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Devon Diesel Era Photo Record


Garry Morris
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Would be interested to know what is under those tarpaulins behind the 37s.Not a normal freight flow from the west, definitely not clay and a substantial load. Great photos.

Yes, that is interesting. MOD traffic from Devonport maybe?

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A crop of a more distant shot, quite a few apparently sheeted ones

 

37274,37299 Aller Jct. 23 June 1981

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Apologies for the quality.but I tend to think that for some pictures it's worth hanging on to them for interest and sharing. Taken on my Brownie 127 camera at Goodrington in 1968. This shows the signalman having delivered the single line token to the driver of a Newton Abbot to Kingswear service (2B99) which will then form a morning Kingswear to Paddington on a Summer Saturday - a regular class 43 working. NBL D860 Victorious, long gone and none of the class preserved. I note that the tablet catching apparatus is still present in this picture. All has gone now including the signalbox. The nearest siding has since been taken out and reinstated by the Dart Valley Railway/Torbay Steam Railway/ Torbay and Dartmouth Railway/Dart Rail...I could go on! Anyone know who the signalman is?

At last - a proper Devonian diesel.  easy to forget that it was the hydraulics that brought mainline dieselisation to the South West, decided the layout of the depots (that is still with us at Laira), and brought on a major change to the railway scene in the county of Devon.

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Would be interested to know what is under those tarpaulins behind the 37s.Not a normal freight flow from the west, definitely not clay and a substantial load. Great photos.

It is most likely military traffic but the date suggests that it might be mackerel although the quantity looks to be a bit too much for one train and the wagons are not the version of open which was originally used for that traffic (although that might well have changed once it started to be sheeted - following complaints about the smell, particularly when the train was recessed at Bristol TM).

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It is most likely military traffic but the date suggests that it might be mackerel although the quantity looks to be a bit too much for one train and the wagons are not the version of open which was originally used for that traffic (although that might well have changed once it started to be sheeted - following complaints about the smell, particularly when the train was recessed at Bristol TM).

Interesting.... I had no idea there was fish traffic in the 80s, I thought it had all gone much earlier. Why would it be sent unrefrigerated - was there some sort of glut being sent for non-food use?

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Interesting.... I had no idea there was fish traffic in the 80s, I thought it had all gone much earlier. Why would it be sent unrefrigerated - was there some sort of glut being sent for non-food use?

It was sent in airbraked open wagons (I forget which type) and was basically for industrial use in a processing plant 'somewhere up north'.  Putting it in very simple terms as I understood things the mackerel were loose loaded, probably using an excavator bucket, and it was very definitely freight traffic charged by the wagonload.  Not to be confused with the by then gone traffic in fish for human consumption.

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It was sent in airbraked open wagons (I forget which type) and was basically for industrial use in a processing plant 'somewhere up north'.  Putting it in very simple terms as I understood things the mackerel were loose loaded, probably using an excavator bucket, and it was very definitely freight traffic charged by the wagonload.  Not to be confused with the by then gone traffic in fish for human consumption.

Probably going to Melton Mowbray, or one of the other pet-food plants; I remember, when I worked at Low Fell, that there used to be an articulated tipper of fish offal from North Shields fish quay to there that passed through at lunch-time; it redefined 'High Summer' when it passed by..

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post-12744-0-59761000-1431479469_thumb.jpg

 

HST approaching Paignton Station

 

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The changing of an era.  The foreground semaphores days are numbered, just barely seen in the background is the new light signal waiting to be activated.  Similarly, the trackwork was soon to be simplified.

 

post-12744-0-19911300-1431479507_thumb.jpg

 

And a better view of everyone's favourite family of DMU.  I didn't find them that bad, but there weren't any sharp curves or other troublesome trackwork and in those days they certainly weren't overcrowded at least on the Torbay branch.

 

All pictures 1987

 

[edit to add links to higher resolution versions in case anyone wants]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22560024@N04/17307600361/

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22560024@N04/17307601411/

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22560024@N04/16687800703/

Edited by Gerald Henriksen
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Just wondering when the old cast iron footbridge at the north end of Paignton station

was changed to the one that now stands there.

You don`t see that many pics , with that old footbridge on them

I used to sit on that bridge for hours on a summer Saturday, while 

the old fella & my mother would be in the beer garden of the mermaid pub on the front.

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The Art Of Carriage Shunting

Poor quality but rare track for the diesel era. D1578 0f 40B (Immingham) engages in carriage shunting in Queens Park Sidings, Paignton - Saturday 14th September 1971. One of the last times ever that a BR loco did this as the sidings changed hands to the steam railway at the end of the year. There was very little splitting of stock by 1971 at Paignton. This could have been the last Saturday of the Summer Timetable, it was certainly near the end. The set of coaches on the right (12 bogies) was a Friday night arrival (Saga Special) which would remain for the week until its return the following Saturday. These Saga trains would run throughout the summer and a Friday evening would yield up to three such trains. Often two would be placed in Queens Park  Sidings and the other in the far Goodrington Yard. To a 12 year old spotter it was great fun to sit on 'The 'wall' at Sands Road by the level crossing and observe these train being backed in around the curve from Goodrington and we delighted in watching the delicate maneuvering of these large loads gently rolling over very lightly used sidings watching the rails bend under the weight at the joints. There was much creaking, squealing and all manner of other sounds from what was frankly the bottom of the pile Mk1 stock used on these workings! The driver leaning out as far as he could to see someone mid set also leaning (on the outside of the train)! A third member of staff  in the last coach also giving a signal as to when the buffer stop was coming up! A couple of years earlier one of these sets remained in the sidings for about 5 weeks and during that time a seagull built a nest on the roof of one of the carriages. It even made the local press. Imagine having a set of stock lying around for that long now! Another world then! 

