Healey Mills Freight yard.

[class"66"]

Yer theres talk of GB rail freight making use of it too,

sub letting from Network rail or something like that..

[4630]

Yer theres talk of GB rail freight making use of it too,

sub letting from Network rail or something like that..

That's quite believable as I understand that there is shortly to be a regular flow of biomass from Liverpool to Drax crossing the Pennines, which would take them this way.

[class"66"]

GB rail freight are looking for area for running round trains,and swop overs.. :locomotive:

[class"66"]

Its like whats happening at "Barnetby" they've started re using the sidings at the station for running locos round and dropping freight wagons off...

[Mike Storey]

Thanks Neil here is a few more, including a couple of those 37s being taken to there end

 

DSC00604 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

DSC00603 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

DSC00459 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

DSC00460 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

 

DSC00461 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

DSC00458 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

DSC00455 by mosherlad, on Flickr

 

David

 

6th picture down - looks like they have used Peco points! 

[Mike Storey]

Yer theres talk of GB rail freight making use of it too,

sub letting from Network rail or something like that..

 

Without checking the list, is this one of the yards where NR have recently taken over responsibility? If so, that kind of sub-leasing to different operators makes sense and will allow much more intensive use of the yard over time.

[class"66"]

My frend at Network rail planning,gave me the heads up on this..

[4630]

As I was passing Healey Mills today and had the camera with me, I thought I'd take a few photos to show the current state of dereliction and that nature continues to reclaim the site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos taken from the Storrs Hill Road bridge that crosses the east of the yard, and from a public footpath that runs along the north side of the site.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.6623453,-1.575645,16z

 

[d winpenny]

Good pictures taken in some of my regular spotting places just wish I'd taken pictures back then

 

David

[class"66"]

Nice upto date pictures...

[Dava]

That's quite believable as I understand that there is shortly to be a regular flow of biomass from Liverpool to Drax crossing the Pennines, which would take them this way.

Just wonder how importing biomass from Canada or wherever to Drax is more environmentally sustainable than burning coal? Which is what kept Healey Mills in business.

 

Dava

[Mike Storey]

Just wonder how importing biomass from Canada or wherever to Drax is more environmentally sustainable than burning coal? Which is what kept Healey Mills in business.

 

Dava

 

On sustainability, it is pretty hard to grow more coal. I would also guess that the much lower carbon and negligible sulphur and NO2 emissions from biomass combustion outweigh the additional oil used to transport it long distances. Furthermore, as an ever greater proportion of coal needs were being imported through the east coast docks (from Poland mainly), rather than being mined in the UK, HM and other yards, were becoming less useful anyway. So I wouldn't blame biomass in particular.

[Phill Dyson (onslaught832)]

Looked a lot better in my spotting days   

 

 

I suppose the loss of coal traffic made Healy Mills redundant?

 

Very Sad

 

Phill

Edited December 21, 2014 by Phill Dyson (onslaught832)

[Anthony_S]

Just wonder how importing biomass from Canada or wherever to Drax is more environmentally sustainable than burning coal? Which is what kept Healey Mills in business.

 

Dava

 

I would argue that it isn't, and go further and say it is scandalous. I posted on another thread on this subject something along these lines; mature woodland in the US is cut down and pelletised (using fossil fuels), transported to a port and loaded onto a ship (using more fossil fuels) and then transported thousands of miles across the Atlantic and making a return journey also using fossil fuels. The pellets are unloaded at a UK port and loaded onto a train making further use fossil fuels. The train then uses even more fossil fuels to transport it to a power station such as Drax to then burn it far less efficiently than coal and at greater expense to us consumers. 

 

I agree that Healey Mills as well as many other marshalling yards were becoming much less useful regardless of the coal traffic.They were designed to handle large amounts of wagon-load traffic which had largely disappeared by the 1980s and then then later with the demise of Speedlink. 

[4630]

Just wonder how importing biomass from Canada or wherever to Drax is more environmentally sustainable than burning coal? Which is what kept Healey Mills in business.

