern and first
class service' did not at first seem to be a direct threat to steam
power but when more details were published later in the year the
intention was quite clear: 'the final abandonment of steam
traction in favour of diesel and electric motive power'.
Obviously the recording of steam locomotives had now
become a matter of great urgency. Much money had already
been spent and it was still necessary for me to earn a living.
In the spring of 1955 I was with the crew which started work
on a film involving a location in Spain. The film Kings Rhapsody
was interesting as it was one of the last in which the flamboyant
but likeable Errol Flynn appeared, with Anna Neagle. Even

48

Top: An ex-LMS o-6-o, WD No 8182, with Royal Engineers crew, at

Kinnerlcy, on the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Railway in 1944.

Below: Caen Railway Station in July 1944, destroyed by prolonged Allied

bombardment during the Normandy campaign.

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

-itt.

'A l-tll
HHBiHBa

Top: LMS Class 5 4-6-0 with train of empty tank wagons, heading north
between Elstree Tunnel and Elstree Station in 1946.

Belotv: The pioneer LMS diescl locomotive No 10000 approaches Elstree

Station with a down express on the Midland main line in 1947.

.tfrtaW^r

..JL.JM

■■■

t^
more interesting to me was the train journey to Spain and the
steam locomotives, varying from antique to modern, to be seen
and heard there on the 5ft 6in gauge lines of Spanish National
Railways (RENFE). I spent every spare moment at the railway
stations in Barcelona, where the sounds of the wild west whistles
of engines, hauling trains which included wooden coaches of
equally wild west appearance, were alone an incentive to make
some recordings. Unfortunately the Ruritanian film script
offered no opportunity to include railway sounds in the film and
any railway recordings would have to be done on my days off
with borrowed equipment.

The camera operator, Austin Dempster, was also a railway

enthusiast and wanted to take some photographs. Because the
Barcelona stations were too enclosed and dark for photography,
we decided to go elsewhere and on our first free Sunday we set off
by train to Tarragona, with another enthusiast who helped with
the recording equipment. At the junction station of Tarragona
there was plenty of activity and the first sight of a huge RENFE
Garratt locomotive. The railwaymen were delighted with our
interest, fascinated by the tape recorder and generally friendly
and helpful. The political police, on the other hand, took a very
different attitude when, within a couple of hours, they arrived
and made it only too obvious that they strongly disapproved of
whatever it was that we were doing. The equipment was
hurriedly dismantled and we were escorted to a compartment on
the next available train and locked in, with our captors standing
guard in the corridor on the journey back to Barcelona. In the
police offices at the main station there followed a lengthy
interrogation in a strange mixture of languages. Unfortunately
the mood of the interrogation was not improved by an immediate
understanding of the word Gibraltar which was facetiously
offered in exchange for a quick release. We were detained for the
night, during which our hotel rooms were searched and news of
our detention consequently reached the film unit. Released the
following morning, just in time for the day's shooting, we had a
cool reception from the producer who had been told by a
practical joker that we had been arrested for grossly indecent
behaviour. After all, who would believe that anyone would want

51

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

to record or photograph trains simply for the love of them, an

activity which was to lead to several more arrests in the future, in
various places and in circumstances which often seemed much
less amusing, especially without the presence in the background
of a film company which could intervene if need be.

Back in Britain there was time and money to spare for some
more railway recordings. So far, all the recordings had been
made simply by asking permission from local officials, who were
normally friendly and helpful but, quite naturally, were
occasionally suspicious of such unfamiliar activities as the use of
an impressive array of recording equipment. In any case there
were obvious limits to what could be authorised at local level and
the Spanish experience could not be disregarded. The next step
was to ask for official approval of recording activities and
permission to carry them out at more adventurous locations.

At that time the railways were, not unusually, being subjected

to attacks by the press and there was a natural suspicion at
British Railways headquarters that people asking for unusual
facilities might, for instance, be engaged in making recordings
simply to provide ammunition for the anti-railway press lobby.
For such reasons the initial approach for permission to make
recordings of steam locomotives at work in various BR regions
was met with some incredulity. Apart from anything else, tape
recorders were then still a rarity and recording was a little
known activity; the taking of photographs was acceptably
understandable and long established, but making recordings was
quite another matter, not least because of the amount of
equipment involved in such bizarre activities. Because of this the
hire of lookout men was, in certain circumstances, considered an
essential safeguard. Eventually the purpose of the recordings
was accepted as being prompted by genuine enthusiastic interest,
and introductions were given to the public relations officers of
the various regions, who dealt most sympathetically with
requests for permits and facilities and gave generous assistance,
which continued over many years, to this day.

With official blessing I could now make a start on the most

ambitious programme that was practical for recording the
sounds of steam locomotives in the widest possible variety. There

52

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

were endless disappointments, especially at first, because of the
time taken in moving and setting up equipment and failures in
the equipment or, more often, shortcomings in the recording
tape then available; above all was the need for the right weather.
Moreover my plans were also thwarted by the ASLEF strike,
which not only directly upset train services, but had a long
aftermath in which staff relations were not at their most cordial.

Fortunately it was soon possible, by devious means, to purchase

a batch of tape from the USA which was considerably superior in
performance and reliability, though far more expensive, than
most tapes which were obtainable in Britain. The American tape
was kept for the most important recordings, but despite the use
of such high quality materials there was still a slight, nagging
worry for nobody at that time knew for certain how long
recordings on tape would safely survive in storage. There were
plenty of theories but none were backed by really long term
experience of the extent to which recordings might deteriorate,
or even completely fade away, if stored for many years. In
practice the main cause of deterioration in stored tape recordings
has proved to be due to mechanical shortcomings in some of the
materials which were used as a base for the early tapes.

Quite apart from other problems there were many

disappointments from faults in technique. You learn from
mistakes in recording, just as in photography, but however much
is learned you can still make new and undreamed of mistakes.
Each new location, item of equipment, or change of
circumstances brings scope for more mistakes and they will
inevitably be made, no matter how experienced you may
consider yourself to be.
All the railway recordings I had made so far were achieved
with the same technique as that used for film recording and this
proved to be a serious mistake. Recordings for films, with the
exception of those intended to form a general background - for
example street noises heard inside an office building — are made
objectively to obtain the clearest possible sound track of a specific
subject, such as an engine whistle. Background sounds are
excluded from such recordings as much as possible by using
directional microphones in a reasonably close position; if any

53

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

sound, other than that of the object, becomes too intrusive the
recording will be stopped.

The reason for adopting such methods is that film sound

tracks are frequently needed only to support specific picture
sequences and a recording will be less adaptable if it includes
background sounds which may be inappropriate to a picture. A
recording of a passing train in which spring birdsong is heard in
the background, for example, could not possibly be used as a
sound track to accompany a midwinter or night sequence, and a
recording of a train starting from a station where a specific
announcement is heard in the background would be unsuitable
for general use. When a number of suitable sound tracks have
been selected, they are finally mixed together in whatever way
may be needed to match a film sequence.

For a while the sheer novelty of being able to record trains was
enough and there was little time to spare to listen attentively to
the results, which proved to be rather lifeless, even boring after a
time. The recordings were too short and conveyed nothing of the
background of the passing trains, none of the atmosphere of the
railway. Many otherwise good recordings I had made had been
cut too soon, simply because of another sound in the
background, which might actually have given more reality to the
recording. It was obvious thai the film technique was unsuitable
for recordings intended solely for listening to, and unfortunately
a number of interesting recordings were spoiled before that
lesson was learned.

When, later on, we issued recordings on records, the film

method of mixing several tracks was too costly and time
consuming to be used. Still later, when it was suggested that the
records had a historical documentary value, the mixing of tracks
could not be done because it would have called into question the
authenticity of the recordings. In fact, although we do much
editing for records, we do not normally mix sound tracks except
occasionally when there has been an addition of background
sounds, recorded at the same time and place as some of the mono
recordings which have been processed to produce a stereo
impression.

Before the film techniques of recording had been found to be

54
STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

unsatisfactory I spent a long and memorable day in the autumn

of 1955 making recordings at old Huston station. All the
equipment was mounted on a four-wheeled luggage trolley,
which was manoeuvred around the far from spacious platforms
and narrow passages of the old station by various friendly
porters. 1 was at Euston for more than 14 hours on that
Saturday, recording anything that seemed to be of interest and
used miles of tape. Alas, most of it was quite meaningless when
played back; it consisted mainly of a jumble of noises. I certainly
felt I had learned much from that session. In particular I realised
that large confined stations were far from ideal as recording
locations; space was too restricted, the general level of sound was
too high and at times the background noise made it impossible to
pick out any interesting individual sounds, such as trains
leaving, especially since the microphones could be placed only a
short distance beyond the platform ends. However, a few of the
recordings made that day were later issued on a 78rpm record
and because of their possible historical interest, some of the
recordings were later re-processed for stereo and issued on a
World of Railways LP, LMS.

At about the time when the Euston recordings were made, a

friend in the USA sent me a record which he had thought might
be doubly interesting to me, because it was said to be a superb
recording and the subject was railway trains. The record, a 10
inch LP entitled Rail Dynamics, had been recorded on rainy
nights along the tracks of the New York Central Railroad, It was
produced by Cook Laboratories of Stamford, Connecticut,
manufacturers of disc recording equipment and producers of a
series of records, Sounds of our times, which were described on
the sleeve as: authentic originals of sounds which are off the
beaten path of records, not studio productions, but made on
location in their natural habitat.

Rail Dynamics, produced in late 1952, was introduced on the

sleeve by: For most of us - for those who live in a place where
only the east wind sends the sounds of the railroad reaching out
over a foggy night, this record will be a thing of nostalgia,
moving within us the strange restlessness of wanderlust.
Technically the transient content of steam, rails, trucks and

55

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

couplings are a challenge to any reproducing system. The

acoustic perspective of trains that rush on and into the distance is
a new experience, for it is a rare record which brings you the
dynamic sound of a dynamic moving object.

The record itself certainly was a brilliant example of location

recording, particularly for that time; it presented an abstract
collection of railway sounds which left me wanting to hear more
and with an envious admiration of the technical and artistic
achievements which that record represented.

Obviously Cook Laboratories only produced records for a

specialised audience, but if they had found it worthwhile to issue
a record of Rail Dynamics in the USA then, presumably, I
thought, there must be a number of people interested in listening
to such sounds and just possibly there might be people in Britain
who would be interested in hearing some of the recordings
which, so far, I had made for my personal interest and
amusement. The only way to find out for certain was to issue a
record and see what happened.

The LP record was not yet as widely accepted in Britain as it

was in America and in any case it would then have been
technically difficult and too costly to consider issuing an LP.
Even if arrangements could have been made for cutting the
master and pressing LP records, there was at that time no hope
of equalling the technical qualities of Rail Dynamics; 78rpm
records, however, were a much more practical proposition. The
master record could be cut on the disc recorder which
Transacord still had and the record could be processed and
pressed by British Homophone Ltd, the custom pressing
company which had earlier produced small numbers of record
pressings from previous recordings of amateur musicians.

The master tapes were assembled and edited for two 10 inch
78rpm records, with a playing time of about 3| minutes each
side. The first two records were Birmingham — Leamington, a
rather abstract selection of recordings made at Birmingham,
Snow Hill, and Leamington and on board a train travelling
between those two stations, and Freight Trains, made up from
various recordings at the Hneside on the GW&GC line, mostly at
Princes Risborough.
56

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

The simple labels were printed by a local firm which

specialised in printing such things as cake boxes, and the records
were packed in plain brown cartridge paper sleeves into each of
which was inserted a duplicated slip which gave brief details of
the recordings, in sequence and included an apology for the lack
of more precise information. The records were simply a selection
of sounds, which I hoped might possibly interest other
enthusiasts, chosen from recordings made in 1954 and 1955
when I had never thought it necessary to make more than the
briefest comments about what was recorded. Only 99 copies of
each record were pressed, for the good reason that purchase tax -
a considerable extra expense - was not charged unless 100 or
more copies of a record were produced. The tax on the original
99 copies would have to be paid if more copies were made later.
When the records had been paid for and delivered from the
factory I placed an advertisement in the classified columns of the
Railway Magazine and Trains Illustrated in November 1955
offering 'Gramophone Records of interest to railway
enthusiasts, for sale by mail order at 10s 6d each, plus 2s postage
and package' (62jp total).

To my enormous surprise and delight orders for the records

came in, some people ordered both and by the end of the year a
large proportion of the total of 198 records had been sold, An
invitation to give an opinion on the records was sent out with
each order. By later standards those first records were somewhat
crude and certainly lacked presentation, but a surprising
number of people were kind enough to write back, often at
length, with their opinions; they were generally encouraging and
several requests were made for more records, for which a number
of interesting subjects were suggested.

This quite unexpectedly enthusiastic response made it seem

possible that there might be justification for making more
recordings than had been so far envisaged and for issuing some
on records, instead of making recordings simply for personal
interest, but there were problems. If the recordings were to be
taken more seriously they would have to be made over a wider
area and in greater quantity if they were to be at all
comprehensive. That would take up a lot of my time and would

57

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

be costly, for the recording equipment and materials had to be

paid for and the costs of reaching distant locations had to be
considered. Even by the most optimistic calculations it seemed
unlikely that record sales could do more than cover production
and manufacturing costs and considerable investment would be
needed to cover the initial costs of producing records and
purchasing stocks.

Such a project could only be financed by earnings from film

work, but that involved commitments to long and uncertain
hours for weeks at a time and possible absences on location
abroad. Without the financial support of film work the new
project was untenable, yet more spare time would be needed for
making recordings and producing new records, which would
have to be issued from time to time at least, in order to gain the
benefit of opinions from other enthusiasts as I wanted to know
what they considered to be of interest and value. Moreover,
' copies of records, like prints from photographs, would provide
essential evidence to professional railwaymen — the 'artistes' -of
my serious attempts to make as full a record of the sounds of the
steam age as might be possible during the next few years. The
production of records would, however, take yet more time,
leaving even less for making new recordings.

Altogether it was a dilemma which seemed to have no easy

solution, it was tempting to abandon any ideas of making more
records for sale and simply go back to making recordings of
personal interest. Yet the possibilities of the larger project,
however uncertain it might be, were so interesting and exciting
that it seemed weak to abandon it without at least trying to find a
workable compromise.

It so happened that a contract with British Lion Studios was

now coming up for renewal. The contract, although it gave some
security on a yearly basis, was completely binding in a somewhat
unilateral way and offered no freedom of choice as to how or
where one worked. I made a necessarily quick decision not to
renew the contract, but to trust to luck as a freelance, take
whatever work might be available, preferably not abroad, and
hope that it might be possible to compromise between the
necessity of providing finance for Transacord and enough free
58

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

time, between films and at weekends, for the making of new

recordings and records. Some producers and other people in the
film industry, whose offers of work, particularly if it involved
going abroad, were turned down as gracefully as possible, told
me forcefully that I was crazy to refuse such opportunities just
for so eccentric a reason as recording steam engines - an echo
of the school psychiatrist of earlier years. The film producers
were not alone in their opinions which were shared by one of the
original directors of Transacord, a solicitor who was by no
means interested in railways. He announced that he had no wish
to be associated with such nonsensical ideas and had to be bought
out of the company.

Such reactions had little effect because by now the idea of

making railway recordings had become almost an obsession and
would have become even more obsessive if I had then realised
how quickly steam locomotives would disappear under BR's
policy of rapid modernisation. It was interesting and from the
point of view of the scope of the recordings, fortunate, that many
other countries, such as France and Germany for example,
managed a modern and efficient image although, presumably
because it made good economic sense so to do they continued to
make use of serviceable and well maintained steam locomotives
for some time after BR abandoned them.
1955 ended with a first recording session on the Lickey
Incline, during which the weather conditions were appalling,
with persistent freezing fog so thick that visibility was down to a
few yards and I could see nothing of the hard working engines
until they were directly opposite the recorder. Fortunately they
passed sufficiently slowly to make identification just possible. At
least the fog kept aircraft away and road traffic to a minimum,
but as so often in cold conditions the recorder became
temperamental and at times refused to function at all, only being
persuaded to do so by drastic treatment such as over-running the
recorder for minutes on end, to warm it up, then wrapping it in a
duffel coat to retain the warmth as long as possible. There were
many missed and ruined recordings during those two freezing
days spent beside the Lickey Incline. On the first day only two of
the several recordings made of 'Big Bertha', the unique 0-10-0

59

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

banking engine, were anything like acceptable; on the second

day 0-10-0 No 58 100 was away for a boiler washout and before it
was possible for me to return to the Lickey Incline No 58100 had
been withdrawn and had gone for ever.

The leaflet sent out with the first two records stated: 'We have
been recording sounds associated with steam locomotives
which, though now familiar, may be rarely heard in years to
come - provided that there is sufficient interest we shall issue
new records from time to time. The records are 10 inch, double
sided, pressed in filled Vinylke material and can be played on any
type of reproducer at the standard speed of 78rpm.'

The selection of recordings and their editing for new issues of

records was carried on during any spare time, especially when
the weather was too impossible for recording. Three new records
were issued in late January 1956:

The Class AS Pacific Locomotive. 'Recordings of A3s at work in

various conditions: on board an express between Aylesbury and
Marylebone and heard from the lineside at Aylesbury and in the
Chiltern Hills.'

From London (Euston). Described as: 'A sound picture of the

departure platforms at Euston Station' and made up of some of
the few satisfactory recordings made at Euston in the autumn of
1955.

Venice - Mestre. This, the first of the foreign records, was made
up of some of the surviving recordings made during the 1954 film
location.

Again only 99 copies of each of the new records were produced

but, helped by reviews in the railway press, the first 99 copies sold
encouragingly quickly, except for the unfamiliar 'foreign' record
and I had to make a decision as to whether it was worthwhile
ordering a further batch of pressings, which would mean that the
small profit made on sales would almost disappear in payment of
the luxury rate of purchase tax on the initial order and the cost of
all further orders would be considerably increased. It was a
gamble, especially since it was unthinkable to increase the price
of the records at this stage; the A3 and Euston records were re-
pressed and the others deleted when the last copies had been sold.
Three new records: The Lickey Incline -passenger trains, The

60

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Lickey Incline - freight trains, and The King class locomotive

were issued in March 1956. They attracted an increasing
amount of interest, helped by further reviews, and their sales just
about justified the decision to order additional pressings and pay
purchase tax.

No more records were issued for some time as there was so

much recording to be done and in fact we abandoned 78rpm
records for new issues since by then the 78rpm record was
becoming obsolescent as LPs rapidly became more popular.
Moreover 78rpm records were relatively expensive when
compared with the greater playing time of an LP, which would,
in any case, give scope for a more relaxed and effective
presentation of the recordings. The factory was now able to
process and press 10 inch LP records and although we had no
equipment for cutting the master discs, it was possible to have
that done elsewhere. Although, to judge from correspondence, it
was problematical how many existing customers had LP record
players it was decided that any future records would be LPs. The
first two 10 inch records, issued in November 1956, were: The
Bulleid Pacific locomotives, and The class A4 Pacific
locomotives. The new records, which were sold at 22s 6d each,
plus 2s 6d postage and packing (£1.25 total), needed something
better than the cartridge paper sleeves in which they were sent
from the factory, and the local printers, having already supplied
improved record labels, produced some brown card sleeves
printed in green with a railway motif at each corner, the title of
the record, the name and address of Transacord Ltd,
instructions concerning the care of the record and details of
equipment on which it should be played. In spite of those
instructions several records were returned in a distressed state,
after attempts had been made to play them with 78rpm
gramophone needles!

The new LP sleeves included a detailed description of

everything that was to be heard on the record; there were some
suggestions that the records should include a commentary, or
some detailed comments, but these I resisted. When, in 1960, the
late Roger Wimbush first reviewed some of the records in the
Gramophone he considered it a courageous decision not to

61

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

include a commentary, but in fact it seems merely logical. There

certainly is a place for commentaries in documentary films or
radio programmes, which may need explanation because they
will normally be seen or heard once only. A record hopefully will
be heard more often and, if it is not, then it has failed and no
amount of commentary would resurrect it. The record can only
be successful if, simply from sounds, it can create an image in
the mind of the listener. It is the job of the extensive sleeve notes
to provide essential information and even more important, to set
the scene for each recording. With the aid of the sleeve notes each
listener can freely use his imagination to form his own mental
image from the sounds and at each successive hearing he may fill
in the picture in greater detail, Any spoken commentary would
surely be an insult to the intelligence of the listener and would
certainly become repetitively boring after the first hearing; a
linking comment would simply repeat the information given on
the record label and sleeve. Technically the introduction of a
commentary would pose problems because the level of the
objective sounds would have to be artificially adjusted to
accommodate the commentary, producing the see-saw effect
which is so familiar in some film documentaries, where the level
of the sound effects, or background music, is abruptly reduced
just before the commentator speaks and increased as soon as he
has finished.

Only two Transacord records have included the spoken word

with railway sounds. The first was a children's record of Edward
and Gordon and Edward's Day Out, two of the Reverend
Awdry's railway stories. The author read the stories which were
illustrated by the recorded 'voices' of the engines taking part.
The record has long since been deleted, small scale production
costs, royalties to the publishers and discounts to retailers having
made it impossible to sell the record at a reasonable price. The
second and later one was a recorded version of The Knotty, a
musical documentary produced by Peter Cheeseman at the
Victoria Theatre, Stoke on Trent, which, in words, songs and
railway sounds, tells the story of the railways and specifically the
North Staffordshire Railway, from the earliest days to the 1923
grouping. The record, issued by Argo in 1970, was produced
62

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

jointly with Kevin Daly, then a Decca engineer, who has since
produced many interesting and historically important records
and has given much valuable assistance to Transacord.

In earlier years many other people well known in railway

enthusiast circles helped Transacord by purchasing records and
making suggestions for future recordings. Such support was
invaluable, as was the information which was provided
concerning locations which might be suitable for recording, and
details of the workings of various locomotives.

Looking back at diaries of the time, 1956 was a year of

extraordinary activity as far as I was concerned. There was so
much to be done and it was a problem to know in what order it
should be attempted. Every spare moment was spent in making
new recordings and when working on films, a total of three
during the year, that spare time was limited to occasional
evenings and most weekends, during which some of the more
distant locations could only be reached by travelling overnight,
after a day's filming on Friday and returning overnight on
Saturday, so as to spend Sunday preparing material for new
records and attending to record sales and correspondence.

The weather in 1956 was abysmal in contrast to the brilliant

summer of 1955, and many recordings were ruined by wind or
rain, particularly disappointing after travelling to a distant
location. The year began with frost, fog and snow, conditions
were less severe in the south and I had permits available for
Basingstoke and the line to Salisbury, on which there should be
opportunities to record pre-group SR engines and Bulleid
Pacifies, which were soon to be rebuilt so drastically that it
seemed certain that the individualistic sounds of the original
engines might disappear completely. The Bulleid Pacifies were
not the only engines whose 'voices' might be changed: the A3 and
A4 Pacifies, and the Kings and Castles were soon to be fitted with
double chimneys which, as I found from previous experience,
made a considerable difference to the sounds, so it was important
to record such engines in their original condition while it was still
possible.

