To commemorate the 50th anniversary this year of Stoke Loco Shed 5D closing in 1967 this is a short video of photographs taken by ex-Stoke driver Bob Hart during the last years of the shed.
My farther was a stoke driver and used to take me to the round house when he fetched his wages. Also remember riding on a tank engine in the yard. Also Blaster Bayes knocking down the coaling stage.
R Really nostalgic for me! We used to travel from Derby on the North Staffs to Crewe, or disembarked at Stoke. Fabulous place, so atmospheric! Thank you.
I went to this great friendly steam MPD in 1966 aged 14, and asked the shed foreman if I could have a walk around. He said yes but watch out that you don't trip over the coal on shed floor. And come and see me before you go. The drivers even let me board a couple of footplates on that day, and we had a good old chat. Such happy days when Britain was still Britain !
Such great memories of my youth come flooding back. My Dad's pottery factory was close to the entrance to Stoke shed and from the factory windows I could trainspot the locos crossing the viaduct at the south end of Stoke Station. Two of my stepmother's brothers were drivers based at Stoke. Long live The Knotty!
Yes, great images of long gone locomotive "friends". As a child our house backed onto Jubilee Sidings, Heaton Norris, Stockport. Had a ride in a new diesel shunter that replaced the 0-6-0 steamers as a friend, Hughie Arden, was a foreman there. I then became a compositor-Linotype operator and of course a busy pianist, and in the blink of an eyelid all were gone.
Hi my name is Phil I did 50yrs on the footplate i started at Edgeley shed on the 4th of April 1961 as a fireman and some times we went to Stoke shed I finished my time out at 9A as a driver Regard Phil.
I once went round the depot, must have been in the year it closed. I have a recollection of crossing some running tracks to a roundhouse on the other side of the tracks. The roundhouse was empty.
Amazing photo's and many happy memories of my hometown shed, but what a dump it was at the end ! I believe Blaster Bates had the job of demolishing the coaling tower !
I lived in Macclesfield in those days and to get to Crewe we went to Stoke then changed to go through Alsager to go trainspotting. Stoke was never a glamour shed with spectacular engines but you could always see interesting stuff there. Thanks for this post.
Nice photographs, and thanks for posting. I believe I bought the front number plate of 48151 from a bloke at Stoke station! Sold for a big profit about twenty years latter.....
Thanks to both Bob and Garry. A sad but enlightening look back to my youth, so plased to have been around in the real days of Steam. Extremely well presented video.
