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


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3 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

There was a Metal Box factory in Strood (on the line between Strood and Cuxton) which had a rail connection at one point. By the time I got interested in the late 70s, any traffic there had gone to road.

The site is now a Royal Mail depot.

There was still some traffic passing (ex Trostre ?) around 1980/1 as I had to send the Divisional Terminals Inspector (Basil Wilson) there from time to time to inspect damaged tinplate and provide reports to the BRB Claims Department.  I think the buildings were used as distribution depot for Tesco, or one of their haulage contractors, for a while after Metal Box closed down, athough no rail traffic was involved.

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I may be having a wrong memory moment but weren’t the PalVans built for the Channel Islands to UK traffic (tomatoes etc.) coming in via Weymouth (and therefore logically also Southampton) but then when they arrived it was found the pallets were a bespoke size to the trade flow and didn’t fit the vans?

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On 24/01/2021 at 18:53, montyburns56 said:

Batchelors Foods, Wadsley Bridge 1982

 

Yes, it's another private siding so sue me. :P

 

Batchelors Wadsley Bridge

 

 

Note how, in addition to the double slip, there is a catch point to protect the main line. If this were a railway company siding, the headshunt from the slip would provide the necessary protection, with the far end worked together with the main line point, but as it's part of the private siding, the slip can't be worked from the box so the additional trap point is needed.

 

Looking more closely still, I think the near end of the slip has the pairs of blades worked by separate levers.

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Is it an optical illusion or does the line that the loco (English Electric ?) is sitting on run straight into the pile of coal ?

 

Thanks to @Compound2632 for the above comments which have made me look deeper into this likeable photo.

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On 24/01/2021 at 18:53, montyburns56 said:

Batchelors Foods, Wadsley Bridge 1982

 

Yes, it's another private siding so sue me. :P

 

Batchelors Wadsley Bridge

 

 

Not that many private sidings with OLE especially 1500v ones 

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Thanks for the Thurso photos   very useful  but  seeing the red viva van on the platform made me remember when I drove one for work.I did thousands of miles in it and was left with a permanent back injury that still plays up today ,good for goods but no good for driving.

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What is the structure behind the platform in the photos with the two Class 37s? It doesn't appear in any of the other photographs.

 

David

 

Edit: Just noticed that it seems to be present in some of Ernie's b/w photos

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5 hours ago, DavidLong said:

What is the structure behind the platform in the photos with the two Class 37s? It doesn't appear in any of the other photographs.

 

David

 

Edit: Just noticed that it seems to be present in some of Ernie's b/w photos

 

Do you mean this thing?

 

d12c Thurso 19mar85

 

THurso from overbridge Station throat

 

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Yes, that's the one. I was trying to work out the time line for it as it doesn't seem to be present on the pre-large logo 37 photos. I think that @Nearholmer may have the right idea about what it is there for. Having checked Google Earth it isn't there now, just a large expanse of nothingness like the rest of the area around the station.

Thanks for putting the extra photos up.

 

David

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On 25/01/2021 at 08:09, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

From Twitter.

 

image.png.f3d48f32cd28af00ba524cd53155cde5.png

 

On the Mid Hants Rly.

 

image.png.4d4473c84bc7038a4b889a3a26602c76.png

 

Mike.

The top photo looks very much like Dover Priory goods yard to me, https://www.dover.uk.com/history/1930/dover-priory-station, the 6 legged watertank and the brick base of the old one.

There was, I seem to remember from trips to Margate, a Metal Box factory at Ashford just north of the Ashford bypass with a private siding off the Ashford - Canterbury West line. You could see vans and minerals with shiny tinplate scrap in them from passing trains, so possibly the palvans moved empty cans from there to the Batchelors factories.

At Aylesford (ref the Snodland link above) there was the goods yard on the down side, and just beyond the level crossing by Aylesford box was a long trailing siding on the up side, which served one or more warehouses (SPD or some thing at the far end), often a few vans in there including (according to my more knowledgeable friend) one of the vans with a fibreglass roof (translucent?) on one occasion, he referred to it as a plastic van. The warehouse later became a Finefare distribution centre. The siding terminated just short of Aylesford village level crossing. 

