Bedfordshire Brickworks Electric Railway System

[08221]

A few years ago, an edition of 'Chaloner' - the Leighton Buzzard Railway's magazine - had an article about the Bedfordshire Brickworks railway system, including some excellent photos.

 

Very annoyingly, I have just been (very quickly) through my back issues and can't find the exact magazine. I am sure if you contact the LBR at Page Park station, they will be able to get you a copy. I know they keep a small stock of back issues at the station.

 

HTH.

[highpeakman]

Thank you very much for that suggestion. I will contact them. Do you have any rough idea of how long ago that edition was published?

 

Also I do know someone who has a connection with the LBR so he might know someone there who has knowledge about the system. Thanks again.

 

Don

[jamesw]

hi all,

i found these comments really interesting. i used to live at 4 railway cottages, kempston hardwick, between 1966 & 1977. it's the row of cottages between the brickworks and the elstow munitions dump, just before the railway bridge. my dad was james wilson, a popular man in his day. my dad was a railwayman and used to operate the signalbox opposite coronation works. i used to play in the brickworks, but i was only 7 in 1973 when it closed, so i hardly remember it being open. i do however, remember the siding off the lms mainline as my dad and i used to play on the clay trucks that were parked there. i was never allowed into elstow storage depot and now i realise why! i can agree the smell of sulphur when the wind was in the wrong direction was pretty bad! happy days!!!

[5050]

I have one of the High Level kits L&Y Battery steeple cab loco kits that one day might (WILL!) get built using a Somerfeldt small pantograph. I have thoughts of a small industrial layout with o'head etc.

 

Just one of my many 'future projects'.................................................

 

Actually getting down to doing some modelling instead of just thinking about it would probably help!

[highpeakman]

Sorry for slow response. I haven't looked at this post for a while.

 

I used to live in Amptill and remember the signalbox at this point and the cottages which are, of course, still there (or they were until recently - I do not live in the area anymore). I think the overhead electric had been removed by the time you would play there but I am not sure when the standard gauge sidings were finally removed - probably when the main line went over to overhead power in the later 70s?

 

I have acquired the Fleischmann 0-4-0 electric loco which is pretty close to "Ruth" (the trolley wire fed loco which used to work the sidings until the late 60s) and will be using that (sometime) on my layout as a feeder siding to a main line.

 

If anyone out there remembers any else about the electrified, standard gauge sidings and Ruth at Coronation works I would be really pleased to hear about it.

[andyb92]

Was looking for available info about Marston Vale and the brickmaking industry on the interwebby and came across this thread.

Came across this fascinating vintage film at http://www.ampthill.tv/play.html?id=94
 

You might also be interested to know that the Ridgmont Station Heritage Centre holds an exhibition twice yearly at Ridgmont Station (nr Brogborough/M1 jcn 13) where Andrew Mortlock - London Brick Company Archivist - brings along a comprehensive collection of archive material related to brickmaking on the Marston Vale. The latest exhibition has just gone but there's another proposed in the Spring next year (2016)

[Clive Mortimore]

Was looking for available info about Marston Vale and the brickmaking industry on the interwebby and came across this thread.

Came across this fascinating vintage film at http://www.ampthill.tv/play.html?id=94

 

You might also be interested to know that the Ridgmont Station Heritage Centre holds an exhibition twice yearly at Ridgmont Station (nr Brogborough/M1 jcn 13) where Andrew Mortlock - London Brick Company Archivist - brings along a comprehensive collection of archive material related to brickmaking on the Marston Vale. The latest exhibition has just gone but there's another proposed in the Spring next year (2016)

Hi Andy

 

What a nice bit of film. The making and firing the bricks was much the same as remember seeing on a school visit to Stewartby brickworks in the early 1970s.

 

I too remember the sulphur smell when the wind was in the "wrong direction". Mind you living in Goldington if the wind was in the other "wrong direction" we had the odours of the sewage works. The power station was positively clean by comparison.  

