Evocotive railway remains, what derelect or abandoned structure stirs your emotions?

[big jim]

I've nicked this thread from the WNXX forum but it like the idea of it so thought i'd see how it went on here

 

Basically throughout the country there are numerous 'railway remains' that can stir imagination or memories in someone so i thought i'd see what structures etc people on here find are inspiring/evocotive/sad to see/fascinating etc

 

I'll open play with a small one but it fascinates me when i pass through there.....

 

The remains if calvert station, as i have been trundling through there at 30mph as i near the end of my journey to claydon jn i quite often wonder what it would have been like to see the old GC london-manchester trains hurrying through

 

i think its the fact its pretty much the only, what i would call a GC Design 'country stations' remaining on the national network is what fascinates me and stirs emotions, the first time i ran through there it was quite eerie to see the old platform emerge from the gloom then pass under the access bridge, another thing that adds to the sense of loss is the mileposts still count down to manchester (london road?) after quaindon rd

 

So over to you, what structure stirs your emotions when you see it in its current derelect/abandoned state, i have more but im sure others will come up with them in time

[Dava]

Old loco sheds, on the Midland mainline there is the remains of Bedford, also Kentish Town, Wellingborough, Derby roundhouse, then there were several in south Leeds, Holbeck MR and the NER roundhouse.

 

Dava

[11B]

The view from my daughters bed room, I look out to see the coaling tower and ash plant at Carnforth, both of which are looking a bit sad. sadly, despite constant telling training, she thinks the view of the Lakeland hills and Morecambe bay look better........

 

Ian

[dagrizz]

I visited the site of Belah viaduct, on the old Stainmore line, last year. I am thinking about a repeat visit this year - would love to have seen the viaduct before demolition, such a dramatic location.  

 

Graham 

Edited June 10, 2014 by dagrizz

[ess1uk]

The old station at Oundle. Sad and sorry state now. Such a shame for a grand old building.

[Iron Horse]

Brilliant idea for a thread Jim, just reckon we need pics to compliment and/or set the scenes if anyone has them when they post

[Boco_D1]

What a great subject not having been able to see the heyday of the railways I'm fasinated by dissused railway lines and old structures, nothing better to pass the time and try and follow an old railway line on google earth. Passing under the bridge of the great central at  Finmere station does it for me espically when I catch a glimpse of the rolling stock in storage there I always wonder what it would have been like to see the Master Cutler flying over the bridge.

 

Old loco sheds, on the Midland mainline there is the remains of Bedford, also Kentish Town, Wellingborough, Derby roundhouse, then there were several in south Leeds, Holbeck MR and the NER roundhouse.

Dava

 

Agreed loved seeing the old shed at Bedford when I used to catch the train up to London there, Bedford was/is a good spot for old structures, the orginal St John's platform still remains (last time I was there it did) I think the old signal box on the Bedford to Bletchley line has gone but I used to love seeing that as a kid, there is majority of structures and old infurstructure left form the Bedford to Hitchin line, including Cardington Station and signal (although could have been put up by owners). There still is a bridge over the ouse for the line to Goldington power station and still a good bit of Potten station (a garden centre now I think) on the Oxford to Cambridge line.

 

Another great find when living in Cholsey was the track bed and overbridge of the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line near Blewbury and the one of Bridges that remain futher along near East Ilsley. Now living in Faringdon I can see the old station from my Bedroom window, although now a nursery rather than derlict but I do wonder what it would have been like if the preservation movement had got there first. And of course there's the remains of the Highworth and Fairford branches that I see quite often on my travels around south Oxfordshire.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Boco_D1

[Karhedron]

The viaduct of the old DN&SR near Winchester that is visible from the M3. I was rather surprised to see that it had sprouted a signal post last year but it had been reopened as a cycle-route rather than a railway.

 

The other is the Muswell Hill viaduct that carried the old Northern Heights line from Highgate to Alexandra Palace.

