John Sandham, a Tribute

It was with great sadness and shock that I heard, on Sunday 9th May 2021, of the untimely death of John "Zuzzy Hell" Sandham. He was running for a train at Cardiff Central station, Unit bashing, when he sadly had a heart attack & Died - doing what he loved most, Trains.

John with only ONE bag shocker! Stockport 10/04/82. Photo used with courtesy of fgrsimon

Though known to most of the UK's Bashing fraternity from at least the early 80's, if not before, I only got to know John from early 1987 when we were both solidly bashing Crompton's on the Southern.

As one of those few who were regularly out daily, like myself, we would often share a Compo on the overnight moves.

Woking Tea party

If we were on the 2238 Weymouth to Waterloo we would nip to John's house for a quick cup of tea before going back to the station for the 0245 ex Waterloo to Portsmouth & Southsea. Similarly if we did the 2345 out to Woking we would have a few cuppa's and relax at his house for the 0140 to Yeovil forward.

33051 at Yeovil Pen Mill, John has a typically bad jumper on, 1615 Bristol - Weymouth 11/04/1988

33111 and friends at Salisbury on the last day of booked Class 33/1 operation on Route 62. L to R kneeling are Booger and Mark Kirkham and stood L to R are John Sandham, Larry, Roger Perkin, 2 x unknowns, Rudolph and Dobbin.14 May 1989. Photo used with courtesy of Duffield (Steve Thorpe)

With Peckham & John Sandham bellowing, 33204 arrives at Woking working the 0750 Waterloo - Salisbury

2 August 1989. Photo used with courtesy of Duffield (Steve Thorpe)

33116 and the local care in the community residents at Yeovil Jn with Hertfordshire Railtours TC Farewell.

From 2nd left : Selby State / John Sandham / Ware / Mike Tyrer / The late Dale Stewart / Steve Lane / Dobbin / Kirkham / The late Andy Clayton / Booger / Romford / Crewe / Skid / Dave Fry / Chessy / Poodle

Neath / Cudderford / Andy Francis / GK. 22 January 1994. Photo used with courtesy of Duffield (Steve Thorpe).

Start of John's European Bashing
From the start of the introduction of HST's and the years of Sprinterization that followed John got fed up with trying to avoid "Rancid Plastic" units as he called them (or worse!)
Me & Neath were planning our first visit to Germany - I told John you can bash Steam Heat 211's, 212's, 215's & 216's as well as 218's on the bigger trains & monster class 103 electrics on the mainline. Add to that loads of overnight's crisscrossing the country so no need for B&B's or Hotels! He soon decided to give it a try! An 8 day trip only involving overnight's - John loved it!

Poodle and John Sandham pose with 213 333 at Kreuzberg 27/08/89. It had worked in on 7172, the 16:47 from Bonn Hbf and would return to Remagen at 17:57 on train 7177. Photo used with courtesy of Neath (Steve Thomas)

Every time we passed a major depot, however, John would cry out "Are we coming past here again later in the week? I didn't get all the numbers"... some things about John never changed.

Neath & John spoil the phot of 211 209 at Schnabelwaid Thursday 31/08/89

Paddington & Red Star

I started working for BR at Paddington in November 1989, in the TEB (telephone enquiry bureau),

John was already working at Paddington in the Red Star Parcels office. When I took my 10 minute tea breaks I would often pop up to his office & have a 5 minute natter. 

Then one day I found John in his office, looking worried, and asked what the matter was "They are shutting the Red Star depot here and in a lot of other places, I'm going to be out of a job". Over the next few weeks I persuaded John to sit his Railway Clerical Exam, this would keep him in employment as there were plenty of Clerical Officer vacancies in London at the time. 

I walked into our office on an afternoon shift and the Supervisor said "Who told John Sandham to sit the Clerical Exam?!" I said I did - what's the problem? "He's passed it, we will be stuck with him for years!" 

This led to John joining the Control team at Liverpool Street station, he spent many years there often covering the Station Announcer role. 

I'm sure the denizens of Essex will have enjoyed "The next train from platform 11 is for Southend Victoria & is formed of an 8 car set of Zuzzy Plastic units", that's if they could understand his Bradford accent of course.

More European Bashing

Our 2nd trip to the Fatherland was in August 1990, myself, John & my brother were the participants.

We leapt at Liege on our way to Germany & did diesel's 5530 the 6km to Angleur for a pair 5505 & 5540 back in. Even on this short leap John nearly went missing after his fruitless search for somewhere to buy a cup of tea outside Angleur station!

On the 6th we were in the Bamberg area, just down the road from Bamberg station, turn right at the lights, is the Spezial Brewpub. Our second ever visit. John, who's alcohol intake would stretch to 1/2 a Cider a couple of times a year, made sure he got a tea this time after a Stein of Rauchbier had been slammed down in front of him on our previous visit (to be fair he drank 3/4 of it!). 

Bramsche

This was a 15 day trip with only one nights accommodation, to both catch up on some sleep & wash some small's!

We had checked in before the 1630 ex Osnabruck to find we were only a couple of doors away from a friendly hostelry. To this end me & my brother called it a day off the 1848 - it's Beer O'clock!

John decided to borrow my Kursbuch (German timetable) to do some more moves "Be careful you've never used one before" were my words of warning, after explaining the different symbols to him.

Some time later in the evening, sat at the bar drinking Altbier, I realised there was no sign of John, I was sure the last move of the day would have been back through Bramsche by now - when in he walks, laughing & accompanied by a very fine bit of Totty! Surely not John - NO, he had misread the timetable, going for a later Sundays Only train & today is Tuesday!

The fit bird was his taxi driver, she had no change for his 50DM note so came into the pub to change it over the bar. Now it made sense!

