Holbeck sheds
Back in the Fifties, my best pal, nicknamed Bonzo, was only person who could have persuaded me to risk life and limb
plus other unmentionables as we scaled perimeter walls (embedded with broken
glass) to gain unlawful entry in to engine sheds. They called it 'bunking' -
today's equivalent of shed bashing - which, apart from the occasional foray
into petty villainy on Mischief Night, was the closest I ever came to
juvenile delinquency.
With hindsight, our behaviour was more impish than evil - something of a
jolly jape, if you like - yet the blatant way we trespassed on railway
property was no less disconcerting for that.
Out of all the sheds we visited in the Leeds area, the main target on our
agenda was the London Midland Region's motive power depot at Holbeck. The
shed was formerly shed-coded 20A, until it came under the auspices of the
North Eastern Region in 1957, and it was subsequently re-coded 55A, along
with its sub-depots bearing suffixes B-G in the regional reshuffle. |
Holbeck shed : David Hey
 The view from Nineveh Road overlooking Holbeck shed yard was a
popular venue for weekend spotters in steam days. The shed (20A) came under
the auspices of the North Eastern Region in 1957 and was subsequently
re-coded 55A, along with its sub-depots bearing suffixes B-G in the regional
reshuffle.
Here, Class 8F No 48083 trundles empty flat wagons through Engine
Shed Junction towards Stourton. In the shed yard, Stanier 'Black Fives' are
accompanied by a pair of Class 25 diesels and a solitary Class 03 diesel
shunter with its distinctive striped cab.The shed closed its doors to steam
on September 30th 1967 and the buildings and No 1 type concrete coaling
tower was demolished in 1970 - the structure had two bunkers that could hold
300 tons of coal and was able to service two engines at a time. |
Holbeck shed 1980s :
David Hey
 This
panoramic view was taken from the former LNWR railway viaduct
overlooking the shed yard. The scene shows the fuelling point (built on
the site of the coaling stage) and the diesel maintenance depot (on the
extreme right) containing two repair shops with 200ft tracks and a large
overhead crane. In the foreground, a variety of diesel locomotives await
their next turn of duty, including Class 08s, 31s, 40s and 45 'Peaks' -
it's a far cry from shed's allocation of famous steam classes, which
included 'Claughtons', unrebuilt 'Patriots', Stanier 'Jubilees' and
rebuilt 'Scots', BR Standard 'Britannias' and Gresley A3s...all are now
but just a memory. |
There was something 'spiritual' about Holbeck, though from the outside it
was a forlorn-looking building dwarfed by a huge concrete coaling tower that
stood like a monument in the shed yard. But the shed's inner sanctum was a
different story - a standard Midland Railway 'square' roundhouse containing
two turntables, each with radiating stalls chock-full of engines standing
cheek to jowl like a herd of thirsty hippos around a watering hole. The air
was usually heavy with smoke, hot oil and steam, which somehow gave the
cathedral of steam a wonderful sense that everything had gradually evolved;
certainly it had none of the instant mix-and-match that came with the
headlong rush into dieselisation in the Sixties.
The only means of gaining entry - and escape, for that matter - was through
the cast iron window frames at the back, a hazardous climb for anyone
shorter than twelve foot-six, but the rules of engagement were simple -
speed and military precision - because if a bunk was carried out quickly,
then the element of surprise usually tipped the balance in our favour.
As for the rest of the bunks we did? In every place we visited, the sheds
were usually hidden among the maze of inner-city Victorian back streets,
where the local women gossiped over back yard walls and children played in
cobbled streets, lined by rows of terraced houses boasting spotlessly clean
doorsteps painted in red cardinal polish.
I was still a naïve youngster in short pants, so the dingy back alleys could
be scary places to walk alone, for just around the next corner existed an
omnipresent danger of stumbling into a multi-cultural community where the
residents wandered around in clothes that looked suspiciously like pajamas
to me, and in my youthful imagination - a neurotic obsession with
flesh-eating cannibals - the awful fear arose that if I lingered too long I
might end up in a cooking pot. A mere glance from a black face was
sufficient to cause long bouts of involuntary flatulence: a condition
brought on by one's nerves going out of kilter.
I wouldn't have dared go to these places without Bonzo. Not only was he two
years older than me, the success of our spotting trips was all down to his
organizational skills. He had an uncanny knack of following the street
directions in his well-thumbed edition of Aidan Fuller's 'British Locomotive
Shed Directory'. But his biggest fault, if I had to find one, is that he
liked to lead from the rear. On almost every bunk we did, I started
panicking at the sight of the target shed still some distance away, but the
fear factor barely registered with Bonzo until the very last second. Then,
just as we were about to go in, he'd often lose his bottle - and, come to
think of it, I led the way every time.
'You go first,' he'd say in a querulous squeak.
'Why me?'
'Because I bags go last,' he insisted, 'It's daft us both getting caught. So
I'll let you go first.'
I could always tell when Bonzo was nervous - I'll let you go first? What he
really meant, of course is, if anyone was going to get caught, then it
wasn't going to be him. Oh, such a cool-dude - out to save his own neck
every time.
But one day, he did get caught. I was there when it happened. Call it a
spotter's sixth sense if you like, but for some reason the idea of bunking
Holbeck didn't seem right that day. Inside the roundhouse, the engines
wheezed smoke and hissed steam, but I heard none of it. With an intensity
that blocked out every other sound, I had a strange feeling that someone was
watching us - 'I'm not going in,' I said adamantly.
'You scaredy-cat!' he sneered, and hauled himself through the broken window.