There were occasional pleasant surprises close to home, such

as the brief return of one of the stately and well-proportioned ex-

63

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

GC 4-6-2 tank engines on Marylebone-Princes Risborough

trains. On a beautiful spring evening, 50 years after Great Central
passenger services first ran over the GW&GC line, I recorded
Class A 5 No 69804 in near perfect conditions, leaving Princes
Risborough with a train for Marylebone; as the A5 climbed
away, an A3 Pacific, Prince of Wales, opened up after a signal
check and roared through the station with the down Master
Cutler.

More Great Central engines, such as the Director 4-4-0s, were

soon recorded on the Manchester Central - Chester Northgate
line of the CLC; LMS compound 4-4-0s were also recorded in the
Manchester area and between Leeds and Shipley, and by a stroke
of luck, an ex NE D20 class 4-4-0, No 62343, was recorded
departing from Leeds City with a train for Selby. Hitchin was
among my favourite locations for Gresley Pacifies at speed which
I visited frequently, as was the north end of Stoke tunnel, where
the Pacifies and other engines made a fine sound as they climbed
up from Grantham and entered the tunnel, one after another,
while in the background an occasional 2-8-0 climbed away on the
single line towards Stainby, with iron ore empties from nearby
High Dyke Sidings, The only trouble with Stoke summit was
that it was plagued by aircraft noise, except at weekends and it
was only worth going there on Saturdays when, during that
summer, the wind always seemed to be blowing strongly across
the track and seldom carried the sounds of the trains climbing up
from Grantham.

Grantham I visited many times, especially on summer

Saturdays, for it was a splendid place and although traffic noise
could be troublesome at the north end of the station, there was
an excellent recording position to the south of the station just
beyond the up platform. There, shielded by buildings at the rear,
there was just space between the sidings to set up the recording
equipment and settle down for the day - or part of the night -
ideally placed to record the changing of engines and the
departure of a procession of trains on the last lap of their journey
to Kings Cross. Grantham too had a problem, in the person of a
large, officious and no doubt efficient stationmaster who, for
reasons of his own, did not seem well disposed to railway

64

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

enthusiasts, still less to the use of mysterious recording

equipment despite my permits, or for that matter engine crews.
He customarily stood at the end of the up platform when
supervising engine changing; one evening V2 No 60881 backed
on to a train and coupled up, the stationmaster stood back as the
whistles blew, 60881 started with a slip which even by V2
standards was prodigious, and from a liberally priming chimney
drenched the stationmaster with warm and greasily sooty water.
It might have been accidental but for the fact that the grinning
driver gave a thumbs up sign as the engine passed, and with
no hint of a slip climbed away towards Stoke summit;
unfortunately the whole performance was so diverting that the
recording was completely ruined by inattention.

Tape recording equipment invariably attracted attention and

its presence was sometimes mystifying; at Peterborough a
shunter in Nene Carriage Sidings was recorded explaining to his
mate that the mysterious recording equipment was something
used 'to make tests for this 'ere radio activity*. On one occasion,
at Retford station, the driver of an A3 made an exceptionally
vigorous and slippery start with a southbound express, which
would have made an excellent recording but for the fact that a
group of his mates stood round the microphone, loudly
discussing his performance in terms which it would have been
unwise to include on any record.

Retford was a splendid place when, before the underpass was

built, the GC Sheffield - Clarborough Junction line crossed the
main line on the level at the south end of the station. It was
incredible how the signalmen managed to fit in so much traffic,
only rarely causing any delay to main line trains. There was
considerable through traffic on the GC line and many light
engine movements to and from the shed to the east of the station;
such engines as GC 2-8-0s, with a surprising alacrity, clanked
and clattered over the crossing in the wake of main line
expresses, the engines of which usually whistled in a most
satisfying way. To add to the variety trains from Sheffield, if
calling at Retford, approached the station from the west round
a sharp curve and squealed away round an equally sharp curve,
to regain the GC line. The worst problem at Retford was a

65

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

nearby RAF airfield from which at times an almost continuous

procession of noisy aircraft made practice sorties over the
railway. It was then pointless to attempt any recording, but
fortunately the RAF took weekends off and on Saturdays the
loudest sounds, apart from the trains, came from excited young
train spotters.

The best recording position was on a patch of waste ground

opposite Retford Crossing signalbox; the only way to reach it
was by humping heavy equipment across the running lines, this
had to be done with extreme caution and took some time so once
set up it was tempting to stay as long as possible, but it was
usually rewarding. The sounds of an express on the East Coast
main line, whistling at the approach to the crossing and not
always it seemed within the permanent speed limit, clattering
rhythmically over the near right angle crossing followed by a
clanking 2-8-0 moving smartly across the main line would be
unforgettable, even if they could not still be heard on records.

Much further south the Somerset & Dorset line, which I

visited briefly during the winter, was an obvious target for
recording; on summer Saturdays there was the procession of
through trains, out in the morning and back in the afternoon,
and on weekdays the double-headed Pines Express and the goods
trains hauled by the S&D 2-8-0s. I went to Templecombe first,
because the then busy station offered opportunities for recording
some of the older SR engines and the Bulleid Pacifies speeding
through or leaving the station, on the climb towards Milborne
Port, in addition to S&D trains. Unfortunately, before I could
make recordings of SR workings I had to obtain an additional
permit from Waterloo. The stationmaster was an SR man and
proud of it; his was an SR station and a permit issued for the
S&D line, even though it mentioned Templecombe, only covered
the single platform used by S&D trains and did not permit access
to any other part of the station or yard for the purpose of
recording SR workings. The working of S&D trains at
Templecombe was unusually interesting; the station was
approached by a steep climb on a curve from the S&D main line
proper which passed under the SR line to the east of the station.
Trains from Bournemouth towards Bath stopped just beyond

66

Top: On the Italian State Railways (FS) in [947, An American 2-8-0 at

the head of an express for Rome takes water at Civitavecchia station.

Belotn: Filming at Venice station in 1954. Director David Lean second on

left, in profile. Author, with headphones and 'portable' recording equip-
ment. Per Glow

Top: Wrong line working at the bottom of the garden. An up express climbs

out from Princes Risborough towards London on the 1 in 88 down line.

The 'I Spy' signal box mentioned in the text is on the left.

Centre: The author makes a test recording of a Birmingham-Paddington

express on the GW&GC line at Princes Risborough, 'John Aldred

Below: 0-4-2 tank engine and Thrush coach, approaching Princes Ris-
borough with the final auto train from High Wycombe on 17 June 1962.
STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Templecombe Junction, an engine from Templecombe S&D

shed was then attached to the rear of the train and with the
original train engine now running tender first, as banker, the
train reversed and climbed round the curve into Templecombe
station. After station work was complete the cavalcade returned
to the junction where the Templecombe engine dropped off at
the rear, and the train continued towards Bath, behind the
original engine.

The stationmaster at Evercreech Junction, in contrast to the

iron-minded potentate of Templecombe, could not have been
more interested and helpful. His was a charming station where
the spotless waiting room always had a cheerful fire in winter or
a vase of fresh flowers in the summer, standing on a highly
polished table which also carried a good selection of magazines.
It was a busy station where pilot engines, usually LMS or
Midland 2P class 4-4-0s, were attached to heavy northbound
expresses before they left on the long, steep climb through the
Mendips. There was constant activity by 2-8-0s in the large yard
and trains came and went on the Highbridge branch line, usually
headed by 3F class 0-6-0s but occasionally by a Johnson 0-4-4
tank engine, the first recording of which was ruined by wind and
rain. Two further recordings were attempted, both involving a
pre-dawn start; one was frustrated by an equipment fault, which
developed after arrival at Evercreech, and the other by a message
from the stationmaster, on a perfect summer morning, that the
engine had been taken out of service at the last moment for
urgent attention to the boiler tubes. Sadly, I never managed to
record the Johnson tank on the Highbridge branch. Other visits
to the S&D, particularly to Windsor Hill tunnel, always seemed
to be plagued with bad weather.

I spent several weeks during the summer of 1956 working in

the crew filming Three Men in a Boat; we spent much of the lime
huddled on or beside the Thames, waiting for the rain to stop or
watching extras in boats spinning helplessly around on, or
sometimes in, the river, in gale force winds. On a Saturday free
from filming I went to Folkestone, with the intention of
recording the boat trains, headed and banked by three or more
Rl class 0-6-0 tank engines on the 1 in 30 climb from Folkestone

69

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Harbour to Folkestone Junction, The gales however had not

abated and the violent winds which had blown up by mid-
morning sent seas crashing over the breakwater and made
recording quite impossible; any self-pity I might have had was
reduced by watching the unfortunate passengers staggering off
the cross channel ferries. Returning the following weekend in
slightly better conditions it was possible, after finding a sheltered
position, to make two recordings of the Rl tanks as they slogged
up the gradient, raising echoes around the town. The speed of
change around the BR system was only too apparent here since
before it was possible for me to make another attempt in better
weather the Rl tanks had been replaced by 0-6-0 pannier tanks
from the WR, the sounds of which were of a different vintage
from those of the ex SECR engines, though infinitely more
interesting than the sounds of the multiple-unit electric boat
trains which now whine effortlessly up the gradient.

One of the many helpful suggestions for new recordings had

given me some details of banana trains on the Ribble branch
which ran from Preston Docks, through a short tunnel and on a
final gradient of 1 in 29, under the gantry on which stood No 2A
signalbox, entered the yard to the west of Preston station. The
yardmaster helpfully suggested that it would be safer if he or
one of his inspectors acted as guide and assistant. The Ribble
branch trains were worked by LNW 0-8-0s which, starting from
the docks, then charged across a level crossing, through the
tunnel and a narrow cutting and emerged from beneath the
signalbox, coughing and panting to a stop in the yard, usually
almost completely winded by the climb. If loads were
particularly heavy another 0-8-0 was provided as a banker,
although I did not record a banked train. Apart from the banana
trains Preston seemed a possible venue for recording various
other engines, especially ex L&Y types, but because of the many
limited clearances around Preston station it was impossible to
find safe and satisfactory recording positions. Thanks to the
yardmaster and his inspectors, I made some interesting
recordings of L&Y saddle tank No 51423 and other engines,
hard at work in Butler Street yard and those and the banana
train recordings made the two days at Preston worthwhile.

70
I!

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

I made many recordings on board trains hauled by a variety of

engines, sometimes simply because there was a reasonable
chance of making a successful recording of a vintage engine from
a train when weather, or other conditions made it unlikely that a
lineside recording would be satisfactory. An especially
interesting recording was made one September Saturday in
1956, at the suggestion of Richard Hardy, then Shedmaster at
Stewarts Lane, who acted as assistant fireman, on the 11.50am
train from Victoria to Ramsgate. The engine, El class 4-4-0 No
31019, was in the charge of Sam Gingell, a remarkable driver
whose exploits were well known at the time. With a 276 ton gross
load and despite signal and permanent way checks, he managed
to complete the 35-f- mile journey to Chatham in 9| minutes
under schedule. The engine was worked on full regulator with a
cut off varying from 60 per cent on the climb to Grosvenor
Bridge, to 25 per cent at Farningham Road, passed at 80mph,
and 35 per cent on the subsequent climb to Meopham, passed at
60mph. The sounds of the engine, heard from the leading coach,
were so loud that it was difficult to restrain the recording level,
but, in general, the recording was most successful.

It was occasionally possible to record pre-group engines in

unlikely places, far removed from their original lines. Class G5
ex NER 0-4-4 tank engines were recorded with push-pull
trains on the Audley End - Saffron Walden - Bartlow line, J15
ex GER 0-6-0s later appeared on Watlington branch goods
trains, and one of my only successful recordings of an LBSC
Atlantic was made when Trevose Head left Bourne End, heading
a Sunday special train towards Maidenhead. I recorded one of
the elegant Wainwright SECR Class D 4-4-0s on the Midland
main line, when No 31577 left Harlington station with a special
train, in the darkness of a calm Sunday evening in the autumn of
1956 returning south with an excursion to the SR. I had
previously recorded the Wainwright 4-4-0s on the Redhill -
Guildford line near Gomshall but seldom successfully, as all
were hurriedly made on rare occasions when it had been possible
to borrow a recorder and take a considerably extended lunch
hour from Shepperton studios. One such occasion had an
unfortunate sequel as the time for a recording session was

71

I
I

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

unexpectedly brought forward and a group of musicians sat

waiting to be recorded at the studio while a 4-4-0 left Gomshall.
The production manager seemed unlikely to be a railway
enthusiast, so I had to devise a more plausible reason for the
delay.

In some areas steam locomotives, especially the older types,

were vanishing at an alarming rate; I had achieved a good deal,
but time was now scarce and there had been many
disappointments' and failures, as a result of which several
locomotive types, or workings on certain lines, managed to evade
a satisfactory recording as far as I was concerned, I never
managed to record the LNER Garratt at work on the Lickey
Incline, or anywhere else, and all my attempts to record LMS
Garratts proved disappointing at best and more usually
disastrous. During days and nights spent beside the line at
Chinley, Saxby and in the Erewash Valley, there was almost
endless variety in the things which went wrong; the weather
would tum foul, the batteries would go flat, or the recorder
would suddenly develop a fault. Sometimes an aircraft dived
from nowhere or a train passed in the opposite direction,
drowning all sounds of an approaching Garratt or when all other
conditions were favourable, any Garratts which appeared were
certain to be in deplorable condition, shrouded in steam and
making most uncharacteristic noises. There seemed to be a jinx
on Garratts and it was not until years later, in Spain, that I made
any satisfactory recordings of those unusual engines; even then
my attempts were dogged by unexpectedly appalling weather or
sudden cancellations of scheduled services. Later intentions to
record Garratts in South Africa were thwarted by local and
national economic crises.

Some other engines also seemed to be affected by malign

influences, which dogged many attempts to record T9s,
Princess Pacifies, the famous A4 Mallard, B17s, Q7s and various
ex L&Y engines, among others. Often it was a case of what
Derek Cross and Ivo Peters described as the 'You should have
been here yesterday' factor, which will be familiar to any
photographer, but there were innumerable other reasons. By no
means all the earlier recordings were disappointing and some

72

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

engines, such as the V2s could hardly do wrong; they were a

recordist's dream and for sheer variety of sounds had no equal.
Their rhythms varied from a steady .-. .-. of an engine in good
condition to an uneven . — ... overlaid by hammer blow knocks
from the motion of an engine overdue for attention; no two V2s
sounded the same and even an individual engine could produce
rhythms from the exhaust and the motion which were so varied
and pronounced that at least one music teacher used recordings
of V2s to illustrate rhythmical counterpoint.

Experience with cumbersome equipment used for all the

early recordings made it obvious that something more portable
would be helpful and at times essential, so in 1956 I obtained
one of the recently introduced EMI portable recorders, operated
from internally fitted dry batteries. Although I treated it at first
with considerable suspicion, because of its comparatively small
size, it was a remarkable instrument for that time and proved
capable of excellent results. There were disadvantages, one of
which was that the maximum possible continuous recording time
was little more than 10 minutes, even when using the then
recently available LP tape, at the 15ips recording speed
necessary for recordings of professional quality. Another
drawback was that since the recorder had no erase head each reel
of tape had to be erased and carefully checked before use; an
assumption that brand new reels of tape could safely be used
without checking was rudely shattered when I found new tape
used to record a Schools 4-4-0 on the climb from Tonbridge to
Tunbridge Wells to be useless, because intermittently
superimposed on it were loud tones at various frequencies, which
had been recorded by the manufacturers during tests on that
batch of tape.

Another problem which showed up in use was a sudden

variation in tape speed and a microphonic noise from the valves,
which often occurred if the recorder was moved abruptly during
a recording. Despite such drawbacks the EMI portable had so
many obvious advantages that, once it had proved itself, I relied
upon it increasingly and only used the larger equipment for more
accessible locations or whenever a longer continuous recording
time was necessary. One problem which the EMI portable did

73

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

not solve was temperamental behaviour, particularly at low
temperatures in which it was even more liable than the larger
recorders to function only intermittently, if at all. However, the
reduced size and weight made it easier to coddle back to life in
the warmth of a signalbox or shunters' cabin and then to wrap it
up warmly before attempting another outdoor recording. It was
not until the remarkable Swiss-made Nagra recorders came into
use, some years later, that there was any certainty of results in
cold conditions. In January 1966 a Nagra functioned perfectly
when used to make lineside recordings in France, more than
3000ft up in the Massif Central, in 3ft of snow, at a temperature
of minus 25 degrees Centigrade. If such equipment had been
available and affordable ten years earlier I might have saved a
considerable number of spoiled and unrepeatable recordings.

I visited many new locations in 1957 and repeated trips to

several earlier locations. Despite difficulties caused by
stringent petrol rationing brought on by the Suez crisis it was
comparatively easy to reach most places by train, given time.
The veteran GW 4-4-0 City of Truro had been returned to
service and in March 1957 was recorded at Ruabon, with a
Festiniog Railway Society special train. In May I recorded City
of Truro again, running light across the elegant but spidery
Crumlin Viaduct which was subject to a weight restriction, and
then leaving Crumlin High Level station, piloting a 4300 class
2-6-0 with the Ian Allan Daffodil Express. Later the same day,
an attempt to record the Daffodil Express leaving Swansea High
Street was thwarted by the inopportune appearance of a light
engine, which stopped at a nearby signal and drowned all other
sounds with an ear-piercing escape of steam from the safety
valves.

I spent days beside the line at Dainton and Rattery, plagued

by indifferent summer weather and technical difficulties, often
caused by damp. Nearer home the Watlington branch line closed
to passenger traffic and I had a busy day recording all the trains
which ran on Saturday 29 June 1957, the last day of passenger
services. I made a totally abortive trip to Shap, where, for three
days and nights, high winds and heavy showers made any useful
recording impossible, ruining attempted takes of such engines as

74

LNW 0-8-0s and an unassisted 2P 4-4-0, which it was

subsequently impossible to repeat. My first recordings were then
made in Scotland where, after an overnight journey to Beattock,
I lugged the equipment some miles up Beattock bank in a search
for a suitable recording position. It was obvious during that first
day that incessant noise from the nearby main road was liable to
spoil any recording and the two following days I spent around
Beattock Station, where recordings were made of various
Caledonian, LMS and standard engines. The most memorable
sounds were produced by an ex Caledonian 0-6-0 No 57583
which, running on one cylinder at the head of a northbound
freight train, limped into the yard. The driver's description of his
engine's ailments had, though, to be censored.
Back south again, I recorded the pannier tanks which, with
warning bell clanging and attended by a shunter with a red flag,
slowly progressed along the quayside at Weymouth with
Channel Islands boat trains. Further west I managed to record
Adams 4-4-2 tank No 30582, built in 1885, hard at work on the
Axminster - Lyme Regis branch line soon to be replaced by more
modern locomotives, not entirely successfully, before closure
came.

Whenever time could be spared from other activities, we

published new records such as The Dukedogs at work on the
Cambrian line, and Sam GingelPs rousing Victoria - Chatham
journey; both were issued as 10 inch LPs during 1957.

I had little time to spare for anything other than work of one
sort or another, not even for my long suffering family, who were
used to hearing trains in real life day and night at the bottom of
the garden, and now became equally used to the sounds of trains
inside the house at all hours. My wife not only put up with
that, but also gave invaluable help with the book-keeping,
correspondence and orders for records, which had to be
inspected, packed and despatched by post; without her help the
whole project would have become impossible.

The records gradually became more sophisticated, as did the

record sleeves which were now made from white glazed card and
for the first time included a cover picture, many of which were
the work of Colin Walker, the prolific photographer and author,

75
I

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

who also assisted from time to time with the making of various
recordings.

The style of the original recordings also changed gradually; at

first, when the main urgency was to record as many as possible of
the older engines, recording locations were dictated mainly by
the workings and whereabouts of such engines and in any case
the earlier recordings had to be restricted to sounds of a
reasonably high level, not too distant from the microphones,
because of limitations imposed by the equipment. When vintage
locomotives had been recorded, or withdrawn, and improved
equipment and materials were available, it became possible to be
more ambitious and to look for locations where, irrespective of
locomotive types, the atmosphere of railways in the steam age
might be conveyed by the various sounds of trains in a distinctive
setting as was being done in the USA by Winston Link, whose
records remain some of the finest ever produced of railway
subjects.

Vintage locomotives could occasionally be recorded in

atmospheric settings, such as the Abergavenny - Merthyr line on
which the SLS ran a special last train headed by two ex LNWR
engines, a Webb 0-6-2 coal tank and an 0-8-0, on Sunday 5
January 1958. The superb sounds echoing around the Clydach
Valley as the train left Govilon were among those successfully
recorded, and at the end of the day the sights and sounds of the
two engines storming up the final 1 in 40 from Brecon Road to
Abergavenny Junction, whistling shrilly and accompanied by a
fusillade of detonators, remain quite unforgettable, though in
the bitter cold of that winter night nothing could persuade the
equipment to operate properly and the recording of that final
arrival proved to be completely useless, when it was played back
in an only slightly warmer bedroom at my hotel.

A somewhat abortive trip to Scotland which coincided with

deep snow on the West Highland line was brought to a
premature end because a film company wanted me to go to
Vienna immediately, to work on Anatole Litvak's production
The Journey. That first trip to Vienna was for a few days only,
during which it had to be decided whether the unfamiliar
recording system used there would satisfy the requirements of an

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

American production. The journey, on the Ostend - Vienna

Express, was not uneventful. It started well, the train was warm
and comfortable, in contrast to the ice and snow outside; a steam
locomotive headed the train to Aachen and I saw many others on
the earlier part of the journey. Steam became rare as the train
ran on, under the wires in Germany, so there was a chance to
catch up with much needed sleep. In the early hours of the
morning, somewhere beyond Nuremberg, the Ostend-Vienna
Express rocked and shuddered to a sudden noisy halt, followed
by total silence soon broken by an agitated Wagons Liis
attendant and the by now thoroughly awake passengers. One
bogie of the electric locomotive had derailed, probably by snow
and ice, but fortunately the alert driver had quickly halted the
train; the locomotive stayed upright and not even the leading
luggage van had been derailed. The train remained isolated in
deep snow until, commendably quickly, a steam locomotive came
to the rescue; the train was examined and minus the derailed
electric locomotive, was hauled back to Nuremberg, from where
it resumed its journey a while later, eventually reaching Vienna
6\ hours late.

