Our Blog has now Moved!

We have now moved to our new website at www.returntograntham.co.uk.

All new posts and updated pages will appear on the new website, and this one will no longer be updated.

Best regards, the Return to Grantham team.

An Important Announcement – We’re on the move!

We’re moving…

As has already been indicated we have felt for some time that we wanted to do a little more with the Blog than was possible using the WordPress.com website. After a meeting in the summer, we decided to set up a full website, but keep the WordPress “look and feel”.

During the past few weeks, Ian has moved the existing Blog across to our brand new website….

www.returntograntham.co.uk

From Monday 8th September, 2014 we will be adding all content to the new website, and this one will be “frozen”. Any existing subscribers should have received an email telling them of the change, and offering help to move over. Our Twitter account has also been amended to publish post updates as tweets from our new blog.

This is the start of what we hope will be an exciting time for the project.

Jeremy Stone joins the Project

We are delighted to announce that Jeremy Stone has joined myself, John and Mel as a permanent member of the Return to Grantham project. Having caught our eye with his diorama of the Grantham Coaling Shed, Jeremy has decided that he is now to build a model of the whole Shed and Station in 2mm fine scale; a daunting task!

Jeremy will be describing the build process of his model, as well as joining in with the newly-launched 2014 station survey.

Welcome Jeremy!

Ian

Exciting Developments…. Read all about it!

Our regular readers may wonder why we haven’t updated things in a while, but never fear we have not disappeared down a dark tunnel…

During the past few months it has become apparent that a free WordPress Blog really wont help us achieve what we want to do with the Return to Grantham project. At the same time we have also realised that we needed to split out the Commercial side from the Blog itself. So, we have taken the plunge and are in the process of setting up our own website and a separate website for photographic sales. We are not quite there in launching the sites, but watch this space for updates on our progress.

A move to our own website will allow us more flexibility and hopefully better functionality to reflect our desires to move forward with the project.

In addition, and as some of you may know, we have decided to launch a printed magazine, called “Return to Grantham”. This will allow some people who are involved with the project the ability to read some of the articles we post on the website, whilst also allowing us to bring different material more readily suited to print to all.

Our aim is to produce an A5-size colour magazine of between 24-28 pages, priced between £3 and £4. At this stage we are not looking to produce the magazine on a regular basis, but who knows if it proves popular then we may try to set targets for regular issues.

So you see, we haven’t been taking it easy, but working very hard to improve and expand the project.

Ian

A Grantham Driver of the 1920s

We are privileged to publish in these pages evocative first-hand accounts of railway life at Grantham in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.    Occasionally, interesting information about earlier times comes to light.   Our latest page is about one of the men who, in the 1920s, were entrusted with the powerful Gresley pacific locomotives which were achieving new standards of sustained high speed travel on the East Coast Main Line.  Here, through two features in the local press, we read that there was much more to Charles Parker than his career as one of Grantham’s best locomotive drivers.

More 1960s photos added

We’ve added the final batch of Hylton Holt’s photographs here.  They include shots taken on a visit to New England shed near Peterborough in May 1964 in search of ex-Grantham A3s as they spent their final months in service, awaiting the call to deputise for ailing diesel locomotives.  One of them, No. 60106 Flying Fox, was found in sparkling condition and we take a trip back in time to 1927 when, as LNER No. 4475, it took centre-stage in the inauguration of the world’s longest non-stop service.

Growing Photo Archive

We’ve added yet more photos taken around Grantham Loco in the early 1960s here.  The sequence is in date order, so the additional pictures have been slotted in accordingly.

Sixty Years On

I was idly wondering the other day what might have been happening on the railway at Grantham sixty years ago.  Quite why such a thought should have crossed my mind I’ll leave you to ponder, but I turned to the pages of The Grantham Journal to find out…

John Clayson

 

Best Monthly Visit and View Figures

The Return to Grantham blog continues to attract encouraging levels of readership.

During May a record 411 visits were made – that’s the number of times the blog was opened by someone on their computer.  Those 411 sessions accounted for 2,001 page views – another record figure for a single month.  This means that, on average, each visitor looks at about five pages.  We’d like to think that this is a sign that people find something here that interests them.

For comparison in November, just six months ago, we had 164 visits and 857 page views.

We’ve received some great comments and feedback but we could always do with more, so why not take a few moments to share some thoughts on what we’re doing?

More photos added

We’ve just added several more photos from Hylton Holt’s collection here.