Pictures of quaint small goods yards in the 70s-90s

[C126]

I have two of Hove yard in 1985, which show some stock in use.

 

 

 

 

I have a happy memory of standing here and watching HBAs/HEAs being shunted by a B.R. blue '73', with the shunter riding on the front bogie's steps, 'side saddle', clutching his shunter's pole and other arm on the driver's door rail, as the loco trundled down to collect the wagons in the sidings westward.  I assume there was no third rail in the vicinity, but it still struck me as 'blase'.  Of course, I did not have my camera...  Hope these are of use.

Edited August 20, 2019 by C126
Typo.

[Fat Controller]

I recollect Powell-Duffryn getting a sizeable grant to upgrade Hove yard.

The HAA and former FerryMotor Car van are odd interlopers.

[montyburns56]

23 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

I think you are confusing Tyne & Wear Metro with the Metro Centre as the two do not come close to each other!

 

Swalwell was the Opencast Disposal point that had two class 11's working there and the crossovers on the Carlisle line are still used by Metro Centre turnbacks .  On the other side of the river was Derwenthaugh exchange sidings for the Coke Works that closed in the 1990's. Blaydon Yard further west had a house coal depot and scrap yard (Robson & Hannon); it was not unknown for wagons to go in with coal and come out with scrap. It was also used for cleaning wagons out.

 

The remains of the truncated Redheugh branch was the home to Thompson's scrap yard!

 

The Tyne Yard trip for these locations was at one time used an 03 & runner wagon and at times could see the locomotive sandwiched between scrap wagons, normally vacuum fitted minerals MCV, MDV & MTV.

 

Plenty scope for modelling!

 

The only yard to survive next to the Metro was Jarrow for the BSC tube works.

 

Mark Saunders

 

There's that many lines and branches in that part of Newcastle I'm struggling to work out what is what. I can see what the Swalwell Branch is and the Blaydon Yard, but I can't quite work out what exactly is the Redheugh Branch. I'm guessing it's the stub of the line from Dunston Junction to Redheugh Junction which originally went under Redheugh Bridge? The thing is the picture that I've got of a scrap train refers to Thompson's scrap yard as being on the Dunston Branch so I don't know if the Redheugh/Dunston branch is the same thing! Anyway I've found this amazing picture of the Thompson's Scrapyard.

 

 

I think this picture is just past Redheugh Junction looking towards the Redheugh Bridge

 

 

I believe that this is where it became the Tanfield Branch?? a mile or two up the line.

 

 

And I think this actually might be Redheugh Junction with the Dunston Staithes in the background.

 

 

And.....

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by montyburns56

[montyburns56]

10 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

Photo by Bill Potter, D6319 potters about at Marsh Sidings, Park End on 10th June 1968... it already looks like a model of the real thing...

 

 

 

 

Nice. I've also found this picture from the later years.

 

 

 

And someone has posted this picture in this thread which seems to have been taken on the same day as yours.

 

 

 

[montyburns56]

6 hours ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

 

7 hours ago, dvdlcs said:

No pictures, only memories...

 

(which may be suspect)

 

Wisbech - vague memory that the yard there wasn't just for the pet foods at one time.

 

Well there is this pic of a train from Wisbech at Whitemoor Yard which says that it is carrying fruit juice so....

 

 

[Fat Controller]

12 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

 

Well there is this pic of a train from Wisbech at Whitemoor Yard which says that it is carrying fruit juice so....

 

 

Wisbech  also received tinplate from Trostre, Llanelli, loaded in SPAs.

[Rivercider]

Here is Bridgwater Yard in 1980 when the yard was still served by a weekday trip up from Taunton, worked by a class 08.

The date is 12 September 1980, and 08281 has recently arrived on 8B05, the morning trip up from Taunton. The blue sulphuric acid tank has come from ISC Chemicals at Hallen Marsh and 08281 will shortly make the short trip up the main line to deliver it to the Royal Ordnance Factory at Puriton. The yard at Bridgwater looks deceptively busy, but remember the British Steel strike, (January to April 1980), caused large numbers of unfitted coal wagons to be laid up - many never to be used again. The vanwides in the yard are probably waiting for C&W examination before going empty to the ROF to be loaded with explosives, and I think the MCV in front of 08281 was loaded with scrap and was going to be shunted over the weighbridge in the yard.

 

cheers

[RANGERS]

On 17/08/2019 at 20:29, Tim V said:

Or Corby in 1980.

 

The Corby photos are very nostalgic, a reminder of how it was, great to see them.