There were several food factories in the area along the Medway valley - Smedley next to Barming station, Foster Clarke alongside Maidstone West yard. 

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20 hours ago, Artless Bodger said:

The top photo looks very much like Dover Priory goods yard to me, https://www.dover.uk.com/history/1930/dover-priory-station, the 6 legged watertank and the brick base of the old one.

There was, I seem to remember from trips to Margate, a Metal Box factory at Ashford just north of the Ashford bypass with a private siding off the Ashford - Canterbury West line. You could see vans and minerals with shiny tinplate scrap in them from passing trains, so possibly the palvans moved empty cans from there to the Batchelors factories.

The photo certainly looks like Dover Priory, with the derailment on the sidings leading to the goods shed, I wonder what the Batchelors wagons were doing here, I would have thought three wagon loads would be a lot for local distribution.

I cannot find a reference to any Metal Box factory at Ashford, the site you describe was the Batchelors Factory (now Premier Foods), they presumably received empty cans by rail from Metal Box unless there was a can manufacturing operation on site.

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33 minutes ago, SED Freightman said:

The photo certainly looks like Dover Priory, with the derailment on the sidings leading to the goods shed, I wonder what the Batchelors wagons were doing here, I would have thought three wagon loads would be a lot for local distribution.

I cannot find a reference to any Metal Box factory at Ashford, the site you describe was the Batchelors Factory (now Premier Foods), they presumably received empty cans by rail from Metal Box unless there was a can manufacturing operation on site.

I was going from memory of trips to the seaside as child in the early 60s, and it is of lettering on the factory, but it was a long time ago. Looking up the Batchelors site, it is now Premier Foods, Google satellite view for TN24 0LU, shows some track still in existence outside the north end of the factory. It looks closer to the mainline than I recall. So my memory was wrong, thanks for sorting that out. Live and learn :-)

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13 hours ago, SED Freightman said:

The photo certainly looks like Dover Priory, with the derailment on the sidings leading to the goods shed, I wonder what the Batchelors wagons were doing here, I would have thought three wagon loads would be a lot for local distribution.

I cannot find a reference to any Metal Box factory at Ashford, the site you describe was the Batchelors Factory (now Premier Foods), they presumably received empty cans by rail from Metal Box unless there was a can manufacturing operation on site.

 

The Palvans in the photo were in the very local flow of imported foam rubber from Belgium.

 

Large sheets of the stuff would arrive via the Ostend steamer as ordinary cargo, and be off loaded by crane and loaded to the Palvans, usually 3 or 4 per day.

The vans were tripped as the last job of the Calais end pilot via Dover town to the Priory goods shed for offloading to road vehicles. IIRC, the ultimate destination was Martin Walter's at Folkestone who, at the time built the Dormobile camper van bodies.

 

The locals who I spoke to remembered about generally 8 / 9 vans for the flow, it been quite renumrative as all the moves were encompassed in existing booked moves. 

 

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27 minutes ago, Simon Lee said:

The Palvans in the photo were in the very local flow of imported foam rubber from Belgium.

 

Large sheets of the stuff would arrive via the Ostend steamer as ordinary cargo, and be off loaded by crane and loaded to the Palvans, usually 3 or 4 per day.

The vans were tripped as the last job of the Calais end pilot via Dover town to the Priory goods shed for offloading to road vehicles. IIRC, the ultimate destination was Martin Walter's at Folkestone who, at the time built the Dormobile camper van bodies.

 

The locals who I spoke to remembered about generally 8 / 9 vans for the flow, it been quite renumrative as all the moves were encompassed in existing booked moves. 

Very interesting, thank you. One of my work colleagues in the late 70s drove a dormobile - I didn't know they were home grown in Kent.

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22 minutes ago, Artless Bodger said:

Very interesting, thank you. One of my work colleagues in the late 70s drove a dormobile - I didn't know they were home grown in Kent.

The works was on the left-hand side, between the Folkestone and Cheriton exits from the M20. The site's largely been flattened, and is used as bus stabling for Cross-Keys, and as a sorting/ processing area for demolition waste. 

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