After three weeks back in England I returned to Vienna,

this time via Hook of Holland and Munich, to familiarise the
Austrian sound recordists with new American equipment. A
month in Austria enabled me to see something of the OBB steam
locomotives at work on the long and spectacular climb from
Gloggnitz to Semmering. Heavy international trains, sometimes
double headed, were invariably assisted by one or more banking
engines and a journey made on such a train made Lickey, Shap
and Beattock seem tame by comparison. Yet it was noticeable,
especially when it was possible for me to borrow some equipment
and make a few lineside recordings, that the sounds of the
Austrian engines were much less crisp and determined than those
of British engines. Before returning to England, I was also able
to see, but not record, narrow gauge and Czechoslovakian steam
locomotives at Gmund, to which the journey from Vienna was
made on the Vindobona, a pre-war Deutsche Reichsbahn vintage
diesel express train, with restaurant service, which daily made
the 12 hour journey from Vienna to Prague, Dresden and Berlin,
76

77

Ii

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

with connections which offered a through service between Rome

and Copenhagen,

Back home again I had a letter from a BR fireman, R,

Scanlon, who had been most helpful when recordings were made
of Director class 4-4-0 Jutland on the CLC lines in 1956; he
enquired if and when any of the recordings would be available on
a record and also mentioned that he had been off work during
the year following an accident. It emerged that he was the
fireman on class 8F 2-8-0 No 48188 which was involved in the
tragic collision at Chapel-en-le- Frith on 9 February 1957, in
which his driver, John Axon GC and a guard were killed.

No 48188 was at the head of the 1 1.05am Buxton to Arpley

(Warrington) freight train of 650 tons. Near the summit of the
steep climb to Bibbington's Sidings the steam brake valve joint
blew out and the cab of No 48 188 was filled with scalding steam,
despite which the crew partly managed to close the regulator.
Driver Axon told Fireman Scanlon to jump off and apply as
many as possible of the wagon hand brakes, but because of the
speed of the train he could not drop more than six or seven brake
handles and even then was not able to pin them down. Driver
Axon could have saved his life by leaving the engine at the same
lime, but he stayed on the footplate enveloped in steam and
warned the signalman at Dove Holes by whistle signals that the
train was out of control. At Chapel-en-le-Frith South the
runaway train, travelling at about 55mph, collided with the back
of a Rowsley - Edgeley (Stockport) freight train, travelling at
20mph. Driver Axon and the guard of the Rowsley - Edgeley
freight train were killed in the collision. Driver John Axon was
posthumously awarded the George Cross in recognition of his
outstanding devotion to duty, and Fireman R. Scanlon and
Guard A. Ball of the Buxton - Arpley freight train were both
commended for their part in attempting to stop the runaway
train.

The BBC later commissioned Ewan MacCoIl and Charles

Parker to prepare a radio documentary programme on the life
and death of John Axon GC, a most moving programme, The
Ballad of John Axon, which opens and closes with the words:

78

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

John Axon was a railwayman, to steam trains born and bred,

He was an engine driver at Edgeley loco shed,
For 40 years he travelled and served the iron way,
He lost his life upon the track one February day.

The Ballad of John Axon was subsequently issued on LP record

No DA 39, by the Argo Record Company.

Conditions on the footplate of the runaway 8F, with scalding

steam filling the cab can hardly be imagined, though my
imagination was helped by an incident in the cab of Britannia
Pacific Sir John Moore, when I was making footplate recordings
on the London - Norwich line in 1958. As the engine climbed
away from Ipswich, in darkness on the up journey, one of the
water gauge glasses blew out and the cab filled with swirling
steam before the broken gauge could be shut off.

I had made earlier recordings, in 1956, on the footplate of a

Dukedog 4-4-0 in the yard at Aberystwyth (at the instigation of
Pat Dal ton) and on the footplate of a B 12 4-6-0 on the Liverpool
Street - Southend line, but the use of large equipment on the
footplate was most impractical. The EMI portable recorder
solved some of the problems but footplate recording was never
easy; it was difficult to control the recorder, which had to be
carried to safeguard it from excessive vibration, while at the
same time the microphone had to be held in an optimum
position, clear of wind and out of the way of the crew. In such
circumstances it was usual, as in the case of the London —
Norwich - London journey, for the largest proportion of some
hours of recording to be rejected as meaningless.

Shortly after I made the Britannia trips 1 did a recording on

the footplate of single chimney A3 Pacific Tagalie with a 12
coach, 422 ton express from Kings Cross to Leeds. The
driver was Percy Heavens, well known at that time from
advertisements as the man who relied on his Ingersoll watch to
keep his train on time, which he certainly did on this occasion. I
returned from Grantham on the footplate of single chimney A4
Pacific Dominion of New Zealand which, manned by Driver
Willers and Fireman Veevers, had left Newcastle at 9.55am with
a 12 coach train of 430 tons and was due at Grantham at 1.3pm.
The train arrived at Grantham 30 minutes late, with a tender

79

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

full of poor coal which had made it a difficult journey and it

remained so. Fireman Veevers slaved away to coax life into the
fire while Driver Willers told his engine to 'come along old girl'
and opened the regulator for a spirited climb to Stoke Tunnel,
followed by a 90mph maximum down the bank in an effort to
make up time. There was a rapid recovery after the severe
Peterborough slowing, but by the end of the long climb past
Hitchin the boiler pressure had dropped to 125 lb and the engine
had to be nursed into Kings Cross, 20 minutes late, having
regained 10 minutes of lost time on the 105£ mile journey from
Grantham, thanks to a conscientious and hard working crew.
Later I spent a whole day on the footplate of an N7 0-6-2 tank
engine, No 69719, with trains on the Chingford and Enfield lines
from Liverpool Street, an interesting contrast to main line work,
but hard nevertheless for both engine and crew.

On the footplate of a GWR King 4-6-0 King Edward VIII I

travelled from Paddington on the nine coach, 325 ton, 9.00am
express which had a 2hr lOmin schedule for the 110| mile non-
stop journey to Birmingham, Snow Hill. Driver Stan Newton,
under the enthusiastic eye of Inspector Jack Hancock, was
determined to show what a King could do and pulled into Snow
Hill eight minutes early, having made up six minutes lost by pw
slowings at Gerrards Cross and Fenny Compton and signal
checks at Brill and Snow Hill Tunnel. Unfortunately very little
of the recording of that splendid run was satisfactory. The
footplate of a King was less spacious and more exposed to wind
than those of the LNER engines, or the Britannia; the riding was
somewhat rough and it was hard enough, at speed, to maintain a
foothold and hang on to the microphone and recorder, let alone
control them. On the return journey with King Edward III on
the 12 coach, 407 ton, 12.00 midday train which called at
Leamington, Driver J.Jones gave an almost equally exhilarating
performance, leaving Birmingham five minutes late and arriving
at Paddington three minutes early. Unfortunately the recorder
finally succumbed to the vibration and battering to which it had
been subjected, and, since repairs were hardly possible in the
circumstances, only intermittent recordings could be made of the
latter part of the return journey.

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STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Stereo records of music were coming to the fore by 1958 and

trains were ideal subjects for demonstrating the capabilities of
stereophonic record players, so it was tempting to consider
making stereo recordings. However, the available equipment
was larger and more cumbersome than anything I had used so
far. The cost seemed out of the question, particularly as the
financing of Transacord's operations was a constant problem,
despite the frequent assistance given by a bank manager who had
a certain liking for steam engines, but work on Jack Clayton's
film Room at the Top provided the ability to purchase in a
transportable stereophonic tape recorder. It then only remained
to find out how best to use it. Various films, such as those in
Cinemascope, had been produced with multi-channel sound
tracks, but knowledge of such techniques was not altogether
helpful because they were not the same as those used for twin-
track stereophonic recording. Stereo techniques at that time
were by no means fully established and advice and experience on
methods of recording, particularly on location, were hard to
come by, confused and sometimes completely conflicting. The
only possible solution was to experiment. Many of the early
experiments were failures, but all were interesting, and when
successful, were so impressively convincing that the making of
stereo recordings immediately became my next aim.

It was some time before a suitable independent power supply

unit was available and even then it was a while before I had
sufficient confidence in the new stereo equipment to rely on it for
important recordings. Moreover the size and weight of the new
equipment had moved everything even farther back than square
one from a practical point of view, and the time required to set up
the equipment was a further drawback. Even after I had made
successful stereo recordings I still used mono equipment for
some years at locations where accessibility was a problem, or ease
and speed of movement essential, and for locations abroad or for
recordings on the footplate, where the placing of such an amount
of stereo equipment would have left little room for the engine
crew.

At the end of April 1959 John Adams and Patrick Whitehouse,

always helpful in many ways, mentioned that for one of their

81

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

BBC Railway Roundabout films, the ex NBR 4-4-0s Glen

Falloch and Glen Loy would double head the sleeping car trains,
which then also included a restaurant car, over the West
Highland line to and from Fort William on 8 and 9 May. This
seemed an opportunity for stereo recording, not to be missed.
The sights and sounds of the double headed train on the West
Highland line alone made the journey worthwhile and I recorded
it at Ardlui, Bridge of Orchy, Tyndrum and on the horseshoe
curve between Bridge of Orchy and Tyndrum. The possibilities
of stereo were amply demonstrated at Tyndrum when the sounds
of a train at Tyndrum Upper station and another, more distant
train at Tyndrum Lower station were recorded simultaneously.
For various reasons not all the West Highland line recordings
were successful in stereo and some were later issued in the West
Highland Line LP, in mono only.

The SLS had kindly offered me facilities for recording on

board their Jubilee Special which, hauled by A4 Pacific Sir Nigel
Gresley and driven by SLS member Bill Hoole, was to run
between Kings Cross and Doncaster on 23 May 1959. 1 had not
so far attempted stereo recording on a train and the advice of
other experienced recordists was that the technical problems
might be insoluble, and that the suggested microphone
positioning was so unorthodox that it was bound to be wrong.
The only thing to do I felt was to trust to luck and try placing the
microphones on each side of the train. Even if it was technically
incorrect it seemed the most likely way of producing a
realistically exciting result. Early on 23 May the whole
paraphernalia of stereo equipment was taken to Kings Cross and
loaded into the front brake of the eight coach train, the gross
weight of which was 295 tons.

It was a memorable journey. On the down run a speed of

82mph was attained on the climb to Stoke summit. Three times
during the round trip to Doncaster speeds exceeded lOOmph. On
the return journey the speed at Stoke summit, after a five mile, 1
in 200 climb, was 75mph, followed by an average speed of
110.8mph from Little Bytham to Essendine. A top speed of
1 12mph was attained and since the engine was still accelerating
when the cut off was brought back, 'there is little doubt' wrote

82

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Cecil J.Allen, 'that a higher speed might have been achieved if it
had been permitted.' Almost all of the journey was recorded and
the most interesting sections were issued on the stereo LP The
Triumph of an A4 Pacific, a record described as 'both a
recording triumph and a physical thrill* in The Gramophone
magazine when it was one of their critics' choices for 1963.
Reviewing the record for The Gramophone in July 1963 Roger
Wimbush was kind enough to write:

This must be one of the most thrilling records ever issued. Anybody

who has ever reacted, however slightly, to the romance of railways

and to the physical sensation of an express train travelling at high

speeds will want this astonishing evocation.

Bill Hook listened to the whole recording of his journey shortly

before he retired and, in his tiny but supremely neat and legible

handwriting, wrote for publication on the record sleeve:

When I heard the recordings I was able to enjoy our journey again

and it brought back many memories of other journeys on the line

from Kings Cross .... when great satisfaction was derived from

making up time lost from some unseemly delay .... All this

develops into a wonderful symphony to my ears, which are so tuned

to Gresley engines and A4s in particular. This adds to the pleasure

of achievement from good team work of Fireman and Driver.

From now on I made recordings in stereo whenever it was

possible to overcome the practical problems involved. Old

locations such as Hitchin, Bromsgrove, Basingstoke, Grantham,

Shap and Ribblehead were revisited, but in many cases it was too

late for the vintage sounds of steam. The LNER Pacifies and

many GWR engines now had double chimneys and their sounds

were altered. Diesels were increasingly numerous and frequently

interfered with the sounds of steam. At Templecombe, things

had certainly changed; a pannier tank fussed around in the yard,

something at which the former 'This is a Southern Railway

Station' stationmaster would certainly have winced. Nor would

he have been pleased that S&D traffic, particularly freight, was

all too apparently being deliberately run down. At Bromsgrove

the banking engines were now 0-6-0 pannier tanks and a 9F 2-

10-0, so the original Midland atmosphere had largely

disappeared.

A chance to record a vintage Midland engine came when Vic

83

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

Forster offered facilities for recording on board the RCTS East

Midlander No 4 special train which, during much of a
Nottingham - Eastleigh - Swindon - Banbury - Nottingham
journey, was headed by the then recently restored Midland
compound 4-4-0 No 1000. The sounds of No 1000, hard at work
between Leicester and Oxford, were later included in the stereo
LP Rhythms of Steam. Another Midland occasion a few weeks
later turned out differently from what had been expected.
Arrangements had been made for me to record on the 1.49pm
Leeds - Carlisle train, the down Waverley, which was to be
headed by a Jubilee 4-6-0 Newfoundland, fresh out of the works.
Equipment was loaded into the front brake, a word with the crew
promised a suitably vociferous run and by the time the train
reached Skipton the equipment had been set up. After a brisk
run from Skipton Newfoundland stormed away from Hellifield
and, reassuringly loudly, climbed past Settle and on up the first
pan of the long drag towards Horton in Ribblesdak; then speed
fell alarmingly and when the exhaust grew weaker as the
regulator was eased back, it was obvious that Newfoundland was
in serious trouble. The winded engine eventually dragged the
train through Ribblehead Station, over the viaduct and into the
loop at Blea Moor, so short of steam that 20 minutes had to be
spent there for a blow up, enlivened by a mostly unpublishable
exchange of pleasantries between the crew of Newfoundland and
the driver and fireman of an 8F 2-8-0 which was taking water
nearby. A remarkably vigorous run between Blea Moor and
Carlisle subsequently made up some of the time lost on the climb
of the long drag, the recording of which was later issued on the
LP Newfoundland heads the Waverley.

By the end of the 1950s the records had become established,

and in their extraordinarily efficient and perspicacious way the
BBC Record Library had made a standing order for each new
record that might be issued. It was as well that the BBC was
familiar with the recordings because one enterprising gentleman
copied extracts from a number of Transacord records, added his
own linking comments adapted from the sleeve notes and offered
the resulting tape to the BBC as an original programme of his
own making. It was certainly an original idea which by chance

84

an ARG0 TRANSACORD recording |EE

s*i

W4-
w

The Power of Steam

Top left: Transacord ioin LP record cover; No 4650 at Aston Rowan t with
a Watlington-Princes Risborough train in June 1957. R - T - Coope

Top right: Argo Transacord I2in LP record cover of 1965. Photographs by

Colin Walker of the LMS Pacific; Paul Riley of the V2 2-6-2 and Derek

Cross of the Crab 2-6-0 and Jubilee 4-6-0.

Below: The xMidland Compound 4-4-0 No tooo with the RCTS East
Midlander special train at Nottingham Victoria on 11 September i960.

Colin Walker

I
Top left: Author with stereo recorder, powered by a battery /ac converter,
on board the northbound Aberdeen Flyer on 2 June 1962. Colin Walker

Top right: David Frost (left) and Arthur Lilley, with Decca stereo equip-
ment, recording the Aberdeen Flyer leaving Kings Cross on 2 June 1962.

Hariey Usill

Below: Driver Bill Hoole at work on the footplate of an A4 Pacific. Colin

Walker

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

was frustrated when some of the recordings were recognised as

having been taken from records of which the library had copies,
after suspicions had been aroused by the indifferent way in
which the records had been copied on to tape. The records had
become more widely known as a result of reviews in the various
railway journals including those of societies.

An even wider public became aware of the records when Roger

Wimbush reviewed four in The Gramophone magazine, in
which he wrote:

Many people believe that engineering has produced nothing more

majestic - combining beauty of line with power - than the steam
locomotive. Certainly there are few men who are asked every day to
perform such feats of physical endurance as those who drive and fire

them These are the men whose sheer sweat and guts have

made an imperishable contribution to Britain's wealth, and who

have added a curiously romantic aspect to industrial civilisation.
Transacord is doing them proud and bequeathing to our national
archives a valuable piece of history. Specialist records they may be,
but no Englishman could hear them unmoved — and the Devil take
the Ml.

Shortly after that review was published the late and greatly
missed journalist and author John Gale contacted me and asked
if he could write something about the records. We spent some
time together, mostly in bitter January weather at the lineside on
the Carlisle - Edinburgh Waverley route, or riding in trains or
on the footplate over that line. He found the experiences
fascinating and wrote a feature article 'The Man the Engines
Talk To' published in the Observer. That article and a
subsequent interview, on location at the lineside near
Saunderton, by Alan Whicker for the BBC Tonight programme
created so much interest in Britain and abroad that the whole
Transacord project was getting completely out of hand.

We had by now issued more than 20 records, including three

new 12in LPs, The West Highland Line, Shap, and The
Somerset and Dorset. They had been produced, after a
considerable amount of trouble, in a new pressing factory and
were sold, complete with new and improved sleeves which
carried a 7in x Sin cover picture, for 32s each (£ 1.60) plus
postage and packing. The records were still sold by mail order

87
STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

STEAM SOUNDS IN BRITAIN

because shops, with the notable exception of a helpful few, could

not be bothered with specialised records, and if ever they passed
on any orders, expected large discounts and extended credit
which were impossible to allow. There were constant problems
connected with record manufacture and increasing sums of
money were tied up in stocks of records, labels, sleeves,
catalogues and packing materials. Much of the money was for
purchase tax at the luxury rate charged on records, which had to
be paid in advance of actual sales because of the totally
unimaginative and inflexible administrators. The inspectors
who made frequent visits to ensure that tax was properly paid on
everything, insisted that Transacord was merely selling records
as a retailer and refused to recognise that the records were also
produced, though not actually manufactured by Transacord. An
appeal to an MP to be treated as producers and so allowed to pay
tax only when records were finally sold had not the slightest
effect, probably I suspect because like many MPs, he was more
interested in roads than railways.

So much time was now taken up in dealing with record

manufacture and sales that I had less and less time to spare for
making new recordings, producing new records or to work on
films. Film work was still financially necessary to support the
railway recordings, and was in any case interesting for its own
sake because in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a
welcome renaissance of British films, inspired by the work of
such men as Jack Clayton, Tony Richardson and the Woodfall
Company, Karel Reisz, Brian Forbes and Richard
Attenborough, and John Schlesinger, all of whom, breaking
away from studio traditions and the American influence, made a
number of highly individual films which were interesting to work
on and were internationally acclaimed.

The running of Transacord had so far been interesting and

enjoyable, but I had given little previous thought to how time
consumingly complicated things might become when a number
of records had been issued. The running of the company had now
become a restrictive and worrying chore; there had never been
any intention to develop it commercially and there was no
inclination to do so now, and a well meaning offer of additional

88

capital was rejected because to accept it, or to employ additional

help, would have meant that records would have to be produced
under commercial pressure, instead of from personal inclination
as and when they seemed worth making. The fact that many of
the recordings had proved to be pleasurably interesting to others
was intensely satisfying, but it now had to be seriously
considered whether the production and sale of records should be
abandoned, as soon as possible. In fairness to the many people
who had given enthusiastic support, by buying records and
showing so much interest in them, adequate notice would have to
be given of any cessation of production and the subsequent run
down would have to be gradual. Fortunately, coincidentally with
a decision to stop producing and selling railway records, a letter
arrived from the managing director of the Argo Record
Company, Harley Usill, who asked whether Transacord could
supply some suitable recordings for the sounds of Toad's train,
which was to be heard in the Argo record of The Wind in the
Willows.

Harley Usill, who had previously worked in the film industry,

started the Argo Record Company in Bournemouth in 1951, two
years before Transacord began and in exactly the same way by
making private recordings and selling them on 78rpm records, in
quantities of less than 100 copies to avoid the complications of
purchase tax. In November 1951 Argo moved to George Street,
London and became a limited company. Operating on a limited
budget and with equally limited equipment and facilities, Harley
Usill, by careful and intelligent selection of subjects and constant
attention to recorded quality, gradually established Argo in a
unique position with an unusual catalogue of specialised spoken
word, music and documentary records. By 1957 the company
was faced with a situation familiar to many small independent
companies, that of being unable to carry on without expanding
and needing capital yet being unable to expand without the
danger of losing some independence. In November 1957 the Argo
Record Company became part of the Decca Record Company,
but retained a great deal of independence and from an office and
studio in a Decca outpost in Fulham Road, continued to be
responsible for repertoire and production, though relieved of the

89

STEAM SOUNDS IK BRITAIN

worries associated with record manufacture, distribution and

sales, all of which were now dealt with by Decca.

I had considered an approach to Argo for advice or assistance

previously, but had not pursued the idea; the fortuitous arrival
of the letter from Harley Usill now provided an opportunity for a
meeting, at which, when the sounds of Toad's train had been
satisfactorily dealt with, the problems of making railway records
were discussed. Harley Usill was from his own experiences
sympathetic and interested; he thought that there might be room
in the Argo catalogue for a few railway records and promised to
consider the possibilities. Early in 1961 an agreement was drawn
up between Argo and Transacord, by which Transacord would
cease to manufacture and sell records, the existing stocks would
be gradually run down and any future records would be
produced for a new Argo Transacord label. Argo, backed by the
superb technical resources of Decca, would take over
responsibility for the manufacture of records, the printing of
labels and sleeves, and the distribution and sales of records.
Transacord retained full responsibility for all the original
recordings, the choice of subjects for records and the production
of master tapes for the records and copy for the record sleeves.
It was an ideal arrangement, which solved many hitherto
intractable problems and enabled Transacord to swing into the
plastic, internal-combustion free-for-all of the 1960s, with some
hope that the sounds of the steam age might, after all, continue
to be heard on records, even if they ceased to be a familiar part of
everyday life.

90

Chapter 5
Progress with Argo

In November 1961 four LPs and one EP were issued by Argo.

Three of the LPs, The West Highland Line, Shop, and Somerset
and Dorset, originally issued independently, were re-processed
and pressed by Decca and had improved sleeves. The other LP
West of Exeter and the EP Gresley Pacifies were newly produced
for Argo. All other previously-issued Transacord records were
withdrawn, but some of the contents were later reissued on EP or
LP records in the new series. With the hallmark of respectability
given by the Argo label and Decca distribution, Transacord
records began to appear in some shops and even at enterprising
bookstalls at one or two stations. All the earlier Argo Transacord
records were issued in mono only; the first stereo LPs Trains in
the Night and Newfoundland heads the Waverley were issued in
September 1962, when Edward Greenfield, reviewing the
records in The Gramophone, wrote: 'Wonderfully atmospheric
as the Transacord mono recordings have always been, the added
realism of stereo is a great asset.' Trains in the Night was
subsequently issued in France, under licence by Erato, and in
1964 was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque by the Academie
Charles Cros.

