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Trainspotting at Chelmsford in the early 80s


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23 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

I've finally figured out why EMUs (and DMUs for that matter) are so slow to come to market - all the manufacturers are waiting on you to finish yours so they can announce the RTR one.  Unless you actually finish them then we are doomed to never seeing these models in rtr.

 

I scratchbuilt one of the Ipswich Dock Hunslet 11150-2  series 0-4-0's from plasticard, only to have Silver Fox release a resin casting of one within a matter of months of finishing it!

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A Rule 1 backed up by an interesting might-have-been, in that had electrification become more widespread, these were 100mph main-line units with buffet provision.

Could've covered secondary main-line duties in multiple with services splitting as required.

Imagining them on the Edinburgh-Glasgow Queen St. (Or Edinburgh/Glasgow/Aberdeen triangle):)

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6 minutes ago, keefer said:

A Rule 1 backed up by an interesting might-have-been, in that had electrification become more widespread, these were 100mph main-line units with buffet provision.

Could've covered secondary main-line duties in multiple with services splitting as required.

Imagining them on the Edinburgh-Glasgow Queen St. (Or Edinburgh/Glasgow/Aberdeen triangle):)

 

It is strange that they didn't end up elsewhere - build cost?

 

For me it's right location, wrong time period.

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True, today's railway of passenger multiple units with locos mainly for freight, couldn't really have happened in the BR years - too much of a sea-change for the Unions to accept.

It did occur on the SR, of course, but that started pre-BR and the region was generally a huge commuter railway with freight on the side.

Wholesale conversion to units for all passenger work elsewhere would've involved massive reallocation/loss of footplate staff, too much for the times I think.

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17 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

 

It is strange that they didn't end up elsewhere - build cost?

 

For me it's right location, wrong time period.

 

I've heard that they were planned for the WCML. That would make sense because Colchester-Clacton was a pilot for 25kV before it was adopted for the WCML & GE.

I don't think cost was the issue since they were basically modified Mk1s. I think what Keefer suggested was likely.

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I suppose the 310/312s could've been the successors to the 309s, being based on the mk2 integral design coaches (and bogies based on the B4 and B5), but they still ended up as commuter units with lots of doors instead!

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There was an alternative longer distance EMU design sketched out in the mid-'60s with single sliding doors (about 3 foot wide, so not a commuter can). Not sure what happened to that. I assume there were enough AC locos (200 of them by 1966) and not very old Mk.1 coaches around that there was no pressing need to build longer distance EMUs for the WCML.

Of course, the advantage of having locos and separate coaches is that you can upgrade the passenger accommodation (B4 bogies for a smoother ride, double glazing & air conditioning to make it quiter) without changing the traction equipment as progressive coach builds came along.

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A month or two later and I moved onto colour slide film and the first photo was of my second favourite train.  I can still remember how the whole station used to rumble and shake as the train itself rattled and squealed.  I’m fairly certain that it was bound for Felixstowe but where it had come from I don’t know.  The locomotives were a pair of Stratford 37s and this instance, very clean.  Disclaimer: not all Stratford 37s were this clean all the time.  So had there been a loco change at Temple Mills?

 

914311720_3705337055Chelmsford1982withFelixstowefreightliner.JPG.17fbaa80d0d23be9e90e8a4538c6a525.JPG

 

Unfortunately I didn’t get to photograph my favourite train.  It’s the south bound sand train hauled by a pair of 31s.  If I remember correctly the reason I never took a photo was that I was always on the wrong platform.  In the morning there was a gap between the last commuter train which cost full price and the first train for the cheap day returns to the smoke.  So I only ever saw it if we were going up to town for the day.  Incidentally, what was the name of the sidings it went to?

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I don't recall it ever being a tyre factory, but the last few years it's been an expanded polystyrene processing plant. It may have changed - I didn't go that way much before Covid, let alone now!

 

The old Royal Mail yard is now mostly an overhead line equipment  yard. Not sure if there are still stone deliveries any more - Redland used to use it as a stockpile.

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14 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

Incidentally, what was the name of the sidings it went to?

The sand train went somewhere around Mile End. When we went spotting at Stratford, that train was unusual for using the slow (Electric) lines, as the terminal was on the up side of the lines into Liverpool Street. Most of the rest of the freight at Stratford went through on the down side of the fast lines, and round one or even both of the curves past SF depot (Channelsea?)

 

Edit: thought I had a photo of that sand train at Stratford, but I only seem to have two snatched photos of the wagons

Edited by eastwestdivide
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12 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

The sand train went somewhere around Mile End. When we went spotting at Stratford, that train was unusual for using the slow (Electric) lines, as the terminal was on the up side of the lines into Liverpool Street. Most of the rest of the freight at Stratford went through on the down side of the fast lines, and round one or even both of the curves past SF depot (Channelsea?)