Dava

I agree with the inference in your question. The cynic in me feels that the use of biomass is more about generating subsidy (as opposed to generating electricity) and hence a greater financial return. But I'd better stop there before I stray too far off topic and wander into forbidden political territory.

[APOLLO]

Yes Anthony_S, the (green) lunatics are running the asylum these days. Have a read at the Didcot power station thread - more stupidity on a mega scale.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69666-the-end-of-didcot-power-station-a-look-at-the-trains-that-served-it/page-1

 

Yes the need for the large marshalling yards died when wagonload freight died, yet more short sightedness from our "leaders". Good news to revive at least part of the yard.

 

At least we (Britain) still have a lot of coal "down there". Whether it will become economically / socially / etc viable to mine it again is anyone's guess. 

 

By the way, the cheap oil we are currently "enjoying" may well go cheaper - for a time - but it will rise again to over $100 / barrel (and higher) within time - couple of years or so in my opinion. It's all political. But that is a different story indeed. Enjoy cheap oil while you can.

 

Brit15

[rob D2]

Isn't it just an illusion of being green ?

If you repeat the word ' sustainable ' over and over eventually people will believe it means something

[APOLLO]

And Goebbles had no balls at all !!!

 

Brit15

[simon47603]

Sooner or later people will realise that the trees that are being cut down for bio-mass fuel are the same trees that convert Co2 into Oxygen!

 

Co2 is Plant Food! Nothing more, nothing less.

[Mike Storey]

Actually, for all you climate-change deniers, saplings absorb far more CO2 and generate far more O2 than mature trees, so cutting and replanting is far more effective, and the environmental cost of shipping large amounts of biomass over long distances is nothing compared to the continuing much higher rate of discharge of carbon monoxide, suphurous gases and nitrous oxide from coal fired power stations, where hugely expensive de-suphurisation cannot be economically justified (it has been done at Drax for example).

 

It is currently very fashionable to bash environmental improvements, thanks largely to the insane right wing of the Republican Party in the USA, but it is now a fact that more children die from air pollution in the UK than from most other causes. It is also a fact that the scientific evidence that accelerated climate change has been and continues to be man-made, and not naturally occurring, which has now been accepted by the UN, i.e. a majority of all nations on Earth. The same unfounded comments some of you have been making were also made in the 1950's when the Clean Air Act was being promoted. Is anyone arguing we should go back to that? 

 

If you bemoan the passing of some marshalling and stabling yards, just say so, but don't jump on a largely discredited bandwagon to find someone to blame for it. Freight is growing fast, in the UK, thank goodness,but not in the way we remember it. If you want to see what happens when the dinosaurs really do rule the earth, come and look at all the French freight yards absolutely choking with empty wagons with nowhere to go......

[Dava]

Please....questioning the environmental & economic sustainability of long-distance biomass transport, when there may be insufficient to meet demand, is not the same as climate change denial. Scrubbing emissions from coal fired power stations with good life expectancy makes sense and anhydrite (gypsum) into the bargain, as the rail freight to Rushcliffe on the GCR(N) shows.

 

Dava

[ess1uk]

I was in the signal box a while back and couldn't believe the state of the tracks/yard.

I know it doesn't take long for plants to reclaim the area, but they must have been there for years in some cases.

I would be good to see it all clear and back in use.

[Anthony_S]

Actually, for all you climate-change deniers, saplings absorb far more CO2 and generate far more O2 than mature trees, so cutting and replanting is far more effective, and the environmental cost of shipping large amounts of biomass over long distances is nothing compared to the continuing much higher rate of discharge of carbon monoxide, suphurous gases and nitrous oxide from coal fired power stations, where hugely expensive de-suphurisation cannot be economically justified (it has been done at Drax for example).

