Blasts from the Past: Railways Revisited

It is almost 90 years to the day since King’s pupils went to Wimbledon Station to see ‘their’ engine: the ‘King’s–Wimbledon’, ‘Schools’ class number 931. On that day, in February 1935, a presentation model was given to the Headmaster by Gilbert Szlumper, Assistant General Manager of the Southern Railway and former King’s pupil. I wrote in the October eBulletin about the excitement this model engine generates whenever it is on display in the archive. From the many emails I received in response to the article, it is clear that this interest in locomotives – life size and model – is nothing new.

I am always grateful when people take the time to write to me. I do my best to sketch a rough version of the school’s history but your memories fill in the gaps, they provide colour and texture. I knew that there had been both a Railway Society and a Model Railway Society but there was much I did not know. I did not know that a handful of pupils went to Wimbledon Station to collect the ‘King’s–Wimbledon’ nameplate when it was given to the school in 1962; that this nameplate was then fixed to the back wall of Matthew Rowson’s Physics lab; that Matt Rowson was an ardent railway enthusiast who agreed to supervise the Model Railway Monday Afternoon Activity when a group of pupils started it in 1965; nor that Matt Rowson used engines to demonstrate foundational principles of physics in lessons.  I did not know that there was another example of the ‘King’s–Wimbledon’ nameplate in the railway museum at Kidderminster Station. I did not know that on a trip organised by the Railway Society, pupils travelled ‘from Southall to Brentford Dock in old British Railways guard's vans, hauled by an ageing GWR 0-6-0 pannier tank.’ I did not know that several members of the King’s community endured cold camping trips to Northiam Station to help with the preservation of the Kent and East Sussex Railway (when this finally opened as a heritage line in the 1970s, the first two Chairmen were OKs). I did not know that in that loft space off one of the second floor Q Block classrooms there was,‘a big setup in the middle of a room with a complicated track setup and model scenery (the usual green hills to accommodate the tunnel sections).’

So many memories came flooding in that I felt inspired to put on an exhibition in the archive about the ‘Schools’ class locos, the Railway Society and the Model Railway Society. Current pupils were delighted. Some of the Senior School boys began bringing in their own model engines, even before the exhibition had opened. Flying Scotsman, Mallard, Pendennis Castle: these names soon became familiar to me.

‘Can we revive the Model Railway Club?’ they asked. How could I say no.

And so this term, every Friday lunchtime, we gather in one of the Drama studios. A Rushmere teaching assistant, not so long ago a pupil at King’s himself, brings in both his ‘O’ Gauge track and 90931 engine and ‘OO’ gauge fixed layout and locomotives. Pupils proudly show off their own collections. In the room is a swarm of red and blue blazers, each pupil vying to turn the dial on the controller or to move the points. It is a rare moment for pupils from Rushmere up to Fourth Form to be involved in a joint activity (there is even one Sixth Former who comes to help out).

Beyond the beautiful engines and their carriages, and the anticipation of whether they will run – whether they will make the bend without derailing, there is something magical about seeing a roomful of children totally engrossed in a world that is separate from the routine of daily life. And I am learning a lot from them too: about the relative speeds of different engines, about the railway companies that created them, about the move to diesel and electric (British Rail Class 43 (HST) models often make an appearance at the club). For my part, I hope that it has demonstrated that archives are not just places to carry out historical research. Archives help us understand the past, and those connections back through time can be made just as powerfully by exploring shared interests and activities as by looking at archival documents.

We are a long way off having a layout to rival that of the old Model Railway Society. I was able to see the full splendour of this when an OK sent me photographs of the 1985 Commemoration Day layout. Something tells me that Model Railway Club will continue far beyond the life of the current archive exhibition, however, and maybe one day we too will have tunnels and platforms and station buildings.

If you would like to visit the small archive exhibition Steam, Signals and Rolling Stock, please do get in touch. It will be open until Friday 28 March.

As ever, please do email if you have stories to share: I can be contacted at archive@kcs.org.uk.

Dr Lucy Inglis | School Archivist