DERBY PRE-WW1

[DerbyLNWR]

What  locomotives - other than Midland - might have been seen in pre-Grouping days, prior to 1914 ?

I imagine there were local passenger and good services from the LNWR; North Staffs engines, but anything else  ?

(Clearly Great Northern but at a separate station).

Thanks

JM

[DonB]

Can't help on loco types, but LNWR had a Loco shed and turntable adjacent to the Ley's Foundry siding entrance south of Derby station.

Dated photos of  the partly demolished Loco shed and the removal of the Turntable exist in Derby Library in what was the local studies section, currently not accessible. The work took place in early 1934.

I assume that the presence of a loco shed indicated that there would have been an allocation of locos to the area.

[Orion]

The Midland borrowed M&GN tank loco(s) for a while, operating the Wirksworth branch IIRC - not sure if they ever got to Derby on a regular basis. I think the furthest west that proper M&GN trains got on a regular basis was Nottingham.

 

I think some S&DJR locos were built at Derby, so would be seen there - if only briefly.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Orion

[DerbyLNWR]

Thanks for that so far - it is a small model based upon the LNWR shed that I am building. 

I was wondering if there might be goods or passenger services from other lines working into Derby.

Maybe not.

Thanks anyway

JM

[Regularity]

The North Staffordshire Railway had running powers into Derby over the Midland.

[Compound2632]

As Simon says, Knotty from Willington Junction, with passenger services running as far afield as North Wales in the season. LNWR from Winchnor Junction, with services from Walsall (maybe from Dudley or Wolverhampton, I've not looked) over the South Staffs line and possibly from Nuneaton over the Ashby & Nuneaton joint line. The Great Northern kept itself to itself - I don't think there was a junction between the two companies in the Derby area. That's it.

[Mike Bellamy]

Slightly off topic but still related to Derby - arson attack overnight on the derelict GN Friargate Warehouse. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52804585

 

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-news/gallery/dramatic-footage-pictures-show-fire-4164277

 

Mike

 

 

[Phil Traxson]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

As Simon says, Knotty from Willington Junction, with passenger services running as far afield as North Wales in the season. LNWR from Winchnor Junction, with services from Walsall (maybe from Dudley or Wolverhampton, I've not looked) over the South Staffs line and possibly from Nuneaton over the Ashby & Nuneaton joint line. The Great Northern kept itself to itself - I don't think there was a junction between the two companies in the Derby area. That's it.

GN  line from Derby(Friargate) met the Derby - Uttoxeter line at Egginton Junction but that's about as close as it gets. 

[Poor Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, Phil Traxson said:

GN  line from Derby(Friargate) met the Derby - Uttoxeter line at Egginton Junction but that's about as close as it gets. 

 

en route to Uttoxeter (running powers over the North Stafford) and Stafford (on its own like from Bramshall). Also over the NS from Egginton to Burton to tap the brewery traffic.

[Compound2632]

Dreadful encroaching johnny-come-lately lot, the Great Northern.

[DerbyLNWR]

Now now gentlemen - none of that railway rivalry (;-)

Really helpful responses. Terrible shame about the Friargate goods depot. 

Like so many listed buildings it just sits for decades until time or vandals eventually mean it faces destruction. 

Here's a view in happier times.

 

[Regularity]

2 minutes ago, DerbyLNWR said:

Like so many listed buildings it just sits for decades until time or vandals eventually mean it faces destruction. 

And then that “development”* that its listed status had prevented can go ahead.

 

* Starting with demolition.

[Allegheny1600]

14 hours ago, Mike Bellamy said:

Slightly off topic but still related to Derby - arson attack overnight on the derelict GN Friargate Warehouse. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52804585

 

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-news/gallery/dramatic-footage-pictures-show-fire-4164277

 

Mike

 

 

Hi Mike,

It's good to know this is being investigated but I wonder if the actual culprits will ever be found?

Meanwhile the "developers" will be rubbing their hands with glee.

John.

