Most Desolate Spot on the Railway in England

[D854_Tiger]

Where would you least like to break down in England, not Scotland or Wales (though don't let that stop you if you have a good story), after dark, in mid-winter and when its absolute foul weather.

[Rugd1022]

Neasden, it's always Neasden!

 

Somewhere on the Settle & Carlisle I'd imagine, but I failed with a 60 on the Sutton Park line in January when I was still with EWS over ten years ago, I had to go and lay dets at the rear of the train and wait for assistance to come from Worcester, it was absolutely freezing but I had to wait at the appointed spot until help arrived. There wasn't much point in waiting in the cab of my loco as it was a complete dead duck with no power and therefore no cab heat.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Rugd1022

[big jim]

i've failed in brill tunnel on the chiltern line with a top and tail 70, thankfully i fired up the rear one and used the Bi-Di signalling to head back to princes risborough!

 

as for equipment failure, ive had the points indicator fail at tallerddig when it was RETB, midnight, november and snowing, i had to get out and clip and scotch the points before i could proceed then get back out and take the clip off again, never so glad to have the cab heaters on

 

as for failing in a pain in the bum place i've also failed at coppull with the logs where i was under prestons first signal and my assistance from the rear was sat at warrington's final signal, had to make sure communication was clear on that one, the assisting train coupled up and then pushed me to barton and boughton loop (12 miles or so!) 

Edited July 7, 2017 by big jim

[APOLLO]

Woodhead. Only place on this planet I have seen rain falling upwards (due to gale force winds). 18 miles from Manchester, may as well be in Siberia !!

 

Steele Road station on the Waverley line, 9 April 1966, head out of window on a northbound stopper hauled by a throbbing D5316, cold, wet, windy, lonely, desolate, bleak, empty,

No one got on, no one got off. 

 

Wish I could go again to both locations by train !!

 

Brit15

[DCB]

Severn Tunnel?

[LMS2968]

Severn Tunnel?

Do you get foul weather in there?

[Southernman46]

Halfway between Hook and Basingstoke - not a decent tree to hang on to or screening piece vegetation available and a very urgent need to have a major PNB .............................. it feels like being on flippin' Neptune ....................

Edited July 9, 2017 by Southernman46

[Joseph_Pestell]

Stainmore Summit with Ais Gill and Blea Moor as close seconds, and anywhere on the Princetown branch a close third.

[JeffP]

Penistone. Really bleak station, that was.

 

Stainforth, between Doncaster and Scunny...break down there, the locals will have whatever you are carrying.....

[APOLLO]

Stainmore in winter - found this interesting video last night.

 

 

Brit15

[fozzy280472]

What a good thread ! I love hearing the drivers stories please keep them coming.

I've always liked the idea of a warm snug signalbox perched in the middle of nowhere in the middle of winter......some of those boxes up in the far north of Scotland must have been quite isolated.

[The Johnster]

Do you get foul weather in there?

 

You don't get any other sort down there, ever.  It's a horrible place, always blowing a freezing gale, always dripping wet even before you are actually under the river, noisy even when there are no trains from the continual roar of rushing water, and deafening when there are trains, even when they're a mile or so away, and everything is covered in thick black slime which, being a mixture of river mud, a century of steam locomotive smoke, and half a century of  diesel exhaust fumes, is basically sulphuric acid clag, acidic enough to sting bare skin after a short while.  Also, very easy to get disorientated down there.  Not so much desolate, as that suggests nothing going on to me, but just horrible and a bit scary.  And the scenery's c*@p.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I'd plump for Pilning.

 

Lots of passing trains, but do any stop? Only two on a Saturday in one direction.....

You can see the M4 in the distance with its constant stream of traffic heading for the Second Severn Crossing.

 

But the environs of Pilning station seem so quiet with a strange sense of remoteness. Quite a magical place. Worth visiting if you've never been.

[The Stationmaster]

Severn Tunnel?

 

Nah, it's not too bad down there - plenty of tunnels are far worse with Ledbury being a good candidate for a start, far wetter underfoot than down in the Severn Tunnel.

 

Overall I reckon the Settle and Carlisle would be the one to beat - one of those areas where the rain comes up or sideways but not down, where snow gets several inches deep frozen to the underside of bridges, and where it gets dark, really dark with only the stars and moonlight (on the occasional night when the weather is clear enough).

[Stubby47]

Camborne...

 

On a Wednesday.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Stubby47

[The Johnster]

I'd plump for Pilning.

