Cholsey & Moulsford (Change for Wallingford)

[Nick Gough]

Today I have cut another section out of the trackbed, prior to laying the exchange sidings:

The white rectangle (bottom left) marks the position of a lineside hut in the fork between the branch and the sidings.

 

Removing this has unhidden the end of another passageway, through the embankment, that I created when building the baseboard:

 

This is meant to represent a tunnel carrying a public footpath under the line. At this end it should like this:

 

At the other end the 'Brunel' brickwork is still in evidence, although with later alterations:

 

This right of way also has a culvert, crossing the line, below the footpath:

[MrWolf]

There's a very similar tunnel in blue brick beneath the Great Central line between Rothley and Thurcaston. It made a fabulous echo chamber for some young hooligan riding through on a 350 Panther.

I take it that you will be backdating your tunnel and losing the ever so stylish concrete block wall?

[Nick Gough]

9 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

There's a very similar tunnel in blue brick beneath the Great Central line between Rothley and Thurcaston. It made a fabulous echo chamber for some young hooligan riding through on a 350 Panther.

I take it that you will be backdating your tunnel and losing the ever so stylish concrete block wall?

 

Indeed, yes.

 

As Network Rail said, in their pre-electrification survey of the GWML,

"Brick semi-circular single-arch underbridge of c. 1840. Original splayed wing walls and arch ring.
Typical Brunel underbridge but substantially altered with detracting features such as concrete
parapet."

 

Incidentally it's apparently known as Bulls Hole Underbridge.

It was used (and perhaps still is) to move cattle between the fields on either side of the line.

[MrWolf]

Detracting features, how delicately put. Rather like during a murder investigation when the police say that someone is "helping them with their inquiries".

The one I recalled was partly for cattle, part footpath, the floor was lined with largeish stones and topped with gravel, ash and mud. It was handy going from one farm to another and avoided having to use the golf course road.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Detracting features, how delicately put. Rather like during a murder investigation when the police say that someone is "helping them with their inquiries".

The one I recalled was partly for cattle, part footpath, the floor was lined with largeish stones and topped with gravel, ash and mud. It was handy going from one farm to another and avoided having to use the golf course road.

I would have expected it to be topped with something else as well if it was regularly used by cattle😮

[MrWolf]

16 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I would have expected it to be topped with something else as well if it was regularly used by cattle😮

 

Well trodden in and swilled away by the water that also ran through it!

[Nick Gough]

Reading a couple of local reminiscences on t'internet the Bulls Hole tunnel had a similar carpeting to the floor.

 

I have to say though that when I walked through it, about twenty years ago, I didn't notice any fresh deposits.

 

The area between the main line and the branch had become very overgrown by then so cattle movements had probably ceased.

[Nick Gough]

Turning my attention to the Reading end of the station and the first medium radius turnout to go in here:

 

Although this is an ordinary turnout it will form the trap point for the Down Main refuge siding:

 

The track layout in the Wallingford branch book shew that this trap was connected to a short, dead end stub:

 

An added complication with this turnout is that it is positioned on one side of the lifting flap for the door.

 

Consequently I cut 3mm off three of the rail ends to ensure that all four rails were more or less flush with the end of the trackbed, as seen on the left:

Compared with an unmodified turnout on the right.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't think to do the same with the corresponding large turnout that I laid in the Down Main right at the beginning of tracklaying. Consequently there is a short gap in the nearest connecting rail which I will have to address:

[Nick Gough]

I have removed the sections of temporary plain track, from the relief lines, at the Reading end. With the first two turnouts into the gap in the Down Relief:

The lower RH one is for the trailing connection to the Down Relief refuge siding. The upper LH is the trailing connection into the goods yard.

 

Next the trailing crossover from the Up Relief to the end and side loading docks, at the road entrance to the goods yard:

 

Then the long crossing, in the Up Relief, for the Down relief connection into the goods yard:

[Nick Gough]

With a reminder of the track plan:

The latest turnouts installed to the right of the station.