 

The goods shed was occupied by Wagon Repairs until they closed in about 1982. It was finally demolished in the late 1980s and the site is now the new station car park. The two back sidings were also used by Wagon Repairs and for a short period in 1981, for transfer of coils to road trailers whilst the BSC branch was being upgraded before transfer to BR. Local coal merchant Ironmongers (still around), used the siding nearest the goods shed to bag house coal from 16t mins until the vac braked wagonload traffic disappeared.

[Tim V]

Couple more here, wasn't this line goods only then?

[RANGERS]

27 minutes ago, Tim V said:

Couple more here, wasn't this line goods only then?

It was, passengers didn’t make their first, fleeting return until May 1987 before retreating to Kettering again in 1990. Only when EU and Govt funding backed a business case based on 8,000+ new homes being built, did we once again see passenger trains in 2009. The rest is history.

 

The photos were taken after the BSC steel making plant had closed early in 1980, the sidings at the far end of the right hand headshunt would have been full of wagons when the works were operational. Similarly in the first shot, Corby sidings beyond the goods shed would have been much busier.

 

Demolition at BSC started in March 1980 but it was into 1981 before most of the bigger structures were felled, they’re all still standing in these pics.

 

[montyburns56]

23 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Wisbech  also received tinplate from Trostre, Llanelli, loaded in SPAs.

 

Yeah, for the Metal Box company I presume.

[Tim V]

So this has gone? There were also estates of empty housing like this.

[Mark Saunders]

On ‎20‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 18:55, Fat Controller said:

I recollect Powell-Duffryn getting a sizeable grant to upgrade Hove yard.

The HAA and former FerryMotor Car van are odd interlopers.

 

I think the HAA is the prototype that was fitted with pneumatically operated doors and later used as a barrier, so possibly the Ferry CCT is also being used as a barrier!

 

 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brhaapost80/e3eb2d44c

 

Mark Saunders

[Gibbo675]

6 minutes ago, Tim V said:

So this has gone? There were also estates of empty housing like this.

Hi Tim,

 

I expect that those houses are due to the housing shortage that the Daily Mail and Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show constantly bleat on about ?

 

Gibbo.

[Nearholmer]

11000 jobs went out of Corby c1980-81, and the unemployment rate was c30%. 

 

People tend to go elsewhere, leaving empty houses behind them, in circumstances like that.

 

The town is almost unrecognisably different now; it was recently, may still be, the town with the highest rate of population growth in the UK.

 

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Nearholmer

[keefer]

2 hours ago, Tim V said:

So this has gone? There were also estates of empty housing like this.

 

A sad sight indeed - c.f. the rows of abandoned terraces in former mining towns.

Doesn't matter what industry it was, if it goes, the town reliant on that industry suffers.

At the time, a lot of these properties could be bought for peanuts but:

1) who, locally, had the money to buy them

2) if you had the money, why would you live in a ghost town?

Even in areas which would experience a need for non-industry related housing, it was cheaper/easier/more desirable to bulldoze the lot and replace with lucrative modern shoe-box 'commuter belt' housing for those whose work lies (much) further afield

[Rivercider]

6 hours ago, keefer said:

 

A sad sight indeed - c.f. the rows of abandoned terraces in former mining towns.

Doesn't matter what industry it was, if it goes, the town reliant on that industry suffers.

At the time, a lot of these properties could be bought for peanuts but:

1) who, locally, had the money to buy them

2) if you had the money, why would you live in a ghost town?

Even in areas which would experience a need for non-industry related housing, it was cheaper/easier/more desirable to bulldoze the lot and replace with lucrative modern shoe-box 'commuter belt' housing for those whose work lies (much) further afield

Many of the traditional heavy industries were dirty dangerous places. However once they closed one by one, often taking supporting services like railways with them, so also went the communities and a way of life. A proper sense of community can take generations to build, but not long to destroy.

 

cheers

[C126]

On 21/08/2019 at 20:42, Mark Saunders said:

 

I think the HAA is the prototype that was fitted with pneumatically operated doors and later used as a barrier, so possibly the Ferry CCT is also being used as a barrier!

 

 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brhaapost80/e3eb2d44c

 

Mark Saunders

 

That explains a long-standing query I have had at the back of my mind.  Would it have been a barrier for the oil tanks?  On Thursday, 5th Dec., 1985, 09.56, I saw a train as follows heading north from Eastbourne (I assume from St Leonard's Depot area):

 

73 132 (large logo livery) +VIX (bauxite) +4x TTAs +VIX (Railfreight) +HAA.

 

I have always wondered if HAAs were used for domestic coal-yards, and if not, why it was in this consist.  Would departmental stock require barriers?  Was the HAA a crippled wagon being taken west for mending?  All ideas gratefully received.

