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Bedford Steam/Diesel Depot


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Further to my post re Walsall shed,

 

the same is also true of Bedford shed, it had a small allocation of Class 27s for a while, but finding pics of them on shed is tough..........

 

is the building still standing?

 

 

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It is a wonder that the site hasn't been cleared and used for housing, but then again it's not in one of the nicer areas of Bedford (not that there are many to choose from)

Oi you!!!!! Goldington is still nice, cos me mum lives there.

 

At the recent Kempston show there was a model of Bedford Shed under construction. I had a good natter with one of the ex drivers who was part of the team building it. As a local trainspotter I used go over to the shed with my mates after a morning of spotting at Midland Road. I can recall cabbing BRCW Type 2s in the shed. Even on a hot day it was always cold in there. We had to be careful when going over to the shed on a Saturday lunch time, if we timed it wrong there was a good chance of being run over by all the workers pouring out of Allens opposite the shed as they rode their bikes over Ford End Road bridge. Going to work on a Saturday and on your bike, how things have changed.

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Oi you!!!!! Goldington is still nice, cos me mum lives there.

 

At the recent Kempston show there was a model of Bedford Shed under construction. I had a good natter with one of the ex drivers who was part of the team building it. As a local trainspotter I used go over to the shed with my mates after a morning of spotting at Midland Road. I can recall cabbing BRCW Type 2s in the shed. Even on a hot day it was always cold in there. We had to be careful when going over to the shed on a Saturday lunch time, if we timed it wrong there was a good chance of being run over by all the workers pouring out of Allens opposite the shed as they rode their bikes over Ford End Road bridge. Going to work on a Saturday and on your bike, how things have changed.

 

seeing the 27s in there I guess would be 1964 time,

 

where exactly was the stabling point after they ceased using the former shed building?

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seeing the 27s in there I guess would be 1964 time,

 

where exactly was the stabling point after they ceased using the former shed building?

In the 70's the stabling was opposite on the other side of the main line, there was a small shed and a couple of sidings, the area was where the sidings & buffers for the 12 cars are now.

 

Oi you!!!!! Goldington is still nice, cos me mum lives there.

 

Goldington's ok, but would you want her living in Queens Park. . . .  :chok_mini:

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seeing the 27s in there I guess would be 1964 time,

 

where exactly was the stabling point after they ceased using the former shed building?

BRCW Type 2s late sixties before they were exiled the other side of that wall.

 

After they stopped using the four road shed as Dave as said they used the two road shed opposite Junction box, for a while. This was the first MR shed in Bedford, the four road one was a later addition.

 

In diesel days the the main shed did not have any refueling facilities. Locos had to be driven to the DMU fuel pumps located at the old dock sidings behind the Northampton bay. There always seemed to be an Esso/Airfix tank wagon there. When the station was rebuilt the fuel point and tanks were relocated by the good shed.  The ex driver told me that to refuel a loco was a secondman's job and to find pathways between the timetabled trains it took some time. If they could string it out for two hours it counted as a driving duty, normally they were back in an hour and a half.

Edited by Clive Mortimore
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Clive,

 

any shots of them on the old two track depot? did the def use that, I read it was used as a Pway depot for a while?

 

What was that building seen in some pics of locos on Bedford in the 1980s??? A single track looking building???

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Oi you!!!!! Goldington is still nice, cos me mum lives there.

 

At the recent Kempston show there was a model of Bedford Shed under construction. I had a good natter with one of the ex drivers who was part of the team building it. As a local trainspotter I used go over to the shed with my mates after a morning of spotting at Midland Road. I can recall cabbing BRCW Type 2s in the shed. Even on a hot day it was always cold in there. We had to be careful when going over to the shed on a Saturday lunch time, if we timed it wrong there was a good chance of being run over by all the workers pouring out of Allens opposite the shed as they rode their bikes over Ford End Road bridge. Going to work on a Saturday and on your bike, how things have changed.

 

You could have been run over by one of my great-uncles. Two of them worked at Allen's for their entire careers.

 

Massive development potential in that part of Bedford now that the brewery is closing down.

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Clive,

 

any shots of them on the old two track depot? did the def use that, I read it was used as a Pway depot for a while?

 

What was that building seen in some pics of locos on Bedford in the 1980s??? A single track looking building???

At some point in time the building was rebuilt to a single road but I had be living in Essex quite a number of years by then so I could say when it was done.

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You could have been run over by one of my great-uncles. Two of them worked at Allen's for their entire careers.

 

Massive development potential in that part of Bedford now that the brewery is closing down.

In my day that was the Eagles ground until Charlie Wells brought it.

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I started work in 1973, traveling home most weekends and from memory locos were still being stabled outside the 4 road shed. There was a period in the 1970s after the track was lifted when the shed was being used as a garage for the yellow PW crewbuses.

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most helpful, so it would have been after 1973 then that the two road shed was used?

 

RE the yellow crew buses, would that be the referrance I read to the depot being used as a p-way depot?? or was that the two road shed???

 

any ideas when both were abandoned.....

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The site is earmarked as a compound for the electrification works to the north and already has stacks of piles. The building itself looks to be in remarkably good order, no roof as such and trees growing in the centre where locos once stood, but the walls still seem to look fairly sound.

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  • 3 years later...

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