NINETEEN SIXTY TWO – PART 18
Michael L. Roach
Michael L. Roach
The Station Master
The Station Master was a person of some importance in his locality, but it is a term which has largely gone out of fashion in favour of station manager. The s/m was responsible for basically everything that went on at his appointed station. Unstaffed platforms and halts would not have a resident station master but would come under the s/m at an adjacent station, as at Liddaton Halt seen in one of the photos in Part 13 of this series. Liddaton would have come under the s/m at Coryton a short distance away. It would not have been a particularly onerous job at Coryton with one platform, three passenger trains and one freight train in each direction; but with few staff he would have to deputise for everyone and be prepared to do anything needed. However being s/m at a small station would have been a good stepping stone to applying for the position at a larger station if one wanted promotion. Being the station master at Plymouth North Road Station would have been a completely different proposition and responsibilities would have included hiring and firing staff and meeting VIPs off the train. How about Plymouth Millbay Station with a huge goods station alongside. This would have had a Chief Goods Manager to oversee the daily running of the goods department but would he have ranked equal to the s/m or reported to him – I do not know.
It was good to see Michael Bushell's excellent 1960s photographs of Portreath Harbour in Latest News on 25 April 2023. Adjacent to the harbour was a goods yard at the bottom of a cable-worked incline at the end of a freight-only branch. The yard had three wagon turntables, a dozen sidings, stables, offices etc. Goods trains stopped at the top of the incline with only wagons being worked up and down the incline. Until the autumn of 2022 it had never occurred to me what grade of railwayman would have been in charge of the goods yard at Portreath – maybe a goods clerk, chief goods clerk, yard foreman, yard inspector or station inspector perhaps under the supervision of the station master at Redruth or Carn Brea Stations on the Cornish main line. I doubt that I would have expected a station master to be appointed to a non-passenger station. In the autumn of 2022 I came across this entry in the November 1929 edition of the Great Western Magazine and was quite surprised by the position that Mr. Jenkins had occupied for 20 years.
The death occurred on 28 September 1929, at the age of 76, of Mr. J.H. Jenkins who retired from the position of station master at Portreath in March 1917. Mr. Jenkins was transferred to the Great Western Railway Company's service from the West Cornwall Railway in February 1876 and spent the whole of his career in Cornwall. He was station master at Portreath for twenty years.
If Porteath had been at the end of a branchline where the passenger service had been withdrawn I could have understood that the station master may have been kept on to deal with all matters in the staton's new guise, but that did not apply here. Perhaps the explanation lies in just how busy the harbour had been in the past. There were, and are, no lock gates at Portreath so at low tide the two docks empty of water completely with ships sitting on the floor of the dock. Ships entering or leaving the harbour have to wait until at least half tide before they can enter or leave. In the Victorian times the harbour was receiving up to 700 ships per annum which equates to one on every high tide six days a week throughout the year. The ships were quite small but even so there would be a couple of hundred tons of goods to be moved in or out by rail every single working day. Until the advent of the motor lorry the remaining mines in the area would have been totally reliant on the harbour and the branchline to bring in the coal for the steam engines and to take away the ore that was going for smelting elsewhere and for the tin and copper ingots that had been smelted locally.
MLR / 30 April 2023
The Station Master was a person of some importance in his locality, but it is a term which has largely gone out of fashion in favour of station manager. The s/m was responsible for basically everything that went on at his appointed station. Unstaffed platforms and halts would not have a resident station master but would come under the s/m at an adjacent station, as at Liddaton Halt seen in one of the photos in Part 13 of this series. Liddaton would have come under the s/m at Coryton a short distance away. It would not have been a particularly onerous job at Coryton with one platform, three passenger trains and one freight train in each direction; but with few staff he would have to deputise for everyone and be prepared to do anything needed. However being s/m at a small station would have been a good stepping stone to applying for the position at a larger station if one wanted promotion. Being the station master at Plymouth North Road Station would have been a completely different proposition and responsibilities would have included hiring and firing staff and meeting VIPs off the train. How about Plymouth Millbay Station with a huge goods station alongside. This would have had a Chief Goods Manager to oversee the daily running of the goods department but would he have ranked equal to the s/m or reported to him – I do not know.
It was good to see Michael Bushell's excellent 1960s photographs of Portreath Harbour in Latest News on 25 April 2023. Adjacent to the harbour was a goods yard at the bottom of a cable-worked incline at the end of a freight-only branch. The yard had three wagon turntables, a dozen sidings, stables, offices etc. Goods trains stopped at the top of the incline with only wagons being worked up and down the incline. Until the autumn of 2022 it had never occurred to me what grade of railwayman would have been in charge of the goods yard at Portreath – maybe a goods clerk, chief goods clerk, yard foreman, yard inspector or station inspector perhaps under the supervision of the station master at Redruth or Carn Brea Stations on the Cornish main line. I doubt that I would have expected a station master to be appointed to a non-passenger station. In the autumn of 2022 I came across this entry in the November 1929 edition of the Great Western Magazine and was quite surprised by the position that Mr. Jenkins had occupied for 20 years.
The death occurred on 28 September 1929, at the age of 76, of Mr. J.H. Jenkins who retired from the position of station master at Portreath in March 1917. Mr. Jenkins was transferred to the Great Western Railway Company's service from the West Cornwall Railway in February 1876 and spent the whole of his career in Cornwall. He was station master at Portreath for twenty years.
If Porteath had been at the end of a branchline where the passenger service had been withdrawn I could have understood that the station master may have been kept on to deal with all matters in the staton's new guise, but that did not apply here. Perhaps the explanation lies in just how busy the harbour had been in the past. There were, and are, no lock gates at Portreath so at low tide the two docks empty of water completely with ships sitting on the floor of the dock. Ships entering or leaving the harbour have to wait until at least half tide before they can enter or leave. In the Victorian times the harbour was receiving up to 700 ships per annum which equates to one on every high tide six days a week throughout the year. The ships were quite small but even so there would be a couple of hundred tons of goods to be moved in or out by rail every single working day. Until the advent of the motor lorry the remaining mines in the area would have been totally reliant on the harbour and the branchline to bring in the coal for the steam engines and to take away the ore that was going for smelting elsewhere and for the tin and copper ingots that had been smelted locally.
MLR / 30 April 2023
Many thanks indeed Michael
PC all on its own at
Stoke Canon & Exeter St Tomas
Keith Turley & Paul Barlow
Stoke Canon & Exeter St Tomas
Keith Turley & Paul Barlow
Colas operated class 43 power car No.43272 passes Stoke Canon light engine on 1st May 2023, working the OZ20 11:48 Derby RTC to Plymouth Laira. Copyright Keith Turley.
Many thanks to you Keith.
43272 on 1148 Derby (RTC) to Laira liight power car move passes Exeter St Thomas 2 May 2023. Copyright Paul Barlow.
Many thanks to you Paul.