 

It is currently very fashionable to bash environmental improvements, thanks largely to the insane right wing of the Republican Party in the USA, but it is now a fact that more children die from air pollution in the UK than from most other causes. It is also a fact that the scientific evidence that accelerated climate change has been and continues to be man-made, and not naturally occurring, which has now been accepted by the UN, i.e. a majority of all nations on Earth. The same unfounded comments some of you have been making were also made in the 1950's when the Clean Air Act was being promoted. Is anyone arguing we should go back to that? 

 

If you bemoan the passing of some marshalling and stabling yards, just say so, but don't jump on a largely discredited bandwagon to find someone to blame for it. Freight is growing fast, in the UK, thank goodness,but not in the way we remember it. If you want to see what happens when the dinosaurs really do rule the earth, come and look at all the French freight yards absolutely choking with empty wagons with nowhere to go......

At risk of going toof far off topic, I really feel the need to respond to this. So am I (and others) a climate change denier in the same way that someone can be a holocaust denier? Ad hominem seems to be the default setting of some environmental fanatics. Like many others I agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, is increasing in the atmosphere and should cause some warming, so that puts me in the same category as the 97% of scientists agree consensus. I disagree that it will be catastrophic and refer to increasingly lower estimates of climate sensitivity, climate-gate and the huge uncertainties that are in the IPCC reports but never in the summary for policy makers. I bemoan the policy-based evidence-making that has allowed the madness of energy policy in this country to take the path it has. Our increasingly expensive and unreliable energy is making our industry uncompetitive on the global market. We have seen the closure of aluminium smelters and the associated loss of freight traffic as a result and merely displaced the CO2 emissions to somewhere else in the world.

[APOLLO]

The current (ever) cheaper price of oil will do our "climate" little good, and will contribute no doubt to it's "change". Why I can now afford a few trips out in my 1973 Rover V8 (at 18mpg) !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Let's face it, we have all lost the plot in this ever so tangled politically correct, "green" world, you, me, our "leaders", our "masters".

 

Having worked over 40 years in the Gas industry (gas distribution & planning) all I can see these days is the fog of propaganda and unknown motives, usually political.

 

I never thought I would read this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30585538

 

Speaking to the Middle East Economic Survey, Mr al-Naimi said: "As a policy for Opec - and I convinced Opec of this, even Mr al-Badri [Opec secretary general] is now convinced - it is not in the interest of Opec producers to cut their production, whatever the price is.

"Whether it goes down to $20, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant," he said.

The world might not see the oil price back at $100 a barrel again, he added.

 

Something wrong with that last statement my gut feeling tells me (peak oil). If it's true, and it happens, then look forward to 30 degree summers and London (etc) under the sea next century or so, if the Climate change brigade are correct..

 

As for Tar sands, Fracking etc, Google EROEI (energy returned over energy invested). We are not being told he truth

 

Brit15

[Mike Storey]

 I bemoan the policy-based evidence-making that has allowed the madness of energy policy in this country to take the path it has. Our increasingly expensive and unreliable energy is making our industry uncompetitive on the global market. We have seen the closure of aluminium smelters and the associated loss of freight traffic as a result and merely displaced the CO2 emissions to somewhere else in the world.

 

What energy policy? I have yet to discern one. Just a series of knee-jerks. However, one good trend has been to reduce greenhouse gases and gases more immediately harmful to human life.

 

To blame energy policy and cost in the UK for uncompetitiveness is bizarre. Germany has had the most expensive energy in Europe for many years now and is 50% reliant on non-carbon energy sources, but remains the most robust economy, albeit with emerging problems, for heavy industry. France, where a substantial amount of ex-UK steel making and processing went, is now suffering from exponential rises in energy costs.

 

Whilst I may have been over-the-top in citing climate-change deniers, I would still implore people not to intone simplistic green-bashing in support of maintaining an argument to keep some redundant railway yards open! The issues are complex and the economic reactions to it keep changing. In many respects, the green argument is significantly helping the continuing expansion of rail investment in the UK. It would be ironic to jump on the very bus that would argue against this?

 

That said, of course it is sad to see a place like Healey Mills decline. I felt much the same thing when the very hump-marshalling yard there that I had trained on, shut only a few years later.