Now that Argo had taken over all the worrying commercial
responsibilities, there was more time for recording and for
occasional film work. Despite the ever increasing flood of diesels,
creating new problems with their raucous noises, there were still
many things worth recording. At Princes Risborough diesel
multiple-units had taken over most Marylebone local services
and on the line from Paddington the smart, but short lived, blue
Birmingham Pullman glided past twice daily in each direction,
except at weekends or when it broke down and was replaced by a
more familiar train, headed by an engine such as Lyonshall

91

PROGRESS WITH ARGO

PROGRESS WITH ARGO

Castle, revelling in the opportunity to maintain a diesel schedule.

The Master Culler no longer roared down the gradient and away
towards Ashendon Junction, a first sign of the political decision
to starve the GC line of traffic and reduce it to its final sorry state
as a prelude to closure. Kings and Castles, now mostly with
double chimneys, still headed the Birmingham trains; until the
sad summer Sunday in 1962, when the last push-and-pull train
ran from High Wycombe, and a mournful procession of Kings
and Castles passed at intervals, running light, into the twilight.
The Birmingham expresses were taken over by the Western class
diesels with sounds quite unique, which later developed their
own personality and had a considerable following when, after a
short life in locomotive terms, they in their turn were withdrawn.

Before the diesels took over the Paddington - Birmingham

line, I spent some days at Hatton, one of many places which
looked perfect on the Ordnance map and the gradient profile but
presented unforeseen problems in practice. The most appallingly
inappropriate noises came from a metal merchant's yard near
Hatton Station, but in a few quiet intervals it was possible to
make some recordings of Kings and other engines tackling the
climb from Warwick.

I went back to Shap several times, but usually the weather was
so bad for days and nights on end that many recordings,
especially those in stereo, were completely ruined. Fun her north
and as yet free from any diesels, there was the Waverley route
from Carlisle to Edinburgh which was one of the finest lines in
Britain for railway recording, despite the climate which vied
with that of Shap or the Settle & Carlisle line for unpredictable
beastliness. During my first visit to the Waverley route with John
Gale in the winter of 1960, the weather was so appalling that
very little recording was possible, but footplate trips over the line
provided vivid experiences of engines and enginemen hard at
work in the best traditions of the steam age. The Waverley route
was largely a preserve of the V2s, which seemed to be worked
harder there than anywhere else. They needed to be, because
that fearsome curving climb from Newcastleton, past Steele
Road and out across the moors to Riccarton Junction and
Whitrope tunnel, so frequently hung with icicles in winter, was

just one of several climbs on that line which made Shap, with its
ubiquitous banking engines, seem comparatively easy. Riccarton
Junction, with its own Co-op shop on the platform, was
accessible only by rail or footpath; my efforts to reach it with
heavy stereo equipment were eventually abandoned and when I
went there by train, it turned out that Steele Road was a better
recording location in any case.

Steele Road was a strange, lonely place; the signalbox was

only manned as required, and a porter/signalman roamed
around the station with a shot gun, looking guilty when anyone
approached unexpectedly. From time to time an old man walked
into a field beside the line, uttering loud curses to any passing
trains or to nobody in particular and feeding non-existent
poultry from a battered and completely empty bucket. It was an
eerie place at night when the station and signalbox were closed,
and the wind sighed through the Larch trees in a nearby, owl-
inhabited plantation, often making a sound like a distant train. I
feel certain that the place, like many others where the rails were
so ruthlessly torn up, is haunted now by the spirits of the V2s and
other engines which, for so many years raised echoes from the
surrounding hills as they and their crews passed that way. Even
more eerie was Stobs, where the woods above the station were
inhabited by legions of rooks, which made some most unnerving
noises during the night.

The engines most frequently seen were V2s, but K3s, Bis and
J36s also appeared on freight workings and sometimes standard
Class 2 2-6-0s or J 3 6s gave banking assistance to freight trains
on the climb from Hawick to Whitrope. A3 and Al Pacifies
worked the main passenger trains, including the sleeping car
services to and from Edinburgh. There were the occasional A4
Pacifies but unluckily they always passed when working
downhill and the one exception, at Steele Road, provided a
perfect example of the 'You should have been here yesterday'
factor, mentioned earlier. Having recorded the dawn chorus of
spring birdsong, which alone would have made the night's work
worthwhile, I felt tired and hungry, packed up all the equipment,
went off to Hawick in search of some breakfast and was away
from Steele Road for some hours, during which time, so the

92

93

PROGRESS WITH ARGO

signalman told me, an A4 had finally stalled just beyond the

station with a northbound fitted freight. The signalbox was
hastily manned and assistance was sent for; a J36 duly arrived
and apparently very vociferously, banked the train on the
remaining climb to Whitrope. Occasionally a D49 4-4-0 worked
local passenger trains from Hawick and I eventually recorded No
62711 Dumbartonshire one evening, leaving Steele Road with a
Carlisle - Hawick train after a most fortunate unscheduled stop
at the station; unluckily the recording was in mono only as the
second track of the stereo recorder developed a fault at the vital
moment. Luck, good or bad, affects the making of recordings to
much the same extent as it influences the taking of photographs.
In the introduction to his excellent book Last Steam
Locomotives of Western Germany, Brian Stephenson wrote: 'I
have always maintained that luck plays a far greater part in
railway photography than many photographers are prepared to
admit, particularly where steam locomotives are concerned.'
Certainly the same applies to sound recording.

One of the signalmen at Dent Station caused me a few

problems; he was oblivious to the microphones and as trains
approached he gave an intermittent commentary on the
misdeeds of various drivers and their excessive speeds which, he
alleged, had caused the derailment of a down fitted freight train
between Settle and Stainforth sidings the previous evening.
Recording at Ribblehead was a waste of time during the day,
because of noise from the quarry and its traffic. On November
evenings spent at Ribblehead Station a near gale force wind blew
down from Blea Moor, masking the sounds of trains
approaching up the long drag from Settle but carrying back the
sounds of their climb across Batty Moss viaduct towards Blea
Moor tunnel, so inaccessible that it was only practical to go there
with a more portable mono recorder. An excellent recording
position at the Blea Moor end of the viaduct could be reached by
a rough track across the moor. One November evening the cold,
calm weather was ideal for recording and having negotiated the
rough track in the twilight, I set up the equipment and made a
number of lengthy recordings. When the batteries needed
charging it was time to go, but a previously unnoticed mist was

94

PROGRESS WITH ARGO

rolling thickly up from the valley in the pitch darkness. To

negotiate the narrow track in such conditions meant the
probability of a broken spring, or getting bogged down, so there
was no alternative to settling down for a long, cold and
uncomfortable night on the moors, listening to unseen trains
slogging up to Ribblehead and over the viaduct and unable to
record anything because the batteries were too flat.

Days and nights were spent beside the Central Wales line in all
kinds of weather. My favourite locations were in the valley
between Knucklas viaduct and Llangunllo tunnel, or between
the tunnel and Llangunllo station. One night in the valley, just
before midnight, police and farmers appeared from the
surrounding darkness, loud with accusations of intended sheep
stealing. Explanations about recording trains were not accepted
until a previous recording was played back over the headphones;
they then left, muttering about various sorts of madness. Later,
in March 1964, accompanied by Inspector S. Holding, I made
several interesting footplate recordings on the Central Wales line
on 5MT and 8F locomotives with passenger and goods trains; it
was a splendid experience watching and listening to the hard
work entailed in running trains over that difficult route. One of
the men involved was Trevor Curtis, an excellent and
conscientious driver who had just returned to work after a period
of suspension from all duties. His crime? He spent his off duty
hours at Paddington, Cardiff and other stations, handing out
leaflets to the travelling public, printed at his own expense,
warning of the probable consequences of the activities of the
anti-railway hatchet men who, by then, were firmly in command
in the Marples Beeching years.

One of the most outstanding joint recording operations

needing precise organisation was set up to ensure the best
possible coverage of a special train, The Aberdeen Flyer, run by
the SLS and RCTS on 2 June 1962 when Argo and Decca joined
Transacord. The special was to leave Kings Cross at 8.00am,
hauled by A4 Pacific Mallard on a non-stop run to Edinburgh,
where A4 William Whitelaw would take over for the rest of the
journey to Aberdeen. Leaving Aberdeen at 11.00pm, with some
sleeping cars added, LMS Pacific Princess Elizabeth was to head

95

PROGRESS WITH ARGO

the special as far as Carlisle, where another LMS Pacific

Princess Royal would take over for the journey to Euston. While
Transacord, with assistance from Colin Walker and Andrew
Raeburn, of Argo, set up two recorders in the train to record the
entire journey, Harley Usill and Decca engineers Arthur Lilley,
David Frost, and Mike Savage set up a large stereo recorder on
the platform at Kings Cross to record the departure. Having
done that, they flew in the Decca Navigator plane, plotted the
progress of the Aberdeen Flyer, circled over it between
Northallerton and Durham, landed at Aberdeen and set up their
equipment at the station to record the arrival and later the
departure of the train. Unfortunately, much of the result of all
this combined effort proved disappointing. The jinx which
dogged my recordings of Mallard certainly played its part; the
recordings of the departure from Kings Cross, both on the train
and from the platform, were largely drowned by the inopportune
arrival on an adjacent track of a diesel locomotive with engines
idling. As for the sounds of Mallard, during most of the run to
Edinburgh they were extremely restrained, and bore no
resemblance to the exuberant performance of Sir Nigel Gresley,
in Bill Hoole's hands on the SLS Jubilee run three years earlier.
On the outward journey the Aberdeen Flyer was slowed almost
to a stop by a preceding goods train, lost 24 minutes and arrived
late in Edinburgh. On the return journey there were endless
problems: single line working, permanent way slowings, stops
for water, and delays for electrification work all combined to
make the arrival at Euston some hours late. Yet despite the
disappointments it was certainly an interesting journey and by
no means all the recordings were poor; William Whitelaw put in
some hard work on the Edinburgh - Aberdeen run and Princess
Elizabeth made some fine sounds climbing out from Aberdeen
and, later, leaving Perth and climbing to Gleneagles as can be
heard on the LMS LP record in the World of Railways series.
Not long after the outing to Aberdeen, work started on Tony
Richardson's film Tom Jones, which had nothing to do with
railways but, during spare moments on location, gave me a
chance to record some Prairie tank engines on the Minehead
line. Tom Jones took many weeks to make and was followed,
96

PROGRESS WITH ARGO

almost immediately, by another long film, John Schlesinger's

Billy Liar. At the end of the bitter winter of 1963, the British
railway scene seemed increasingly depressing, by contrast with
earlier years. All over the country, steam locomotives were being
displaced by diesels and lines were being starved of traffic and
closed. We produced several new records but even that
interesting job could be most depressing, because it brought the
realisation that in the case of all too many lines and locomotives
there would now never be another chance to do anything
different or belter. There were, however, places still worth
visiting, such as Gresford, a difficult location but best at night,
Talerddig, the Isle of Wight, and the Leicester (West Bridge) -
Glenfield line, opened in 1832 as pari of the Leicester &
Swannington Railway, where goods trains were still worked by
ex Midland 2F 0-6-0s in the summer of 1963.

By 1964, the A4 Pacifies were enjoying a magnificent swan

song on the Glasgow-Aberdeen line, and V2s with freight trains
from Edinburgh, over the Forth and Tay Bridges, to Dundee, all
of which I recorded from the footplate. During one V2 trip the
large and cheerful fireman had finally had enough of a rather
dour inspector and as we ran on to the Tay Bridge a tersely
pointed conversation between inspector and fireman was
recorded: 'We're on Tay Bridge now.' 'Aye.' 'Well jump

off it will you.' Some sounds from those various tootplate

journeys may still be heard on the LP Working on the Footplate,
the cover of which is illustrated with a photograph by Derek
Cross, whose acquaintance I made in 1964, after much previous
correspondence. When we eventually met, it turned out that we
had both been at the lineside between Tebay and Shap on August
Bank Holiday Saturday in 1958, though neither of us had seen
the other or anybody else there then. In any case, since we are
both Englishmen and had not been properly introduced, we
would almost certainly have ignored each other if we had met
accidentally!

In subsequent years Derek Cross was enormously helpful with

suggestions for, and assistance in the making of, numerous
recordings in the last strongholds of steam in South West
Scotland, as for example a Stanier Black Five 4-6-0 making

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1'ROGRHSS WITH ARGO

incredibly slippery efforts to move a coal train from Bargany

Sidings, many and various exploits of Ayr loco shed's
indefatigable Crab 2-6-0s, the hard working tank engines on the
NCB lines and of course, the double-headed boat trains on the
fearsome gradients of the Stranraer line. One carefully planned
session with the boat trains caused us to spend an unforgettable
August night out on the moors, initially at Glenwhilly, where the
first drops of rain fell just as the first of the double-headed trains
approached from Stranraer, and then at Barrhill, where the
trains to Stranraer, lashed by sheets of rain, climbed past almost
unheard above the din of a pre-dawn gale.

The Scarborough - Whitby and Whitby - Malum lines were

closed in spite of fierce and well-reasoned opposition on 6 March
1965. On that day the SLS ran The Whitby Moors special train
over those lines, headed by K.4 2-6-0 The Great Marquess and
Kl 2-6-0 No 62005 which, as can be heard on the LP Trains to
Remember, made some memorable sounds, climbing towards
Ravenscar in the morning, just before a snow shower swept in
from the sea, and climbing past Goathland in the evening.
Fortunately, thanks to the admirable efforts of the North
Yorkshire Moors Railway, steam locomotives can still be seen
and heard on the climb to Goathland.

The centenary of the Highland Railway was celebrated in

August 1965 by the running of a special train composed of the
two preserved Caledonian coaches, headed by the vintage Jones
Goods 4-6-0, HR No 103, some interesting recordings of which I
made at Forres. HR 103 was heard again in the autumn of 1965,
in company with GNoS 4-4-0 Gordon Highlander, working
Branch Line Society special trains on the Dumfries - Lockerbie
and Edinburgh - Carstairs lines. These and other beautifully
restored engines were a fine sight, in great contrast to some
others which were still at work on BR.

Diesels now snarled past with most of the trains at the bottom
of the Princes Risborough garden where the / Spy signalbox was
no longer manned. It all seemed so demoralising. Run down
Royal Scots appeared for a while with truncated parcels trains
from the GC line, on which the pitiful remnant of traffic was
handled by an assortment of filthy engines in various stages of

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PRGGRKSS WITH ARGO

neglect. The GWR engines which passed on freight trains or

occasionally as substitutes or train heating aids for diesels, were
increasingly uncared for and soon appeared without nameplates,
then with numbers scrawled in chalk, in place of lost or stolen
numberplates, even without such brass fittings as safety-valve
covers. Yet as the 1960s progressed and steam declined on BR, it
rose again, supreme and cared for on the blossoming private
preservation ventures. As 'last runs' of different BR steam types
gathered momentum so too did the following by vast crowds of
enthusiasts on the lineside and at stations. Unfortunately it
is not possible for microphones to exclude inappropriate and
unwelcome surroundings or backgrounds to anything like the
same extent as can a camera in expert hands and I did not try to
record last rites trips.

I had been extremely fortunate in knowing and having an

opportunity to record railways in the time of steam while they
were still a living, working entity rather than a matter of
curiosity. Now, when the railway scene in Britain had changed
so drastically and rapidly it seemed sensible, before it was too
late, to pay more attention to railways in various countries
abroad where steam locomotives were still working normally on
many interesting lines. My final recording of everyday steam on
BR in the 1960s was made in November 1967, in company with
Inspector P.McHaffie, Driver S.Loveridge and Fireman A.Carr,
on the footplate of one of the modern, but all too soon redundant,
9F 2-10-0s, No 92055 with a Carlisle - Hellifield - Wigan freight
train. Apart from a visit to Alan Bloom's working steam museum
at Bressingham and a half-hearted attempt to record Flying
Scotsman at Haughley in 1968, I made no more railway
recordings in Britain until July 1969, when the Keighley &
Worth Valley Railway preservationists suggested the first of
many visits to their splendidly preserved line where, as on the
other many and varied preserved railways which we are so
fortunate to have in this country, it was and still is an intense
pleasure to hear again the sounds of steam at work on a railway
in Britain.

99

Chapter 6
Recording in Europe — and Asia

As described in earlier chapters I had already made a few

recordings on railways abroad on some pretext or other while
working on various film locations. Those early efforts, especially
the recordings made at Venice SL station, gave an added impetus
to the first attempts to record the sounds of railways in Britain.
My first foreign recordings to be attempted alone, and without
assistance of some sort from a film company, were made in
France in 1959. That expedition, suggested by Richard Hardy
who was going to try his hand at firing SNCF locomotives during
the pre-E aster weekend, was arranged too hurriedly. Largely
because there had been no time to deal with customs formalities
or apply for any official SNCF permits, it began fairly
disastrously. On arrival at Calais a formidable lady customs
official took grave exception to the attempted import of the EMI
recorder, microphones, accessories and a large quantity of tape,
all described as personal baggage; 1 managed to convince her
eventually, but by then it was too late to catch any connecting
trains. After a taxi ride to Boulogne the recorder and other
baggage were deposited in a room at a small hotel opposite
Tintelleries Station, to which I returned after supper to find the
place in darkness and the door locked! No amount of hammering
or shouting from an interested and helpful group of people had
the slightest effect, so hopes of some late evening recordings were
abandoned and I passed an uncomfortably naked night at an
adjacent hotel, wondering whether I should ever see the recorder
again. The following morning the proprietor of the first hotel
explained with profuse apologies that he had gone to bed early,
having completely forgotten about his solitary guest and as
compensation he provided a free early breakfast, after which I

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

caught the first available train to Caffiers, summit of the long
climb from Calais.

At Caffiers the stationmaster passionately insisted that any

such extraordinary activities as the recording of trains on the
SNCF were entirely forbidden without the support of official
documents. The only available official railway document I had
was a BR Eastern Region lineside permit, covering such places as
Hitchin and Peterborough North and in desperation I produced
it. The place names meant nothing to the stationmaster but the
words British Railways acted like a charm and apparently
convinced him that he was in the presence of a high official from
BR; it seemed unnecessary for me to correct that impression and
with the freedom of Caffiers station and full and friendly co-
operation from all concerned, everything went much more
smoothly from then on. I spent an enjoyable and successful day
at Caffiers, recording the many boat trains, including the Blue
Train headed by Pacific No 231E26 with Richard Hardy on the
footplate. The station staff seemed flattered by any attention to
their work and were at one time so interested in the recorder that
they almost forgot to operate the level crossing barrier for an
approaching train.

Without any permits there was little more that I could do in

the spring of 1959, apart from recording an interesting journey,
which Richard Hardy kindly and hurriedly arranged, from Paris
Nord to Aulnoye, on a Paris - Brussels express hauled by one of
the streamlined 4-6-4s, No 232S002. It was some while before it
was possible for me to return to France, in 1964 and 1965, by
this time with the fullest possible co-operation and official
permits for the Argentan - Granville and Paris - Rouen - Le
Havre lines.
One of the best locations on the Le Havre line proved to be the
rural junction of Breaute - Beuzeville and I spent many days and
nights there. The line was busy with heavy goods and passenger
traffic and with the exception of autorails on branch line services
and one or two diesel shunting engines in the yard, there was not
a diesel to be heard or seen. I spent several more days at Rouen
(Rive Droite), a station situated between two tunnels and very
reminiscent of Nottingham Victoria. At Rouen the noisy work on

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

the preparations for electrification occasionally caused some

problems, but much more interesting sounds were made by the
Pacifies starting from the station and entering the tunnels, with
expresses and rapides to and from Paris, and by the many freight
trains headed through the station by American and Canadian
built 141 R 2-8-2s, The compound Pacifies were not easy engines
to record as they had a very light exhaust beat, even when
working hard on a rising gradient, but the 141 Rs were another
matter and could be very vociferous when, as so often happened,
they were worked really hard. The sounds of all those engines
and the styles of driving were most individualistic and certainly
could not be confused with anything heard in Britain.

The magnificent Chapelon 24 IP 4-8-2s were still responsible

for several express passenger trains on the Bourbonnais line to
Nevers, Vichy and Clermont Ferrand, which climbs out from the
Allier Valley to a summit and tunnel at Randan, where I spent
several freezing days in January 1966. The Vichy end of the
tunnel was hard to reach and even if a car had been available
there would still have been a long and tortuous walk through
the snow with heavy and cumbersome equipment. The
stationmaster at Randan advised that, since there was ample
time before the next express from Vichy, it would be much better
to walk through the tunnel and lent me a torch. After walking
some minutes into the long, straight tunnel it had become
claustrophobically and interminably dark and the target circle of
light at the far end seemed as small as ever. Suddenly that circle
blacked out and was replaced by two small headlights
accompanied by the noise of something fast approaching on the
track beside which I was walking, now at a point indicated by
rising and falling white guidelines as roughly midway between
two refuges. It was needless and senseless to panic, but the torch
tangled with the recorder strap, dropped and went out, so it
seemed most sensible simply to lie down, just in time as a six-
coach diesel express snarled past trailing a cloud of fumes and
sooty dust. Luckily the torch had merely switched itself off, but
once was enough so I stumbled back to the Randan end of the
tunnel, and from high above its mouth made two recordings of
24 IPs with Paris - Clermont and Clermont - Paris expresses.

102
Top: ARENFE241F4-8-2 emerges from a tunnel near San Felices, with
a Bilbao -Zaragoza train in May 1968. Brian Stephenson

Below: SNCF Pacific No 231E5 passes Boulogne, Poste B, with the Calais
Maritime -Paris Nord Fleche d'Or express in July 1964. Brian Stephenson

Top: A4 Pacifies Lord Faringdon and Sir Nigel Gresley meet under the road
bridge at Peterborough North in the late 1950s, Colin Walker

Centre : Author, with battery operated stereo equipment, recording a DB

Class 50 2-ro-o with a train from Hof, near Neuenmarkt Wirsberg in

March 1972. Brian Stephenson

Below: Filming The Lady Vanishes in Southern Austria in 1 978. Micro-

phones on the moving engine arc linked by radio to recording equipment
in foreground. Keith Hamshere

I
RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

Then I returned to Randan station where the stationmaster,

having heard the reason for my filthy, dishevelled state,
explained that he had not bothered to mention the Grenoble —
Bordeaux diesel express because he knew that I was only
interested in steam trains! The Paris - Clermont express
certainly should have sounded better from the Vichy end of
Randan Tunnel, but when it was possible to get there some days
later, and by a non subterranean route, the wind was blowing
hard from quite the wrong direction for carrying the sounds of
trains approaching on the six mile, 1 in 90 climb from Vichy.

I also recorded the 24 IPs at St Germain-des-Fosses where I

spent several days in winter and summer. It was a busy junction
station with endless activity by day and night, friendly interest
from all concerned and with the usual exceptions, not a single
diesel locomotive involved. True there was little variety in
locomotive classes, but that was made up for by the wonderful
variety of sounds produced by the individual engines. Opposite
and overlooking the station there was an ideally situated little
hotel which was incomparably better than some of the many so
called hotels which I had used during travels round Britain.

