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Surprise Level crossings


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Hi everybody 

Years ago I saw a photo of a small industrial loco passing between a post office and a house. I think it was some where in south wales. I want to say Dowlas Iron works but I could be wrong. Does anyone remember the photo and where I could get a copy?

 

Marc

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Great picture, looking at the six inch OS map there was a mass of sidings behind those buildings

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.97083887408895&lat=51.7623&lon=-3.3473&layers=6&b=1

 

Cheers,

 

Keith

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It's one of my pictures and you can find it on Flikr:

 

10421420063_69506549d4_c.jpgOCT 74B Shunter crossing Dowlais High Street, September 1974 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

It's my most popular picture by a considerable margin and it's just appeared in the Journal of the Monmouthshire Railway Society.

 

Marc, you're welcome to a copy; I'll send you a PM later

Oh great, more time is going to be wasted looking through someone's Flickr site! :-)
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It's one of my pictures and you can find it on Flikr:

 

10421420063_69506549d4_c.jpgOCT 74B Shunter crossing Dowlais High Street, September 1974 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

It's my most popular picture by a considerable margin and it's just appeared in the Journal of the Monmouthshire Railway Society.

 

Marc, you're welcome to a copy; I'll send you a PM later

Trouble is I keep getting drawn to the mismatch spray job the door of the Sunbeam Rapier.

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Interestingly my photo was foreshadowed many years earlier by a painting. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/caeharris-post-office-from-gwernlwyn-house-153535

 

It looks, though, that in 1935 the post office must have occupied a different premises a little further down the High Street from the level crossing.

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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Andy - you might be amused to learn that I spent the best part of an hour yesterday afternoon comparing the old O.S.map linked above to your pictures, trying to decide which of the two road crossings your post office view represented, and then (after a lot of hassle) aligning Google Streetview up to finally get the very view :sungum: - which I found later that evening in your Flickr album, right next to the original image!  :ireful:

 

Tony

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There was also once something similar at Pembroke Dock. My photo doesn't show it in close-up, but beyond the station you can just see the gap in the houses through which the line to the dockyard once ran. Although in 1973 the line was severed at the level crossing, most of the track was still there and I'm very sorry I took no more photos.On a more recent visit, I found that the trackbed of the dockyard line has mostly been obliterated by new roads.

10421126884_c58be4af50_c.jpgSEP 73 11. Pembroke Dock Station, July 31 1973 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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A couple from my more recent visit.

 

The gap between the houses:

 

post-7404-0-75507900-1507143033.jpg

 

Looking back towards the viewpoint of the first picture. This is the last remnant of surviving trackbed; behind the photographer it is built over.

 

post-7404-0-28474100-1507143059.jpg

 

I have never found a single picture of this line. It is not in Richard Parker's Railways of Pembrokeshire. Pembroke Dock does not even feature in Britain From Above (the Aerofilms archive). Wikipedia says "The Hobbs Point and Dockyard branches officially closed on 1 January 1969 but they had long been dormant."

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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I have a very old tatty book about the Pembroke & Tenby railway somewhere which had a picture of the dock extension in it, sadly just rails in a road but no train featured. I'll see if I can did it out...

 

EDIT - might have gone in a previous clearout, but it was this one if interested

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PEMBROKE-TENBY-RAILWAY-MORRIS-J/dp/B004N7QZUU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1507144137&sr=8-2&keywords=pembroke+%26+tenby+railway

 

Sorry for going OT

Edited by Ramblin Rich
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I have a very old tatty book about the Pembroke & Tenby railway somewhere which had a picture of the dock extension in it, sadly just rails in a road but no train featured. I'll see if I can did it out...

 

EDIT - might have gone in a previous clearout, but it was this one if interested

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PEMBROKE-TENBY-RAILWAY-MORRIS-J/dp/B004N7QZUU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1507144137&sr=8-2&keywords=pembroke+%26+tenby+railway

 

Sorry for going OT

Thanks Rich. I might follow that up

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Guest Isambarduk

The gap between the houses:

 

post-7404-0-75507900-1507143033.jpg

 

Very curious and just checking: is this really the same location as the Hudswell Clarke emerging next to the post office in 1974?  Is so, the buildings have been completely rebuilt and enlarged in an early style, and why leave the gap? 

 

The Google Maps view (www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7623795,-3.3458353,3a,75y,147.57h,87.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFxI_5ZACH3C52SIjFbWy-A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656) looks right, to me, with modernisation of the existing buildings.

David

Edited by Isambarduk
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Very curious and just checking: is this really the same location as the Hudswell Clarke emerging next to the post office in 1974?  Is so, the buildings have been completely rebuilt and enlarged in an early style, and why leave the gap? 

 

The Google Maps view (www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7623795,-3.3458353,3a,75y,147.57h,87.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFxI_5ZACH3C52SIjFbWy-A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656) looks right, to me, with modernisation of the existing buildings.

David

Sorry, I have confused the issue. This is Pembroke Dock; I added this to the thread because it is a similar situation to Dowlais. I think the view you found is the correct one, but you should be able to confirm it. If you look at my original Flikr post of Dowlais,you will see in the comments a link that I posted to one of my own "Today" shots.

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I am a great fan of such "surprise" level crossings, so I just had to look at the scene at Caeharris as it is now.

 

I am pretty sure that the line went where the bins are - such is progress.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7623795,-3.3458353,3a,75y,147.57h,87.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFxI_5ZACH3C52SIjFbWy-A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Off topic slightly - I'm another fan of the 'surprise' level crossing. There was a good one at Keynsham where a private line to Fry's chocolate works left the station yard - several great images on the Bristol Rail site

There was also the Vinegar works branch at Worcester which had semaphore signals to stop the road traffic!

 

EDIT I remembered there was a thread on Keynsham Fry's here on RMweb

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/17820-keynsham-rail-served-chocolate-factory/?fromsearch=1

Edited by Ramblin Rich
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Many years ago I remember regularly crossing a little used ungated level crossing in Allerton-by-water near Leeds and one day to my surprise I saw a class 11 shunter idling away at one side of the crossing, sat there between a row of houses and a working mens club. At the other side of the road the line disappeared around a corner between the back gardens of more houses. The line was quite heaverly over grown in either direction even back in the late 80s. I have since found out the class 11 I saw was 12099, which is now preserved on the Severn Valley Railway.

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