01.05.14
106 years and counting
Source: Rail Technology Magazine Apr/May 2014
Derby Railway Engineering Society, as it is now called, is one of the oldest such organisations in the world. Adam Hewitt found out more about its history, aims and bright future.
Derby Railway Engineering Society (DRES) was born in 1908 as the Midland Railway Engineering Club, “during a Works visit to Sheffield”, when one W P Fanghanel from the locomotive department at Derby suggested it on the train journey over. The idea was backed by Henry Fowler (later Sir Henry Fowler, pictured), the works manager at the department, who later became the club’s chief mechanical engineer and vice-president.
The society has been going ever since, interrupted only by world wars, and can claim to be among the oldest in the world – similar societies were founded at Swindon and Horwich at a similar time.
DRES archivist Tony Broughton, who began his railway career as an apprentice in 1957 at the Darlington workshop and Derby Technical College, unearthed the history of the club for a book written for the society’s centenary in 2008.
The committee’s first annual report of 1909 notes: “The original intention of those who were responsible for the formation of the Club was that the meetings should not be of too formal a character, but rather than the subjects chosen for discussion should be of such a nature as to make it possible for a large proportion of the members to take part in the proceedings.”
The intention has remained constant throughout its existence and is still relevant today, Broughton says.
Considering its topicality all these years later, it is interesting to note that the best-attended presentation from the society’s inaugural year, 1908-9, was on ‘Main Line Electrification’ (the Midland Railway had recently completed the Lancaster, Morecombe and Heysham electrification scheme). Other papers given that year included ‘The Heating of Locomotive Axleboxes’, ‘The Combined Steam and Vacuum Brake’, and ‘The Education of a Mechanical Engineer’.
The club continued through the inter-war years, though sometimes struggled with low meeting attendance and rivalries between factions of the old Midland Railway and London and North Western Railway (LNWR). After the last pre-war AGM on 24 March 1939, there was a 10-year gap until the club was re-established. Broughton notes of that 1949 meeting: “Almost as if nothing had happened, the Secretary read the last minutes of 1939 and their acceptance was proposed and seconded.”
The British Rail Modernisation Plan in 1955 “gave the society new impetus”, with membership peaking in the 1960s, partly thanks to press-ganging of workers. “Membership was almost compulsory; there was lots of pressure,” Broughton said.
After privatisation, the society’s constitution was changed (as was its name), so anyone interested in the railways could join – previously it had been restricted to active railway workers.
The society’s centenary was celebrated in 2008 with events including a Centenary Dinner at the Midland Hotel attended by 120 people and addressed by Richard Brown, then chief executive of Eurostar. A special programme of visits and lectures was arranged throughout the year.
Today, DRES has around 250 members today and is growing – and of course the early split between ‘members’ and ‘associate members’, essentially a class divide, has disappeared.
But as well as the management committee, the society retains its vice-presidents – senior people in significant companies locally, who have been important in persuading their staff to get involved, and enabling them to find the time to do so.
Dave Saunders, a vice-president of the society since 2000 and president from 2008-10, told us: “There’s a lot of work in maintaining that level of membership, and we’re looking to bring in more younger people. In 2008, when we celebrated the centenary, we started to look at this issue, and ask the question – who’s going to be here in another 100 years to celebrate the bi-centenary?”
Answering that question was one of the main reasons for the initial creation of iRail in 2010, which in 2014 is still going strong (see page 46).
Allan Jones, another past president of DRES, who was head of rail vehicle engineering at Network Rail when he became a vice-president in 2006, told us: “At that time a relationship between Derby’s schools, colleges and railways hardly existed, which was a shock to us: we’d always thought the educational people in Derby recognised it as a railway town. But they didn’t.”
Today DRES has many links with other institutions and bodies, especially the IMechE Railway Division, and it tries to ensure its lecture programme is complementary and does not clash. The next lecture is by Bombardier on Thursday 22 May, jointly hosted with the IET. April’s was about the Class 458/460 conversion by Porterbrook. The lectures are free (£2 for non-members), and start at 6pm at Derby Conference Centre on London Road.
DRES has members from as far afield as Newcastle, Sussex, and Swindon who have moved away from Derbyshire but want to stay part of the society’s activities. The tradition of the annual dinner has remained, usually attracting more than 100 people, with the toast unchanged from the very first dinners in the early 1900s.
Since the 1950s, the society has held visits to sites and cities in the UK and abroad, both to spread knowledge and as social occasions. The next visit – ‘Scotland and its Engineering Heritage’ – is in October.
DRES remains a “dynamic organisation looking to the future” Saunders said, keen to celebrate its illustrious past but to also ensure it looks to the future and the next generation. Anyone with an interest in rail is welcome to get involved.
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