[pstanton]

Do have a look at the London and North Western Railway Society Website; i'm pretty certain we have something on there?!!  Hawkins and Reeve will have an entry on the shed.  The St. Andrews wharf was an LNWR facility and LNWR freight would have worked into there.  Just outside Derby towards Stoke was LNWR junction  where LNWR trains would have come off the North Staffs and used their lines into the Derby Goods facility.  WWW.LNWRS.org.uk

 

 

[Compound2632]

Society website here: https://www.lnwrs.org.uk/.

 

[Poor Old Bruce]

21 hours ago, pstanton said:

Do have a look at the London and North Western Railway Society Website; i'm pretty certain we have something on there?!!  Hawkins and Reeve will have an entry on the shed.  The St. Andrews wharf was an LNWR facility and LNWR freight would have worked into there.  Just outside Derby towards Stoke was LNWR junction  where LNWR trains would have come off the North Staffs and used their lines into the Derby Goods facility.  WWW.LNWRS.org.uk

 

1 - Hawkins and Reeve only have two sentences on the LNWR loco shed in Derby saying it opened in 1860 as a sub shed of Horninglow and closed soon after grouping with work transferred to the Midland shed. It was nevertheless a substantial three road affair. They do have two photos showing bits of the shed, one of which shows a passing North Stafford train.

 

2 - Did LNWR trains come into Derby over the North Stafford (where was the nearest bit of LNW in that direction?) or did they join the Midland at Wychnor?

[Compound2632]

Just now, Poor Old Bruce said:

 

1 - Hawkins and Reeve only have two sentences on the LNWR loco shed in Derby saying it opened in 1860 as a sub shed of Horninglow and closed soon after grouping with work transferred to the Midland shed. It was nevertheless a substantial three road affair. They do have two photos showing bits of the shed, one of which shows a passing North Stafford train.

 

Hawkins & Reeve do give short shift to sheds that didn't make it to nationalisation. The Midland shed at Worcester is an example of similar size to the LNWR shed at Derby.

 

2 minutes ago, Poor Old Bruce said:

2 - Did LNWR trains come into Derby over the North Stafford (where was the nearest bit of LNW in that direction?) or did they join the Midland at Wychnor?

 

From the LNWR South Staffs line at Winchnor junction. In the 1903 Midland timetable, LNWR trains over the Ashby & Nuneaton Joint are only shown as far as Mesham, so I think they went to Burton. 

 

Some RCH junction diagrams:

 

 

 

[MidlandSingle]

A distant relative of mine Charles Sayer (b.1844  the father in law of my great aunt) was based at the LNW Peartree shed. Probably from around 1878 to 1908 he regularly drove the local passenger service from Derby to Birmingham (via Burton, Wychnor Jct., Lichfield City, Four Oaks, Sutton Town & Walsall via Soho Jct). His regular engine was 2158 Sister Dora, a small Jumbo or Whitworth which he was reluctant to let anybody else touch.

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, MidlandSingle said:

A distant relative of mine Charles Sayer (b.1844  the father in law of my great aunt) was based at the LNW Peartree shed. Probably from around 1878 to 1908 he regularly drove the local passenger service from Derby to Birmingham (via Burton, Wychnor Jct., Lichfield City, Four Oaks, Sutton Town & Walsall via Soho Jct). His regular engine was 2158 Sister Dora, a small Jumbo or Whitworth which he was reluctant to let anybody else touch.

 

I note from John Goodman's L&NWR Locomotive Names (RCTS, 2002) that Sister Dora was the only Whitworth to be given a new name, all the rest taking the names of the Samsons they replaced. Built Nov. 1894, so he must have had a different engine before that. Dorothy Pattison was Walsall's answer to Florence Nightingale; so characteristic of the LNWR's eclectic naming policy that she should be memorialised and the engine carrying her name be used locally.

