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

[Osgood]

On 25/08/2020 at 17:55, Pinza-C55 said:

In 1977 I visited Bowes station which was more or less intact though uninhabitable. Most of the wood was rotten from 15 years exposure to the ferocious Stainmore elements but inside the waiting room a poster survived from the last day.

 

Bowes Station 28.2.77 by A1 Northeastern, on Flickr

 

I would pass by on the A66 twice a year from the late 70s until around maybe ten years ago - would always give it a glance, it was fascinating to observe the time-lapse 'demolition by natural forces'. 

The most recent image I can find is from 2015 when there was not a great deal still standing - wonder what it looks like now......

Edited September 18, 2020 by Osgood

[60091]

Wooden wagonway discovered/excavated at the Lambton Cokeworks site near Fencehouses.

Photos taken 1996. Wagonway dated c1780.

 

 

 

[keefer]

Where's the 'amazing' button when you need it!

Quite remarkable that it was never taken up, just gradually (or deliberately) buried under the soil & debris and forgotten about.

Until over 200 yrs later it comes to light again in such complete condition.

Edited September 19, 2020 by keefer

[eastwestdivide]

Not so much evocative remains, more evocative echoes: two of the new roads put in at the former Rochester goods yard are named Cory's Road and Thalia Way, after Cory's Wharf, and 'Thalia', the 0-4-0 diesel shunter that used to shuffle wagons around for Cory's. The maps also show a Telemon Way, after the shunter that was based at Strood, but that road is still under construction, so I couldn't get near it for a photo.

 

Photos both from pocketable cameras - 2020 phone and 1979 126 Instamatic!

 

 The words set into the pavement "coal meter/heaver/whipper" are all Victorian workmen associated with transporting coal on the Thames - see https://www.victorianlondon.org/mayhew/mayhew20.htm for more details. The coal-meters weigh the coals on board ship, while

Quote

The coalheavers, properly so called, are now no longer known in the trade. The class of coalheavers, according to the vulgar acceptation of the word, is divided into coalwhippers, or those who whip up or lift the coals rapidly from the hold - and the coal- backers, or those who carry them on their backs to the wharf, either from the hold of the ship moored alongside the wharf, or from the lighter into which the coals have been whipped from the collier moored in the middle of the river or "Pool." Formerly the coals were delivered from the holds of the ships by the labourers shovelling them on to a series of stages, raised one above the other, till they ultimately reached the deck. One or two men were on each stage, and hove the coals up to the stage immediately above them. The labourers engaged in this process were termed coal heavers. 

 

 

And from 1979, 'Thalia' parked up by Cory's Wharf after shuffling mineral wagons around:

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by eastwestdivide

[GWRPhil]

I went for a walk today on north Dartmoor couldn’t resist a few shots of Meldon viaduct

 

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by GWRPhil
Spelling

[Re6/6]

I particularly like the top picture Phil. It has a superb atmosphere about it, almost model like!

[GWRPhil]

4 hours ago, Re6/6 said:

I particularly like the top picture Phil. It has a superb atmosphere about it, almost model like!

Thanks. It was taken from the top walkway of meldon resevoir. 

[Ben B]

I've been reading through this topic the last couple of days, and so I thought I'd throw in my favourite bit of abandoned railway... well, favourite, but quite irritating as well in a way, as a demonstration of wasted potential.

 

 

This is Damems Lane, in the Worth Valley (West Yorkshire)- yes, this is a public right of way... it was clearly tarmacked once upon a time, and even had streetlights.  Then neglect and the weather has worn it away.  About ten years ago I did this lane in my wife's Ford Ka and nearly killed it- I swore I wouldn't drive this lane in anything except a 4x4 in future.  On the right, behind the gates, is the trackbed of the Great Northern Railway's Keighley-Queensbury-Bradford/Halifax line at the old Bridge 56.

 

 

 

Down onto the trackbed.  This was a spectacularly heavily-engineered route, with a mind-boggling number of viaducts and tunnels (including some on gradients that were meant to be utter hell for steam loco crews to work through).  Fairly typical of the GNR lines in West Yorkshire, having to squeeze-in around the Midland, and forcing their lines around odd routes with a lot of structures and tunnels needed.  Despite being a double-tracked mainline, it was duplicated in terms of end destinations, and never seems to have had much above two/three carriage local trains.

 

 

Looking towards Keighley.  The trackbed is quite well maintained, and after a period of neglect, some locals are keeping an eye on it (even hanging out binliners in a -vain- attempt to get the local partying teenagers to sensibly dispose of their used vodka bottles and lager tinnies).  It suffers the perennial Worth Valley problem of dog walkers not cleaning up their dog mess though.

 

 

The skew-bridge carried the line over Damems Lane, and is within sight of the pleasantly rural Damems Station (at a lower level) on the preserved Worth Valley line, on the other side of the valley.  This shot is looking up the line towards Cullingworth, Denholme and Queensbury.