 

Lots of passing trains, but do any stop? Only two on a Saturday in one direction.....

You can see the M4 in the distance with its constant stream of traffic heading for the Second Severn Crossing.

 

But the environs of Pilning station seem so quiet with a strange sense of remoteness. Quite a magical place. Worth visiting if you've never been.

 

Yeah, Pilning's not a place to be on wet Wednesday, stuck up an embankment and populated by it's ghosts.  My Father was a big fan of the Severn Tunnel Ferry in pre-bridge days for holidays to Cornwall, so I remember it in it's heyday; not a cost spot then, but plenty going on and loads to watch as the bankers detached and attached to down trains.  That'd just make it seem the more forlorn if I went now...

[The Johnster]

Nah, it's not too bad down there - plenty of tunnels are far worse with Ledbury being a good candidate for a start, far wetter underfoot than down in the Severn Tunnel.

 

Overall I reckon the Settle and Carlisle would be the one to beat - one of those areas where the rain comes up or sideways but not down, where snow gets several inches deep frozen to the underside of bridges, and where it gets dark, really dark with only the stars and moonlight (on the occasional night when the weather is clear enough).

Funnily enough i'm off to Ledbury tomorrow in connection with something else, and will have a squiz around the station if I've time.  Good candidate for a model, complete with built in fiddle yard entrance one end.  The tunnel had a bad reputation as a badly ventilated single bore as well as being wet, with tales of crews lying on the cab floor with wet cloths over their faces on heavy up freights.  If we're playing tunnel trumps, I call Woodhead pre-1954 for ventilation, and Badminton for wetness after a bit of rain on top of it.

[Rugd1022]

Desolate spots on my route card (Part 2) :

 

Neasden - I know I keep banging on about it but joking aside and despite being in one of the planet's busiest capitals it's a bleak outpost of (almost) humankind, all hope is sucked out of you once you turn off the North Circular knowing that you're relieving a train there.

 

Bescot Yard in the dead of a cold Winter's night - lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree it may be, but with a skeleton staff nowhere to be seen you sometimes wonder if you're in a Will Smith movie, the last man alive on Earth without a hope to carry you through till dawn. Oh look, I can see a bardic lamp coming towards me, it must be the Shunter bringing me a Tops list so I can make my escape... no wait... it's an articulated lorry that's fallen off the M6.

 

Kings Langley Loop - You go in at one end and may even depart from the other the same day you went in, but you sure as hell won't remember anything that happened in between. Whole lifetimes have been known to pass by unacknowledged whilst awaiting a route back out onto the Up Slow towards the murky depths of Watford Tunnel. Beards have been grown whilst awaiting release from its leafy environs. It must be something to do with being inside the M25, which towers above your tail lamp as you squeeze the living daylights out of your last tea bag, staring ahead at the signal wondering if it was ever equipped with a green aspect. Bleak? The Bronte sisters have nothing on Kings Langley Loop.

[br2975]

Sugar Loaf

[runs as required]

If we are only talking about England as in the OP - and still open:

then apart from the S&C, going around West Cumberland coast must be hairy in bad weather  - perhaps with a flask train.

 

Chapel-en-le-Frith South where John Axon stayed on his runaway 8F in February 60 years ago can also be pretty exposed.

dh

[Zomboid]

Berney Arms in winter is pretty desolate. Maybe not on the level of Ais Gill, but it is remote and pretty featureless.

[big jim]

Thinking about Nigel's post above about places in city's, humberstone road in Leicester, we had a coal job that recessed there for 3 hours overnight, whenever I stopped there it was lights off and kip but I always locked the doors on the loco, quite an eerie place as it's so dark with animals scurrying around putting you on edge thinking it was people!

 

Hatfield colliery or indeed station, was there about a month ago to relieve a train at 01:30 only to go into the platform and find a couple of members of the local travelling community over the other side nicking the fencing, a quick about turn, locked myself in the van phoned BTP and Waited there until the train arrived

[The Johnster]

I once changed trains at Stalybridge for Stockport; this would have been 1966.  As the Trans Pennine rasped away out pf sight, I was left alone on a silent platform backed by a dark wall, with a view of acres of sidings containing a solitary rusting 16ton mineral positioned to make the point, while in the background a very Lowry looking grey silhouette of houses and mills merged into the rain, proper Manchester rain.  It's grim oop north.

Edited July 9, 2017 by The Johnster

[LMS2968]

It's grim oop north.

But the ale's good!

[APOLLO]

And the pies !!!!!!!!!!

 

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