[eastwestdivide]

On 20/08/2019 at 15:41, C126 said:

I have two of Hove yard in 1985, which show some stock in use.

 

In the first photo, the far right wagon with what appears to be a bare metal hut on it - looks like one of the SR's DEMU engine carrier wagons, probably en route St Leonards depot. Those ferry CCTs also turned up on SR departmental workings like Tonbridge-Hoo Jn around that period.

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, C126 said:

 

That explains a long-standing query I have had at the back of my mind.  Would it have been a barrier for the oil tanks?  On Thursday, 5th Dec., 1985, 09.56, I saw a train as follows heading north from Eastbourne (I assume from St Leonard's Depot area):

 

73 132 (large logo livery) +VIX (bauxite) +4x TTAs +VIX (Railfreight) +HAA.

 

I have always wondered if HAAs were used for domestic coal-yards, and if not, why it was in this consist.  Would departmental stock require barriers?  Was the HAA a crippled wagon being taken west for mending?  All ideas gratefully received.

The HAA is a bit of a mystery. The nearest any worked to the area are the Kent coalfield and the cement works in North Kent. I don't know of any less-than-trainload workings of any sort of MGR hopper, apart from to cement works in East Anglia. Even then, it would be half-a-dozen or more wagons, not a solitary one. If it is the one with modified doors, then perhaps it was being trialled for deliveries to either Hove, or one of the cement works along the Sussex coast, such as Beeding or Southerham.

By 1985, I don't think barriers were required on oil services.

[SED Freightman]

On 20/08/2019 at 20:52, montyburns56 said:

 

 

Well there is this pic of a train from Wisbech at Whitemoor Yard which says that it is carrying fruit juice so....

 

 

That would be an awful lot of fruit juice.  I seem to recall that there was a two way flow of block trains from Wisbech to Scotland (Barrhead?), conveying empty cans northbound and Spillars petfood southbound.  Interestingly there is a brake van on the rear, was this required for long propelling movements / shunting or were there trainman operated crossings on the branch which required a someone at the back to close gate after the train had crossed ?

[31A]

21 minutes ago, SED Freightman said:

Interestingly there is a brake van on the rear, was this required for long propelling movements / shunting or were there trainman operated crossings on the branch which required a someone at the back to close gate after the train had crossed ?

 

I suspect the latter; there were several level crossings between March and Wisbech.

 

[SED Freightman]

4 hours ago, C126 said:

 

That explains a long-standing query I have had at the back of my mind.  Would it have been a barrier for the oil tanks?  On Thursday, 5th Dec., 1985, 09.56, I saw a train as follows heading north from Eastbourne (I assume from St Leonard's Depot area):

 

73 132 (large logo livery) +VIX (bauxite) +4x TTAs +VIX (Railfreight) +HAA.

 

I have always wondered if HAAs were used for domestic coal-yards, and if not, why it was in this consist.  Would departmental stock require barriers?  Was the HAA a crippled wagon being taken west for mending?  All ideas gratefully received.

The train you saw would most likly have been 6F91 0902 Hove Yard to St Leonards West Marina, this was sheduled to run round at Eastbourne 1043 - 1124, so could have been running somewhat early, the return left St Leonards as 6F92 at 1303.  Most likely explanation for the use of barrier wagons would be if one of the tanks had defective brakes and therefore required three fitted wagons either side to avoid remarshalling the train during the run round moves at Haywards Heath and Eastbourne.  With a daily trip operating from Hove to either St Leonards West Marina or Newhaven, it would have made sense to have had some barrier wagons at Hove to provide cover for wagons with defective brakes as it would not have been practical to remarshal trains at either Haywards Heath or Eastbourne.  As suggested by the Fat Controller, the HAA is most likely to have been the one used as a barrier wagon, there being no use for such wagons at the Central Division coal depots.

[montyburns56]

37 minutes ago, SED Freightman said:

That would be an awful lot of fruit juice.  I seem to recall that there was a two way flow of block trains from Wisbech to Scotland (Barrhead?), conveying empty cans northbound and Spillars petfood southbound.  Interestingly there is a brake van on the rear, was this required for long propelling movements / shunting or were there trainman operated crossings on the branch which required a someone at the back to close gate after the train had crossed ?

 

Yep, the caption says  "Note the brake van at the rear of the train used by the member of train staff during the trip along the Wisbech branch, where several road crossings had to be negotiated."

[SED Freightman]

17 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Yep, the caption says  "Note the brake van at the rear of the train used by the member of train staff during the trip along the Wisbech branch, where several road crossings had to be negotiated."

Sorry,  I had had failed to click on the link to the original photo and its very comprehensive description.