 

Presumably that working ran into New Street and then back out to Walsall, with perhaps a further turn back to Derby direct? One minor point: the LNWR's station was Sutton Coldfield; Sutton Town usually refers to the Midland station (although I think officially Sutton Coldfield, at least in Midland days) although the two stations are about the same distance from the town centre. The Midland had to distinguish between its Town and Park stations. 

 

I grew up in a house backing onto the line just south of Four Oaks station; my father wrote a book dealing with the politics leading up to the building of the LNWR line from Aston to Sutton Coldfield in 1862: https://sclhrg.org.uk/shop/91-other-publications/85-steaming-up-to-sutton-by-r-lea.html.

 

You've reminded me that Sister Dora was a Small Jumbo - scotching my thought of her as the new identity for my Rails Lucknow when that arrives. But London Road Models do a kit for a Whitworth...

Edited November 5, 2021 by Compound2632

[MidlandSingle]

17 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Presumably that working ran into New Street and then back out to Walsall, with perhaps a further turn back to Derby direct? One minor point: the LNWR's station was Sutton Coldfield; Sutton Town usually refers to the Midland station (although I think officially Sutton Coldfield, at least in Midland days) although the two stations are about the same distance from the town centre. The Midland had to distinguish between its Town and Park stations. 

I'm quoting directly from a memoir written by one of Charles' descendants (Norman Sayer) which was supplied to me by the LNWR Society. There may be inaccuracies. 

 

I grew up a short walk from Peartree loco shed although it was long gone by my time. The Leys factory (where my grandfather worked) had taken over the land and the footpath diverted. It was however my nearest spot for train spotting. I can just remember steam on that line and memories hint at Stanier 4-6-0s.

[Compound2632]

35 minutes ago, MidlandSingle said:

I'm quoting directly from a memoir written by one of Charles' descendants (Norman Sayer) which was supplied to me by the LNWR Society. There may be inaccuracies. 

 

I suppose it is possible that the LNWR (or at least staff) were also calling their Sutton Coldfield station "Town" to distinguish it from the Midland's "Sutton Park". I'm a member of the LNWR Society - they produce some good publications and I hope to visit the archive at Kenilworth at some point soon to see if there's any more to be dug out on the Aston - Lichfield line in LNWR days.

 

35 minutes ago, MidlandSingle said:

I grew up a short walk from Peartree loco shed although it was long gone by my time. The Leys factory (where my grandfather worked) had taken over the land and the footpath diverted. It was however my nearest spot for train spotting. I can just remember steam on that line and memories hint at Stanier 4-6-0s.

 

Alas by the time we moved to Four Oaks in 1972 it was just blue DMUs apart from the excitement of Sunday diversions - 45s, later 47s, then HSTs and finally Voyagers!

Edited November 6, 2021 by Compound2632

[DonB]

I spent about 15 of my formative years in Walsall, there is/was a statue of Dorothy Pattison (Sister Dora) in the town centre, and the local hospital was named after her, now replaced by another hospital on a different site. 

Trains from Walsall to B'ham had two commuter routes, via Aston and Proof House Junction, or via Vauxhall & Duddeston, arriving into New Street station from opposite directions, but conveniently  the same platform. The early diesel trains allowed passengers to sit directly behind the driver and look over his shoulder forwards to see the route being traversed, I usually was able to take advantage of this facility.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, DonB said:

The early diesel trains allowed passengers to sit directly behind the driver and look over his shoulder forwards to see the route being traversed, I usually was able to take advantage of this facility.

 

When we lived in Shrewsbury, 1967-72, we used to travel to Birmingham to see my grandmother. I remember the front seat of the DMU being one of the highlights of the trip - along with the Hornby tinplate O gauge set my grandmother had bought to entertain visiting grandchildren; it must have been one of the last made. Anyway, at some point there's a change of gradient, a summit crossed by an arched bridge, at which it really did look as if one was about to drop off the edge of the world. 

 

Once we'd moved to Four Oaks, I looked on the electric trains to Walsall with awe and envy.

Edited November 11, 2021 by Compound2632