Lucky Porter
 

Lucky Porter a lump of coal falling from tender of express train just missed him.

Alan

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t...kyPortera1.jpg

I wonder just how many people have been injured by coal from tenders.
When you think how many engines where hammering through stations, the odds would be pretty low about being a target.
Does anyone out there have the stats?
Paul.

I`ve heard stories of it been thrown from the cab by the driver or fireman to their families and friends to collect as the engine been passes by.

Hatfield station was a good place for Flying Coal. I'm sure Locojoe will remember overfilling the tenders with coal so as to get that bit extra in or on for the long run North. I myself cannot remember now how sharp the curve or indeed if there ever was one through Hatfield might have been but coal often came off there from overfilled tenders.
John (G)

There couldn’t be a better platform (or Forum) for repeating this oft told tale.

I was brought up - some would say thrown up - in Thornton Heath but our nearest railway station was Norbury. On a bitterly cold winter’s day in the early fifties I had alighted from a stopper from the London direction and headed towards the platform’s exit which was (and still is) at the London end of the platform and stopped to see and hear a Fairburn 2-6-4T pounding up the short but very steep climb from Streatham Common. To my utter amazement I witnessed enormous lumps of coal being heaved out of from the footplate onto the ballast ‘twixt the up slow and down fast lines which, fortuitously, are quite a distance apart as they spread out to accommodate Norbury’s wide island platform on a curve.

It was years later that a local railway enthusiast explained that I hadn’t fantasised as it was a regular occurrence. Both Thornton Heath in the one direction and Streatham Common in the other had goods yards from which coal for heating purposes could be appropriated but Norbury had no such facility and so waiting room and staff office heating were supplied unofficially by passing footplate crews.

Memories are made of this as the well known song goes.

Mike

Hi Mike here's a repeat of one of my earlier postings about amongst other things throwing coal from a loco.

In the 1950s when I worked at Enfield Town loco shed [north london] our run was up and down to Liverpool St. I sometimes went with a driver who nobody liked a mean tight fisted type. He never brought any tea to work,but was always ready to drink half of yours.
He had an allotment at the trackside about a mile or so from Enfield station. Every time he passed his allotment he would throw out a huge piece of coal, after work he would take the coal home for domestic use,sometimes we would pass his allotment several times in a day.
He used to go in the messroom and look for any food scraps that had been left and he would eat it. We were issued yellow soap for washing our hands ,awful stuff it would not lather. One day one of the lads made a sandwich with the soap in the middle and left it for meanie. Meanie took a large bite of the sandwich and spat it out , a good laugh was had by all.

And he couldn't even froth at the mouth!
Mike

you chaps need to be writing a book with these stories ;)

Could'nt agree more Robbo. They are priceless.
When I was working for the owners of 34027 Taw Valley, I was lineside with a good friend taking photographs and video.
The support crew had told us they would pass the shopping list to us for all of us to have supper in the support coach.
What they did'nt mention was that it would be wired to a two inch nut flung at us from the coach. Much diving into hedge bottoms from us. Much hilarity from them. They insist they liked us or we would not have got out of the way.
Paul.

Hmmmmm, a very risky plan to annoy (or laugh at) the very people you are relying on to go and buy supper for you. It could have been a hungy time in the support coach that evening if you had gone off in a huff !