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Mystery Location.


45669
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Morning All,

 

I put a couple of pictures taken in 1964 on my Flickr site yesterday, but I have no idea where I was when I took them.  So I wondered whether anybody on here might be able to put me out of my misery:

 

50176799067_44f9bf7312_b.jpgR2149.  45393 - but where? by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

 

50176546501_1960062277_b.jpgR2148.  45393 - but where? by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

 

Any suggestions gratefully received.

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Looks northern or midlands to me.

 

23rd December was a Wednesday. Possibly related to the most important news that day from a railway perspective....

 

23 December

Richard Beeching announces his intention to resign as Chairman of the British Railways Board after three-and-a-half years, during which he proposed the closure of many smaller and financially non-viable railway lines as well as many passenger services on surviving lines.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

 

Jason

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I also posted this question on the National Preservation forum and a couple of people on there pointed me to Neasden Junction in north west London.

 

Behind the loco is the site of Neasden MPD which had closed in 1962 and is now the site of an asphalt company.  So what I had taken to be piles of coal are more likely to be piles of asphalt.  In the distance can be seen a brick viaduct leading to an iron girder bridge; I took this to be a railway viaduct / bridge, but it turns out that it's the North Circular Road where it crosses the Met & GC lines.

 

The suggestion about the date and Dr. Beeching is an interesting one! 

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Could the first one be Acton Wells Junction? The southern end of the West Coast Main Line was closed overnight in 1964 for electrification works. I came up on the overnight from Manchester Piccadilly two days earlier and we ran WCML to Bletchley thence Calvert Spur and High Wycombe to Marylebone. They would have wanted to run an up sleeper into Euston though and that could have been done via Greenford, Ealing Broadway and Acton Wells. The extra time incurred could just have brought it into daylight hours - or could it have run into Marylebone then worked round to Willesden for servicing via Neasden South Junction perhaps and then via where?

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It's been identified as Neasden Junction on the connecting spur between the Great Central Main Line and the Acton - Cricklewood freight only line.  Yes, they were both taken at the same time.  Neasden MPD (closed in 1962) was on the other side of the tracks; the site is now an asphalt depot. 

 

The second vehicle is a sleeping car, so perhaps it had been to Wolverton for an overhaul and was being returned to the Western Region?  The train has Class 3 headlamps indicating an ECS working.

 

Many thanks for taking the trouble to get in touch chaps.  I've recently started scanning a box of slides dated 1964 / 1965 - and very few of the slide mounts have anything written on them... 

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As I said, the southern end of the WCML was closed overnight at this period. The presence of a sleeping car and the location suggest to me that the train is being worked from Marylebone to Willesden for servicing - a short but complex journey which would have required reversals at Neasden South Junction (although that might have been possible to avoid that by going round the Wembley Stadium loop which was still open at the time), Acton Wells Junction and somewhere in the Willesden area. The same procedure must have been practised for all the WCML sleeper trains day after day while the WCML was shut.

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10 hours ago, bécasse said:

As I said, the southern end of the WCML was closed overnight at this period. The presence of a sleeping car and the location suggest to me that the train is being worked from Marylebone to Willesden for servicing - a short but complex journey which would have required reversals at Neasden South Junction (although that might have been possible to avoid that by going round the Wembley Stadium loop which was still open at the time), Acton Wells Junction and somewhere in the Willesden area. The same procedure must have been practised for all the WCML sleeper trains day after day while the WCML was shut.

 

That's an interesting suggestion.  I wondered whether the sleeper might be on its way to the Western Region having been to the menders at Wolverton.  It's a pity that we can't see if it's just one sleeper or a complete train of them.  Perhaps we'll never know - unless someone who was involved with those workings happens to see the pictures and gets in touch. 

 

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On 02/08/2020 at 20:58, 45669 said:

 

Behind the loco is the site of Neasden MPD which had closed in 1962 and is now the site of an asphalt company.  So what I had taken to be piles of coal are more likely to be piles of asphalt.

You were correct first time - the wagons, conveyors, hoppers and stockpiles are Neasden Coal Concentration Depot, latterly operated by Charringtons, the aggregate terminal on the former coal depot site did not open until April 2000.  Incidentally the old coal depot office block, seen to the left of the loco in your second photo, still exists as offices for the aggregate terminal.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 04/08/2020 at 13:47, SED Freightman said:

You were correct first time - the wagons, conveyors, hoppers and stockpiles are Neasden Coal Concentration Depot, latterly operated by Charringtons, the aggregate terminal on the former coal depot site did not open until April 2000.  Incidentally the old coal depot office block, seen to the left of the loco in your second photo, still exists as offices for the aggregate terminal.

 

Many thanks for your update; I've amended the captions accordingly.  Ain't the internet wonderful!

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My first thoughts were Acton Wells, but the absence of third rail said no, then realised it was Neasden.

 

Shed staff at 1A had the habit of chalking things on locos around that time, at one time maybe a couple of years earlier there was a loco on shed at 1A with an Esso cardboard tiger tied on the front. Remember the "put a tiger in your tank" campaign?

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