[Rob F]

The tantalising remains of Nottingham Victoria. The blue brick retaining walls visible from the car park, the mouth of Mansfield Road tunnel, the underside of the girder bridge that carries Parliament St all make me nostalgic for a time I never knew. Born in 1968, my memories of Nottingham's once extensive network are limited to images of weed infested viaducts and missing overbridges, wireless telegraph posts and decaying remains.

 

ROB

[The Lurker]

I like seeing the remains of the platforms of Spa Road, Bermondsey - just because the station closed in 1915 and the there are still bits of the platform visible.

 

Likewise seeing the remains of the tracks sloping down to Bricklayers Arms and wondering what it must have been like in steam days. Of course that's all being altered now with the work on the Bermondsey diveunder so not much longer to enjoy the old! But fascinating to watch the new being built.

[big jim]

I visited the site of Belah viaduct, on the old Stainforth line, last year. I am thinking about a repeat visit this year - would love to have seen the viaduct before demolition, such a dramatic location.

 

Graham

Thats another on my list too, would loved to have seen the viaduct in its heyday

 

Another one that does it for me is the old clc viaduct over the ship canal at irlam

[The Lurker]

And I just remembered the old viaduct across Birmingham town centre which was abandoned without ever being used. That always fascinated me when I used to commute into Brum

[Rivercider]

As a kid in the 1960s I remember our family travelling a lot by train particularly around Devon and my dad was always pointing out closed stations or the site of old junctions.

It is something that I have continued to do over the years, of course since then those old remains have largely been demolished, redeveloped  or simply gone back to nature. 

Many yards and depots in use during my railway career are now going the same way, consequently there must be hundreds of railway relics large and small around the region

that I look out for on my occasional travels.

 

One thing that I have passed hundreds of times over the years is the old Railway Hotel at Durston, the former junction for the B&E Yeovil branch.

I have no memory of the branch line or station, both had already been closed and lifted/demolished but the Railway Hotel continued to stand defiantly in the Down Yard.

I do not know how long ago it closed as a hotel or pub, possibly many years ago, but it retained the name board until relatively recently though I assume

it is now a private residence, and I always look out for it as I pass by,

 

cheers

Edited June 10, 2014 by Rivercider

['CHARD]

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/31915-shankend-viaduct-of-the-old-waverley-route-south-of-hawick/

 

[Oldddudders]

I'm in the never-was camp. I have always loved the abandoned, never-completed 1930s arches in a field north of Edgware that would have taken the Northern Line on to Bushey Heath, maybe Watford Market. Caught my imagination as a teenager, still do it for me now.

[Gwiwer]

Where to start?

 

The curved building once Harringtons Coach Works which stands on the trackbed of the former Dyke branch immediately beyond Dyke Junction (now Aldrington) Halt;

The signpost in the village of Carnhell Green still pointing hopefully to "Gwinear Road Station";

The conversion to road use of the Ballachulish branch bridge at Connel;

The train shed and restaurant at the Bath markets better known to most of us as Bath Green Park station;

The stumps of the original Tay Bridge;

The windswept remoteness of the trackbed to Princetown, now a bridleway and seeing more traffic than it probably ever did in railway days;

And the serenity and surprise of finding diminutive Watergate Halt still more or less intact around half a century after closure (and remembering it was only open for 40-odd years) - though I daresay hardly anyone was inconvenienced:

 

[D1059]

Quite a few spring to mind, but of those

 

1) Wickham station on the old Meon Valley line after closure, while still in use by Sadler Vectrail

2) The remains of the Welsh Highland in the Aberglaslyn Pass before restoration

3) The trackbed of the M&GN west of Weybourne in the early 70s (not a weed in sight on the ballast, even after some 8 years since closure)

4) The bridge on the old A34 south of Newbury over the DN&S (now vanished and the trackbed buried under the Newbury bypass)

5) Wolfhall - the MSWJR bridge parapet over the Berks and Hants - used to get a crop of wild strawberries growing up there on the old ballast in summer, most pleasant while waiting for a class 50 to turn up)

6) Some of the extant remains of the Port Road from Dumfries to Stranraer (can't remember the name, but there is an intact viaduct alongside a loch with stunning views)

[Catkins]

Any unused railway infrastructure, regardless of age or decay, is emotive for me - mainly because I don't like to see it wasted.

