Was it ever the policy of these companies to ever issue photographic ID? I have a great grandfather who was a foreman shunter on the above railways and am running out of options to find a picture of him...

He met a rather sticky end too, poor sod. Crushed by a train!

Depends when. Not necessarily personal ID cards as part of employment, or rather I don't know.

However, railway personnel who had occasion to enter restricted areas in WWI certainly did. My grandfather was GWR and a brother of his, also GWR, had an ID card with photograph.

Roger

Hi Roger, he entered the service in 1899, and continued into 1918 before his death at the age of 43. I'm assuming because, being a foreman shunter on a coal line (Foxes Bridge, near Lydney) that he was exempted from war service. He may have served and came back early. I wonder what his local regiment would've been otherwise.

Funny I should read this as I have just printed off a photo of my dad and his gang taken on the Wye Valley line in the late 50's. There is an exhibition tomorrow 23rd Aug, at Tintern Station to celebrate 50 years since the line closed to passengers.

Yes railway personnel were excempt from being called up, the second world war definately as I have the letter telling my father to produce it if he received call up papers. They clearly didn't want employees to join the forces other than the home guard.

There are books on various railways with lots of photos of staff, the Wye Valley ones possibly show my great grandfather, but I have no idea what he looked like, and usually only the station master is named. The Dean railway at Parkend is sure to have photos of your grandfathers era, Severn Bridge and Lydney, and maybe documents regarding the accident. Would it have been in the local papers? I would think so, but probably no photo. cheers Fred

There is indeed information in the newspaper, the Dean Forest Mercury of the accident! The inquest records didn't survive and only the register page was there. The paper went into rather explicit detail, but it did tell me what I needed to know. No photograph as you said. They did say it was a terrible tragedy though and he got an entire column!

I made the trip to Lydney to see roughly where he would've worked, but was woefully unprepared and didn't go to Parkend.

I'm suddenly wanting to make the trip down there again. Scotland to the South West. I'd better do it before it gets really chilly!! :)

Do correspondents in this thread know if the Severn & Wye ever had a category known as "volunteers", or has any of you heard of my grandfather in connection with the line or at all?

My grandfather, William Frank Essex, b. 1887, did a runner from home in Cheltenham for reasons I can't quite begin to describe, probably in about 1900. He pitched up in Lydney and eventually married a Sterrey (1913.) He got a job on the railway and at some stage was working at Bullo Pill. In 1912 he joined the Metropolitan Police, when his entry record gives his "previous occupation" as "Storekeeper" and his "previous public service" as "S/W Joint Rby Volunteer." Suspecting this to mean "Severn and Wye Joint Railway", I wondered in what capacity he might have been a volunteer on the line, but so far nobody has solved it.

After his death in 1961, since he had campaigned in his lifetime for the pedestrian wicket to be restored at the level crossing at Lydney Town station, the wicket was indeed restored, and bore a plaque declaring them to be the "Essex Gates." The wicket and the plaque however vanished after the line had closed to regular traffic.

So far as concerns Severn Bridge staff, my guess is that it was a close-knit community. I say this partly because when I was a child I was taken unwillingly by my father for a walk out of Lydney, and he decreed we should go back to Lydney Town on a train from Severn Bridge station. I guess this was in the early 1950s. The signalman at Severn Bridge got pretty excited at the idea that he'd actually got passengers on the scene, and insisted on changing his cap in order to sell us the tickets while correctly dressed.