[Neal Ball]

12 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

With a reminder of the track plan:

The latest turnouts installed to the right of the station.

Thanks for the reminder Nick, this is going to be terrific when it’s done.

 

We shall need videos of all the mainline action….. hopefully a Summer Saturday timetable 😎

 

Plenty of King and Castle action…. With maybe several Panniers on the Reading goods…. What’s not to like 😎😎

Edited November 21, 2022 by Neal Ball

[Nick Gough]

4 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

Thanks for the reminder Nick, this is going to be terrific when it’s done.

 

We shall need videos of all the mainline action….. hopefully a Summer Saturday timetable 😎

 

Plenty of King and Castle action…. With maybe several Panniers on the Reading goods…. What’s not to like 😎😎

Thanks Neal.

 

Unfortunately, Panniers seem to have been rare beasts at Cholsey with the goods trains mostly hauled by tender locos or larger tanks. 

 

None of the stations between Didcot and Reading (Cholsey & Moulsford, Goring & Streatley, Pangbourne, Tilehurst) were equipped with water cranes. Perhaps the 17 miles distance, plus shunting requirements at each station, would have been tight for a pannier? Also they must have been fully occupied with shunting the yards at Didcot and Reading.

 

There was normally one daily pick-up goods from Didcot to Reading and return. Post war this was diagrammed for a Didcot 2251 0-6-0. Since Didcot had a number of these from their introduction I suspect that was also the case in the 1930s, with Dean Goods earlier?

 

However, I have come across a couple of BR era photos, and a short video, of 57xx s with goods trains on the route, and in any case it's my railway, so....

 

[Nick Gough]

I do wonder whether the opening of Moreton yard (between Didcot and Cholsey), in WW2, caused any change in the practicalities of operating trains with Panniers on the route?

 

I believe there was a water supply there, for the shunting engines, and any transfer goods trips between there and Reading wouldn't have to carry out any shunting en route. I don't think the pick up would have stopped there for water though.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

I do wonder whether the opening of Moreton yard (between Didcot and Cholsey), in WW2, caused any change in the practicalities of operating trains with Panniers on the route?

 

I believe there was a water supply there, for the shunting engines, and any transfer goods trips between there and Reading wouldn't have to carry out any shunting en route. I don't think the pick up would have stopped there for water though.

The trip would had to either come up the Up Goods from Didcot East End or shunt into the yard for water.  The post-war  (and n doubt pre-war as well) serving yard for the Thames Valley intermediate stations between Didcot and Reading (except Tilehurst, plus Wallingford. was Didcot.  So traffic for those stations would be tripped from there plus Didcot worked the Wallingford branch trips after Wallingford shed was closed.

 

Post dieselisation (and probably after the yards had been closed at the intermediate stations had been closed?) Reading worked the Wallingford branch trip via Didcot with a D63XX (although i think there was for a while a D95XX diagram for that job).

 

However if you fancy a bit of fun one of the chaps in Reading Control one fairly quiet Sunday fancied clearing all the coal empties from the intermediate yards so he gota WR 2-8-0 on the job with some empties from Didcot plus attaching at every yard from there to Reading (except Tilehurst) then on east of Reading.  The train reputedly arrived at Acton with 95 empty 16 tonners he wasn't called Mad Casey for nothing.

[RJS1977]

Mike 

Yes, I think you may be right about a D95xx having worked the branch - we had D9528 down a few years ago, I think because they had been used on the line in the past.

I may even have seen a photo of one!

Richard 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nick Gough]

On 21/11/2022 at 16:24, The Stationmaster said:

The trip would had to either come up the Up Goods from Didcot East End or shunt into the yard for water.  The post-war  (and n doubt pre-war as well) serving yard for the Thames Valley intermediate stations between Didcot and Reading (except Tilehurst, plus Wallingford. was Didcot.  So traffic for those stations would be tripped from there plus Didcot worked the Wallingford branch trips after Wallingford shed was closed.

 

Post dieselisation (and probably after the yards had been closed at the intermediate stations had been closed?) Reading worked the Wallingford branch trip via Didcot with a D63XX (although i think there was for a while a D95XX diagram for that job).

