Whitemoor and Wisbech

[Edwin_m]

Is that the original March station building in the first photo? 

[LNERGE]

It is indeed. 3 years after the closure of the Joint Line the Middleton Towers sand train has left it's mark on it's new route and not a hint of it on the old.

[DJM Dave]

Hi chaps,

 

As i still own a house close by, and moved there in 2001, i was there luckily for the rebuild.

I'll put some pics here of the rebuild and if you would like to see more i'll put them here as well.

Cheers

Dave

[stewartingram]

Didn't realise you were a neighbour Dave!

 

Stewart

[newbryford]

Going back to the OP - here's a link to an aerial view from the Network Rail press release for the NTMRC:

 

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/Gallery/4664/National-Track-Materials-Recycling-Centre-Whitemoor-Yard-2

 

Whitemoor prison is at the left end

 

Cheers,

Mick

[andyrush]

SNIPPED.

The place was totally fascinating. Andy Rush is far more qualified to comment on it than i am.

Thanks Richard, I may well comment on return from parts foreign!

 

Happy New Year

 

Andy

[LNERGE]

I have emailed you the high resolution WJ diagram. Shame it wasn't available for the GE magazine.

[Dieselbob]

Hi Leon

If you go to Youtube and search (dieselbob666) thats my chanel and you will find quite a few videos of the Speedlink trafic in the late 80s calling at Whitemoor Yar.

I think it was one of the best yards in the country as there was only one way in and one way out of the yard.

cheers

Bob

[LNERGE]

Here's a box diagram from the Wisbech line.. Worth a read. How to make something simple complicated..

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pwayowen/7808959280/in/set-72157627782450647/

[62613]

Hi Leon

If you go to Youtube and search (dieselbob666) thats my chanel and you will find quite a few videos of the Speedlink trafic in the late 80s calling at Whitemoor Yar.

I think it was one of the best yards in the country as there was only one way in and one way out of the yard.

cheers

Bob

Only after the joint line closed. Before then, the yard was double-ended. I lived in March from 1962-1966, and my brother was born there.

The infuriating thing about March/Whitemoor was that it was impossible to see everything that was going on, due to the number of routes that could be traversed by the various trains.

[62613]

As a couple of asides, the story of a third of the working population of the town working on the railway was quite true; it was impossible not to know someone whose dad did. The other factoid I was told was that Whitemoor was the second-largest marshalling yard in Europe - only Hamm in Germany was larger, both in terms of track-miles and throughput

[andyrush]

Is that the original March station building in the first photo? 

Technically no, as there was a short lived station to the west from 14 January 1847 until the Wisbech line opened on 3 May 1847. The relative positions are shown on the attached scan from the GERS Collection

[andyrush]

I go away on holiday for a week and there are all these people talking about my favourite railway location! Just to set the record straight, here are the brief details of the establishment and development of Whitemoor until 1939. The history from then until 1988 is pretty well covered in Michael Rhodes' book mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Whitemoor Marshalling Yard had its origin in the exchange sidings opened on the down (west) side of the Great Northern Railway line from Spalding on 1 April 1867, between Norwood Junction (later Grassmoor Junction) and White Moor Junction where the Spalding line joined the realigned GER March – Wisbech line. March GN Goods Yard sidings consisted of 4 long parallel loops, a goods tranship shed (not thought to be a public facility as no road access is known), miscellaneous dead end sidings and a turntable.

 

These were augmented by a fan of sidings (Whitemoor Yard) further west in 1882 to deal with the extra traffic expected to be generated by the opening of the GN&GE joint line that year, with the original GN sidings being renamed Norwood Yard. Whitemoor Yard was added to in a piecemeal fashion in 1898, 1902, 1907 and 1912, with a limited amount of ‘knuckle’ (gravity assisted) shunting being carried out.

 

The reconstruction of the yard by the LNER commenced in 1927 when a contractor’s siding was laid in on the up side at Grassmoor Junction, on 30 June. The new mechanised Up Hump Yard, laid out on newly purchased land to the east of the former GN&GE Joint line, opened to traffic on 3 March 1929, when the goods train WTT for the whole of East Anglia was radically altered. A formal opening ceremony followed on 29 March.

 

No time was wasted in building a new mechanised Down yard to replace the facilities to the west of the main line, the first enabling track works being brought into use on 31 May 1929. In the meantime the Up Yard was partially used as the down goods traffic marshalling yard, shunted on the flat from the south end with Norwood yard (which was to remain largely unaltered by the rebuilding) being used for sorting empty coal wagons.

 

The Down Hump Yard was opened in early February 1931 and all empty wagon and most down road goods traffic shunting was thenceforth done there, leaving Norwood yard mainly responsible for dealing with fitted and passenger rated traffic, although the division of labour was always flexible and varied by season.

