Conserving Heritage - The People of Workington
Willie Curnow
Willie started in 1940 (retired in 1985) and went on loan to Rugby during the war. Half a dozen men went there from Workington. He had to come back when he was made a booked fireman (it was the rule that you had to return to your home depot). It could take years to make the grade. “You could spend fifteen years with a shovel in your hand before you made passed fireman.”
“You could have a dozen of the same class of engine but there was always one which would not steam. No one could tell you why. Some engines would sweat when they were lit up.”
“When you make a mate, when they start they become a mate for life. You have a regular fireman.”
Often loco men would say the coal was better at Carlisle than Workington and engines would be coaled in the city even if they didn’t need to be. The coal locally had a lot of metal in it. “You could take off from Workington and get to Maryport with a firebox full of ash.”
There was a different attitude to railway life at Workington compared to Carlisle though. At Carlisle the locomen thought they were above the guards, but here if you were booked off shed to work a train the guard would complete the driver’s ticket detailing the consist. In return the fireman would carry a “shovelful of fire” to the brake van to light the guard’s stove. “That was how we were brought up here,” says Willie. The foremen were also good. One in particular knew how to handle the men. “I recall men in a cabin playing dominoes or something when he came in,” says Willie, “He would say, when you’ve finished will someone go and do that job, and someone would get up and do it.”
“I used to fire for a big fella – and the railcars came along to work the Penrith to Keswick line. He was trained for them. Then one afternoon when I was spare he asked me along to learn. He said he would drive to Cockermouth, get off and go home, and I could take the train on to Penrith and bring it back!”
He remembers shed boys being allowed to move brand new diesels around, even though they were worth around half a million pounds each!
As an interesting aside the locomotive, driver and fireman of the train of landmines which blew up at Bootle in March 1945 came from Workington. The fireman, Norman Stubbs was awarded a George medal. The Driver, Harold Goodall was killed. Harold had done a shift swap with Herbert White, another Workington man.
“After the war the machines had been through a lot and you put up with the condition of things because you knew there was nothing better. Some of the Class 8s had particularly bad axles. Some work came from building the hump marshalling yard at Carlisle. There were 4 or 6 of us in the link working the trains. One day I had a black 5 fresh out the works and found I couldn’t move it. Twenty ton wagons had been filled with 45 tons!”
He preferred being spare. In a regular link it was always the same. You would see the same cows in the same field! Passenger work was the same. “You would start waiting for the regulars – but you could make the time up.”