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The photo of D1011 Western Thunderer reminds me of summer holidays back in the late 1960s, sometimes our trip to the seaside would be to Paignton/Goodrington.

I remember we would settle for a picnic near the boating lake in Goodrington Park from where it was possible to see the tops of stock either in the sidings or going to Kingswear.

My memory tells me the stock seemed to be a variety of maroon and blue/grey, would I have seen green stock there as well?

 

cheers

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In answer to your question very little green stock appeared. Generally only an odd coach shunted in to strengthen a set of maroon. There were no Southern originating services to Paignton or Kingswear., this was because historically all Southern services were routed from the Southern onward to the West via Okehampton to Plymouth.

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Another view of Paignton in July 1983, it must be near going home time for me.

The steady procession of loco hauled holiday trains which has been arriving and departing all day has now let up

and DMU worked local services, which have been pretty well absent during the day, can now resume.

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Class 118 set P471 ticks over in the up platform at Paignton waiting to form the 18.15 service to Exeter St, Davids, 31/7/83

 

cheers

Edited by Rivercider
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In answer to your question very little green stock appeared. Generally only an odd coach shunted in to strengthen a set of maroon. There were no Southern originating services to Paignton or Kingswear., this was because historically all Southern services were routed from the Southern onward to the West via Okehampton to Plymouth.

Thanks.

We lived at Exeter in the 1960s near Exmouth Junction so I remember green stock on the Waterloo trains.

Seaside trips, usually by train as we had no car until the late 1960s, were to Paignton/Torquay, Dawlish Warren, or most often Exmouth,

 

cheers

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....To a 12 year old spotter it was great fun to sit on 'The 'wall' at Sands Road by the level crossing and observe these train being backed in around the curve from Goodrington and we delighted in watching the delicate maneuvering of these large loads gently rolling over very lightly used sidings watching the rails bend under the weight at the joints. There was much creaking, squealing and all manner of other sounds from what was frankly the bottom of the pile Mk1 stock used on these workings! The driver leaning out as far as he could to see someone mid set also leaning (on the outside of the train)! A third member of staff  in the last coach also giving a signal as to when the buffer stop was coming up!....

 

Superbly put - and it was scenes like those so eloquently described here which are what the railway is all about, what captured my attention. Yes standing on the platform as an express roars past is great, seeing and hearing a loco struggle with a heavy freight is all good, but getting up close and personal, watching the rails bend, the railway men at work, that to me is what is so special.

 

Thank you for the photo, but equally importantly the words, it brings it all back!

 

 

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People can have one of two effects on a picture. Here, they make the scene. The equivalent Saturday to today (31.5.69) and D1972 of Gateshead brings in the ECS from Goodrington Yard for a working that will take the loco back home to the Eastern Region. This loco still exists as 47 854 in the West Coast Railways fleet but here it is only three and a half years old and likely to have been it's first visit to Paignton. A crowded Paignton platform even this early on in the season, though judging by the clothes not yet very  warm! Paignton is too down market to engage in gentrification and sadly all the original Red Sandstone warehousing you see behind has gone, you need to go to Totnes to see what can be done with old wharehouses!

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Freight In The Diesel Era 

There is a diesel in this picture but it is attached to a  lorry! Sorry to the loco followers out there but I found this shot of a minor clay siding of WBB and went back to check the scene last year and began to doubt  that I was in the same location! I As I remember the lorry proceeded to load the hopper shortly after I took the shot by tipping it's load from above the wagon. Somewhat quaint in today's world of bulk! There looks to be a clay slurry tanker (Crossfield?) behind the hopper. Taken 22.3.84. Definitely a victory for nature!

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The photo of D1011 Western Thunderer reminds me of summer holidays back in the late 1960s, sometimes our trip to the seaside would be to Paignton/Goodrington.

I remember we would settle for a picnic near the boating lake in Goodrington Park from where it was possible to see the tops of stock either in the sidings or going to Kingswear.

My memory tells me the stock seemed to be a variety of maroon and blue/grey, would I have seen green stock there as well?

 

cheers

I remember seeing a rake of green coaches there once.

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Freight In The Diesel Era 

Sorry to the loco followers out there but I found this shot of a minor clay siding of WBB and went back to check the scene last year and began to doubt  that I was in the same location!

 

So where is this- somewhere on the Heathfield line? Are those sleepers in the wagons on the left?

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So where is this- somewhere on the Heathfield line? Are those sleepers in the wagons on the left?

Looking at the various Quail maps, it's near Teignbridge, not far at all from the place where the timber was/is loaded. It's not far (about a mile) from Newton Abbot station. Google Maps shows there still to be a very large clay pit just behind the trees to the right of the photo.

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