A 79 Railway Squadron Veteran Remembers!

4th June 2006

I have received these wonderful memories from Jon Newman of his time serving with 79 Railway Squadron RCT. His memories really sum up the culture and comraderie that exists within the British Army. There were plenty of hardships to put up with, but the job always got done with vigour, enthusiasm and HUMOUR! And there was nothing in civilian life to compare with the atmosphere (or opening hours - DID THEY EVER CLOSE?) of the Squadron Bar. What fabulous humour though - even in times of adversity and tradgedy! Thank you Jon for your wonderful memories.

Hi Peter, I've just read your web page on "The Berliner" and the one on 79 Railway Squadron. I served with 79 railway from 82 - 84 and thoroughly enjoyed it. The pictures on your page brought back many happy memories. Just a couple of questions though:1. Where has the mud track from outside the squadron office gone? it seems to have been replaced with a nice looking brick road. When I was there they never did anything like that because the Americans (with whom we shared the barracks) used to drive bloody great big Abrahams tanks down there which pretty much chewed up all the road surfaces. As you look down the road towards the Autobahn there is a sudden left turn as the road heads back up through the camp towards the front gate. Have seen a couple of American tanks that forgot to turn in time on this bend!

2. Did you see any of the older Locomotives whilst you were there? I have fond memories of the 225, 360, 400 and Barclay 275 locomotives (all named after their BHP outputs) Usually you would do your driver training in a Barclay 275 and then once qualified you cross trained in a day onto the others (learning how to start them, all started with compressed air, as well as how to service them etc). 3. Didn't see the overhead crane in any of your pictures, it should have been visable in picture 664.jpg (me at the controls, where's the fire box) was it still there when you visitied? We mainly used it for lifting or cars up to carry out repairs etc!! 4. Is the 26 club still attached to the end of the training wing? This was an old ambulance coach that was converted into the squadron bar. It was located at the end of the training wing against the side of the car park.

In your picture of loco 668 you may notice on the floor a drain cover. Nothing surprising in that you may think, how wrong you would be. In 1983 the shunting yard got a make over. After all the nice new ballast was laid and old tracks etc were renewed, no one could find the drain covers. The german contractors had burried them. Several attempts were made to locate them and the more futile the attempt, the lower the rank of the person who was assigned to find them. Eventually some where down the chain of command (below Whale Poo) you come to the private soldier. To be more precise, me and a friend of mine called Tiny. We were due to go on leave at the weekend, so on Tuesday we were told to find all 6 drain covers, or cancel our leave! Fortunately I have 5 A levels and managed to confuse the troop sergeant and got to agree that we could go on leave as soon as we had located all six of the drain covers.

30 minutes later we were going on leave (3 days early) We knew roughly the line the drains were on, but not how far down the yard they were. We simply walked along with a compass, when the needle moved from North, we knew we had found something metal. Once we had found 2 of them the other 4 were easy to pace out and locate. Tiny and I were promoted up the chain of command to something (just) above Whale Poo!

Your picture entitled The Railway is (unless I am mistaken) taken just outside the rail gate on the road down to Rhinedahlen HBF. There used to be a derailer there which is what I am assuming the soldier has just got out to open. Did you notice a track to the right hand side of this line? I pulled up there one day coming back into the depot whilst driving one of the DB loco's we had hired for a specific task. As I looked out onto the track I saw a volkswagen Passet going up and down on its springs. Being soldiers we all stayed and watched as the young couple went at it like no tomorrow thinking they were alone. How surprised were they when we all applauded after they finished!! How on earth you could fail to hear a 1500BHP locomotive pull up (brakes screeching etc) is beyond me, they must have been busy!!

The locomotives as I am sure you all know are named after former Officer Commandings of the squadron. I remember Riley, he was in charge when I came back to do a promotion course. On the subject of Office Commanding, does the OC's office still have a bloddy great big (and heavy) sign on it saying some thing like "Eisenbahnbetriebesleiter". Means something like "person in charge of/responsible for the running of the railway" I think it loses something in translation, but it was an honourary title bestowed on the OC of the squadron. There was another one at Kaldenkirchen, the Kaldenkirch Klein Bahn used to perform some shunting etc for us at an Ammunition depot (the name of which escapes me at present) where we some times worked.

The pictures of Percy were a shock. It was always bright green during my time there, and it certainly never have the letters "WD" on it. I remember some one put the Sergeant Majors bike on top of it once for a joke. He didn't notice it until the end of the day when he couldn't find it. He was not amused!! Did you get to travel up to "The other side"? Technically the depot where your pictures were taken is called Holt2. The other side as we called it was called Holt1. This was mainly a vehicle disposal site operated by the Army Ordanance Corps. The Army's scrapped vehicles all went in through here. Some were sold off if they still worked. Not surprisingly most of us drove ex-army Escort estates or Ford Cortinas, mainly because spare parts were free!

I thoroughly enjoyed your website, it brought back many happy memories. If you are interested I will have a look for some pictures I have of the squadron,servicing the Berliner and re-railing one of the brand new 600 BHP loco's after it slipped between the rails at an ammunition depot because the curve was too tight for the gauge of the loco (bit embaressing that one) If you want them and I can find them, I'll send you a copy.

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