 

Edit: thought I had a photo of that sand train at Stratford, but I only seem to have two snatched photos of the wagons

 

Yes, I’ve always assumed that they went just east of the old Mile End station to the Regent’s Canal.  But the old maps show that yard as a coal yard, not aa sand terminal.

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24 minutes ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

Yes, I’ve always assumed that they went just east of the old Mile End station to the Regent’s Canal.  But the old maps show that yard as a coal yard, not aa sand terminal.

 

There have been a few  very detailed articles on the GER Devonshire Street Goods Yard -  Particularly the low level lines down to the Canal - In the GERS Journal over the past year. Whether the Devonshire St name applied to the sidings at main line level wasn't apparent though, but the sand terminal was in the same area.

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3 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

Yes, I’ve always assumed that they went just east of the old Mile End station to the Regent’s Canal.  But the old maps show that yard as a coal yard, not aa sand terminal.

 

The coal yard must have been out of use by the mid fifties as the Southminster, Marks Tey and possibly other sand traffic went there. The yard was in the form of brick arch drops or staithes. Iron ore hopper wagons surplus from quarries in the midlands and elsewhere were used. 

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There's a plan of the depot on page 42 of 'Focus on Freight- Eastern Region Freight from 1960' by Shaun Pearce.It had indeed been a coal depot with drops, as well as a canal-level network of sidings. The area is shown as having several operators. Greenham, a Taylor Woodrow subsidiary, is shown as having a concrete batching plant. C Williams and Brush aggregates also had facilities. There was one vestige of the original purpose of the yard, as Cade's had a small coal depot amongst the various aggregate depots.

At mainline level, there were six parallel sidings It's not evident how how these were fed from the mainline. Quail shows a pair of sidings, connected to the Up Electric by a facing point. The sidings are identified as 'Devonshire Street' in Quail.

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On 16/10/2020 at 20:45, Penrhos1920 said:

Every week day morning, sometime around 11 - 11:30, there was a north bound postal train that stopped for 5 minutes.  I’ve always thought that it was from Liverpool St, but recently I had a search through a GE coach working program and I couldn’t find it.  

Hand the opportunity this morning  to look at a  number of WTT's for the early 80's but could not find the train. I have access to a wide range of WTT's for East Anglia, so if you could give a specific date period I might be able to answer the question about the originating point of the working. 

 

Through local knowledge of the Cambridge line and a similar train on that line it may have come from Peterborough as the Freemans depot there dispatched daily trains to much of the country.

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Great photo's of Chelmsford and a few other places I know.  I came to Essex in the early 90's and seen a few railway changes since then.  My only visit to Chelmsford before the 90's was in about 1982 coming out of London on a 12 car EMU to cycle in Essex.

 

A question I have about Chelmsford station is when the centre line between the platforms was taken out, I can't remember if it was there in '82.  I'd guess it was bi-directional for fast trains to avoid slower ones stopped in the station.  Would this be useful now or is Chelmsford important enough that all trains stop there?

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1 hour ago, MyRule1 said:

Hand the opportunity this morning  to look at a  number of WTT's for the early 80's but could not find the train. I have access to a wide range of WTT's for East Anglia, so if you could give a specific date period I might be able to answer the question about the originating point of the working. 

 

Through local knowledge of the Cambridge line and a similar train on that line it may have come from Peterborough as the Freemans depot there dispatched daily trains to much of the country.

 

Is it too much to hope that you have access to anything from the 1930s? :)

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 The yard at Chelmsford still sees aggregate activity with class 66 & 59’s, as to the centre road I recall as a child in the 1960’s seeing parcels stock parked there, but would also be interested to know if it was ever used as through road , and when it was formally taken out was it just after the ammo train derailment in the late 60’s..... and yes I could never understand why it was  not reinstated with growing traffic volumes.

 

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13 minutes ago, 47164 said:

 The yard at Chelmsford still sees aggregate activity with class 66 & 59’s, as to the centre road I recall as a child in the 1960’s seeing parcels stock parked there, but would also be interested to know if it was ever used as through road , and when it was formally taken out was it just after the ammo train derailment in the late 60’s..... and yes I could never understand why it was  not reinstated with growing traffic volumes.

 

 

I *think* the centre road was effectively an extended crossover - the line you entered from was not the line you ended up on at the other end (ladder junction?). I think there's too much equipment where it used to be to be easy to re-instate.

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