St Germain-des-Fosses was by no means alone in having

excellent lodgings so conveniently placed for railway purposes.
At Laqueuille, 3000ft up in the Massif Central, there was a small
hotel conveniently attached to the station and run by the staff of
the buffet, where excellent meals were served to visiting train
crews, passengers in transit and the occasional hotel guest.
Laqueuille is a junction on the Clermont Ferrand - Ussel line,
which runs through beautiful country and abounds in steep
gradients. Freight trains and through passenger trains, few in
winter but more numerous in summer, were usually handled,
sometimes double headed, by 141TA 2-8-2 tank engines, some of
which were built in Britain. The 141E 2-8-2s worked between
Ussel, Eygurandes-Merlines and Montlucon with freight trains
and with the overnight passenger trains to and from Paris. The
line between Eygurandes-Merlines and the branch line from
Laqueuille to La Bourboule and Le Mont Dore had many
excellent recording locations accessible by rail or on foot, and
could hardly be faulted from thai point of view. Quite

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

unforgettable are the sounds of the 141TAs working flat out on

the unbroken 1 in 28| climb from La Bourboule with the Paris
express on a freezing January night in thick snow, or with the
Thermal Express and other trains on lazy summer days with cow
bells tinkling in the background. Equally unforgettable are the
sounds of a 141TA heading the Le Mont Dore portion of the
overnight express to Paris up the long, steep gradient to the
summit at Eygurande-Merlines station, where it was combined
with the Ussel portion, headed by a 14 IE which took the train on
to Montlucon,

I made an interesting journey on the footplate of 141TA468

with the 09.42 weekdays only mixed goods and passenger train
from Ussel to Busseau-sur-Creuse, which conveniently waited at
Aubusson from 14.33 to 15.05 while the crew left their engine,
sat in the train to eat their lunch and then adjourned to the
station bar for coffee and cognac. A splendid recording was made
on the train for Paris which left Le Mont Dore at 21.00. On a
calm full moonlit night the driver decided to work 141TA347
even more flat out than usual up and down the fearsome
gradients and round the numerous curves of the line to
Laqueuille. The passengers were given rather a rough ride and
one or two were apparently dislodged from their couchettes; on
arriving at the junction at Laqueuille, where the train reversed,
the driver prudently jumped down from the offside of his engine
and took refuge in the bar with me, leaving the fireman to deal
with the inevitable protests of outraged passengers.

In February 1967, only just in time, I made several recordings

on the metre gauge lines of the Reseau Breton, at Guingamp,
Carhaix and Rosporden. In more recent years, thanks to the help
of M.Rasserie and Dr Claude Bouchaud, I have made many
other recordings in France, on preserved lines and of special
trains hauled by 141R1187 and 230G353.

The last steam locomotive in commercial service in France

was 2-8-0 No 140C38, one of a group of engines built by the
North British Locomotive Company in 1917 for service in the
first world war. No 140C38 was recorded in July 1975, hard at
work with cereal trains on the CFTA line between Chatillon-sur-
Seine and Troyes. That engine and others at work in France can

106
RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

still be heard on the LP records Vive la Vapeur, and Vapeur en

France, but another LP, Paris Express, is now only available in
France, because it is one of a number of foreign records which
have unfortunately had to be deleted, since so little interest was
shown in them in Britain.

In 1960 another film location in Spain gave me a chance for

some more spare time exploration and recordings, this time
without any arrests. I made several trips on the jolly little
750mm gauge SFG line which ran from Gerona to San Feliii de
Guixols; 0-6-2 tank engines, such as No 2, built by Krauss and
Company in 1890, made leisurely progress with mixed trains,
which included a daily Correo (mail train) and without allowing
for the occasional derailment, the 40 kilometre journey took
almost two hours. Louder sounds from larger engines, such as
14 IF 2-8-2s, were heard at Gerona and on an overnight journey,
double headed at times, from Barcelona to Madrid.

In the winter of 1968 I went to Spain again, specifically to

record some of the remaining steam workings, fully armed with
official permits and in company with John Aldred and his 16mm
cine camera. The sight and sounds of a freight train, double-
headed by a 14 IF 2-8-2 and a 181 ton 4-6-2 + 2-6-4 Gamut,
climbing towards Fuente la Higuera, or leaving La Parrilla, were
certainly some of my most impressive memories of RENFE
steam. Several days and nights were spent at La Parrilla, a small
but important station because it had several running loops where
freight trains, which often had to be divided because of their
length, usually stopped before continuing the fierce climb to
Fuente la Higuera and La Encina. The stationmaster spent
much of his time between trains in his office, lit by an oil lamp
where he filled in endless forms and ledgers, most of which
appeared to be put straight into store in a small shed that also
housed food for the chickens which ran around the station yard.
The station staff, who were responsible for individually
operating the points from levers by each switch, were friendly
and helpful, and on one occasion, quite unasked, went out of
their way to do something specially for us. When freight trains
stopped in the loop it was usual, because of the climb from the
station, for the fireman to spend some time sanding the rails

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

ahead of the train with his shovel. Just out of sight, round a
curve, two of the station staff were liberally spreading thick
grease on the rails so that, as they later explained, 'the engines
will make plenty of noise for you'! That they certainly did; a
train double headed by a 462E Garratt and a 240F 4-8-0 made
impressive enough sounds when climbing out from that station
in any case, and when the piloting Garratt hit the grease the
resulting uproar drowned everything that, to judge by the
expressions on their faces, the engine crews seemed to be
shouting. Sadly that recording and a number of others on that
line were spoiled by an unpredictably fierce wind which blew
down from the mountains.

After seeking out the 282F 2-8-2 + 2-8-2 Garratts on the line
from Lerida to Tarragona, which had greatly changed in the 17
years since my first visit, we moved to Castejon de Ebro where
the well-remembered political police pounced once more. This
lime it was John Aldred who disappeared for a while, but he was
soon released after the intervention of a friendly engine driver
whose engine had been photographed, and with a thorough if
completely uncomprehending scrutiny of the permits. There was
much to be seen and heard at Castej6n where the station and
yard were constantly busy with quite a variety of locomotives, all
of them steam, on freight and passenger workings. The hugely
magnificent, green, and well kept Confederation 4-8-4s headed
the main express trains, some of which made lengthy journeys,
such as the 1338 kilometres covered in 29| hours by train No
5225/135, the express from Barcelona to La Coruna and Vigo; it
was most impressive to see and record one of those 4-8-4s making
a completely sure footed start and accelerating away into the
darkness with that heavy train to La Coruna on a night of
torrential rain at Castejon de Ebro. With experiences such as
that in mind it must be admitted that although British
locomotives were undoubtedly the most aesthetically satisfying
in appearance, the sights and sounds of continental engines and
railways were generally more impressively dramatic, possibly
because the greater distances and the altogether larger scale of
operations, particularly with international services, added extra
romance to continental railway workings.
RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

The Orient Express was long considered to be one of the most

romantic trains in the world and probably inspired more authors
than any other train, especially between the years 1900 and
1940. The world famous express first linked the Channel coast
and the Bosphorus in 1883 and ran, under various titles and by a
number of different routes, until May 1977 when the last
through sleeping cars ran on the Direct Orient Express from
Paris to Istanbul. Even during the train's final years, stripped of
earlier glamorous luxury and most of the restaurant car
facilities, it was still an interesting train for a railway enthusiast
to travel on, though journalists who made the journey usually
described the experience with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

In 1954 I had travelled on the Simplon-Orient Express as far

as Venice, but that was for a mere 1395 kilometres of the total
3394 kilometres journey from Calais to Istanbul. In 1967 1 made
the complete journey for the first time on the Direct Orient
Express from Paris to Istanbul, and then on the Anatolia Express
to Ankara, to work on the Woodfall film The Charge of the Light
Brigade.

In 1965, thanks to an earlier Woodfall film, I had made the

3569 kilometre journey from Calais to Athens on the Greek
portion of the Direct Orient Express, which was divided from the
Istanbul portion at Belgrade. During the long journey to and
from Athens the train was steam hauled for a while by a 2-10-0 in
Greece and by a 2-6-2 in Yugoslavia where several interesting
steam locomotives were seen. Unfortunately the Yugoslavian
authorities at Skopje, then still suffering the after effects of an
earthquake, were not keen to have their engines recorded and
insistently confiscated two reels of tape; unsettling experiences
like that made the earlier photographic achievements of A. E.
Durrani, seen in The Steam Locomotives of Eastern Europe
(David & Charles 1966), seem even more remarkable. On the
1967 journey to Istanbul the Direct Orient Express was steam
hauled by a Yugoslavian Pacific through the wildly beautiful
Dragoman Pass to Dimitrovgrad on the Bulgarian border and
later by a smart Bulgarian 2-8-2 between Plovdiv and
Svilengrad. I made some interesting recordings from the train
but, apart from some surreptitious efforts at stations after dark,

108

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

most of the many and varied engines I saw in Bulgaria had to go

unrecorded.

In the early hours of the morning the express was handed over
to an Austrian built 0-10-0 of uncertain years, then wheezily
proceeded through a corner of Greece at a bumpy jog trot on
incredibly short rail lengths. As the first light of dawn took over
from the green glow of the dancing fireflies, we eventually
reached the Turkish border at Uzunkdpru. The Greeks and
Turks were not speaking to each other at the time and the change
of engines and attachment of a restaurant car were only
accomplished after much whistling and buffer bashing. White
cheese, rose petal jam, muddy coffee and lemon tea were served
in the rather faded brass and mahogany splendour of the vintage
restaurant car. Cinders rained on the roof and penetrated cracks
round the windows, as an equally vintage 2-8-0 of French
ancestry dragged the train up fearsome, curving gradients.
Billowing clouds of black smoke indicated the efforts of two
firemen, one of whom spent much of his time shovelling coal
forward from the top of the swaying tender. The train climbed to
a summit on a scorched and barren plateau, called at Cerkezkdy,
where it was besieged by hordes of yelling children, beggars and
merchants, then rattled on down to the Marmara shore at
Halkali from where an electric locomotive took over for the last
few miles of the journey to Istanbul.

With the hopeful intention of making more recordings on the

steam hauled route of the Orient Express and of trains in
Turkey, I went again to Istanbul in December 1969, travelling
from Hook of Holland to Vienna and then by the Istanbul
Express from Vienna to Istanbul. On the outward journey,
heavily delayed by ice, which solidly froze train doors, and heavy
snowfalls in Austria, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the Istanbul
Express eventually reached Uzunkopru lj days late. The
scheduled restaurant car had not turned up during a seven hour
wait at Zagreb, consequently no food was available on the train
for three days, and news that a restaurant car should be attached
at Uzunkopru was most welcome. The Turkish restaurant car
was a luggage van, at one end of which there was an ancient
kitchen range, fired from a heap of coal in the corner and

110

RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

presided over by a cheerful fellow in a flat cap and greasy striped

apron. He did the cooking, served the dubious results to
customers at insecure trestle tables, stacked dirty crockery in
buckets, spat frequently and fairly accurately on to the coal
heap, and collected the money. He was also a saviour to a
number of hungry passengers. The heavy train lost more time on
the journey to Halkali, and as no electric locomotives were
available there an ancient 0-10-0 took over the Istanbul Express
which finally groaned to a halt in Sirkeci station 41 hours and
27 minutes late.

From previous experiences in Turkey nothing that happened

during the next two weeks should have surprised me, though this
was the first time that I had direct contact with the often corrupt
bureaucracy, which it is difficult to overcome. The Turkish
railways would be hard to beat for monumental inefficiency and
the news that in four weeks at the end of 1978 there were five
serious accidents, including a spectacular head-on collision on
the Istanbul - Ankara main line, was not at all surprising.

Permits had been promised for collection at Istanbul, but at

the end of another wasted day there seemed no hope of getting
them so I accepted a letter of introduction with the assurance
that it would be most influential and altogether better.
Unfortunately that letter had little influence on local
bureaucrats in distant places and even less on policemen who
could not read, one of whom I encountered on Boxing Day,
which meant nothing in Muslim Turkey, at a desolate and
snowbound junction station at Ulukisla. The Istanbul -
Baghdad Taurus Express had deposited me there, 4{ hours late
after a 15 hour, 1121km journey; there were no other
passengers, only a woman with no legs, covered in sacking and
perched on a wooden trolley on which she propelled herself by
her stumped arms alongside the train with loud demands for
money. The station staff were surly, unhelpful and suspicious,
but did nothing to prevent me setting up equipment to record an
LMS class 8F 2-8-0, (a number of which arrived in this pan of
the world by courtesy of the War Department) incongruously
fitted with an air brake pump, which was waiting at the head of a
freight train. Before the train left a fully armed military

111

RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

policeman appeared and unmistakeably indicated that whatever
I was doing must cease immediately. He then summoned a
dilapidated taxi, took me and the equipment to the local police
station and pushed me inside, after I had paid the taxi driver.
The letter of introduction was endlessly scrutinised and
discussed, tea was served and there was much telephoning.
'British' they said, many times as they inspected my passport;
then a man in a flat cap came in; 'Speak English' he said,
frowned over his dictionary and added: 'Tomorrow - most
sorry'. Quite what would happen tomorrow was not clear but,
whoever he was, he certainly had good reason to be most sorry
about the cold, dirty and barely furnished room in which I spent
a worried night. The next morning an army officer arrived; he
explained in Americanised English that this was a military area,
railways were military matters, I must not interfere with them
and must go away at once, I could hardly wait and was delighted
to pay for another taxi, with armed escort to the station where
the escort made sure that I left on the mail train to Adana which
soon arrived, apparently some hours early but in fact extremely
late, because it should have arrived on the afternoon of the
previous day!

The journey over the 4800ft summit and down through the
Taurus mountains was simply magnifcent and more than made
up for the irritations of previous days. Progress behind a three
cylinder 2-10-0 was slow, the train stopped at every station and
sometimes between them, for totally inexplicable reasons which
had nothing to do with signals of which there were none.

At Adana nobody was interested in letters of introduction or

much else; it's much more interesting further on they said and
well it might have been, but I had already been warned not to go
anywhere near the Syrian border and decided it would be wiser
to go back to Yenice. There the stationmaster understood and
spoke some German and was most helpful. His station was busy
by Turkish standards; a Nohab 2-6-0 fussed up and down,
sometimes just for my benefit and there were occasional
passenger and mixed trains on the Mersin line headed by 4-8-0s,
and on the main line, headed usually by three cylinder 2-10-0s of
one type of another. Northbound freight trains took on another

2-10-0 as pilot or banker for the long climb over the Taurus
mountains which gleamed in the background. Around the
station, wherever engines cleaned their fires old women picked
among the cinders and filled their baskets with anything
combustible. Inquisitive and acquisitive children swarmed
across the tracks whenever there was something strange to see or
possibly steal; they formed a staring circle round the
microphones and recorder, giggling, coughing and spitting.
Closely surrounded by such disconcerting noises it was difficult
to record anything, except when the railwaymen succeeded in
their endless fierce efforts to chase the children away.

From Yenice I travelled up into the snow covered mountains

on the morning mail train. During the journey the engine slipped
to a standstill inside one of the several tunnels, ran out of steam
and we had to wait a while for a blow up. The subsequent uproar
among the suffocating passengers almost drowned the sounds of
the engine as it struggled out of the tunnel and then climbed
slowly towards Belemedik, an isolated, primitive village more
than 4000ft up in the Taurus mountains and only accessible over
rough tracks by donkey or by the railway, which here runs out
from the last tunnel on the climb from Yenice and enters a wide
valley surrounded by sheer mountain peaks. I spent two days and
a night at Belemedik.

When the time came to leave Turkey after that second visit, it
seemed disappointing that after travelling so far to and around
the country and spending so long there, I had made
comparatively few recordings. Yet because the recorded sounds
are so uniquely interesting and the whole experience is so vividly
memorable, looking back it now seems well worthwhile.

There were plenty of steam locomotives still at work in various

Eastern European countries, but several photographers had run
into trouble there, even though they had permits, and it seemed
stupid to risk even worse problems than those met in Turkey by
attempting to record in Communist countries without
permission. Unfortunately the mere idea that anybody might
have an innocent wish to record railway sounds was treated with
even more incredulous suspicion than it had aroused elsewhere
in the 1950s. Applications to the representatives of such

112

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

countries as Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Russia

were generally either ignored as facetious or were passed from
one prevaricating official to another and finally refused. In some
cases it would have been possible to go with an organised party
and accept all the restrictions which that implied; alternatively
some unobtrusive recordings might have been made with a small
recorder and concealed microphones but, as I already knew, that
was hard to do without looking suspiciously guilty and anyway
such methods usually produced indifferent results, especially in
stereo.

A fanatically dedicated Yugoslavian enthusiast who had

managed to get some Transacord records, wrote to Argo at the
address on the record sleeves and suggested that recordings be
made in Yugoslavia. He added that he would arrange for
permission and act as an escort if I would meet him in Ljubljana
in November 1970. Quite how he organised everything I never
managed to discover, but he certainly prevented any unpleasant
international incidents during my three-week stay in Yugoslavia.
He mentioned places where we must not record and at times told
me to keep quiet, look innocent and show no interest whatever in
railways. The greatest problem was the weather, often so bad
that for precious days and nights it was impossible to do
anything other than try to get warm and dry, while feeling sorry
for the Yugoslavian shunters and pointsmen, who were certainly
neither as they wandered around under the incongruously
inadequate protection of city type black umbrellas.

A single line from Ljubljana climbs along the far side of a

broad valley at Skofljica, swings round a wide horseshoe curve
and climbs even more steeply along the near side of the valley,
through a rock cutting and into a tunnel. That was a near perfect
location for recording, especially in the twilight of a calm
evening of sullen sky and freezing drizzle when, for nearly 15
minutes, from a position near the tunnel mouth, we listened to
and recorded a 1920s vintage, Austrian-built 2-8-0 slipping and
struggling round the valley and into the tunnel at the head of a
heavy freight train.

In the Istrian Mountains we recorded a pair of Austrian-built

0-lQ-Os, both more than 50 years old, fiercely attacking the long

RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

climb from Rakitovec to Zazid with a double headed freight

train. Both engines were working flat out and their exhaust beats
merged in a continuous roar at the start of the climb, then
gradually slowed and separated as the two engines headed the
train away across the barren mountains in the face of a howling
gale. Later that evening, down at Rakitovec station, I was
surprised to be spoken to in strongly Scottish accented English
by a Yugoslavian railwayman; he had been conscripted into
Mussolini's army, fought in the Western Desert, was taken
prisoner and sent to a prisoner of war camp in Scotland. By the
time he went home to Istria, which was Italian territory from
1920 to 1947, it had become pan of Slovenian Yugoslavia.

On a frosty evening in the Julian Alps a 53 year old Prussian-

built three cylinder 2-10-0, at the head of a 750 tonne freight
train, raised remarkable echoes from the 6000ft peaks of the
surrounding mountains during the long, steep and slippery climb
up the valley to Bojhinska Bistrica. Earlier we had spent two
miserably inactive days at that normally delightful place in
continuous torrential rain, as a result of which a deep and fast
flowing river ran out of the mouth of the single line tunnel. In
such conditions the continued running of trains through the
tunnel seemed somewhat hazardous, but the stationmaster said
that the flooding was quite usual and was no problem because
the track was laid on specially large and heavy ballast! He did
admit though, that there were problems when the water level
was high enough to reach the engine ash pans. A journey
through that flooded tunnel on the evening passenger train,
headed by a 52 year old Hungarian built 2-6-2 tank engine, was
most interesting. From the open platform of the leading coach
we could see the considerable wash created by the engine as it
plunged ahead at a slow walking pace through deep water, with
the firemen leaning far out to keep an eye on the water level, then
gradually accelerated through shallower water at the approach
to the summit. The recording I made on that amphibious train
sounds nothing like a railway journey, more like a trip through a
fairground tunnel of love on some weird little steamship!

The eminent Austrian locomotive engineer Doctor Adolph

Giesl-Gieslingen, an enthusiastic listener to Transacord records,

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115
RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

lold me in 1969 that there were many interesting steam

locomotives still at work in Romania, including some impressive
2-8-4s for which he played a considerable part in the design.
When 2-8-4s of the same type were first built, as the 214 series in
Austria, they were the most powerful locomotives in Europe, In
1963 the class was chosen for the working of heavy express
passenger trains on mountain lines in Romania and 79 engines of
the class were built there between 1937 and 1940.

The first approach to the Romanians in 1969 met the response

I expected from previous dealings with Communist countries -
suspicion, prevarication and eventual silence. Early in 1971
Doctor Giesl-Gieslingen asked if there had been any progress
with the Romanians and when told of the impasse, kindly wrote
yet another letter to the CFR in Bucharest. In the summer, after
months of continued and absolute silence, a three page telegram
arrived from the Romanian Transport Ministry which gave the
conditions on which a three week visit would be permitted. The
main condition was that £400 in Sterling must be paid in
Bucharest for such facilities as the services of a French speaking
railway official who would act as an escort; his living expenses
would have to be paid in addition, but basic rail transport was
covered by the facilities payment. By 1971 currency standards
£400 was a lot of money to gamble on a project which seemed
nebulous, mainly because specific questions about what would be
permitted had been completely ignored. Because of the
uncertainty about permits, Paul Wilson, a railway enthusiast
and well-known film cameraman who was keen to go with me to
photograph and film steam engines anywhere, rightly decided
not to go to Romania; his decision proved wise because the
restrictions on filming were so numerous and severe that his visit
would have been wasted.

Many more telegrams and letters came and went before, in

October 1971, I left Paris on the Orient Express for Bucharest.
At Hegyeshalom on the Hungarian border and at Curtici on the
Romanian border the various customs officials were sternly
unimpressed by letters in English from the Romanian Transport
Ministry and conferred over essays which they wrote in my
passport before, reluctantly, allowing me to travel on to

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

Bucharest with a considerable amount of stereo recording

equipment. From Bucharest North station two officials escorted
me to various ministries where, after handing over £400, 1 was
photographed passport fashion by a lady with an ancient plate
camera and endlessly interrogated to find out, yet again, what I
wished to do and why. My escort, who appeared the next day,
was a French speaking locomotive engineer aptly named
Gabriel. He was most knowledgeable on railway matters and
though no doubt a reliable Party member, had a considerable
sense of humour. One idiosyncracy, most evident in the sleeping
car compartments and primitive accommodation which we
shared, was that he never brought a change of socks, even when
away for a week or more.

After two days of investigation, documentation and waiting

around we left Bucharest on the overnight train to Subcetate,
then travelled by a mixed train headed by an immaculate,
Austrian-built, 2-8-2 rack and adhesion tank engine, which later
made some most unusual sounds when it propelled the train on
the rack section that takes the line over the 3000ft summit at
Portile de Fier on the northern slopes of the Transylvanian Alps.