He wasn't allowed to borrow the Kursbuch for the rest of the trip (for the sake of his wallet!).

Part of our moves on 09/08 involved an unavoidable trip on a new 628 unit.

110 417 Frankfurt - Mainz 1925 Cerbere - Dortmund 38km

Shires Mainz - Albig "It was bloody Rancid" (J.Sandham)

212 028 Albig - Armsheim 1248 Alzey - Mainz 6km

212 028 at Armsheim (with my brother Puppy rummaging in his bag & John's bags in evidence bottom left) on the 1248 Alzey - Mainz

The following day we did the overnight to Munich and went out to Dachau to cover the 212 diagrams on the Altomunster line. There was a newsagents kiosk / Imbiss outside and we had 20 minutes until our next train. "I will ask them for a cup of tea" said John. No don't - they don't sell hot drinks I said. Next thing I heard "a cup of tea please" followed by much consternation in the kiosk & locals asking John what he was after? I was hiding by this point...

Carlisle Saturday 15/09/90

Me & Tim Reiner had done the overnight out of Euston to Glasgow (still in our work clothes) on the strength of info we'd been given that a pair of 20's would work the Butlins-Ex from Ayr to Carlisle.

We leapt to Ayr to be greeted by ex-Works 37229! Depressed, we got to Carlisle where about 200 Bashers had leapt for the 37 back out. The Driver failed it and 31412 worked the 1400 back to Ayr. 

John was one of the very few 31 Bashers there and had it throughout - a Top day for John as a 31 to Ayr was massive!

Nordhausen Sunday 25/08/1991

The main objective of this trip was to sample the famed Harz mountains narrow-gauge steam while it was still running public timetabled steam services. Whilst not a fan of steam previously, Rubble had informed me the Zwickau overnight was getting pairs of 218's out of Kassel so was "safe" for me as I do not like "Red Sheds" (class 232 (formerly 132) Russian built devices) & me & John could do this to Nordhausen for the Steam on the Harz network.

We had got a Compo in an empty coach directly behind the 103 then reversed in Kassel Hbf - I awoke after leaving Kassel & could hear screaming from the other end of the train - not from a person but from the 132 which had bowled us out! Cheers Mr Wormald......

The next move involved the 0502 local to Niedersachswerfen, walk across the village to Ost to pick up the 0529 ex Ilfeld WTT Steam service into Nordhausen - it was Hellfire!

John had decided (in his wisdom) not to do the above move but rather meet me for the 0640 Steam departure as there had been a pair of 132's at Nordhausen, so he thought he would do these instead. The first one had failed on departure & the 2nd staggered to the first shack where he was lucky to make his train back. "I told you they are Crap" was my answer to all that!

John spent a lot of time Bashing in Europe over the coming years - he certainly got a lot better at reading foreign timetables!

The crew of 99 7239 chat after running round at Nordhausen Nord in preparation to work the 0640 am to Wernigerode, still timetabled DR steam services at the time.

Immenstadt

A strange place to find myself on Easter Monday, 17/04/95. I was supposed to be in Spain doing Easter additional's but a power car on my Eurostar failed leading me to miss my reserved overnight out of Paris, then due to all the Boarding Card restrictions my only do-able overnight out was to Strasbourg.

Luckily I had Swiss & Austrian boxes with me so decided to work my way over via Basel & the Bodensee lake. All my currency was Spanish & being a religious holiday all the bureau de change's were shut! I had no German validity & just enough DM's to by a piece to Immenstadt.

I had come to Immenstadt as there'd been reports of 212's top & tailing on the Oberstdorf branch due to unit shortages - & two 212's were sat in the platform waiting to work! 

Having no DM's I hoped to change some currency at the DB ticket office - I was met with a big sign on the window saying "NO Exchange!".

Bowled, so took some photo's before deciding if it was worth getting on anyway - only to bump into John Sandham coming out of the Station Buffet, bags on one arm & a cup of tea in the other - "John lend me some DM's!" was the cry. Of course he did - no problem.

212 031 at Obertsdorf on the 1748 to Immenstadt 17/04/95. John & his bag collection can be seen bottom left hand of the scene.

We agreed to meet up for John's planned "S-Bahn on the Ruhr overnight" (!) on Friday night & share a Schönen Wochenende ticket. In true John fashion he had forgotten which train we were supposed to meet on so I had to eff-it all night until we did meet up at about 6am!

Any more rubbish please? Mr Sandham busy re-writing his numbers behind 68013 on the 0845 Marylebone to Birmingham Moor Street 01/10/2015

John retired from the railway, eventually moving back to the Crossflats area near Bingley, not a million miles from his original hometown of Idle. This gave him time to pursue anything that interested him, one of these was to become a Guard on the North York Moors railway. Our loco 33108 was a guest loco at one of the Gala's.

Tickets please! 

14 September 2012. Photo used with courtesy of Duffield (Steve Thorpe).

John was a good friend, I always stopped for a long chat if we were doing the same Railtours or preserved line moves, I for one will miss him - and his eccentricities!

I can still remember some of his sayings:

"Funny, funny Poodle!" whenever I asked him "when is the Baby due?" in the days when John had a very big tummy.

"A Pot of Slops please" (a cup of tea) at any Station Buffet in the Uk & one memorable time when he actually asked for "Ein Topf von Uberschwaben's bitte" (which he said meant "a Pot of Slops please") when I was with him in a station buffet in Germany.

Fitting Words from Dave Jackson, Class 33/1 Preservation Group Chairman "He was one of the few gents who transgressed all classes of locos and just got on with everyone. Never a bad word for anyone and always shared the Gen."

Next time you raise a glass (even if it's half a pint of Cider or a cup of tea) just think of John for a moment - it will get him giggling!