The Innocent Railway -last train

[Ben Alder]

Here is a real gem of a movie- a paean to a lost age...

 

 

And a related one showing the coal yard.

 

Edited June 1, 2015 by Ben Alder

[jasp]

Great stuff Richard.

Interestingly, I recently mentioned " the coal man" to some young friends who were unfamiliar with the concept, presumably being used to central heating and he no conception of same.

I remember getting a "hudgie", ie hanging on the very back of the lorry when it moved from house to house. The expletives and threats from the coal man were no deterrent.

Full 1cwt. (remember them?) bags, none of this 25kg stuff.

Thanks

Jim P

[sulzer27jd]

The coal man still delivers here on a Tuesday morning.

[br2975]

Great stuff Richard.

Interestingly, I recently mentioned " the coal man" to some young friends who were unfamiliar with the concept, presumably being used to central heating and he no conception of same.

.................................

Full 1cwt. (remember them?) bags, none of this 25kg stuff.

 

 

As a teenager it was my daily task to "lay" my grandmothers fire, cleaning out the previous days ash, then use kindling, newspaper and coal.

.

I'm sure using a tablet, X-Box or smart phone is more interesting to today's teenagers.

.

Brian R

[Ben Alder]

Still  coal fired here, albeit with a closed front- most of the benefits of the old open fires went up the chimney....these videos brought back memories to me. My uncle was a coal merchant, albeit on a smaller scale than this, and watching the men at work was like being back in the late fifties- I was now and again allowed  to play in the coalyard and went up to the station to"help" unload wagons- remember crawling under and over  them and generally having a great time- can you see it happening today.... now I marvel I never ended up as a shunting accident....

 

As an aside, I still have some of his ledgers from the mid/late fifties detailing sales, and generally speaking, even in winter, the vast majority bought one cwt bag a week, which makes for pretty mean heating of a house. Then, of course it was usually only the one room that was heated, with not a thought of central heating, and if you were lucky the fire was smoored/banked down overnight- I remember potato peelings being used as a part of this- so there might be a modicum of heat when you came downstairs in the morning...

 

Not at all sure I'd want to go back there, but if I did I'd make sure I paid far more attention to the railway....

[Jock67B]

Morning Richard,

That was indeed a nostalgic video to watch. You might remember that I lived in railway accommodation (aka the 'blocks') adjoining Hurlford 67B shed in the fifties, where my father was a driver. To one side of the site, we had the fairly extensive Barleith mineral sidings and I often had footplate rides when dad did extra 'turns' between mainline duties, taking trains of empty wagons up to one of the many 'pits' in the Ayrshire coalfields. We would wait in the guards van while the guard brewed tea on his pot bellied stove as the wagon filling duties were carried out by the NCB shunters.

We didn't have much need of a coalman in those days as best 'steam' coal used to find its way into our domestic bunker! I remember my grandmother benefitting from such coal as well - her house was at the foot of a shallow sided embankment on the Kilmarnock to Darvel branch line, and quite regularly a raker would "fall" off the tender of a passing 2P to be attended to by her remaining son who still lived at home!

Thanks for bringing these memories flooding back,

Kind regards,

Jock.

[Adam]

Hi Richard, 

 

Thank you for finding these films; they are extremely interesting for a variety of reasons but from my perspective, as a wagon enthusiast, the following notes might be useful.

 

While there's lots of interest here in terms of the wagons involved, the main point to be noted is the date: c. 1968. In the course of the first film are, in order of appearance, one end of an 8 shoe minfit (0:37); what appears to be a retro-fitted morton-braked 16 tonner (1:28); an RCH pattern wooden bodied 12 tonner marked 'locos' (1:35) and, if the film really is from 1968, this begs a second question since steam had by then gone from Scotland; a PAIR of LNER wooden framed and bodied 6 plank open and a similar LMS 5 plank of the once ubiquitous dia. 1666 (1:42). The latter is clearly marked 'cond' and one of the LNE vehicles locos' as well, but also evidently in some sort of service. At 2:18, we see the other side of one of the LNER opens, E 238275 I think; at 2:33 an RCH 7 plank; at 2:40 some possible dating evidence in the form of a yellow liveried artic hauling what appears to be an early Freightliner box. Also shown at the centre of the shot is a dia 1/100 slope sided mineral, shown more clearly at 3:02 next to a riveted 16 tonner and a pair of wooden RCH types.

 

Now, from what I can see my thoughts about the wooden-bodied and framed vehicles is that by this point they never left this yard but were being used mostly as reach wagons to aid shunting: none seem to appear in the exchange of wagons from the yard. Their presence, however, is an interesting exception to general 'rules of thumb'.

 

The shot of the coalman damping the back of his lorry (an early '50s Bedford A type) to keep the dust down on what was clearly a hot day in the first video is nice too. The accompanying film, from a different time of year also has much of interest, but primarily in its depiction of coal handling and the road vehicles involved. Possibly the same Bedford A and a nice TK dropside modified with full-height 'greedy boards' are featured prominently.

 

Thanks again.

 

Adam

Edited June 10, 2015 by Adam

[Ben Alder]

Don't thank me- I came across the video on Facebook and merely did the link. The real gratitude must go to the guy who had the prescience to record the scene before it passed- just wish more had had the nous to capture every day activities well in colour. I noticed the, for that date supposedly obsolescent, wagons- very intriguing....guess we'll never know now.

[Poggy1165]

Great film. And of a scene that wouldn't have looked all that different twenty or fifty years earlier. OK, different motive power, and mostly different wagons, but in the essentials, the same. The traditional railway in all its glory.