What happened next...was, well - creepy.
First I heard running, then a man's voice called out - 'Hey you! Come 'ere,
yer little bugger.'
I heard a scuffle, a low-voiced murmur, then Bonzo started whimpering - 'Who
me? I didn't break any windows. No Sir, it was broken already. What was I
doing? Well, I was...I was sort of...I was.'
At that point, his voice tapered off into helpless stammering.
And what did I do? I did what anyone else would have done in the
circumstances - I ran like the clappers. |
Loco movements at Holbeck
   On
closer inspection you'll spot a Trans-Pennine set crossing the viaduct
in the middle shot of a 4F. The other one is of 'Jubilee' class 45562 (I
think...I can just about read the number, but I've no record of the
date). As usually happened in those days, I was just messing around
taking shots of engine movements in the shed yard.
Oh yes, and there's a 'Peak' class in there too.. |
Peaks at Holbeck :
 The
headlong rush into dieselisation! Before the first 10 pilot scheme
2,300hp Type 4 diesels Nos D1-D10 had been completed, the BTC placed
orders for a further 183 members of the class - a hasty decision, but as
it turned out the 'Peaks' proved to be one of the more successful
locomotives in the BR fleet. The production 'Peaks' were uprated to
2,500hp by use of charge air cooling, which gave rise to three genetic
types of basically similar locomotives - TOPS Class 44 (pilot scheme)
and the Class 45 and 46 production locomotives. The 183 production
'Peak' Type 4s were similar in appearance to the pilot scheme
locomotives except for front end variations when the gangway doors and
aged white headcode discs were abandoned in favour of route indicator
panels. This line up at Holbeck show No D152 on the left with its panel
centrally placed, while the earlier production 'Peaks' Nos D26 and D29
appear with divided headcode boxes either side of the nose. The
reporting number are: 1M86 southbound 'Thames-Clyde Express', 1S49 10.25
Leeds-Glasgow and 0L50 light engine Leeds Division. Note also that Nos
D26 and D29 are sporting Holbeck a 55A shed code on their rectangular
warning panels. |
Holbeck shed June 1960 :
David Hey
 'Britannia' Pacific No 70044 Earl Haigh
receives attention from Holbeck shed staff in readiness for duty on the down
'Waverley' in June 1960.
The locomotive was allocated to Holbeck shed,
together with No's 70053 and 70054, to replace 'Rebuilt Scots' in 1959. No
70044 was one of the 1953-built Britannias fitted with Westinghouse
airbrakes for trial on the LMR. The engine was withdrawn from traffic in
October 1966. |
 Holbeck shed
June 1965 : David Hey
Light and shade stream down through the dilhapedated roof
inside the roundhouse as a Class B1 moves off the turntable in June 1965.
For the record, Holbeck shed closed its doors to steam on September 30th
1967 and the roundhouse and No 1 coal bunker were demolished three years
later. |
Holbeck
rationalisation 1980s : David Hey
 By
the end of the Sixties the rail network had been reduced to a skeleton
of its former self. It was a truly sad decade, and disillusioned train
spotters didn't have to go too far out of their way to find evidence of
BR's decline as a result of the Beeching axe. The view from the train
window became untidily depressing, with hundreds of acres of once-proud
Victorian railway building and abandoned sidings left to rot. Indeed, it
would appear that station closures and track removal was one of BR's
major occupations during the 1960s - yet the misery didn't end there.
Track rationalization continued well into the Eighties. In 1981, I got
wind of BRs decision to abandon semaphore signalling in favour of
multiple aspect signals on the former Midland Railway south of Leeds,
hence the reason I wanted to photograph the attendant signal boxes
before they too vanished from the scene entirely. Sadly, by the time I
arrived at Holbeck, the signal box (Engine Shed Junction) had long since
gone and rationalisation of the junction was well underway - it looked
like a giant baseboard with bits of Hornby track scattered all over the
place! |
Holbeck
aerial : David Hey
 Britain's
city skylines have changed dramatically over the years, and evidence can
be found in this view of Holbeck shed yard (taken from the roof of an
adjacent block of flats) looking towards Leeds City station in the right
background. One day I'll get round to printing a full negative of this
shot which clearly show the remains of the shed's two turntable pits
filled in with earth and rubble. In the background, the city's once
crowning glory - the Town Hall - is now dwarfed by high-rise office
blocks, and in the foreground a Class 31 heads an unfitted freight of
mineral wagons (complete with an obligatory brake van) past the shed
yard towards Stourton. |
Holbeck Peaks : David Hey
 In
the days before Chopper bikes became all the rage, boys rode trusty
two-wheelers with saddles fixed way too high for short legs! My records show
that this shot was taken at 1/60sec @ f8 using a Kodachrome 2 (KR 135 for
Daylight...whatever that means!) on September 14th 1963, and gives some idea
of the diesel facilities on the left, along with the entrance to steam
roundhouse on the right. Not long ago a publisher wanted a colour shot of
'Peaks' at Holbeck for the front cover of a book, but changed his mind when
he saw the boys in the foreground - 'Why didn't you tell them to shift?' he
said somewhat irritably, 'They spoil a half-decent picture.' Oh dear, I
didn't like to tell him that I put them there! As the saying goes, one man's
junk is another man's treasure, and not everyone shares the same view on
what constitutes a half-decent picture. Still it's interesting to note the
boy's short-back 'n' sides, woolly pullovers, short trousers and knee-length
socks (half-rolled down) which was pretty much the fashion for archetypal
train spotters in the early Sixties - the decade didn't start 'swinging'
until 1964. |
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