The magnificent 2-8-4s, which had an extraordinarily

staccato exhaust beat, had few remaining duties but were suc-
cessfully recorded when heading express trains near Oradea
a busy junction where many interesting locomotive workings
were seen and heard. Two of the few remaining, once famous,
Maffei Pacifies were later recorded at Medgidia and Badadag on
the line to Tulcea, a strange place on the estuary of the Danube,
opposite Russia. One of the Pacifies worked the morning
Persoane (stopping) passenger train, calling at all stations on the
4| hour, 179km journey to Tulcea and then, after a 2^ hour stop
over, worked a similar train back to Constanta; 144km of the
journey was over a steeply undulating single line on which some
hard work was called for from the engine and crew. The same
crew worked the outward and return journeys, leaving
Constanta at 08.00 and arriving back there at 19.45. Such long
hours appeared to be normal for engine and train crews; freight
train guards must have found the hours endless, especially on a
winter night, for they rode on the end of the last wagon in a small

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

unhealed cabin something like an upright coffin with portholes

and not much larger. One bitterly cold day I asked the guard of a
waiting freight train how he coped with the bumpy discomfort:
'It can be very hard', he said, interpreted by Gabriel, 'but it is
part of railway life and I am a railwayman'.

One of several minor Balkan dramas took place at Alba Iulia,

where I recorded narrow gauge locomotives with splendid
whistles at work on the line to Zlatna. We arrived on a main line
train in the morning and met the stationmaster. At first he
seemed suspicious but then charmingly suggested that, as we
intended to walk some way down the narrow gauge line,
anything not needed could be left in his office. When we returned
to the station in the afternoon there were some police and
soldiers there; two of each were in the office where my luggage
had been searched and it was evident that at the suggestion of the
stationmaster we were to be taken away. Tension eased after
several lengthy phone calls presumably to Bucharest, and after
some grudging apologies we left on an evening train to Teius. My
escorting angel Gabriel seemed unsurprised by the incident and
cheerfully explained: 'In Romania we have very many important
officials, such as stationmasters and some of them like to be
much more important than they really are'. That humorously
cynical attitude to Marxist officialdom was often evident;
sometimes, bored with standing around at the lineside, he would
wander off for an hour or so after giving me his black leather
coat. 'Wear that, say nothing to anybody and look grim', he said,
'then everybody will think you are one of the secret police and
leave you completely alone*. It certainly worked, but that was
not the only identity I assumed under his guardianship.

When we arrived at Teius it seemed odd that we walked away

from the station and stumbled along the track in the dark with
heavy baggage, but all questions went unanswered. We reached
a barrack like building and stopped outside. 'Don't speak to me
and if anyone speaks to you don't answer', whispered Gabriel.
Inside he wrote something in a book, collected keys from a
caretaker, took me upstairs and opened the door of a cell-like but
clean room, furnished with wash basin, chair and duvet covered
bed, under which was a pair of brown felt bedroom slippers. He

118

told me to lock the door and left me puzzled and slightly worried.
A short while later he quietly called me outside and we walked
down to the town to have an excellent supper in a drably
furnished people's restaurant, where we were entertained by a
state employed trio of an accordion player, pianist and violinist,
who played to a strictly observed state musician's union
timetable, but seemed to enjoy their work. During the evening
Gabriel explained the earlier mysteries. We were staying in a
railway staff transit hostel into which he had booked me as a
locomotive inspector from Timisoara under the name of Petra
Toma, the Romanian version of my Christian names. 'They
make a good Romanian name', he said, 'but if somebody heard
us speaking French they might be suspicious and that could be
quite bad, especially for me.' I remained prudently mute until we
were on the train to Cluj next morning.

Back in Bucharest I was taken to lunch at a large hotel where,

in one corner of the dining room, a group of smartly dressed
people seemed to get unusually attentive service. I asked if they
were tourists and was told by one of my hosts that they were all
Romanian but were important members of the Communist
party. In the hotel lobby I was taken aside by another of my
hosts, an important railway officer, who asked me to buy him
some American cigarettes from the tourist shop which only
accepted foreign currency. 'Our country is now a worker's
republic', he said, 'so such things are not for us.'

The undercurrent of suspicion, repression and fear in

Romania and other Eastern bloc countries was depressingly
similar to that I experienced towards the end of the war in
Germany and must be inseparable from any totalitarian regime,
whether it be Fascist or Communist. It is surprising that so much
individuality was allowed among engine drivers in some
Communist countries; maybe it had something to do with the
elite mystique which used to go with the job. In Romania, where
the one-engine/one-driver principle was still widely applied, such
individuality was evidenced by engines with connecting rods,
wheel spokes, number plates and the like painted in assorted
bright colours; even the engine whistles were often changed over
to suit the personal preferences of a driver. My main regret was

119
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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

that my visit could not be made earlier, but nevertheless my

railway tour of Romania was certainly worthwhile. Despite the
influx of diesels and the progress of electrification it was
exceptional to see a steam locomotive which was not carefully
cleaned and well maintained. A variety of steam locomotives was
still hard at work in several parts of the country, much of which
is unusually beautiful, and it was interesting to see things which
tourists do not see and to be so closely involved with Romanian
railways and railwaymen. Those railwaymen, working in the
type of society advocated by left wing militants in Western
Europe, certainly do not have the freedom to disrupt public
services whenever they have a grievance.

West Germany was much too efficient a country to provide

any untoward excitements and the only Balkan type incident
there occurred one January evening on the East German border,
at Honebach, where the West German border patrol appeared in
the twilight to enquire why I was apparently operating a
clandestine radio transmitter. They were most polite but
obviously found it hard to understand why, on a freezing
evening, a lone Englishman should be waiting beside the snow
covered line to record the sounds of an East German Pacific
locomotive, climbing from Gerstungen with a heavy express
train, heading it over the all too obvious border and whistling
mournfully away into the distant tunnel.
The many visits I made to West Germany, whenever there was
time to spare in the years between 1969 and 1973, were a much
needed tonic. The lack of excitement in the country was
compensated for by the sounds and sights of powerful steam
locomotives working heavy trains in normal service in widely
varied locations. It was not easy to find good recording locations
and military aircraft were a widespread problem. Brian
Stephenson was endlessly helpful with accurate and detailed
information concerning locomotives and their whereabouts. In
1972 we eventually managed to visit the Schwabisch Hall and
Neuenmarkt Wirsberg areas together, an interesting trip which
produced some worthwhile results, one of which can be heard on
the LP Steam in all Directions. Like several other LPs, this is
illustrated by one of Brian Stephenson's excellent pictures.

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RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

I made more recordings in West Germany than in any other

country, except Britain, and some are particularly memorable,
such as the vintage 38 class 4-6-0s at work in the beautiful
forested country around Horb and Sigmaringen, the 03 Pacifies
on the Ulm - Friedrichshafen line, East German Pacifies on the
line from Bebra, the 01 Pacifies on the 8km, 1 in 40 climb of the
Schiefe Ebene, and the three-cylinder 012 Pacifies and the 2-8-
2s, sometimes in tandem, on the Rheine - Emden line. At
Hirzenhain, where a gradient board indicated 1 in 17, the
powerful 94 class 0-10-0 tank engines climbed steadily towards
the summit with passenger trains from Dillenburg. In the vine-
covered Moselle Valley an endless procession of equally endless
freight trains climbed out from Bullay, day and night, headed by
three-cylinder or two-cylinder 2-10-0s, usually assisted by a
diesel banker, and at Altenbeken some exceptionally hard
working 2-10-Os filled the wide valley with their sounds for many
minutes on end as they climbed towards the splendid viaduct
with heavy freight trains. All too soon steam working declined in
West Germany and finally ceased, but sounds such as the
haunting low pitched whistles echoing across a valley will not be
forgotten.

In the autumn of 1973 there were still steam locomotives at

work on some regular services in Italy. There, in the Dolomites,
the curious looking Crosti boilered 2-8-0s made some equally
curious but impressively energetic sounds as they fiercely
attacked the steep gradients on the Fortezza - San Candido line
with freight and passenger trains. Sometimes some heavy
passenger trains to and from Germany were banked or double
headed, or both, by two or three 2-8-0s, but so far as I was
concerned such trains only ran possibile domani and never
actually appeared. The Crosti 2-8-0s also worked freight trains
on the Alessandria - Alba line; at one station on that line, Santa
Stefano Belbo, the crew of a 2-8-0 were so delighted to have their
engine recorded that despite the exhortations of the
stationmaster, they refused to move their train on until they had
heard the recording and been photographed with the train crew
and station staff all grouped around their engine. The more
conventional and elegant 640 class 2-6-0s were recorded at work
121

RECORDING IN EUROPE - AND ASIA

with passenger trains in various places on the Alessandria - Alba

line and in the Po Valley. A 2-6-0 of the same class sometimes
assisted freight trains on the long, steep climb out of Trento on
the line to Primolano. At Villazzano, high above Trento, there
was a likely looking recording location near a seldom used level
crossing; unfortunately, as soon as the crossing closed, a local
lady hung her large carpet over the lowered barrier and then
beat it so loudly that the noise completely ruined the recording of
a banked freight train climbing out from Trento.

Through Primolano and Bassano del Grappa I travelled to

Venice at the end of the line. There, in 1973, electric locomotives
glided efficiently, but impersonally, out from the station and
away over the causeway to Mestre. It was all very different to the
well-remembered scene in 1954 when, in a way, Transacord
records began here with the inspiration given by the recordings
made on a tape recorder which, cumbersome though it was, did
not depend on a mains electricity supply. Some of those 1954
recordings were issued on one of the earliest 78rpm records.
Since then I had travelled many thousands of miles around
Europe and into Asia, mostly by train, in search of the remaining
sounds of the steam age. I used more than 400 miles of tape to
record those sounds and produced 138 records of various types.
A few of those records were never issued and many more have
been deleted, but, at the time of writing in 1 979, 49 Transacord
records remain in the Argo catalogue.
All the earlier recordings were made purely for personal
interest and that personal interest remained, even when the issue
and sale of records provided an excuse to increase the number
and scope of the recordings to an extent undreamed of originally.
Certainly it is most satisfying that so many people have enjoyed
and still enjoy listening to records of railway sounds. Even if no
records had ever been issued, the whole project would have been
worthwhile for its own sake, mainly because the recordings made
it possible to see so much of the world of railways and involved
many vividly memorable experiences for which 1 shall always be
grateful.

122

Chapter 7
The art of railway recording

Since the 1950s, when the first Transacord railway recordings

were made on tape and issued on 78rpm discs, both the railways
and the equipment used for sound recording have completely
changed. The enormous changes on the railways, such as the
indecently rapid disappearance of steam locomotives and the
destruction of all too many once busy and useful lines, have been
of little benefit to railway enthusiasts, or to prospective
passengers whose railway or station no longer exists. In contrast,
the changes in recording equipment have been wholly beneficial
to sound recordists, both amateur and professional, although the
ever increasing rate of change sometimes makes it alarmingly
difficult to keep up with the latest developments, such as the
revolutionary method of digital recording.

Some of the changes which have occurred during the past 25

years are exemplified by the variety of equipment which has been
used for making the Transacord railway recordings. Mono
recorders were: Excel, made by Excel Sound Services of
Bradford, Ferrograph, Vortexion, EMI TR50, and EMI TR51,
all of which required an AC mains supply, and EMI L2 and
Nagra portable recorders, operating from internal dry batteries.
Borrowed Levers Rich mono recorders were also used
occasionally. Stereo recorders were: Ferrograph, EMI TR52,
EMI TR90, and Revox, all of which required an AC mains
supply, and a transportable recorder, custom-built by Stage
Sound Ltd, using an EMI tape transport, operated by self
contained rechargeable batteries. In recent years I have used
exclusively the Nagra IV/S portable recorders, powered by dry
batteries.

All the recorders were designed, or modified, to record full

track mono or two track stereo at a tape speed of 15ips. Any

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THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

recorders designed for mains operation had to be supplied from a

battery/mains converter, driven by heavy duty lead/acid
batteries. The rotary converter, used originally, was superseded
by a heavy duty synchronous vibrator unit, specifically designed
to drive the 50Hz motors of cine cameras, which operated
satisfactorily for some years until it was finally replaced by a
transistorised inverter.

I have used a wide variety of microphones, including Western

Electric and STC, RCA, Reslo, AKG, Beyer, Electrovoice, and
Sennheiser. I have generally preferred dynamic microphones, of
various types and characteristics, for railway location
recordings, because they are more rugged and less liable to be
affected by climatic conditions than the more delicate condenser
microphones which, although their frequency response and
sensitivity is often superior, have the additional disadvantage of
needing an external power supply, except in the case of electret
types. Condenser microphones of various types are, however,
widely used for film production recording since their superior
sensitivity can then be a great advantage.

Now that comparatively simple and inexpensive portable

recorders are so widely used, much of the mystique of sound
recording has disappeared, just as it vanished from photography,
years earlier, when roll film cameras were introduced and
photographers ceased hiding under a black cloth. It is no longer
necessary for a sound recordist to burden himself with masses of
heavy and cumbersome equipment and a move to a new location,
which would have occupied endless precious time in earlier
years, is now almost as quick and simple for a recordist as it is for
a photographer.

Although the equipment has changed greatly the basic

principles and technique remain much the same. Recording, like
photography, is a combination of art and science; the science can
be readily learnt but much of the art is intuitive, not easily
taught and best learnt by experiment and experience. Results, of
a sort, may quite easily be achieved with a camera or a recorder,
but the making of good recordings demands just as much care,
attention and imagination as the taking of good photographs.

Anybody who is seriously interested in recording, but lacks

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THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

background knowledge, will find it interesting and helpful to

read one of the standard works on the subject. One of the best
and most comprehensive is The Manual of Sound Recording, by
John Aldred, published by Fountain Press. The book starts from
basic sound and electronic principles and covers every aspect of
mono, stereo and multi-track recording, on tape, disc and film; it
also includes practical advice on technique, such as the selection
and positioning of microphones and descriptions of many types
of equipment.

Recording is a more esoteric and indeterminable art than

photography; there is equal scope for individualistic approach
and no two sound recordists will interpret a subject in exactly the
same way. A professional recordist usually sets out to produce a
result which is personally pleasing and satisfying, but if that
result does not satisfy the customer it will be necessary to make
such modifications, however vague, as may be demanded. The
scientific element of any method of recording imposes
limitations, but the scientific approach should never overrule the
artistic, and professional recordists may sometimes consciously
ignore some of the rules in an attempt to achieve a certain result.
The rules must, however, be learnt before they are broken, since
to ignore them without being aware of the possible consequences
can easily lead to total disaster.

The best way to learn what can and cannot be done is to

experiment, but such opportunities are often denied to
professionals since experiments can take time and cost money,
expenditure of which customers often begrudge. The amateur
has an enormous advantage as having no customer to worry
about he can experiment at will until he achieves a personally
satisfying result.

Documentary recording on location is inherently more

demanding than work in a studio where, within the limitations of
a set-up, conditions can be controlled and there is usually an
opportunity for rehearsal and even the possibility of a retake if
something goes wrong. On location the situation is usually quite
different; both the location and the subject may be totally
unfamiliar and conditions may be impossible to control, except,
to a limited extent, by a reasoned selection of microphone types

125

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

and positions. Such decisions may have to be made quickly,
without benefit of any rehearsal and if the final results are
satisfactory it is often more by luck than judgement.

Railway locomotives and trains are by no means easy subjects

to record under any circumstances, as anybody who has
attempted it will know. The sounds of railway trains have an
extremely wide frequency and dynamic range, which can be
greater than those of a full symphony orchestra, and it is usually
impossible to know quite what to expect from a locomotive. For
example a sudden shrill whistle, an unexpected hiss of steam or a
startling crescendo of slipping wheels can so easily ruin an
otherwise perfect recording, either by overload distortion, or by
masking or iniermodulating other sounds.

In order to accommodate such a wide range of sound levels it is

essential carefully to limit, or boost, the recording level,
sometimes to a greater extent than that which may be considered
theoretically desirable. Apart from the need to control recording
levels it may, less obviously, sometimes be helpful to control the
frequency range during recording. For example, the sounds
heard on a moving train, or on the footplate of a locomotive,
include a considerable amount of extremely low frequencies, the
level of which can be usefully reduced by the use of a microphone
of limited bass response, or by a bass cut filter, or a combination
of both. There is little point in recording a high level of low
frequency sounds, since they are unlikely to be effectively
reproduced on an average reproducing system, and in any case
contribute little to the information and atmosphere conveyed by
a recording. The optimum amount of bass cut can ultimately
only be determined by experience and it is dangerous to rely on a
decision based only on the quality of sound when monitoring on
headphones, since they are notoriously unreliable for judging
low frequency balance. If in doubt it is safest to cut bass
sparingly, since excessive reduction may produce an
unpleasantly thin and gutless result and it is easier to cut bass
later on than to attempt to restore it.

The cutting of high frequencies during recording is not

usually desirable, but may occasionally be helpful in certain
extreme cases, such as hissing steam or the squealing of wheels

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THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

on a curve, where an excess of very high frequencies may restrict

the permissible overall recording level to a considerable extent.
The judicious use of appropriate filters can also be most helpful
in reducing unwanted extraneous background noise, but it is
generally better to experiment with various treatments later on
than to attempt it when making the original recording.

The choice of recorders suitable for railway location

recordings is now extremely wide and the final choice can only be
made from personal preference and with consideration for the
results required. For anybody intending to start recording with
no previous experience it seems unwise to choose anything too
complex at first and certainly it is always unwise to rely on the
claims of some advertisements which, by using vague references
and juggling figures, can imply that an inexpensive domestic
recorder is capable of a performance equal to, or better than
costly professional equipment. It is primarily essential to choose
a recorder capable of producing results which sound satisfyingly
good when played back on whatever equipment is to be used for
final listening. To judge from the experience of listening to many
recordings submitted to record companies it seems obvious that
many of them have, previously, only been heard on the recorder
on which the recording was made, or on equipment of limited
quality. Under such conditions the recording quality may seem
acceptable, but when played on equipment of a higher standard
all manner of faults become apparent; examples include
incorrect azimuth adjustment, uneven tape transit, poor
frequency response, overload distortion, hum pick up, motor
noise and tape defects. It is a reasonable generalisation that a
good recording, made on high quality equipment will sound good
when played back on any equipment, but a recording made on
inferior equipment, which may sound acceptable when played
back overequipment of the same standard, may well sound much
less acceptable when played back on higher quality equipment.
Therefore, if there is a likelihood that recordings may be listened
to on high quality equipment it is worthwhile using a recorder of
a reasonably high standard, otherwise the results may seem
disappointing.

The main choice of types is between reel to reel and cassette

127

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

recorders. The performance of modern cassette recorders,
especially the best of them, is something which would have been
considered quite impossible not so many years ago; since such
high quality recordings are now possible on cassette, the small
size and weight and consequent portability and convenience may
seem to make a cassette recorder the obvious choice for the
amateur recordist, but there are some disadvantages. The
smaller area of the sound track and the slow speed of recording
make a cassette recording more liable to suffer from 'drop outs'
due to tape defects or dirt, or to variations in track alignment
caused by faulty tape transit. Moreover, cassettes are more liable
than tape reels to suffer from mechanical troubles which, like the
other faults, always seem to occur at the most vitally
inconvenient moments.

Another disadvantage of cassettes is that they are difficult to

edit; the slow recording speed makes it hard to locate an accurate
cutting point and the small size of the tape makes it difficult to
handle. Obviously neither a reel to reel nor cassette tape can be
edited if the full width of the tape has been used for recording in
both directions, and for that reason and to improve the signal to
noise ratio, professional recorders use the full width of the tape
for recording in one direction only, whether the recording is
mono, two track stereo or multi-track. Editing may, at first
thought, seem unimportant, but in fact it is usually most
desirable to edit a location recording, otherwise it may soon
become boring after the first one or two hearings, especially to
anybody other than the recordist. For example, when recording
a train starting from a station it is usual to have the recorder on
for some time before the train is due to start, in order to ensure
that the first whistle and such interesting background sounds as
a signal arm changing position are all recorded. However,
between such interesting sounds, and in other instances like
shunting operations, there may be some unwanted noises, or
long silences which, if not removed, will make the recording seem
so interminable that the listener will soon be bored and cease to
concentrate. Rough editing is, of course, quite possible on
cassettes, and cassette recordings can be transferred to £ inch
tape for editing. The larger dimensions of | inch tape make it

128

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

simpler to handle and at higher recording speeds it is easier to

locate and mark exact editing points.

Tape editing, quite apart from its most obvious uses, can be a
fascinatingly rewarding exercise; the editing of recordings for
commercial records and for film sound tracks has become a
specialised and somewhat exclusive fine art and it is interesting
to discover for yourself just how much can be achieved by
practice.

The choice of microphones is now so wide that decisions on

which to use can be difficult; the claims of certain advertisements
should, like those for recorders, be treated with some caution
and, like the selection of headphones or loudspeakers, the final
choice will be largely influenced by personal preferences. The
first consideration, obviously, is that the microphone must be
entirely compatible with the recorder and it is useless to select for
example, a low impedance microphone for use with a recorder
designed to accept only high impedance microphones. It is not
necessary to choose the most sensitive types of microphones for
the making of railway recordings; in fact such a choice can at
times be quite wrong. An over sensitive microphone may easily
be severely overloaded by a close, loud sound which will result in
horrible and incurable distortion. A less sensitive and,
incidentally, less expensive, microphone used in the same
conditions might have been able to cope with the loudest sounds
without distortion.

A keen photographer is unlikely to restrict himself to the use

of a single type of lens and a recordist would be unwise to rely on
only one type of microphone, since each type has characteristic
advantages, and the final choice will be dictated by various
conditions for each recording. It is often preferable to use omni-
directional microphones to give wide coverage of an open
location at the lineside, but at a large and busy station it is an
advantage to use directional microphones, such as cardioid
types, which can usefully reduce the recorded level of unwanted
background noise. It must be realised, however, that such
microphones are generally less directional to sounds of lower
frequencies. When directional microphones are used they must,
obviously, be panned to follow a moving object and this cannot

129

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

always be done easily when working single handed.

The positioning of microphones is of the utmost importance

for successful recording, and although useful general guidance is
given in text books, there are no absolutely definite rules. A great
many factors including the surroundings, the weather
conditions, possible sources of unwanted background noise, and
the speed at which the train is likely to be travelling, must all be
carefully considered, and ultimately a personal decision must be
made, based largely on previous experience and modified by the
prevailing conditions. If previous experience is lacking a great
deal can be gained by experimenting with different types of
microphone, used in various positions, in the widest possible
variety of locations.

