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Keyham Yard


Garry Morris

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  • RMweb Gold

Don't recall Keyham getting used in connection with the fibre-optic contract (although 'Happy Valley' at Goodrington was used for that, the last time it saw any reveneu-earning traffic from the national network prior to being sold to the steam railway).

 

At Keyham there were/are on-going works to replace the station footbridge, and I did give the contractors permission to take a 'sidings possession' of the whole yard, and without checking I'm not sure how long that is due to go on for.

 

There is a scheme to remove the outer siding, which sees no use and has no forseeable use, either. The siding closest to the island platform will, I believe, be retained to facilitate run round movements via the ground frames at either end of the site.

 

Unfortunately the proximity of the new(ish) flats and other houses next to the station, together with the somewhat awkward access road, would preclude any meaningful future modern railfreight useage.

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The outer siding has gone leaving the platform line and one other, neither look used. I guess it performs some function with regard to Dockyard traffic as the exit road is west facing from the dockyard with a trailing crossover east of the connection. Never seen any flask manouveres photographed there. They must set back into the yard to run round and head east probably under the cover of darkness. Having said that there was a flask arrival  last week in daylight! An illusive one to photograph and in today's age one would probably feel the long arm of the law if seen photographing it. Thanks for your reply.

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Was Keyham Yard one of the locations used to unload stone dust from Meldon in connection with a fibre-optic cable laying contract?

(Crediton was similarly used 1999 - 2000 )

 

cheers

I believe it was used for this when Eurobell (now Virgin Media) were installing their network in Plymouth.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have recently borrowed (from Plymouth public library) the book on the railways of the Dockyard and it has some photos of Keyham.  Goods trains for the dockyard were held there and, I gather that if they had come from the Southern connection at St Budeaux, engines changed ends to shunt into the yard system via the trailing connection off the down main. 

 

Are there any current workings into the dockyard or has all that ceased?  

 

By the way, I am old enough to have noticed the gap in the 49xx series and young enough not to have spotted 4911 Bowden Hall when I was a lad.  I'd often wondered why there was a gap until I found out that the loco came to grief in Keyham Yard in the blitz on 30th April 1941, there is a photo in Adrian Vaughan's book Western Signalman.

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  • RMweb Gold

There was a load of stone stored there against the back wall (and on the second siding) for a long time, well over a year in fact.

 

It disappeared about the time of the viaduct rebuild,perhaps there is a connection.

 

Wally

Not sure, to be honest, Wally, but you may be right about there being a connection. Chances are, however, that that stone was brought in by road and moved on by road or a road/railer during a possession...

 

Proximity of those relatively new houses will frighten virtually any potential freight operator right off, unfortunately...

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  • 1 month later...

I remember in the early 1980's, there was a BR brakevan parked by itself, in the headshunt at the end of the station, by the road overbridge.  I was a teenager and visited the area once a year whilst on holiday with my parents in Torbay and used to travel around using a Devon railrover ticket which i think was called 'Devon Ranger'.  I passed by several times between 1982 and 1984, often on a Gunnislake bound train (which itself, always seemed to be the same unit,P480), and I was sure that it was the same brake van year after year looking progressively more forlorn. It was there for several years and for some reason is quite vivid in my memory.

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  • 3 years later...

Going to dig up a REALLY old thread here as have just found a photo in my collection while doing some scanning.

 

There were just two stone dust trains unloaded at Keyham Yard as part of the Eurobell Cable laying. The first was a 59/1, the second was 37682 + 37185, seen here. Apologies for the ancient thread revival but it's an interesting scene with the old goods shed.

post-9183-0-79833200-1486831638_thumb.jpg

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  • RMweb Gold

Lovely photo. I remember those trains at the time, especially those down to Goodrington Yard.

 

Another operation (at Keyham) that we won't be able to repeat, thanks to the Network Rail Property Lunatics having sold off some of the Yard and the pompous suits at Swindon deciding that we don't need what's left of the track in the yard.

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  • RMweb Gold

Goodrington!! No longer part of the national network???

 

Very definitely the case that it is not as shown in this picture I took back in 2009 (during an official visit).  This picture was taken on the Paignton side of the bridge from which the picture in Post No.14 was taken and the two stops block standing back-to-back show a very definite physical boundary between the NR line - to the right of the further, rusty, one - and the Torbay and Dartmouth line - to the left of the painted one.  There is no longer any NR access to the sidings at the back of Goodrington Sands platform and there hasn't been for quite a long time.  That day the sidings contained various Torbay & Dartmouth engineering vehicles and a road-rail machine of theirs.

 

post-6859-0-55899300-1486911015_thumb.jpg

 

You can see here the alterations made to the T&D signalling control panel when the link was severed and they took over the sidings

 

post-6859-0-30818500-1486911489_thumb.jpg

 

And you can see here the final track layout (from a signalled viewpoint) as it appears on the new control panel which was then under construction in the line's S&T workshop

 

post-6859-0-12210700-1486911607_thumb.jpg

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  • RMweb Gold

Yes, the 'main' yard at Goodrington (consisting of R/R road, and Roads 1 - 4 inclusive) is still connected to the network and used to stable units etc., and is part of NR infrastructure.

 

The bit beyond the road bridge, which used to be Railtrack/NR infrastructure and known locally as 'Happy Valley', was sold to the steam railway some years ago.

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  • 2 months later...

Going back to post #4, and Garry's query about the use of the second loop, I can confirm that the run-round was used in connection with the flask movement into the Dockyard when I was "in-charge" in the early 1990s.  This was the towards the end of the EWS contract with MoD, before DRS took over.  At the time propelling on the dockyard branch was prohibited, so the train loco ran round in Keyham Yard, pushed back onto the down main, then onto the branch.  The reverse on the outbound.

Later the loop was condemned for this traffic.

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