 

A diagram of the yard at its fullest extent is attached, as is a 1950’s aerial view, looking north east, from the Industrialogical Associates collection 

 

 

[Fat Controller]

The 'Tranship Shed' on the Down side is clearly visible in the centre of the photo; just visible, directly above it and on the other side of the March- Spalding line, is the corresponding 'Up' facility. Neither would have had public access, as they were purely for the railway's own use. Originally, such facilities would have existed at points where one railway's territory met another, and would allow merchandise to be transhipped from one railway's wagons to another ('common-user' didn't really start until WW1). Later, they would serve to consolidate part-loads for a given destination into as few wagons as possible; especially important when forwarding traffic to urban depots, where space would be limited. Finally, they would tranship loads from wagons which had been 'red-carded' for onward travel.

[andyrush]

The brick built Down side Tranship shed was built in mid 1893 after the original GN 'Goods Shed' burnt down on 11 April that year. It formed the prototype for similar structures built at Colchester and Ipswich around the turn of the century. The date of the clearly visible extension is unknown but may date from the opening of the Down Hump Yard, to aid consolidation of part loads as mentioned above by Brian 

[newbryford]

I

 

A diagram of the yard at its fullest extent is attached, as is a 1950’s aerial view, looking north east, from the Industrialogical Associates collection 

 

If I look at the diagrams/photos correctly, the current Whitemoor yard (approximately) uses Norwood Yard for the main infrastructure sorting sidings and Down yard reception/some of the shed area for the track recycling centre.

Whitemoor prison is on the site of the Down sorting sidings.

 

The google aerial photo is pre-track recycling centre (I have a current aerial photo but not mine, so I can't post it)

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=March,+Cambridgeshire&hl=en&ll=52.574299,0.084116&spn=0.022299,0.055747&sll=50.362095,-4.811514&sspn=0.09363,0.222988&oq=march+cambr&hnear=March,+Cambridgeshire,+United+Kingdom&t=f&z=15&ecpose=52.56977296,0.08411519,3452.7,0.005,8.312,0

 

Cheers,

Mick

[andyrush]

I reckon the prison is across some of both the old Up and Down Yard sorting sidings and the new infrastructure sidings use the southern end of the Up sorting sidings and the Up departure roads. The stone loading area is across the former main lines and most of Norwood Yard.

 

For anybody interested, I wrote a piece for GERS Journal No.141 (January 2010) entitled '24 hours at Whitemoor Junction signal box' covering the period 2200 Monday 22 April - 2200 Tuesday 23 April 1968 based on train register books loaned to me by LNERGE of this parish.

[LNERGE]

I reckon the prison is across some of both the old Up and Down Yard sorting sidings and the new infrastructure sidings use the southern end of the Up sorting sidings and the Up departure roads. The stone loading area is across the former main lines and most of Norwood Yard.

The prison takes up very little of the yard but it is almost right across it. The support posts for the compressed air message system between the up reception shunter's hut and the up tower are still visible. This means all of the land the up hump reception was built on is intact.

[stewartingram]

When I did my stint in Whitemoor Prison*, the Up Hump was still there at the back of the prison perimeter wall.

 

* as a comms engineer, looking after the cctv and radios, not as an inmate!

 

My office was located above the prison gatehouse (main entrance). On my wall was a photocopy of the plan of the yard, and I calculated my office was just about where the Grassmorr SB was. Also above the gatehouse was the Control Room; there was an aerial photo hung outside in the corridor, showing the prison under construction, with the rows of derelict 'Peaks' visible.

 

Stewart

[LNERGE]

I go away on holiday for a week and there are all these people talking about my favourite railway location! Just to set the record straight, here are the brief details of the establishment and development of Whitemoor until 1939. The history from then until 1988 is pretty well covered in Michael Rhodes' book mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Whitemoor Marshalling Yard had its origin in the exchange sidings opened on the down (west) side of the Great Northern Railway line from Spalding on 1 April 1867, between Norwood Junction (later Grassmoor Junction) and White Moor Junction where the Spalding line joined the realigned GER March – Wisbech line. March GN Goods Yard sidings consisted of 4 long parallel loops, a goods tranship shed (not thought to be a public facility as no road access is known), miscellaneous dead end sidings and a turntable.

 

These were augmented by a fan of sidings (Whitemoor Yard) further west in 1882 to deal with the extra traffic expected to be generated by the opening of the GN&GE joint line that year, with the original GN sidings being renamed Norwood Yard. Whitemoor Yard was added to in a piecemeal fashion in 1898, 1902, 1907 and 1912, with a limited amount of ‘knuckle’ (gravity assisted) shunting being carried out.

 

The reconstruction of the yard by the LNER commenced in 1927 when a contractor’s siding was laid in on the up side at Grassmoor Junction, on 30 June. The new mechanised Up Hump Yard, laid out on newly purchased land to the east of the former GN&GE Joint line, opened to traffic on 3 March 1929, when the goods train WTT for the whole of East Anglia was radically altered. A formal opening ceremony followed on 29 March.

