The Hoo (Junction)

[SED Freightman]

The blast furnaces at Sheerness Steel collapsed internally when they were shut down and are now beyond use.

As Mike Storey and the Fat Controller have stated, there were never any blast furnaces at Sheerness, all smelting was by electric arc furnace. The equipment in the Rod & Bar Mill and Melt Shop was auctioned in January 2016 by CJM Asset Management acting for Peel Ports (owners of the steelworks site). The lucky buyer was Liberty Steel who subsequently removed the equipment and I suspect a lot was used to enable the re-opening of the former Alpha Steel Works at Uskmouth. I think the chances of steel production or processing resuming at Sheerness are sadly now just about zero.

[SED Freightman]

[quote name="Mike Storey"

 

But I still can't understand why so much new car traffic still comes into Sheerness port, yet none of it now goes by rail, after several decades of doing so.

 

Simple answer is the demise of wagonload freight. Principal destination for the imported vehicles is London and the South East, all of which can be reached in easy out and back trips by road direct to dealerships. The smaller volume long distance traffic which used to be moved by wagonload sevices from Sheerness Docks and Queenborough are of no interest to todays rail operators.

[SED Freightman]

Did I hear correctly that Sheerness also now has a resident population of scorpions thanks to escapees from cargo vessels??

The scorpions have been there for years, living inbetween the stonework of the old dockyard walls. I was warned to watch out for them while loading automotive traffic in the Docks Siding back in the 1990's as they came out on sunny days (I know, very rare at Sheerness) and could be found under timber etc. adjacent to the loading siding.

[SED Freightman]

3 extra trains per night when fully up and running. Empty wagons in to Grain during the day, full ones out at night. Every day.

Any idea where the Gatwick end terminal might be located as it would need to be bigger than the former Salfords Terminal which could, I believe, only accomodate two sets of tank cars.

[Andrew P]

I lived in Hoo from the age of 6 / 1956 to 10 / 1960 and my Farther worked for BP on the Isle of Grain. I used to go into work with him in his office some Saturdays and I remember the Oil Trains and also the Berry Wigins Tankers on the line. I wasn't interested in Trains and really didn't know what they were till a few years ago when I looked into it a bit more.

[phil-b259]

I am told there is a 30 year contract to haul aviation fuel from the Port at the end of the Grain branch to Gatwick Airport, and that GB Railfreight intend to construct a depot for the class 66 locos at the Port

 

Another quirk of the branchline, malairia-carrying mosquitos have bred in the waters, and the authorities have to take control measures, believed to be the only area of England where such action is required

Gatwick has nowhere to unload aviation fuel!

 

The oil terminal which was used at Salfords was comprehensively demolished in the early 1980s with nothing remaining other than contaminated land.

 

Heathrow however retains facilities for fuel deliveries at Colnbrook and is a far more likely candidate for any aviation fuel movements.

[KDG]

There were no blast furnaces after Thamesteel took over. There was one huge electric arc furnace installed in 2004/5, which was still intact in 2015 (after closure in 2012) and two, smaller ladle furnaces for finishing work (maybe it was these you mean?). The works were almost entirely intact in 2015 (photographic evidence exists) but when I was last there in early 2017, it looked like much had been removed, so it's probably gone forever.

Thanks Mike it was those two smaller arc furnaces I meant. That'll teach me to not post in the small hours when I should have been asleep. Bloomin restless legs

[KDG]

Any idea where the Gatwick end terminal might be located as it would need to be bigger than the former Salfords Terminal which could, I believe, only accomodate two sets of tank cars.

Ah no sorry SEDF, I don't remember my source at Grain saying...

 

As others have said though, think the extra trains are for Heathrow. Didn't some dodgy types tap into the pipeline a couple of years ago and pinch hundreds of thousands of litres of the stuff?

[Pandora]

The Grain branch has a reputation among P-way staff as "the place that time forgot",  it is cold, all year round,   the birds do not sing, and when OTM 's have to travel for miles in a possession at 5 mph,for drivers  a penance! 