 

 

The route was an early casualty for railway closures, but a clear case of British Railways/BR being utterly desperate to close the line, lest it's strategic value and potential future usefulness mean they had to keep it open.  For example, according to books by local railway historians, when locals asked if the passenger service could be made more economic and DMU's used, British Railways said the line was unsuitable for DMU use due to the gradients.  Then a few years later after scrapping the passenger service, they extensively tested DMU's on the line with no problems.  IT was being used by through-freights avoiding busier routes, so British railways randomly closed the section between Cullingworth and Lees Moor Tunnel (though left the track largely intact).  Then there was the station master at Thornton who managed to, by his own initiative, increase local freight custom and actually turn a profit, only to have BR deliberately run-down the business and cut the number of goods trains/facilities.  The final goods trains were so last-minute the local firms using them barely had time to empty the wagons before it was all withdrawn. 

 

And the claim about the cost of the engineering is a bit false as well, as the track was deliberately allowed to fall into disrepair to the stage where maintenance wasn't an option any more, just outright replacement (allowed to linger in this state for quite a while until a visit by the engineer for an inspection noted it would need relaying), and all those expensive tunnels and viaducts have still needed maintaining; just look at how the nightmare of Queensbury Tunnel is dragging on to see how that's going.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a railway anywhere in this part of Yorkshire which didn't have expensive viaducts and tunnels to deal with the hilly landscape.

 

 

This bridge survived, with track across it for the use of test trains, and then just mothballed, for a long time after closure.  The book "Great Northern Outpost" (vol.2) shows the bridge in place, and freshly repainted in 1963 even though no trains had run over it since the late 1950's (and even they were just in connection with derailment tests).

 

What's annoying is so much of the line remains in place- what a route that would make now!  All those growing towns like Denholme and Cullingworth, the urban sprawl of Bradford, all would probably find a commuter passenger service useful.  With the Aire Valley electrified, it would be tempting to imagine an electrified loop line serving the area.  With local freight in decline now the route would have less strategic value as a through route between Scotland and Leeds (via Bradford) or Manchester (via Halifax), but might have come in useful about a decade or two ago for diverting the MGR and quarry workings away from the busy Airedale route.  But then again, local railway investment until comparatively recently was pretty low, and until the closure of the S&C route was finally kicked into the long grass, there was a real chance of the only local passenger services being an hourly DMU to Keighley from Leeds/Bradford on the now-heaving Airedale line.  In that political and economic environment, it would be unlikely for the ex-GNR line to have survived, but it's still tempting to imagine it clinging on, singled for most of its length with an infrequent clapped-out DMU rattling along, surviving until the local resurgence in public transport made it viable again.

 

What's worse is that the formation over most of the route is intact, especially in the central section away from the ends of the route- there's the odd missing bridge deck like this one, but the big viaducts and tunnels are mostly there.  But there is no hope in hell of reopening the route- the viaduct snaking through central Halifax was obliterated and there's no way of replacing or bypassing the old trackbed, likewise in Bradford itself the route was filled-in and built over.  It might, just, be possible to rebuild the route into Keighley by running over the preserved KWVR, but you'd be left with a meandering branch line that didn't connect the more rural moorland towns to the places people would want to go to.  And with the collapse of commuter traffic following Corona, even the occasionally rumoured pipe-dream of Tram Trains (that would take at least 40 years to implement) with street-running in Bradford and Halifax to bypass the lost urban trackbed, seems dead.  It was extra annoying to me when I worked in Bradford, given I lived 5 minutes from one of the old stations and worked 10 minutes from the old Thornton site, and if there'd been a railway I'd have had an alternative to the hour-long drive each way.

 

So for now, it's just a weird survivor.  The bits you can walk like the viaduct paths in Thornton and Cullingworth, and these odd patches where a massively-engineered stone bridge abutment sits in the middle of a wood...

Edited September 23, 2020 by Ben B
Spelling correction

[iands]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

.... (and even they were just in connection with derailment tests).......

Nice pics Ben, thanks for posting.

 

I think the derailment tests you refer to were the testing of concrete sleepers at Ingrow, and how they stood up to derailments. Fastline have a film of this testing on one of their 'Behind the Scenes - On the Right Track' DVDs (FL0401). Very interesting viewing, as indeed all 4 of their DVDs are.

[Ben B]

28 minutes ago, iands said:

Nice pics Ben, thanks for posting.

 

I think the derailment tests you refer to were the testing of concrete sleepers at Ingrow, and how they stood up to derailments. Fastline have a film of this testing on one of their 'Behind the Scenes - On the Right Track' DVDs (FL0401). Very interesting viewing, as indeed all 4 of their DVDs are.

 

Hello- thanks for that, the derailment tests with the concrete sleepers are indeed mentioned in the book on the line.  When I read about it, I thought it seemed an odd spot, given there's a 30ft+ drop down onto a public road off the side of the embankment, but then I'm no engineer

[Pinza-C55]

On 18/09/2020 at 23:35, Osgood said:

 

I would pass by on the A66 twice a year from the late 70s until around maybe ten years ago - would always give it a glance, it was fascinating to observe the time-lapse 'demolition by natural forces'. 

The most recent image I can find is from 2015 when there was not a great deal still standing - wonder what it looks like now......

