Page 9 - The Life of Chris Turner

depot shared the rest of it, my mum thought Christmas had come early when I arrived home
with two boxes of meat.

In the days that I worked on the railway if you had someone jump in front of you all you
were told is get over it and you were expected to come into work for your next shift. Today

it’s totally different there is plenty of help but even then, a lot of the drivers don’t come
back to work because they think it’s their fault they couldn’t stop in time but you have to
remember that it could take half a mile before you stop if you are doing 100mph plus.

I was 18 when someone jumped off the Postern bridge Tonbridge, we were booked to have
a Crompton diesel but the dam thing broke down and we ended up having a Charlie steam
engine we were coming back from Paddock Wood. We never saw him jump until we heard

a thump and smelt burning and a leg went flying past me as I had my head out of the cab
looking for the next signal. But I was lucky that an old railwayman told me about a secret
way to lock things away in a box in your mind and once it was locked away you controlled
it, have had to use this many time in my life.

Transferred to Hither Green booked on duty at 8am on my first day the shed foreman said
Ah Tonbridge your steam trained got a job for you Standing on the coal road was a Black 5

Steam Loco the Midland crew had dumped it there as they had run out of time. My job was
to look after the loco make sure it had coal & water so began 48 hours of work even slept
their and went down to the local café where my meals where paid for. The last day of the 48
hours was my rest day That was great time and three quarters all day. Arrived home in
Tonbridge to have my mum say to me where have you been, it seems dad forgot to tell her I

was working a 48 hour shift so to bed and some really good sleep.

So life went on at Hither green I started off in the lowest of the low link the Goods link was
booking on for late shift anywhere from 10pm to 11:59pm & early shift 001am to 11.59am,
it did seem that early shift was always 001am. Managed to work my way up to the next link
was asked by the roster clerk would I go on loan to Stewart’s Lane depot as they were short
of steam trained fireman/secondman so I worked 3 rest days a month at the lane riding up

and down to Brighton on the Central division Electric loco’s they had a steam boiler and
my job was to make sure it was always s working Dam temperamental things would often
go out normally just as you went into a tunnel “never could work out why it did that”.
Moved to the top Link this was better still working my rest days at the lane. As a top link
secondman we had the pick of special jobs. One great turn was Hithergreen yard to
Tonbridge West Yard empty coal wagons leave yard about 10:45 arrive Tonbridge about

11:40 wait for the last passenger service for Ashford to depart and then follow it all the way
to Ashford then to Dover. My Driver was a keen Sea Fisherman so he came up with a great
way of us getting to Dover he bribed the signalman at Tonbridge box with fish, but the
Tonbridge signalman told the Ashford box that we would be coming through before the last
passenger service and did he want some fish. which he did of course. On the first night my

driver went and saw the Tonbridge signalman and it was agreed that we would be going in
5mins now coming out of the yard at Tonbridge is 10mph then once into the through road
it’s 60mph we crept out at 10 mph at the 60mph marker my driver just opened the controller
to full nothing happened for a few seconds the G force hit you by the time we were at the
East yard we were already doing 60mph by the Royal mail sorting depot we are doing
90mph Max Permitted Speed of Loco by Paddock wood it’s 120mph we bought it down
to 110mph as the loco was hunting a bit but at Headcorn it was up to 120mph and stayed