 

I can recall seeing wagons under the wires in the sidings at Elstow brickworks. I cannot remember ever seeing wagons in the electrified sidings on the west side of the line (Stewatby works?) further to the south.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Clive Mortimore

[Nick Holliday]

I know that open wagons were pooled to a certain extent by 1921, but the variety on the train at the end is fantastic. Apart from the obvious local companies I spotted a couple of Taff Vale, ones from the LBSCR and SECR, and I think I saw a Caledonian one as well!

[Down_Under]

Found another picture if "Ruth" from post #1. Looks to be the same loco from behind. The coal pile on the left seems to be same, along with all the junk on the bonnets, and the junk behind the loco. I think you can make out the same rail joint in both photos the front wheel is over. Plus the trolley poles are in the correct position.

This image came from the http://agenoria0gauge.com/abante/index.php?rt=product/category&path=68upcoming items tab. So if your into 7mm scale looks like you win!

 

The loco are nearly identical to those at Spondon Power station (minus the battery vent lourves) of the Spondon examples (http://www.geoffspages.co.uk/raildiary/emidsodd_htm_files/111.jpg). One appears to be preserved at Electric Railway Museum (http://www.electricrailwaymuseum.co.uk/collect.htm)

 

J

[Nearholmer]

Excellent thread about some of "Ruth's" German cousins here, with lots of drawings and photos. http://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?17,6335539

 

The general form of steeple-cab four-wheeled electric loco goes back nearly to the beginning of dynamo-electric railways, and they have been built all over the world, to suit all sorts of different power supply configurations.

 

I have to confess that despite a pretty thorough search, I'm not totally sure which company built the first in this format, but I strongly suspect that it was Siemens and Halske in the mid 1880s. The bogie version of the same thing was, I think, an American idea from roughly the same date.

 

Electrically, the d.c. ones are pretty much exactly like a toy/model train, and there were toys/models of them on the market from c1900.

 

Kevin

[highpeakman]

A resurrection of this old thread as I have found some old videos of the brickfields which show the processes of brick making over the years - from the 20s to the 70s. The videos show the draglines, internal railways, chain driven truck systems, electric locos being used around the kilns and being loaded on to railway wagons for shipment. Absolutely fascinating contrasts from the earlier hand loading of bricks at every stage of the process to the final years of pallet handling. 

 

These videos are from the "Ampthill TV" site (a considerable collection of videos made over the years that will be of much interest to anyone who lived there, as I did, but probably not to anyone else) however i suspect the brickyards videos were official London Brick Company films made over the years. They are short and not high quality (only a couple have sound) but do give a wonderful glimpse of the process, machinery and variety of railway equipment used at Stewartby (RIP). 

 

Brickmaking at Stewartby 

1980s

http://www.ampthill.tv/playvideo.html?id=241

 

1970s

http://www.ampthill.tv/playvideo.html?id=242

 

1960s

http://www.ampthill.tv/playvideo.html?id=242

 

1950s

http://www.ampthill.tv/playvideo.html?id=243

 

1930s

http://www.ampthill.tv/playvideo.html?id=240

 

1920s

http://www.ampthill.tv/playvideo.html?id=94

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

1921 film is particularly interesting. I think the NG locos are early, very small, Sentinels, and I was surprised to see that they were driven by a guy standing on a footboard at the side - very practical in some ways, but miserable in bad weather I should imagine.

[highpeakman]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

1921 film is particularly interesting. I think the NG locos are early, very small, Sentinels, and I was surprised to see that they were driven by a guy standing on a footboard at the side - very practical in some ways, but miserable in bad weather I should imagine.

An interesting selection of pre grouping wagons at the end of it as well with bricks being shipped out all over the country using the various railway companies.

[Michael Hodgson]

The loading of many of the wagons appears to have unsecured bricks above the height of planking - surely there was a material risk of bricks flying about if 3-link couplings snatch etc, potentially hitting passengers at platforms or staff working lineside?  Would it not be safer to use wagons with slightly higher sides?

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I thought the very low-sided wagon with a flat-topped pyramid of bricks on it looked particularly dodgy. Would anyone believe that if replicated on a model railway?