 

When I spoke to the farmer who owned it in 1996 he said he once caught a German guy trying to take the 1862 date stone from above the door and said he had put it indoors for safe keeping. He said he would like the remains of the signalbox preserved so I put him in touch with the fledgling Eden Valley Railway and they dismantled it and took it to Warcop.

[iands]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

 

Hello- thanks for that, the derailment tests with the concrete sleepers are indeed mentioned in the book on the line.  When I read about it, I thought it seemed an odd spot, given there's a 30ft+ drop down onto a public road off the side of the embankment, but then I'm no engineer

Hi Ben, from watching the video again, the testing seems to have been conducted in a bit of a cutting at Ingrow - so it would seem a bit of thought went into some aspects of safety! First a G5 0-4-4 is deliberately derailed, then a heavily laden bogie bolster and finally a coach coupled to two 4-wheel vans - all propelled (out of shot) to a speed I would estimate between 20-30mph - although only a short film, it is still quite spectacular.

Edited September 23, 2020 by iands
Spelling correction.

[Pinza-C55]

On 4.3.78 I visited remote High Field station on the Selby - Driffield line. It was in an advanced state of dereliction but retained its NER enamel nameboard which had been painted over in BR(NE) orange and white but most of the paint had peeled off.

 

High Field looking South 4.3 by A1 Northeastern, on Flickr

 

board 4.3.78 by A1 Northeastern, on Flickr

 

High Field Station 4.3.78 by A1 Northeastern, on Flickr

 

[60091]

On 19/09/2020 at 16:54, keefer said:

Where's the 'amazing' button when you need it!

Quite remarkable that it was never taken up, just gradually (or deliberately) buried under the soil & debris and forgotten about.

Until over 200 yrs later it comes to light again in such complete condition.

Found during land reclamation work it was later covered with protective sheeting and re-buried as the best way of preserving it, apart from a few pieces taken for analysis and museum display. 

IIRC it was either 4ft or 4ft 2in gauge. 

 

Alan 

[GWRPhil]

Here’s a few pictures I took recently of Grenofen tunnel near tavistock

 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 25/09/2020 at 13:31, 60091 said:

Found during land reclamation work it was later covered with protective sheeting and re-buried as the best way of preserving it, apart from a few pieces taken for analysis and museum display. 

IIRC it was either 4ft or 4ft 2in gauge. 

 

Alan 

 

That would make an interesting model, but nobody would sensibly model 16.5mm track though would they, and who would make such an oddball gauge?!!

 

Mike.

[sir douglas]

its mentioned in Anthony Dawsons's latest video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TPhjsRkrqE

[APOLLO]

This is an interesting video - in fact ALL martin Zero's vids are interesting.

 

 

Brit15

[woodenhead]

42 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

This is an interesting video - in fact ALL martin Zero's vids are interesting.

 

Brit15

He is a very good presenter, he doesn't claim to know everything, he's enthusiastic and he's entertaining.

 

Have you watched the one about opening the plug in the Rochdale Canal, he's proper chuffed to see this.

 

 

[rodent279]

4 hours ago, GWRPhil said:

Here’s a few pictures I took recently of Grenofen tunnel near tavistock

 

 

Looks like it would need some work if it were ever to see trains again. That looks like some brick reinforcement in the tunnel roof.

[sir douglas]

his recent Burdale tunnel video was interesting as ive never heard of a fume extractor inn a tunnel beofre

[eastglosmog]

Some pictures of the remains of the southern Hook Norton Viaduct on the Banbury to Cheltenham Direct Railway.  This section was closed after a landslip in the southern cutting to Hook Norton tunnel in 1958:

[Bernard Lamb]

In memory of Dame Barbara Windsor. I am reminded of the film Sparrows Can't Sing.

Cowley Gardens was located through the arch. The frame from the film shows Roy Kinnear struggling with a ladder. The other frame is how it is these days with the arches blocked in and carrying the DLR.

Bernard 

 

[John M Upton]

The old and unusual two storey goods shed at Arundel. It's survival is mainly due to the builders merchants that has occupied the south end of the old goods yard for decades using it.

 

Unfortunately when I took this photo last week, I noticed that the builders merchants has closed down and the site was being cleared of materials and equipment which means the shed could be under threat.

 

It is listed but so was the identical one at Littlehampton and that mysteriously succumbed to a wrecking ball when nobody was watching a few years ago...

[Arun Sharma]

What occurs to me is that the routes selected for closure in 'Reshaping' were chosen not because of their poor goods or passenger patronage but more because of the financial element of upkeep of the route.

I thought that when watching Rob Bell's walk along the Cheltenham to Banbury railway on TV yesterday. I'm sure that if the route had been flattish with few tunnels or viaducts, it would still be with us today. Similarly, that might explain the differing costs said to have been claimed for essential repairs to the Ribblehead viaduct when those were proposed as a cause for closure.

Note that I am not suggesting a degree of collusion between BR's civil engineers and MoT but with limited funds in the repair budget at a time of new diesel classes coming into service, there may have been subtle pressures applied.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Arun Sharma