Morning everyone! Hope we’re well 😁 I saw this posted on a Facebook group, but my Yorkshire mind found it so funny I had to share it on here! A beautiful summer evening in 1978 at York and a good selection of miniature semaphore shunting signals. I was waiting for the freight train that you can just see in the background (top left) when I heard another train approaching. I was surprised to see a Class 31 leaning into Severus Curve on 1N31 the 1736 Sheffield - Newcastle (the rear portion of 1E63 1135 Poole-Leeds/Newcastle). My scribbled notes say 31 170 but not 100% sure. What I am sure of was that when I was at York we had a job to Sheffield and the return working was 1N31. Not many trains split into two portions in our area (I know that other areas especially the Southern had a lot more services that would split at various locations) so the station announcer always made several announcements at Sheffield to avoid any confusion. I remember one afternoon I was with my Driver walking across the platform at Sheffield to get to our locomotive (in the centre road) which we were going to use for 1N31 when one of the platform staff made the announcement in his strong South Yorkshire accent “Attention people! The train approaching platform fow-er is for Leeds and Newcastle. The front fow-er coaches are for Wakefield and Leeds, and the ar@e end is for York, Darlington and Newcastle!” He didn’t realise what he had said, although a lot of people were still laughing when he walked back onto the platform, but I’m sure nobody got on the wrong half of the train that afternoon!

Posted by Dylan Sanderson at 2021-11-23 10:33:10 UTC