Avoid, if possible, placing microphones too close to the track

when recording passing trains; a more distant position will
generally give a smoother and more satisfying result, because the
recording level will not have to be so sharply reduced to
accommodate the sudden peak of sound from the passing train.
Another disadvantage of close positioning is that the sounds of
the locomotive will probably be completely obscured for some
time by the sounds of the rolling stock.

When recording from a train it is usually advantageous to use

directional microphones, the optimum position for which is just
inside an open window at a point where, according to
aerodynamic laws, the air currents are minimal and a
microphone can pick up outside sounds without being buffeted
by wind. Try to choose a window which is likely to be on the lee
side of the train during the journey because, apart from the
reduced possibility of wind noise, the sounds of the locomotive
are carried by wind to a surprising extent and will be heard best
from the lee side of the train. Sometimes it is possible to achieve
good results from microphones placed right outside the train, but
even with the most efficient wind shields, which are obviously
necessary, there is a risk that the microphone diaphragm may be
at least partially paralysed by wind in extreme conditions. A
further disadvantage of completely exterior positioning is that
the results may be somewhat unrealistic from the point of view of
a passenger who might expect to hear a more familiar balance of

130

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

sounds. All too often, though, there is a lot of unwanted

background noise on a train and if it is impossible to find a
suitable and uncrowded window, there may be no alternative to
using an exterior microphone position. It will certainly be better
than nothing and for some parts of the journey at least, the
results may well be perfectly satisfying.

Weather conditions are of enormous importance in exterior

locations; wind strength and direction are totally unpredictable
problems and it is always essential to be prepared for the worst. It
is foolhardy to attempt any exterior recording, even on the
calmest day, without the insurance of at least a light windshield
on the microphone, A light breeze, blowing up unexpectedly at a
vital moment, or the turbulence set up by a passing train, may
ruin an otherwise perfect recording if the microphone is
unprotected. Windshields of varying design and efficiency are
supplied by most microphone manufacturers. The fabric covered
types are generally the most efficient, but are usually large, can
be costly and are not available for all types and makes of
microphone; the cheaper windshields, which are moulded from a
special plastic foam of known acoustic properties, are widely
available, easily fitted and give adequate protection in average
situations. The indiscriminate swathing of microphones in layers
of ordinary foam of unknown acoustic properties is certainly not
recommended, but an effective windshield can be quite easily
made at little cost. The essential principle is a cage which must
completely surround the microphone and be separated from it;
the whole cage is then covered in a fine meshed, silky material,
such as ladies' tights. Ideally two separated layers of material
should be used and to a certain extent the efficiency is increased
by enlarging the size of the cage, within practical limits.
Windshields constructed from various sizes of soup strainers,
covered with separated layers of nylon stocking material, were
used with various types of microphones for many years, both for
film location and railway recordings and invariably proved
effective in some of the most adverse conditions in exposed
locations.

If a windshield is not giving adequate protection in

exceptionally windy conditions it may be helpful to change to a

131

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

different type of microphone; for instance, sensitive condenser
microphones are notoriously affected by wind noise to a far
greater extent than dynamic types. The shape and size of a
microphone can also be a significant factor; a smaller
microphone will usually be less physically affected by wind and it
may also be inherently less susceptible to wind noise because
some small microphones have a poor bass response. In extreme
conditions the only solution may be to use such a microphone
and although the quality of the resulting recording may be
somewhat thin, it will be preferable to a fuller quality recording
overlaid by heavy bouts of wind noise and certainly much better
than no recording at all. Buildings, walls and even hedges may
provide useful shelter for microphones, but such objects also set
up echoes which may be troublesome or helpful and must always
be considered. An obvious disadvantage of sheltering
microphones in such a way is that they may also be screened
from wanted wind borne sounds and consequently a recording
made in such circumstances can be all too brief, though better
than nothing. It is quite useless sheltering microphones near
trees because the noise of the wind in the trees, which is always
more apparent to any microphone than to the optimistically
selective human ear, will probably ruin the recording anyway. In
extreme conditions it can be worth experimenting with
microphones in a low position, a few inches from the ground, but
remember that wind blowing through heather, shrubs, or long
grass can produce an astonishing amount of hiss, which will be
unfailingly recorded at an irritatingly high level if the
microphone is closely surrounded by such herbage. It is also
possible that some strange and unpredictable changes in sound
quality may occur when microphones are used in
unconventionally low positions. It is always worth
experimenting while waiting for conditions to improve, for some
surprisingly interesting results can be achieved in seemingly
impossible conditions.

Rain is one of the worst problems, quite apart from the

discomfort which it causes and the well known incompatibility of
electronic equipment and damp. A steady drizzle or light rain is
merely uncomfortable, so long as the equipment can be kept dry

132

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

and provided that the microphone windshield does not become

saturated. Heavy rain will cause excessively loud plops and thuds
if it falls on a windshield of any type and in such conditions the
microphone must be protected by a rain shield, made from some
heavy material such as felt or thick foam and secured as far as
possible above the microphone, consistent with protection.
Ordinary umbrellas are worse than useless as microphone rain
shields because the patter of rain falling on the taut surface will
be clearly heard.

For stereophonic recordings there are a number of different

conventions concerning the relationship between the
microphones, and a decision on which to adopt must be a matter
of personal choice, based on experience and on the prevailing
conditions. Provided that the important principles of stereo
recording are always considered there is no need to stick to rigid
rules. The placing of the microphones for the stereo recording of
The Triumph of an A4 Pacific was highly unconventional,
especially at the time, but, nevertheless, produced results which
critics and others considered realistic.

The correct positioning of microphones for stereo recordings

on exterior locations is not a simple matter, particularly where
trains moving over a wide stretch of varying surroundings are
concerned. In such circumstances it is almost inevitable that, no
matter where or how the microphones are placed, some phase
differences will occur at one or more points during the recording,
because as the train moves across the landscape its sounds will
be variously reflected from the surroundings. The major fault of
a 'hole in the middle' effect as the train goes past at the nearest
point can, however, be avoided by choice of suitable
microphones and by carefully positioning them with regard to
nearby objects, such as buildings or woods, which may throw
back echoes that can cause complete or partial cancellation of
sounds at various frequencies, leading to some very strange
results.

Stereo recordings are invariably best made with the

microphones on a stand or a boom arm in a fixed position; some
extraordinary and unwelcome results can occur if stereo
microphones are moved during a recording and it is more

133

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

satisfactory to let the subject do the moving than to pan the

microphones.

When recording for film production there is a constant

problem of compromise between placing microphones in an
optimum position for recording, and concealing them from the
camera, so a number of microphones are set up in various
positions and used through a mixer, individually or in
combinations of two or more, as appropriate. A similar
technique has been used for railway recordings from time to
time, particularly when equipment used to be so cumbersome
that it could not easily or quickly be moved, but the multi-
microphone method is inherently cumbersome and the
possibility of technical problems obviously increases if additional
equipment is used. It is always an anxious moment when a
remote microphone is faded in and this anxiety is considerably
increased when working on film productions, for which it is now
common practice to use a number of radio microphones which
are notoriously prone to develop sudden strange faults. If a
suitably static set-up can be arranged for railway recordings it is
sometimes possible to achieve most interesting results by using a
number of microphones with a mixer, always provided that the
result can be monitored on headphones, but if such monitoring
facilities are not available it is obviously pointless to attempt to
use a mixer. Generally it is preferable to take advantage of the
mobility of modern equipment and to change positions whenever
it may seem necessary, rather than be burdened with a mixer and
numerous microphones with cables, so inconveniently liable to
tangle, running in all directions.

The choice of lineside locations, so obviously important, is

often far from easy. Maps, such as the Ordnance Survey, are
most helpful, but they cannot give all the essential information,
and, before making an important 'one chance only' recording, a
location reconnaissance is well worthwhile, if at all possible, to
select in advance the positions most likely to be the most
satisfactory for various conditions of weather and wind
direction. Careful and intelligent choice of locations greatly
increase the chances of success, but all too often there are last
minute problems with noise from such unpredictable sources as

134

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

aircraft, road traffic, not heard until the wind changes direction,
or a tractor, which appears over a hill and starts working ever
closer backwards and forwards across an enormous field;
perhaps most inappropriate of all are noisy spectators and
transistor radios. Sometimes such things as bridges, walls,
cutting sides and embankments can be surprisingly effective as
baffles between the microphone and unwanted noises; it may be
helpful to use directional microphones, but the intrusive sound is
often reflected from an object in front of the microphone, partly
nullifying its directional advantages. Although highly
directional microphones can reduce background noise, they may
also produce an exceptionally dead and clinically unrealistic
recording which is uninspiring and possibly boring to hear more
than once.

Lineside telegraph wires are often troublesome for they may

be completely silent for hours, then suddenly start humming at a
most inopportune moment. If the microphone is anywhere near
the wires it will unfailingly pick up any humming which,
although probably unnoticed while a train goes past, can sound
unpleasantly like a serious equipment fault when the sounds of
the train diminish as it goes away into the distance. High voltage
overhead power lines must always be treated with suspicion and
given a reasonably wide berth, because they are usually
surrounded by a strong electrical field which, by induction in
microphones, cables or the recorder, can create a most
unpleasant hum, loud enough to ruin any recording.

Many background sounds will contribute to the atmosphere

and reality of railway recordings. The inclusion of such sounds
as signal arms, points, whistles and station announcements will,
if properly balanced in relation to the sounds of locomotives and
trains, greatly increase the interest of a recording. In the country
the sounds of animals and birds provide a perfect natural setting
for passing trains and are often sufficiently and strongly
individualistic to identify a setting in broad terms; for instance
on the Settle & Carlisle line, the background sounds in summer
or winter, will be quite different from those likely to be heard
beside a line in Southern England. Natural sounds are, however,
not always helpful; it was, for example, never possible for me to

135

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

find entirely suitable recording positions anywhere beside the

Brecon & Merthyr line on the famous seven mile, 925fl climb
between Talybont on Usk and Torpantau. To judge from maps it
appeared to be a superbly suitable, remote location, but in fact
was plagued by aircraft, swooping up and down the valley which
was filled with rushing streams and waterfalls. They could be
heard for considerable distances and created a continuous
background noise, normally pleasant, but in these circumstances
most unwelcome, because the sounds of the trains themselves
were masked, or interfered with, to such an extent that the
majority of recordings made in the area had to be rejected. When
judging the amount and type of background noise which may be
acceptable in a recording, it must always be remembered that
ears are selective but microphones are not. A background of
noise which may seem acceptable to the ear will consequently
often turn out to be totally unacceptable in a recording,
particularly if it is listened to some time later, without the
support of a visual image.

Sound recording as a profession has much to commend it;

each new problem keeps interest alive in a search for a
solution and there is, even now, a certain mystery attached to the
making of recordings. It still tends to be a somewhat secretive
process, perhaps because a recordist spends so much time
wearing headphones which isolate him from the outside world
and by so doing may, all too easily, induce a possibly dangerously
introspective outlook. Sound recording as a pastime can be
immensely rewarding and can even be a therapeutic antidote to
various stresses in much the same way as can fishing, other than
match angling. Location recording has some similarities to
fishing, with long periods of preparation and waiting, during
which there is ample opportunity to observe and enjoy the
surroundings, followed by the possible disappointment of a
missed opportunity or the excitement of the catch of a successful
and satisfying recording.

There are still plenty of opportunities for interesting

recordings of railway sounds, particularly in Britain with so
many preserved lines and steam-hauled special trains. Other
countries too have preserved lines and run steam-hauled specials

136

THE ART OF RAILWAY RECORDING

while, further afield, it is possible to find steam locomotives still

in commercial service. Even diesel locomotives are not without
interest, now that so many individual types are disappearing
much sooner than had been expected. It is doubtful whether any
diesel locomotive can ever have the same individuality and
personality as a steam locomotive and they most certainly cannot
produce anything like the same variety of fascinating sounds.
Nevertheless many of the withdrawn or threatened diesel
locomotive classes do already have strong supporters' clubs.

Changes on the railways and elsewhere take place at a

seemingly ever increasing rate and if there are any sounds now
which interest or inspire you it is surely worthwhile recording
them before they disappear. It is a thoroughly unpleasant
thought but, considering the nature and rate of recent changes,
it is by no means impossible that even some of those railways
which are still with us now could, all too easily and all too soon,
become nothing more than a memory.

137
Discography

Serial numbers were allocated to several records which, for

various reasons, were either not completed or were never issued,
therefore there are some breaks in the sequence of the 10 inch
Transacord records.

The Argo Transacord record catalogue numbers are shared

with other Argo records and consequently catalogue numbers of
records produced by Transacord for Argo do not necessarily
follow in sequence.

Records issued independently by Transacord Limited, between

November 1955 and November 1961 and sold only by direct mail
order. All deleted by December 1961,
10 inch 78rpm records

E/426-7 FREIGHT TRAINS

E/428-9 BIRMINGHAM-LEAMINGTON

E/440-1 THE CLASS A3 PACIFIC LOCOMOTIVE

E/442-3 FROM LONDON (EUSTON)

E/444-5 VENICE-MESTRE

E/451-2 THE LICKEY INCLINE-FREIGHT TRAINS

E/453-4 THE LICKEY INCLINE-PASSENGER TRAINS

E/455-6 THE KING CLASS LOCOMOTIVE

10 inch 33-^rpm LP records

5021-2 THE BULLEID PACIFIC LOCOMOTIVE

5023-4 THE CLASS A4 PACIFIC LOCOMOTIVE

5025-6 THE DUKEDOGS

5030-1 VICTORIA-CHATHAM

5032-3 THE LICKEY INCLINE

5034-5 THE WATUNGTON BRANCH

5036-7 THE LNW 0-8-0

5038-9 SOUNDS OF SHUNTING

5040-1 GREAT CENTRAL

5042-3 CASTLES

5044-5 KINGS

5046-7 A3 PACIFtCS

5048-9 ON THE FOOTPLATE

5050-1 THE MIDLAND COMPOUND

5052-3 TRAMWAY SOUNDS

138

DISCOGRAPHY

7 inch 33-jrpm records

c/1 000-1 EDWARD'S DAY OUT and EDWARD AND GORDON.

Railway stories, narrated by the author, the Reverend

Awdry, with sound effects. Produced for and issued by
Chiltern Records Ltd,

1002-3 LICKEY 1955

1004-5 BULLEID PACIFICS

12 inch 33-jrpm LP records. Originally issued independently by

Transacord; re-cut, re-pressed and re-issued by Argo, with new
and improved sleeves, in November 1961.

6000-1 THE WEST HIGHLAND LINE

6002-3 SHAP

6004-5 SOMERSET AND DORSET

Transacord 7 inch extended play 45rpm records issued by Argo but
now deleted and no longer available. Argo catalogue numbers and
titles.

(Some of these recordings have been, or will be, electronically re-

processed and re -issued on LP records in the Argo SPA 'World of
Railways' series.)

GRESLEY PACIFICS

N7 ON THE JAZZ

SOUTH EASTERN STEAM

NARROW GAUGE ON THE COSTA BRAVA

DUKEDOGS AND THE CITY

STEAM TRACTION ENGINES

JEANIE DEANS AND OXFORD {Clyde and Thames

Steamers)

SOUTH WESTERN STEAM

ON THE ABERDEEN FLYER

HUNTS, SHIRES AND SANDRINGHAMS

G5s ON THE PUSH AND PULL

THE 11.15 FOR TORPANTAU

WITH THE MAIL TO AVI E MO RE

CALEDONIAN ENGINES

ON THE FOOTPLATE OF A KING

THE SOUTHERN SCHOOLS

PACIFIC POWER

THE GLENFIELD GOODS

THE SNOWDON MOUNTAIN RAILWAY

GREAT NORTHERN ENGINES

GRANGES AND MANORS

THE ATLANTICS AND THE TERRIER

NORTH EASTERN ENGINES

CASTLES IN THE CHILTERNS

GRANTHAM, 1957

STANIER PACIFICS

BULLEID PACIFICS
EAF

33

EAF

34

EAF

35

EAF

36

EAF

37

EAF
38

EAF

39

EAF

43

EAF

59

EAF

70

EAF

71
EAF

72

EAF

73

EAF

74

EAF

75

EAF

76

EAF
77

EAF

78

EAF

79

EAF

80

EAF

81

EAF

82
EAF

83

EAF

84

EAF

86

EAF

88

EAF

87
139

DISCOGRAPHY

TRAINS ON THE NARROW GAUGE

D FOR DIESELS

LNW ENGINES

GREAT CENTRAL ENGINES

TWO CASTLES FROM PLYMOUTH

TRAINS IN TROUBLE

ENGINES ON THE CONTINENT

THE SOUNDS OF SHUNTING

TRAMWAY SOUNDS

MIDLANO ENGINES

THE 02 TANKS

CHANGE AT TEMPLECOMBE
THE HIGHLANDERS

PANNIERS AND PRAIRIES

ROYAL SCOTS AND JUBILEES

THIS IS YORK

TRAINS FROM TYNE DOCK

THE BRITANNIAS AND THE CLANS

SOUTHERN ENGINES

DOUBLE HEADED

KINGS IN THE CHILTERNS

ON A BANKER FROM BEATTOCK

MIXED TRAIN TO ROSPORDEN

INDUSTRIAL ENGINES

THE WDs

EXHIBITIONIST ENGINES

LNER PACIFICS

THE SOUNDS OF BRESSINGHAM

NORTH BRITISH ENGINES

STEAM IN THE WORTH VALLEY

THE HALLS

WORTH VALLEY ENGINES

CLUN CASTLE AND KOLHAPUR

Argo Transacted recordings

Sounds of the Steam Age

(For details of record sizes and speeds etc see code at end}.

TR 101 THE WEST HIGHLAND LINE

Steam locomotives of the former NBR, LNER and LMS, at work at various

locations on the West Highland line, during winter and spring, in the

1950s.

TR 102 SHAP

Ex LMS and other steam locomotives, heard from the lineside, at various

locations between Tebay and Shap Summit, between 1958 and 1960.

TR 103 THE SOMERSET AND DORSET

Steam locomotives of various types, at work on the S&D line, at different

locations between Evercreech Junction and Masbury in 1956 and a

EAF

97

EAF

98

EAF

99

EAF

116

EAF

100
EAF

117

EAF

118

EAF

119

EAF

121

EAF

127

EAF
124

EAF

125

EAF

126

EAF

128

EAF

129

EAF

130
EAF

131

EAF

132

EAF

135

EAF

136

EAF

137

EAF
138

EAF

139

EAF

140

EAF

141

EAF

144

EAF

145
EAF

146

EAF

148

EAF

149

EAF

150

EAF

151

EAF
152

DISCOGRAPHY

journey on the double headed Pines Express, between Bath and

Evercreech Junction.

TR 104 WEST OF EXETER

Ex GWR steam locomotives, of various classes, heard from the lineside at

Dainton and Exeter and from inside the signal boxes at Tigley and Exeter,
in 1957 and 1958.

ZTR 105 TRAINS IN THE NIGHT

Steam hauled trains in the night, in winter and summer, in 1959, 1961
and 1 962, at Bromsgrove, on the GW&GC line, on the Central Wales line
and on the Carlisle-Edinburgh line.

ZTR 106 NEWFOUNDLAND HEADS THE WAVER LEY

A journey on the Waverley Express, hauled by Jubilee 4-6-0
Newfoundland, between Hellifield and Blea Moor and lineside recordings
at Dent and Ribblehead, in 1960,

TR 107 THE GREAT EASTERN

Steam locomotives of various ex Great Eastern classes, at work on Great

Eastern lines in the 1950s.

ZTR 108 THE TRIUMPH OF AN A4 PACIFIC

A journey on the SLS special train, headed by Sir Nigel Gresley driven by
Bill Hoole, on the record breaking run between Kings Cross and Doncaster
and Kings Cross, in May 1959,

ZTR 109 TRAINS IN THE HILLS

Steam locomotives of the London Midland and Western regions, heard

from the lineside at Shap, Blea Moor. Abergavenny and on the Lickey

Incline.

ZTR 1 13 RHYTHMS OF STEAM

Steam locomotives, of various types, heard from the lineside, at Tyndrum,

Tyne Dock, Hitchin. Templecombe, Montrose, and Barkston Junction. A

journey on a special train, hauled by the Midland Compound 4-4-0, No

1000.

TR 1 14 WORKING ON THE FOOTPLATE

Journeys on the footplate of four steam locomotives. An A4 Pacific with

Aberdeen-Glasgow express, a V2 2-6-2 with an Edinburgh-Dundee
freight train, a Class 5 4-6-0 with a Swansea-Shrewsbury passenger train
and an 8F 2-8-0 with a Shrewsbury-Swansea freight train.

ZTR 1 15 THE POWER OF STEAM

Steam locomotives of various types, heard from the lineside at Ardlui,
Scout Green, Basingstoke, Minnavey Colliery, Bargany, on the Lickey
Incline and on the Carlisle-Edinburgh line.

140

141

DISCOGRAPHY

TR 1 17 THE GREAT WESTERN

Various classes of ex Great Western steam locomotives, heard from the

lirveside at Hatton, Abergavenny, Chalford, Princes Risborough and

Evershot.

ZTR 118 TRAINS TO REMEMBER »KZTC 118

Steam hauled trains remembered. During a night at Grantham Station, on
the Scarborough-Whitby-Pickering line, on the Central Wales line, on the
Lickey Incline, on the Stranraer-Ayr line and at Talerddig Station.

ZTR 121 ECHOES OF ENGINES •KZTC 121

Steam locomotives at work during an evening, night and morning at

Gresford. At Montrose, Okehampton and on the Carlisle-Edinburgh line.
Inside the signal box at Meldon Junction.

ZTR 123 COPPER CAPPED ENGINES

Various ex GWR steam locomotives at work at Talerddig, Basingstoke,

Llanvihangel. Princes Risborough, Gresford and Evershot Tunnel.

TR 124 VIVE LA VAPEUR

SNCF steam locomotives of various types at Breaute, Beuzeville,

Argentan, St Germain des Fosses and Eygurande. A steam hauled journey
on a steeply graded line in Auvergne.

ZTR 125 THE KNOTTY

A musical documentary which, in words, songs and sounds, tells the story

of early railway days, from the stage coach to the amalgamation. Adapted

from Peter Cheeseman's production at the Victoria Theatre. Stoke on

Trent.

ZTR 126 THE RAILWAY TO RICCARTON

Steam locomotives of various ex LNER types, at work on the steeply

graded Carlisle-Edinburgh line, the Waverley route, between
Newcastleton and Hawick, in the spring of 1961.

ZTR 128 STEAM ON THE LICKEY INCLINE

Steam locomotives of various types, working goods and passenger trains

on the Lickey Incline, between Bromsgrove and Blackwell, in 1959.

ZTR 129 ENGINES ON THE BUNDESBAHN

Steam locomotives of various types, working goods and passenger trains

at many different locations on the DB, in West Germany in 1970.

