A whistle stop tour at times, Bruce Laws recalls the Ipswich Land Travel Society trip to 14 sheds on Sunday, 14 June 1964.
The Ipswich Land Transport Society ‘shed bash’ bus tours of the early to mid-1960s were legendary. Why? Because they were usually 24 hours packed with visits to engine sheds and motive power depots that were alive with steam locomotives in places that one might not normally visit – certainly not on such an intensive programme. They featured, in the words of Chris Hurricks, organiser of many of the trips, ‘Some very swift visits in some cases, and also some very short times between sheds’. While we were very good at recording numbers, times etc., I have to admit that, as my old spotting friend Graham Hardinge comments, ‘Most of us were only interested in writing down numbers, without actually absorbing what we were seeing, something I regret at times’. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I know what he means and share his wistful remembrances. If only I could have applied the knowledge, wisdom and experience I now have to my youthful trainspotting exploits, to my fledgling railway enthusiast self!
The sad truth is that I did not really appreciate then what the sights and sounds of the 1950s and 1960s steam railway really meant, or what to look for and value, and also what gems were about to be lost. I so wish that I had been able truly to see and understand the locomotive sheds and yards of the time as I trudged ruthlessly up and down the lines of engines in those smoky, dark, dank, oily, trip-hazard laden depots, notebook in hand, enthusiastically noting down engine numbers and snatching the odd photograph if time allowed.