 

No time was wasted in building a new mechanised Down yard to replace the facilities to the west of the main line, the first enabling track works being brought into use on 31 May 1929. In the meantime the Up Yard was partially used as the down goods traffic marshalling yard, shunted on the flat from the south end with Norwood yard (which was to remain largely unaltered by the rebuilding) being used for sorting empty coal wagons.

 

The Down Hump Yard was opened in early February 1931 and all empty wagon and most down road goods traffic shunting was thenceforth done there, leaving Norwood yard mainly responsible for dealing with fitted and passenger rated traffic, although the division of labour was always flexible and varied by season.

 

A diagram of the yard at its fullest extent is attached, as is a 1950’s aerial view, looking north east, from the Industrialogical Associates collection 

Both the diagram and the aerial photo pose more questions than answers for me. The diagram implies the Peterborough Road starts from the down hump departure and the aerial photo seems to show it originating near the top of the down hump. I had always imagined it originated beyond the jacks on the west side of the down hump. If it started at the down departure or beyond the jacks it would conflict with the flow of locos from incoming freights. Not a great problem if signalling was involved but i'm not aware of too much round that side. If it originated near the top of the down hump it would imply trains were drawn back over the hump to escape westwards and disrupt humping whilst doing so. Anyone have any ideas?

 

So far i have only found one photo of something escaping westwards from the Peterborough Road via 62 points Normal, 117 Reversed, 118R, 122R, 126R 127R and 139R past 77, 114 and 130 signals. In the absence of pull plates or locking table i wasn't sure this was a way out so to speak..

 

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2789913

[andyrush]

The simplified nature of the block diagram is probably responsible for your confusion, and I apologise!

Reading from the west side, the roads in the Down Sorting sidings area were:

Engine Line from the loco shed to the north end of the sidings

Four crippled wagon sidings

A group of five sidings used for Peterborough road traffic which incorporated a double slip connection at the south end to allow departing trains to bypass the down hump. In pre WW2 days these had been shunted, at least at some times of the day, on the flat from the north end, to allow portioning to take place for destinations on the ex Midland and ex LNW lines and the siding between the rest of the Sorting sidings and the cripple sidings was kept clear to allow trains to be drawn north from other roads and use it for departure when all of the other four sidings in that group were blocked at the south end.

 

The only confliction this procedure caused was with engines released off the Down reception sidings going to the loco depot and judging by the photo I have seen of the Down Control Tower there was a signal of some sort (operated by the tower) which applied to departures from roads 37 to 42 in the Up direction bypassing the hump.

 

Looking at the Whitemoor Junction end, I am pretty sure your ‘pulls’ are correct for a departure like the one in the picture you link to.

[LNERGE]

I've just had a look through 'The Railway at March' by Trevor Bevis. There is a photo of the double slip on the west side and some sort of colourlight. There is also an aerial photo, credited to Cambridge University, that shows the diesel shed and Norwood Yard tranship shed. The down hump reception and down hump are full of wagons. I'm guessing they must have been used for stowage purposes by then? It's becoming a little clearer now. There are a couple of bypass lines not featured on the diagram that are attracting my attention now. One may originate from the top of the down hump into a headshunt for loco's to set back into Norwood Yard or maybe even to allow a train to be drawn back from the east side of the down hump into Norwood Yard? The other looks like a connection/headshunt from the East Side groundframe into the up departures.

[andyrush]

I've just had a look through 'The Railway at March' by Trevor Bevis. There is a photo of the double slip on the west side and some sort of colourlight. There is also an aerial photo, credited to Cambridge University, that shows the diesel shed and Norwood Yard tranship shed. The down hump reception and down hump are full of wagons. I'm guessing they must have been used for stowage purposes by then? It's becoming a little clearer now. There are a couple of bypass lines not featured on the diagram that are attracting my attention now. One may originate from the top of the down hump into a headshunt for loco's to set back into Norwood Yard or maybe even to allow a train to be drawn back from the east side of the down hump into Norwood Yard? The other looks like a connection/headshunt from the East Side groundframe into the up departures.

It depends on the date of the CU aerial view. There were times when both the receptions and the sorting sidings were pretty full when the yard was working!

 

Attached is a scan from a 1947 LNER plan of the yard which I have unearthed from the archive (cold loft!). I have added an arrow to show where the Control Tower diagram appears to show the control switch for the signal I referred to.

 

Hope this helps

[LNERGE]

Super thank you. That looks like it was there for loco changes for express freights dyked into Norwood Yard Arrival Roads No1 & No2. Somewhere i have a photo of a notice board near the double slip in Norwood yard. Now i wonder how deep in this computer that lurks..

[LNERGE]

This Grassmoor diagram shows there was traffic from the down hump for transfer to Norwood Yard or elsewhere...

 

Also loco's from the up arrivals could creep round the up hump and up departures to Whitemoor Junction via No2 engine road to be presented to No1 engine spur.