I was inspired to create this Flickr page having seen the page of the gentleman who was my very first "Boss" on the railways. It`s only fitting then that the Eastleigh Breakdown crane is my first photograph. We sadly lost touch, but even 20 years later I can happily say "Thanks Ian, I have no regrets about accepting your offer of a job!"

I started at Eastleigh in February 1991 on work experience prior to leaving the armed forces. I can say that my 3 years at Eastleigh were very happy times. I had excellent workmates and managers, Class 33`s were still receiving overhauls at BRML Eastleigh Works and I was witness to the changeover from Class 50`s to Class 47`s on the Network Southeast West of England services.

Thankfully my experience of working on the Class 50`s wasn`t extensive, for as impressive as they were I was spoilt by the Cromptons, and the 50`s were awful to work on. Little did I know but they were a fore-taste of what I were to later experience in my Railway career. The Class 47`s on the other hand, although not as fitter friendly as the 33`s, were in my opinion good to work on, save for the exhaust and coolant systems.

In the course of my time at Eastleigh, I worked on Class 08 and 09 shunting loco`s, Class 33, 37, 47, 50 and 60 locomotives, and also Class 73 EDL`s and DEMU Thumper Units. At this time I was also introduced to working on the Class 56`s. I had no way of knowing at the time how much I would come to loathe working on these machines in my future career!. The only loco worse was the Class 50!.

In 1994 I was working as a chargehand and C Supervisor relief at Eastleigh and there were rumours doing the rounds that redundancies, or transfer to working on wagons was a distinct possibility. Having heard during my duties as supervisor that there were vacancies for fitters at Immingham I made the decision to apply for a transfer.

I don`t know if John Britton at Immingham knew what he was letting himself in for, but he jumped at the chance to recruit both myself and my friend and colleage Mark Copley from Eastleigh.

It was difficult leaving Easteigh, so many of the excellent staff there helped train me and shape my Railway Career, Mick Crouch, Andy Key, Brian Tucker, John Campbell, Reg Allen, Phil Jarman, Derek Murray, Barry Stephens and of course Ian Mercer, to mention a few. Apologies to those I`ve missed out.

At Immingham we settled into working on a diet of Class 08, 09, 37, 47, 56 and 60 locomotives. The Class 31`s had just been transfered en-masse to the Midland region, so I didn`t gain any great experience working on those, except sporadic visitors on route learning. My memory is again quite sketchy, but I think Immingham was pretty much finished with working on the 47`s in 1999, so after that time it was the shunters, 37`s, 60`s and those awful 56`s.

At one time or another I`ve done almost every job on a Class 56, including main bearings, and auxilliary drive shaft, (with the engine in situ) and it`s difficult to communicate the contempt in which I regularly held the designer of those locomotives. Almost without exception, no job was easy. On the plus side, between 1994 and 2004 I did get offered much overtime to help keep the fleet running. In early 1999 Immingham had the entire allocation of 114 serviceable 56`s. Still it was with little disappointment on my part that EWS dispensed with the Class for UK work in 2004. From then until the depot effectively closing in January 2008 the stable diet was for the most part Class 60`s and 66`s.

One of the highlights of my career at immingham was the arrival of the last 4 EWS Class 33`s for storage. I took great pleasure in taking care of these personal favourites. 33019 was effectively a non-runner when it arrived at Immingham, so I cannibalised it for parts to keep 33030 operational. I was delighted when asked to prepare 33202 for the phenominal East Lancs Diesel Gala in 1999, and indeed patch painted it and fitted the Burma Star nameplates and spitfire crests. I also obtained permission and fitted the Star of the East nameplates to 37906. I then attended the Gala at the request of my superiors to oversee the operation of 56006 and 33202 over the course of the weekend. On the evening before the gala I burnt the midnight oil tracing a faulty Time Delay Relay on 56006`s traction motor circuits with a chap who worked for Brush at Loughborough, and on the morning of the Gala`s first day I was repairing flashover damage on the main generator of 31110 with Tony Middleton. Quite an eventful trip. Sadly the Class 33 didn`t return to Immingham, but went directly south to Old Oak Common with 31110, 37906 and 56006.

When EWS decided to resurrect 33025 and 33030 for traffic north of the border I was fortunate to carry out the B Exams on both Loco`s. Of course, I had to tidy up the paintwork to make sure my pet loco`s looked presentable. It was at this time that they "acquired" their painted 40B shedplates as a small mark of recognition of their time at Immingham.

Sadly Mark left the Railways in December 2010, but at present I still continue my career at Immingham.

Little did I realise when I accepted Ian`s offer of a job in February 1991 that I would still be working on the Railway 20 years later!.