Edited April 12, 2018 by Pandora

[Oldddudders]

The Grain branch has a reputation among P-way staff as "the place that time forgot",  it is cold, all year round,   the birds do not sing, and when OTM 's have to travel for miles in a possession at 5 mph,for drivers  a penance! 

 

The birds don't sing? When I had a trip in 1974, the TSR/PSR was, I think 20 mph over much of the line, and a pheasant flew just in front of the cab of our Crompton for more than a mile. If the windscreen had opened, you could have reached out and grabbed him for lunch!

[phil-b259]

The birds don't sing? When I had a trip in 1974, the TSR/PSR was, I think 20 mph over much of the line, and a pheasant flew just in front of the cab of our Crompton for more than a mile. If the windscreen had opened, you could have reached out and grabbed him for lunch!

 

Not that surprised.

 

Just how is it pheasants have survived given they seem particularly stupid members of the avian family.

[Pandora]

Not that surprised.

 

Just how is it pheasants have survived given they seem particularly stupid members of the avian family.

Pheasants have an uncanny ability to perch upon  the railhead, and sidestep  just before the lifeguards do their utmost, not  so the pigeon, the pigeon   will fly and collide  head first  to the cab front

Edited April 12, 2018 by Pandora

[phil-b259]

Pheasants have an uncanny ability to perch upon  the railhead, and sidestep  just before the lifeguards do their utmost,

 

Not at Balcombe (Sussex) they don't - its the bird equivalent of, well, the aftermath of a terrorist attack down there in summer. Bits everywhere...

 

Mind you the wood pigeons round my estate seem to have a death wish too sometimes - doing nothing to get out the way of approaching cars.

Edited April 12, 2018 by phil-b259

[Mike Storey]

Hoo Junction yard was a regular walk-around on Sunday mornings' recording & photographing wagons particularly in the mass VB wagon scrapping period as it was used as a holding yard for COND wagons destined for Queenborough & Sheerness - some real unusual stuff particularly coil's passing through - my particular favourites being the B9490xx JNV / JYV coils, inspiring the scratch-build below on a Ratio GWR bolster chassis.

There were also rumours of a Puma (or something like it) that roamed the area - scary if you were down in the depths of "B" section on your own - not helped by the eerie wail of that buoy out in the river - it is still doing it ??

JYV.jpg

 

Must have been a sad sight. Just for pedantry's sake, the condemned wagons were destined for Queenborough Shipbreakers and/or Ridham Carfragmentation plant, where they would be processed into scrap suitable for trip workings (in POA/JXA wagons mostly) into Sheerness steel works.

 

They sometimes used to jam up my sidings in Queenborough (which we had to try to keep as clear as possible for the car import traffic loaded half way along the old Queenborough Pier branch), as neither could process them fast enough, there were so many condemned minerals coming through, between 1981 and 1984 anyway. The condemned VB's must have started to come after I left the Medway. We also had the odd EMU for scrapping, which would also have sat at Hoo awaiting room at Queenborough.

[eastwestdivide]

.... We also had the odd EMU for scrapping, which would also have sat at Hoo awaiting room at Queenborough.

Was this one of yours? Withdrawn SUB in 1984 at Hoo Jn:

[rob D2]

New JetA1 flow to colnbrook is for British airways .

[Southernman46]

The Grain Branch also has the only (??) floodgate barrier across a surface railway in Britain - just before the terminal site at Grain.

From my model railway room in a loft conversion of my house in Twydall , through bino's I could watch trains crossing the last couple of miles into Grain .............. mind you I could also make out the masts of the Richard Montgomery in the estuary which wasn't quite so pleasant .......

[SED Freightman]

The Grain Branch also has the only (??) floodgate barrier across a surface railway in Britain - just before the terminal site at Grain.

Albeit currently disused, the Ridham Dock Branch passes through a floodgate before entering the docks.