TR 130 ORIENT EXPRESS

A steam hauled journey on the Orient Express through the Balkans to

Istanbul. Steam locomotives of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey
heard from the train and from the lineside, en route.

142

DISCOGRAPHY

ZTR 131 TRAINS IN THE FIFTIES

Steam locomotives at work on BR, in the closing years of the 1950s. At

Hitchin, Durham, Abergavenny, Beattock, Basingstoke and Llangunllo.

TR 134 NORTH OF KINGS CROSS

A variety of ex LNER steam locomotives, at work in the 1950s and in
1961. At Kings Cross, Hitchin, Peterborough, Stoke Tunnel, Retford,
Edinburgh and Whitrope.

ZTR 138 ENGINES IN GERMANY

East German and West German Pacific locomotives and various other
steam locomotive types, at work on the DB in West Germany. A
companion record to ZTR 1 29 Engines on the Bundesbahn.

TR 140 ENGINES FROM DERBY AND CREWE

Steam locomotives of a variety of ex LMS types, at work at many different

locations on British Railways, during the years between 1 955 and 1 965.

ZTR 143 RAILWAYS ROUND THE CLOCK

Steam locomotives at work on British Railways, by day and night, at

Gresford, Templecombe, Ribblehead, Barkston Junction and Scout

Green. A footplate journey, on a Britannia Pacific, on the Ayr-Stranraer

line.

ZTR 148 STEAM IN ALL DIRECTIONS »KZTC 148

Steam locomotives of many different types, at work on railways in

England, Scotland. Wales, Germany. Italy, Romania and Yugoslavia.

ZTR 149 STEAM THROUGH ALL SEASONS

Steam locomotives at work in the spring, summer, autumn and winter. On
British Railways at Barkston Junction, Llanvihangel, Princes Risborough,
Bromsgrove, Knucklas and on the climb to Whitrope Summit. One of the
famous Maffei Pacifies in Romania, a 2-8-0 in the Dolomites and a 2- 1 0-0
in Germany.

ZFA 77 PACIFIC POWER

LNER, LMS, SR and BR Pacifies at work on British Railways.

ZFA 153 TALYLLYN TRAINS

Five steam locomotives at work on the narrow gauge Tatyllyn Railway in

Wales.

ZFA 154 SOUNDS OF THE FESTINIOG

Four of the FR steam locomotives at work on the narrow gauge Festiniog

Railway, in Wales, with passenger and goods trains.

The World of Railways' records

SPA 103 THE WORLD OF STEAM »KCSP 103

Steam locomotives at work on railways in Britain, at Templecombe, on the
Paddington-Birmingham line, at Bromsgrove, on the Waverley route and
at Shap Summit. On railways abroad, In Spain, Germany and Turkey.

143
DISCOGRAPHY

SPA 211 THE WORLD OF STEAM VOL 2

Steam locomotives at work on railways in Britain, at Basingstoke, near

Montrose and at Biea Moor. On railways abroad, in Romania, Yugoslavia,
France and Germany.

SPA 337 THE WORLD OF STEAM VOL 3

Steam Traction Engines and a Fairground Roundabout Organ, of the

Victorian era. On board a Paddle Steamer in Switzerland. Steam
locomotives on railways in Italy, Germany and England.

SPA 438 CHANGING TRAINS «KCSP 438

Steam and Diesel locomotives, of various types, at work at different

locations on 8R between 1 957 and 1 966. A journey in the cab of the High
Speed Train, during a 125mph test run, in February 1975.

SPA 439 STEAM LOCOMOTION - Rail 150 «KCSP 439

The Locomotion replica and a variety of other steam locomotives, the
majority of which either took part in the Rail 1 50 Anniversary Cavalcade,
or are representative of types exhibited at Shildon, during the 150th
Anniversary celebrations.

SPA 440 GWR •KCSP 440

Steam locomotives of various ex GWR classes, at work on BR between

1955 and 1963 at Abergavenny, Dainton, Tigley, Ruabon, Saunderton,
Cm mlin, Aberystwyth, Talerddig, Princes Risboroughand Hattonandona
journey between Totnes and Plymouth.

SPA 461 GREAT CENTRAL «KCSP 461

Steam locomotives of the former GCR and LNER lines at work on former

Great Central and other lines on British Railways, during the 1950s.

SPA 462 SOUTHERN STEAM «KCSP 462

Steam locomotives of many ex Southern Railway classes at work at

various locations on BR with goods and passenger trains, in the 1950s,

SPA 463 LMS «KCSP 463

Steam locomotives of the former LMS at work on BR at Euston Station in

1 955. At Blea Moor, Ribblehead. Marsden and Bromsgrove. On the climb
to Shap Summit. On the Abergavenny-Merthyr line and between Perth
and Gleneagles.

SPA 499 VAPEUR EN FRANCE »KCSP 499

Steam locomotives of various classes, at work on the SNCF and other

lines, in Northern, Central and Southern France, between 1959 and 1975.

SPA 506 LNER #KCSP 506

Steam locomotives of the London & North Eastern Railway, at work on

British Railways between 1956 and 1961 at Grantham, Peterborough
Whitrope Summit and Hitchin.
144

DISCOGRAPHY

SPA 529 THIS IS YORK •KCSP 529

The sounds of a great station: York during the steam age, in 1957 and
with diesel traction, including Inter City 125 in 1977, the centenary year
of the present station.

SPA 530 A DOUBLE HEAD OF STEAM «KCSP 530

Steam locomotives, with passenger and goods trains, mostly double
headed, at many different locations on British Railways, between 1956
and 1 966, The GNR Atlantic Henry Oakley with double headed trains on
the KWVR in 1977.

SPA 557 CASTLES AND KINGS «KCSP 557

GWR Castle class and King class 4-6-0 locomotives at work on British
Railways between 1956 and 1967 at Hatton, Bristol Temple Meads,
Datnton Tunnel, Coton Hill, Sapperton, in the Chiltern Hills, at Exeter St
Davids, and on the footplate of King Edward VIII.

SPA 563 PACIFIC POWER »KCSP 563

LNER, LMS, SR and BR Pacifies at work on BR between 1 956 and 1 976;

including most of the recordings previously issued on the EP ZFA 77, with
other recordings not previously issued. SNCF, DB, and DR Pacifies at work
in France and in Germany.

SPA 564 TRAINS IN TROUBLE «KCSP 564

Steam locomotives in various kinds of difficulties, with passenger and

goods trains, on British Railways and in Austria and Yugoslavia.

SPA 572 MIDLAND AND NORTH WESTERN •KCSP 572

Steam locomotives of the Midland, London & North Western and LMS

railways at work at various locations on BR between 1955 and 1975.

TR = 12 inch LP Mono recording

ZTR - 12 inch LP Stereo recording

ZFA - 7 inch EP Stereo recording

SPA - 12 inch LP Stereo or electronically re-processed stereo recordings

•KZTC and KCSP - stereo cassettes, these are available for all records

indicated by the addition of •cassette numbers.

145
Index

ji

'A 1 ' Pacific locomotive, 93

'A3' Pacific locomotive, 15, 38,

63, 65, 79,93

4 A4' Pacific locomotive, 16, 38,

63, 72, 79, 82, 93-7

'A5' 4-6-2 T locomotive, 63, 64
Aberdeen Flyer, The, 95, 96
Abergavenny-Merthyr line, 76
Adams 4-4-2 T locomotive, 75
AFPU (Army FUm & Photo Unit)

22-6, 28, 30
Aldred, John, 26, 28, 108, 125
Allen, Cecil J., 82
American railway records, 55, 56,

76
Argo Record Company, 44, 79,
89-91,95,96
Atlantic 4-4-2 locomotive, 20, 7 1
Austria, 42, 76, 77, 110, 116
Austrian locomotives, 42, 77,

110, 114-17
Awdry, The Rcvd W. (railway

stories), 62
Axon, John G. C. (driver), 78, 79
Axon, The Ballad of John Axon

(LP record), 78, 79

'B 1 ' locomotive, 93

'B12' locomotive, 24, 79
'B17* locomotive, 72
Barkston June, 10
Basingstoke, 18, 29, 63, 83
BBC, 25,27,43, 78,81,84, 87
BDZ, see Bulgaria
Beattock, 10, 75,77
Beeching, Doctor, 95
Belgium, 25-7, 76
Belsen concentration camp, 28
'Black Five 1 5 MT 4-6-0
locomotive, 24, 33, 97

Bletchley, 18, 48
Boreham wood, .see Elstree
British Railways Regions, see pre-
nationalisation ownership of

lines concerned
'Britannia' Pacific locomotive, 79
Bulgaria, 109, 110
Bulleid Pacific locomotive, 63, 66

Caledonian 0-6-0 locomotive, 75

Carlisle- Ed in burgh line, see

Waverley route
'Castle' 4-6-0 locomotive, 63, 91,

92
Central Wales line, 17, 18, 32, 33,

95
CFR, see Romania
Changing Trains 'World of

Railways' LP record, 15
Cinema, see films
City of Truro 4-4-0 locomotive,

74
Class '2' 2-6-0 locomotive, 93
'Claud Hamilton' 4-4-0

locomotive, 23
CLC (Cheshire Lines Committee),

64
Compound 4-4-0 locomotive, 34,

64, 84
Cook Laboratories USA, 55, 56
'Crab' 2-6-0 locomotive, 98
Cross, Derek, 72, 97, 98
Crown Film Unit, 22, 33

'D' 4-4-0 locomotive, 71

'D20' 4-4-0 locomotive, 64
'D49' 4-4-0 locomotive, 94
Dainton and Rattery, 74
Daly, Kevin, 62
Danish 0-6-OT locomotive, 31

147

INDEX

DB and DR, see Germany

DBS, see Denmark

D Day, 23, 24
Decca Record Company, 44, 62,

89-91,95,96
demobilisation, from army, 31
Denham, 20, 33
Denmark, 3 1
diesel motive power, 15, 34, 48,

91,92,98,99
'Director* 4-4-0 locomotive, 64,

78
disc recording equipment, 25,

43-5, 56
'Dukedog' 4-4-0 locomotive, 79
Dutch 0-6-QT locomotive, 26

'El' 4-4-0 locomotive, 71

Eastern Region BR, see LNER
Edinburgh-Carlisle line, see

Waverley route
editing of recordings, 1 28, 1 29
'8F" 2-8-0 locomotive, 17, 33, 78,

79, 84, 1 1 1
Eisenhower, General Eisenhower's

special train, 24
Elstree, 33, 34
end of steam on BR, 48, 59, 99
Euston Stn, 55
Evcrcreech June, 67

films and railways, 7, 16, 37-42,

47
film sound tracks, 7, 16, 19, 22,

25-7, 35, 37-43, 46, 53, 54,

76,77,81,88,96,97, 134
'5MT* 4-6-0 locomotive, 24, 33,

97
Folkestone, 69, 70
footplate journeys, 23, 24, 79, 80,

92,97, 104
Forth Bridge, 97
"4300' class 2-6-0 locomotive, 74
Fowler 2-6-4T locomotive, 32
France, 14, 22, 24, 25, 37, 38, 40,

74, 100-4
French locomotives, 14, 40,

101-4, 110

frequency response, 126, 127

FS, tee Italy
'G5' 0-4-4T locomotive, 71

Gale, John, 87, 92

Garratt locomotive, 51, 72, 107,

108
Gazelle S & MR locomotive, 24
GCR 2-8-0 locomotive, 65, 66
Germany, 27-31, 77, 120, 121
Giesl-Gieslingen, Doctor A., 116
Gingell, Sam (driver), 14, 71, 75
'Glen' 4-4-0 locomotive, 8 1 , 82
Glen field, 97
Gordon Highlander 4-4-0

locomotive, 98
Gramophone, The, 83, 87, 91
Grantham, 18,64,79,83
Greece, 109, 110
Greenfield, Edward, 91
Gresford, 97

Gresley Pacifies, EP record, 91

GW & GC (Great Western & Great
Central joint line), 20, 21, 34-6,
43,48,56,64,91,92,98,99
GWR and BR Western Region, 1 3,
21,32,36,42,43,48,74,75,
79,80,83,91,92,96-9, 136
GWR 2-8-0 locomotive, 21
Hardy, Richard, 71, 100, 101

Hatton, 92

Hitchin, 18,64, 83, 101

Holland, 26, 27, 29

Hoole, Bill (driver), 14, 82, 83, 96

HR 4-6-0 locomotive No 103, 98

Isle of Wight, 97
Italy, 35, 47, 121, 122

'J 15" 0-6-0 locomotive, 20, 71

'J36* 0-6-0 locomotive, 93, 94
Johnson 0-4-4T locomotive, 67
Jones Goods 4-6-0 locomotive, 98
'Jubilee' 4-6-0 locomotive, 34, 84
17., see Yugoslavia

'K3' 2-6-0 locomotive, 93

INDUX

•K4' 2-6-0 locomotive, 98

'King' 4-6-0 locomotive, 63, 80,
92
(Cord a, Sir Alexander, 20
Knotty, The Knotty LP record,

62
Koch, Ludwig, 43
KWVR (Worth Valley Railway),

41,99

The Lady Vanishes (film), 42

LBSC Atlantic locomotive, 20, 71
Lean, David, 39, 46
Leicester, West Bridge, 97
Lickey Incline, 59, 60, 72, 77, 83
Lickey Banker 0-10-0 locomotive,

59,60
Link, Winston, 76
Lion, The, L & MR 0-4-2

locomotive, 37
LMS and BR London Midland and
Scottish Regions, 24, 32-4, 42,
43, 48, 55, 64, 70, 74-6, 83,
84, 95-8
LMS diesel locomotive No 10,000,

34
LMS 'World of Rail ways' LP

record, 55, 96
LNER and BR Eastern, North
Eastern and Scottish Regions,
20, 22-4, 38, 64-6, 76, 79-83,
95-8
LNWR locomotives, 70, 74, 76
locations for recording, choice of,

134-6
locomotives:

British locomotives: BR, 79,

83,93, 99; CR, 75: GCR,
63-6, 78; GER, 23,24, 71,79;
GNoSR, 98; GWR, 21,63, 70,
74,75,79,80,83,91,92,96,
99; HR, 98 ,Lion, 37; LMS R,
17,24,32-4,59,60,64,66,
67, 70, 72, 74-6, 78, 79, 83,
84,95-8, lll;LNER, 15, 16,
20,23,24,38,63-6,71-3,
78-83, 92-8; LNWR, 70, 74,
76;L&YR,70;MR, 59, 60,

67, 83, 84, 97"; N BR, 81, 93,

94;NER, 64, 71,72; S&DJR,
66, 67;SE&CR, 71 ; S & MR,
24; SR, 20,63,66, 69-73, 75;
WD, 26;

Continental locomotives:
Austrian, 42, 77, 110, 114-17;
Belgian, 25; Bulgarian, 109;
Danish, 31 ; Dutch, 26, French,
38,40, 101-4, 110; German,
29, 117, 120, 121; Italian, 35,
47, 121, 122; Romanian, 116,
117, 1 19; Turkish, 110-13;
UNRRA, 35; Yugoslavian, 109,
114, 115
(British and some foreign,
locomotives are also indexed
individually, as referred to in the
text by class, name or type: eg,
Garratt; Pacific; 'Jubilee'; Pannier
Tank; D49; 9 (Nine) F, etc)
London Film Productions, 20, 33
London's Last Trams LP record,

44
London Midland Region BR, see

LMS
L& YR 0-6-0ST locomotive, 70

magnetic recording, see tape

Marples, Ernest, 95
MGM, 33, 34
microphones, choice of, 1 24,

129-35
Midland Compound 4-4-0

locomotive, 84
mixers, need for and use of, 1 34
Murder on the Orient Lx press,
film, 39, 40
Music and films, 43
music and railways, 8,9, 1 26

Newfoundland Heads the

Waverley LP record, 84, 91

•9F' 2-10-0 locomotive, 83, 99

Noise Abatement Society, the, 9

noise pollution, 9-1 1

North Eastern Region BR, see

LNER

148

149

INDEX
North Staffordshire Railway, 62
North Yorkshire Moors Railway,

98
NS, see Holland
*N7* 0-6-2T locomotive, 80

OBB, see Austria

Observer, 87

optical sound recording system,

20, 26, 34, 35, 44

'Orient Express", 39, 40, 47,

109-11, 116
Orient Express LP record, 142

'Pacific' locomotives: 'AT, 93;

'A3', 15,38,63, 65,79,93;

'A4', 16,38,63,72,79,82,

83, 93-7; Bulleid, 63, 66;

'Britannia', 79; DB and DR

(German), 121;LMS, 72, 95,

96;Maffei(CFR), I17;SNCF
(France), 101, 102
pannier tank locomotive, 70, 75,

83
Paris Express LP record, 1 07
Paris, liberation of, 25
Peterborough, 65, 101
photography, 12, 16, 23-5, 28-31,

34,36,52, 124, 125, 129, see

also A FPU
Pinewood Studios, 22
prairie tank locomotive, 96
preserved railways, 41, 98, 99,

136
Preston, 70
Princes Risborough, 34-6, 48, 9 1 ,

92, 98, 99

"Q7' 0-8-0 locomotive, 72

Railway Children, The, (film), 41

Railway Magazine, 57
Rattery and Dainton, 74
RCTS (Railway Correspondence

& Travel Society), 83, 95, 96

recording equipment, see disc,
optical, tape, microphones,

mixer

recording equipment, choice of,

127, 128
recording for films, see film sound

tracks, films and railways

records, early 78 rpm and LP

issues, 56, 60, 6 1

records, American railway records,

55, 56, 76
record reviews, see The

Gramophone
RENFE, see Spain
Renoir, Jean, 38
Reseau Breton, 104
Retford, 65,66
Rhine, crossing of the, 28
Ribblehead, 16, 83, 84, 94, 95
Romania, 1 16-20
'Royal Scot' 4-6-0 locomotive, 98

'Schools' 4-4-0 locomotive, 73

Scotland, 75, 76,81,82,92-8
Scottish Region BR, see LMS and
LNER
S & DJR 2-8-0 locomotive, 66, 67
S & DJR, Somerset & Dorset line,

66, 67, 83
Settle & Carlisle line, 16, 83, 84,

94,95,99, 13S
Shap, 10, 16,74,77,83,92
Shop LP record, 87, 91
signal box and signal, sounds of,

13, 15, 128

SLS (Stephenson Locomotive

Society), 76, 82, 95,96, 98

S & MR (Shropshire &.

Montgomeryshire Railway), 24
SNCF, see France
Somerset and Dorset, LP record,

87,91
Southern Region BR, see SR
Spain, 48, 51, 107, 108
SR and BR Southern Region, 19,

42,48,63,66,69-71,73,75,

83
steam, end of on BR, see end of
steam
Steele Road, 92-4
Stephens, Colonel, 24

150

INDEX

Stephenson, Brian, 94, 120, 121

stereo, early recordings, 80-3, 91
stereo recording technique, 133

Talerddig, 97

tape-recording equipment, 43-8,

51,53,55,65,66,73,74,

79-82, 100, 122, 123

Tay Bridge, 97
TCDD.jee Turkey
Templecombe, 18, 66, 67, 83
This is York 'World of Railways'

LP record, I 5
'3F' 0-6-0 locomotive, 67
'T9' 4-4-0 locomotive, 72
Tra in s It lustra ted, 57
Trains in the Night LP record, 9 1
Trains to Remember LP record,

98
trams, 25, 44
Triumph of an A 4 Pacific, LP

record, 82, 133

Turkey, 39, 40, 109-13
'2F' 0-6-0 locomotive, 97
'2P' 4-4-0 locomotive, 67, 74

UNRRA locomotives, 35
Usill, Harley, 89, 90, 96

'V2' 2-6-2 locomotive, 38, 65, 72,

73, 92, 93, 97

Vapeur en France 'World of

Railways' LP record, 107

Vive la Vapeur LP record, 1 07

Wainwright 'D' 4-4-0 locomotive,

71
Wales, 17, 18, 32, 33, 74, 76, 79,

95,97, 136
Walker, Colin, 75, 96
Watlington branch line, 36, 74
Waverley route, 16, 92-4
'WD' 2-8-0 locomotive, 26
Western Region BR, see GWR
West Highland line, 76, 8 1 , 82
West Highland Line, LP record,

87,91
West of Exeter, LP record, 91
Wilcox, Herbert, 37
Wilmot, Chester, 27
Wimbush, Roger, 61, 83
Wind in the Willows, The, LP

record, 89
Working on the Footplate, LP

record, 97

York Station, 15, 16

Yugoslavia, 40, 109, 110, 114,
115

151
FORGOTTEN RAILWAYS SERIES

In their day these forgotten railways were

important links in the economic and social
life of their region. This series recalls the
heyday of such railways, the battles
surrounding their genesis, the lovable eccen-
tricities of their operation, the places where
enough still lingers to recapture the
atmosphere of earlier years.

THECHILTERNS&COTSWOLDS

R Davies and M D Grant

EASTANGLIA

R S Joby

EAST MIDLANDS

P Howard Anderson

NORTH EAST ENGLAND

K Hoole

NORTH & MID WALES

Rex Christiansen

SCOTLAND
John Thomas

SOUTH EAST ENGLAND

H P White

SOUTH WALES

James Page

Printed in the UK

THE SOUTHERN KING ARTHUR FAMILY

S Nock

The King Arthur class locomotives appeared in the midst of the Southern's
publicity campaign of the mid-1920s as a development of an LSWR design of
1918. In their early years they failed to live up to expectations but modi-
fications produced solid reliable engines capable of tackling the best in top
line express duties on Kent and South West main lines. Mr Nock describes in
his popular manner the development of the original design, the problems and
how they were overcome, maintenance, and performance in service of this
well-liked type and the H15 and S15 freight counterparts included in the
family. His text is well illustrated with tables, diagrams, and photographs.
Locomotive Monographs series
248 x 171mm Illustrated
THE GWR STARS. CASTLES AND KINGS

(New revised edition)

O S Nock

Now published in a single lavishly illustrated volume dealing with some of the
best-loved locomotives ever to run on rails, Mr Nock tells, with a wealth of
technical detail, of the factors that led to the establishment of the broad prin-
ciples, and to the superb detail of the original design developed to its maximum
extent in the King class. He draws upon many official and unofficial sources
in describing 60 years of GW locomotive progress.
247 x 184mm Illustrated

THE ROYAL SCOTS AND PATRIOTS OF THE LMS

O S Nock

The Royal Scot 4-6-0s were born out of the interdepartmental strife that beset
the LMS in the 1920s, yet despite their speedy design and construction they
went straight into express service. For a decade they were the principal loco-
motives of the LMS tackling the heaviest and fastest traiffs ftn the system. Even
with the advent of the Pacifies the Scots, later much rebuilt, continued on
top line work until the end of steam. O S Nock tells the*stqry of this famous
class, and their smaller sisters the Patriots, known also as the Baby Scots.
224 x 171mm Illustrated
DAVID t,

CHaRLI$