[Horsetan]

The massive GC overbridges (and bricked-up station entrance) still extant over Station Road, Woodford Halse.

 

 

.... I have always loved the abandoned, never-completed 1930s arches in a field north of Edgware that would have taken the Northern Line on to Bushey Heath, maybe Watford Market. Caught my imagination as a teenager, still do it for me now.

 

They are still there, or at least the remains of them are. The immediate vicinity gets used for weekend car boot sales.

[Branksome71B]

Again, many spring to mind but the one that really grips me is the abandoned Weymouth Quay Tramway. I traveled over it many times in the 60s & 70s on the way to holidays in Guernsey. Now it only echoes to the trains of yesteryear.

[Richard E]

Sorry, that isn't Oundle station on the road by the roundabout, that is the Railway Hotel. Latterly it was run as a pub and hotel, the Riverside Hotel. The station itself is in the rudest of health and in use as a private house nowadays, looks superb in the attached link.

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/o/oundle/

 

 

edit for atrocious spelling.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Richard E

[Oldddudders]

Then there are the old piers under Moorswater Viaduct, very visible from the A38, which remind us of a time when four-foot and eight and a half inches wasn't universal on Britain's mainlines.

['CHARD]

Apart from every atom of the Waverley's DNA, these are the highlights from my 'youth,' and their current status in no particular order.

 

1. Snow Hill northern approaches - through Hockley Nos 1 and 2 tunnels, as walked in 1991 and subsequently reopened as the Jewellery Line and Midland Metro.
2. Glenfarg tunnels, the viaduct immediately at the mouth of the southern bore, around to Kilknockie Viaduct on the other side of the hill, as walked in 1975, the parts not subsequently buried under the M90 now returning to nature.
3. Monsal Head viaduct and the old Midland Main Line north through the unlit Chee Tor tunnels etc, walked in 1982, since made up as a dedicated walking route.
4. Weekday Cross junction and the GC/ GN viaducts spanning east-central Nottingham in 1988, I just wish I could remember the GC bridge over the Trent; all lost now except the bit under the NET.
5. Glasgow St Enoch and Birmingham Snow Hill in their awful interludes as makeshift car parking in the seventies; history records that one was lost and the other spectacularly reborn.
6. The GC bridges over the M1 south of Leicester and M69 south of Rugby - is the one at Ashby Magna still there, I know the M69's is.
7. The level crossing at Hassall Green on 'the Salt Line' where it is crossed by and clearly visible from the M6 - for many years visibly decaying, now restored as part of a long distance footpath I think.
8. Loch Ken viaduct at Parton on the Port Road, walked in 1979 when Sham 69 were in the chart with Hurry Up Harry.  Still there but deemed unsafe to cross.
9. Little Pertherick Creek viaduct, Padstow, walked in 1988 and now part of an even more user-friendly path.
10. Gotherington to Bishop's Cleeve, walked in 1981 with ballast still indented from track removal, and since reopened as the Glos-Warks.

[Captain Kernow]

OK, here are some of mine:

 

- Combe Down Tunnel, before being bricked up in the 1970s and when you could still walk through it in your school lunch hour

- the derelict colour light signal at East Leake on the GCR before whatever has probably been done there since the late 1980s

- the derelict WHR trackbed from Pont Croesor towards Porthmadog (but turn 180 degrees and you saw the 'head of ballast'...)

- many, many photos in the Jeff Grayer/Amyas Crump 'Impermanent Ways' series...

[jonny777]

I can't really cope with abandoned railways. I walked a good length of the old Midland route around Bakewell many years ago, and I should have loved it. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. The route was full of insects and wild flowers, but all I could think about were the trains that would have raced by at 80mph or so decades before. Especially the Royal Scots, Blue Pullman and Peaks.

 

I therefore gave the chance to walk along the old Scarborough to Whitby trackbed a miss, a year or so later.