I have been trying to remember whether the Didcot-Moreton goods line was still in place, in 1971, when I first visited Didcot by train. I *think* it had gone by then although the trackbed was still clearly wide enough for it and free from undergrowth. I definitely remember the sidings at Moreton were still in place but slowly returning to nature.

 

I did wonder, at the time, why the goods line hadn't been continued to Cholsey where it could have linked up with Up Relief refuge siding. In retrospect though, with embankments and about four bridges to widen, including this one between Wallingford and South Moreton:

It probably wasn't worth the extra expense.

 

On 21/11/2022 at 16:24, The Stationmaster said:

However if you fancy a bit of fun one of the chaps in Reading Control one fairly quiet Sunday fancied clearing all the coal empties from the intermediate yards so he gota WR 2-8-0 on the job with some empties from Didcot plus attaching at every yard from there to Reading (except Tilehurst) then on east of Reading.  The train reputedly arrived at Acton with 95 empty 16 tonners he wasn't called Mad Casey for nothing.

 

Sounds interesting.

[Nick Gough]

The turnout at the goods yard end of the crossover from the Down Relief:

 

With all the turnouts and crossing in the relief lines I had to put some adjusted plain track back to make good the resulting gaps:

 

Then two more turnouts ready for the goods yard:

 

I drilled the usual holes for the tiebars:

But the left one didn't go right through.

 

Despite trying to place them appropriately during the baseboard building stage, I was over the top of one of the crossbeams:

 

Oh well, something else to sort out!

[The Stationmaster]

29 minutes ago, Nick Gough said:

I have been trying to remember whether the Didcot-Moreton goods line was still in place, in 1971, when I first visited Didcot by train. I *think* it had gone by then although the trackbed was still clearly wide enough for it and free from undergrowth. I definitely remember the sidings at Moreton were still in place but slowly returning to nature.

 

I did wonder, at the time, why the goods line hadn't been continued to Cholsey where it could have linked up with Up Relief refuge siding. In retrospect though, with embankments and about four bridges to widen, including this one between Wallingford and South Moreton:

It probably wasn't worth the extra expense.

 

 

Sounds interesting.

The Up Goods between Didcot East End and Moreton Cutting was closed at the time of Reading MAS preparatory works c.1965, definitely out of use by early May of that year.  Moreton Cutting yard had probably closed by then although I'm not sure about that but had definitely gone by the time I was working in Reading West Jcn Yard for a short while in 1967.

 

A ground frame worked trailing connection toa couple of retained sidings at Moreton Cutting lasted for some years after the yard closed as the site was retained for  - so everybody kept saying - use as the construction base for GWML electrification.  But the connection had gone long before that finally happened although the site was not sold off.

Edited November 22, 2022 by The Stationmaster

[Graham T]

Very tidy looking trackwork Nick.  Are those Peco BH points?

 

One of my main regrets with Chuffnell Regis is that I didn't take more time and care when laying the track.

 

[Nick Gough]

6 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Very tidy looking trackwork Nick.  Are those Peco BH points?

 

One of my main regrets with Chuffnell Regis is that I didn't take more time and care when laying the track.

 

Thank you Graham.

 

They are indeed the Peco BH crossing and Medium radius points. They weren't available when I started the project so I loosely laid plain track where they were meant to be in the relief lines as a temporary measure.  

[RJS1977]

An unusual-looking visitor to Cholsey! (Photo: CWR)

 

[Graham T]

What on earth is all that gubbins it's been "adorned" with?!

 

[RJS1977]

And some equally unusual visitors at Wallingford... (again, CWR photo)

 

[The Stationmaster]

5 minutes ago, Graham T said:

What on earth is all that gubbins it's been "adorned" with?!

 

It's Polar express time on the C&WR. (and motive power is looking a bit different this year on various railways I believe)

[RJS1977]

8 minutes ago, Graham T said:

What on earth is all that gubbins it's been "adorned" with?!

 

 

Dressing up for "Polar Express"...