[Marly51]

Hi Ben (Richard?) - loved seeing these two videos. When we lived in a tenement flat in Edinburgh in the 1950s, our coalman delivered by horse and cart. Mum had to put newspapers on the floor between the front door and the kitchen for the coal delivery, because that was where the coal bunker cupboard was located. We had a lovely traditional black range which probably created a regular ‘stoor’, but the kitchen was always the cozy heart of the house in winter.

 

Marlyn

[Ben Alder]

Almost snap on the distaff side! Wife grew up in Gorgie  in the 50's in a tenement flat and her mother kept a coal fire until she moved out in 2001. Fortunately for the coalman she was on the ground floor, and she had a Rayburn, slightly excessive for a two and a half room house, but it kept everything warm, including the flat above and the one beside the chimney breast.....Coal deliveries were motorised by the time I got to know her in the early seventies, but the milk was still horse drawn for a further ten years. It stopped when that bane of inner city diversity - property values - made their stables  far more valuable than the returns on a milk round; not to mention increased motor traffic....

 

Video is a real gem though....

 

I answer to anything - when I signed up here I adopted the prevailing habit of a nom de plume but then promptly started using my own name in posts and replies as well. Got in to the mindset of thinking myself as B A when I'm on the forum to an extent.  This spills over in to my day to day existence as well, being called as my fathers name - generations used the same one so my mother wanted a change, but local race memory more or less stymied that idea and I also am kent by the business name that has been in the family for decades and again unfortunately for my mother, had the same first name as my father.......

[Marly51]

Small world - we moved from Merchiston to Balgreen Road in 1959 and some of my primary school pals were from Gorgie! The boys disappeared at lunchtime along the railway tracks to the sheds at Haymarket, armed with their Ian Allan train spotting books!

Edited January 6, 2018 by Marly51

[RANGERS]

As a teenager it was my daily task to "lay" my grandmothers fire, cleaning out the previous days ash, then use kindling, newspaper and coal.

.

I'm sure using a tablet, X-Box or smart phone is more interesting to today's teenagers.

.

Brian R

 

It was the roaring, open coal fire in the house when we viewed on bitter January Sunday afternoon which resulted in us living where we are. We still have a coal delivery to the village but not to us since we converted to a wood burner last year. A "dual fuel" coal or wood stove was the preference but the most suitable for the room and location was a pure wood burner which has been excellent. The kids are slightly more than teenagers now but both are skilled at cleaning, lighting and nurturing the stove, its in the same room as the Playstation so its guaranteed to receive attention, It gets cold in there if they don't do it!

[NCB]

On the subject of the Innocent Railway, has anybody any ideas what this structure is:

 

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2276825

 

It is on the route of the railway, which is now a cycle path. There has been some discussion on Geograph on whether it is a railway structure, or maybe something which appeared after the railway was closed. Whatever, nobody knows what it is for.

 

Nigel

[scotcent]

Could  it  be  for  curling  stones?  It's  not   far  from  Duddingstone  Loch.

 

Allan  F

[Enterprisingwestern]

On the subject of the Innocent Railway, has anybody any ideas what this structure is:

 

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2276825

 

It is on the route of the railway, which is now a cycle path. There has been some discussion on Geograph on whether it is a railway structure, or maybe something which appeared after the railway was closed. Whatever, nobody knows what it is for.

 

Nigel

 

Could it be anything to do with this?

 

 

In 1832, one shrewd local businessman, Michael Fox, decided to capitalise on passenger traffic, making use of the Innocent Railway’s connection to Fisherrow close to Portobello. With no stops on the Innocent route, passengers could alight the train at any point of the journey, but of course the big selling point was the fact that you could be ferried from the city centre out to the coast. It wouldn’t have been particularly fast, but for many this would have been their first ever experience of the railways. Mr Fox’s venture proved to be a big hit, carrying over 150,000 passengers to Edinburgh’s seaside in its first year.

 

Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/a-history-of-edinburgh-s-innocent-railway-line-1-4281730

 

Mike.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Enterprisingwestern

[NCB]

Mike, we (Geograph members) wondered about that.

 

However, think we've solved it. It appears to be a viewing platform built by Lothian Regional Council about 1990, to provide a view over the Bawsinch Bird Sanctuary.

 

Cheers

Nigel

[DavidR]

Still coal -fired here in  Silesia, Poland. A lorry delivers 2 tonnes of coal in summer (when it is at its cheapest), which has to be shoveled down into the cellar, from the outside. A pretty- new electronically operated boiler sees to temperature and automatically turns on fan to assist with initial lighting up and when the fire burns down.

Downside: everyone around here is coal-fired, so the air in cold weather can nearly be sliced and no good to someone with breathing problems. Also firing the boiler and removing ashes is a dirty old job.

We've applied to the council for an EU grant to convert to gas, they tell us they've run out of money, until 2019 !

[Ben Alder]

Here is a link to the Leckies  website, which contains some interesting snippets. Oh, that more had the foresight to recordthis sort of thing when it was still around.....

 

http://www.theleckies.com/The_Leckies/%22The_Leckies%22.html

[Enterprisingwestern]

Here is a link to the Leckies  website, which contains some interesting snippets. Oh, that more had the foresight to recordthis sort of thing when it was still around.....

 

http://www.theleckies.com/The_Leckies/%22The_Leckies%22.html

 

Made me smile having a coal merchant named after a slang term for an electrician!

 

Mike.