100 years ago

Mr Edward Bennett, master gardener, of Driffield, had devised a means whereby, when a railway train started, the carriage doors could be automatically locked through the medium of the brake currently in use.

As the train started the doors would be immediately locked, following upon the release of the Westinghouse brake. When the train was brought to a standstill the automatic lock would permit the doors being opened by hand. The idea had occurred to Mr Bennett after an experience which his son had had not many weeks before in a Hull to Scarborough excursion train.

A man had made his appearance on the footboard of the train between wayside stations and gesticulated at the lady passenger inside. Mr Bennett’s son dragged the man inside, and held him down while the communication cord was pulled, and the guard came to the passengers’ relief.

 

50 years ago

Would the Beeching axe fall again – this time on York’s two popular railway museums? That was the question posed by the Consultative Panel for the Preservation of British Transport Relics.

“Dr Beeching has recently intimated that the British Railways Board ought to be relieved of the cost of running transport museums at Clapham, Swindon and York,” said panel chairman Mr AJ Boston. “He has approached the Minister of Transport with a proposal that Mr Marples should apply to the Treasury for a Government grant to make good the financial loss.”

The previous year the museums at the three railway centres had lost about £96,000. “Meanwhile, British Railways are considering plans which will enable them to jettison entirely their obligations to maintain the museums, which will then be faced with a desperate situation,” added the chairman.

 

25 years ago

A new chapter in the commercial and maritime history of York was about to open when a barge carried the first reels of paper up the river Foss to the new £10.5 million publishing centre of York and County Press.

The Lord Mayor of York, Councillor Jack Archer and the City Sheriff, Mr William Richardson, would be on board the vessel, newly painted in Yorkshire Evening Press livery, as it travelled the last few hundred yards, from Castle Mills lock to the new unloading wharf at Wormald’s Cut, behind the new publishing centre. This would be the first time for years that a commercial vessel had navigated the river Foss.

The Yorkshire Evening Press was the only inland paper in the country to have its newsprint delivered by water transport. The guests would watch unloading of the first reels, each one five miles long and weighing nearly a ton. On a peak publishing day, York and County Press used 30 reels – or 150 miles of newsprint.