Abandoned rails in the road.....(or elsewhere...)

[cctransuk]

1 minute ago, ianmacc said:

Given their weathering and the locator. I would give very strong odds that they are from the Hornsea branch itself. 
 

it may just be me but has anybody else ever “sensed” an isolated and disconnected atmosphere at towns that the railways have abandoned? Compare the feel of Hornsea and Withernsea with Filey (similar size) Bridlington and Scarborough just up the road for example. 

 

Were they ever of comparable size / popularity when they were still rail-served?

 

CJI.

[ianmacc]

5 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Were they ever of comparable size / popularity when they were still rail-served?

 

CJI.

Without checking I am sure Hornsea and Filey are comparable, Bridlington and Scarborough have always been bigger. The other three also had the advantage of being linked in a single route whereas Hornsea was a branch line with practically nothing else between it and Hull and prime target. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by ianmacc
Typo as usual

[Pacific231G]

On 28/09/2022 at 11:23, ianmacc said:

Given their weathering and the location I would give very strong odds that they are from the Hornsea branch itself. 
 

it may just be me but has anybody else ever “sensed” an isolated and disconnected atmosphere at towns that the railways have abandoned? Compare the feel of Hornsea and Withernsea with Filey (similar size) Bridlington and Scarborough just up the road for example. 

Yes, Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.

[jjb1970]

I'd wager these rails have a good claim to be considered the most remote outpost of rails in the world (though there will be other contenders). Hard to get much more remote. Husvik on South Georgia, pics from the mid 90's when I worked for British Antarctic Survey.

 

 

[jjb1970]

More from Husvik.

 

[jjb1970]

Last ones. These were taken with an APS compact and digitized from scanned prints, and I am not photographer. I'm going to digitize the slides I took with my SLR for which I made more of an effort soon.

[Nick C]

That'd make a pretty unusual subject for a model! Presumably no sign of any rolling stock by that stage?

[jjb1970]

There was still some rolling stock, but in poor condition. Husvik was the ship yard for the whales in South Georgia, it wasn't a whaling station as such lik Grytviken, Leith and Stromness, when the whalers went home in the 60's they thought the whaling ban would be a temporary aberration and they'd be back soon. So the ship yard was left ready to reactivate. When I was there, there were unused diesel engines still in packing crates, propellers, pumps, piping, loads of steel stock. It was estimated there was still more than enough material and equipment to build a new whale catcher if it had been in good order.

[melmerby]

I knew of that and have seen Grytviken on Google Earth but that's the first set of decent photos I have seen from Husvik.

Thanks for posting.

Edited October 4, 2022 by melmerby

[stewartingram]

Were those pics taken by the Penguin Books contingent, when researching the line for a new book?

[bradfordbuffer]

9 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I'd wager these rails have a good claim to be considered the most remote outpost of rails in the world (though there will be other contenders). Hard to get much more remote. Husvik on South Georgia, pics from the mid 90's when I worked for British Antarctic Survey.

 

 

Pick up a p p penguin! New reason for late trains.....seals on the line

[jjb1970]

I won't drag the thread off course any further, but just as a final aside, if anyone ever gets the opportunity to visit South Georgia then take it. I found it a much more beautiful place than Antarctica proper, the mountains are quite spectacular. It has a remarkable history, nowadays it is essentially uninhabited except for a handful of scientists and a post office at King Edward Point next to Grytviken, yet in the whaling days it was a powerhouse, with several large whaling stations. Whaling was barbaric, I am a bit of a hypocrite as a meat eater but the way whales were harvested was awful. The harpoons had explosive charges which blew the whales innards apart but not enough to kill them immediately. The key was to keep them alive while they were brought ashore for processing. When I was there they still had a large deer population but they were all culled. Similarly in Antarctica all the dogs were culled. I think some of the old stations are in a real bad way now, they did a lot of work at Grytviken but the others are just decaying, sadly.

[Ben B]

I'm sure, about 10 years ago, there was someone on the NGRM forum building a layout inspired by that line. If I get chance,  I'll have a nosy tonight after work

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Ben B said:

I'm sure, about 10 years ago, there was someone on the NGRM forum building a layout inspired by that line. If I get chance,  I'll have a nosy tonight after work

There was a layout of a whaling railway done in 09 a few years ago in quite a cartoonish way, although I can’t now remember where I saw pictures of it.

[Northmoor]

There's a joke here somewhere about a whale-weigh station, but I can't seem to find it......

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 minute ago, Northmoor said:

There's a joke here somewhere about a whale-weigh station, but I can't seem to find it......

 

With a nod to the Wigan exhibition thread too!

 

Mike.

[009 micro modeller]

38 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

There's a joke here somewhere about a whale-weigh station, but I can't seem to find it......

Or the North Whales Coast Line, South Whales Main Line, Great Little Trains of Whales etc. etc.

[ianmacc]

21 hours ago, Ben B said:

I'm sure, about 10 years ago, there was someone on the NGRM forum building a layout inspired by that line. If I get chance,  I'll have a nosy tonight after work

I hope so! I need a narrow gauge layout with penguins and seals on it in my life! 
 

Britain’s probably have/ have had perfect and realistic models in their range! 

[ianmacc]

17 hours ago, Northmoor said:

There's a joke here somewhere about a whale-weigh station, but I can't seem to find it......

I don’t know; you seem to have located it. I can contribute blubber traction tyres or dorsal finial signals. 

[Ben B]

4 hours ago, ianmacc said:

I hope so! I need a narrow gauge layout with penguins and seals on it in my life! 
 

Britain’s probably have/ have had perfect and realistic models in their range! 

 

Well speaking of that, I'm sure there's been a narrow gauge zoo railway in the 009 Society mag within the last decade too. I know Airfix did do a range of animals in slightly waxy plastic, I have a set that used to belong to my mom :)

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

 

Well speaking of that, I'm sure there's been a narrow gauge zoo railway in the 009 Society mag within the last decade too. I know Airfix did do a range of animals in slightly waxy plastic, I have a set that used to belong to my mom :)

There are (or have been) at least two layouts based on the Whipsnade line, plus other freelance ones.

[Engineer]

This follows slightly on a recent theme of sea defences.  The subject has come up already in this and other threads:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/163553-abandoned-rails-in-the-roador-elsewhere/#comment-4385449

It also features in the excellent and very useful Cornwall Railway Society web pages:
http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/military-and-industrial-tramways--light-railways.html

Not too long ago I extended one of my long walking days to include Pentewan, to see for myself what remained.  The weighbridge and building shown in the web pages remain but very overgrown.  The raiway remains are said to be from the sand railway of modern times and not related to the Pentewan Railway of history.  A turnout and shed are still there.

There were more rails to be found, however.  Approaching the turnout and shed, in road and parking areas, there were short lengths of single rail.  These could be remains from the original railway or from the sand railway - not possible to tell though I feel the latter is more likely:

 

Following the path beside the shed towards the sea, there were more rails just visible.

Closer to the water, there were remains of quays as well as sea defences, and there is corroded rail to be seen, mostly exposed as time and weather erodes concrete and structures.

[Engineer]

My plans for today went awry and left me with spare time on the south coast so I chose to do some unplanned touring by bus.  Hopping off at a stop named Seven Sisters Country Park seemed a good place to begin a walk of the inland footpaths.  However, the nearby information boards mentioned Cuckmere Haven and I remembered an RMWeb thread had discussed an industrial NG railway.  So, I chose instead to walk the footpath towards the sea.   The area information boards had a map with an 'old tramway' 'Heritage Feature' along the route but it wasn't easy to spot first time.  I confirmed it for sure only on the way back as I tried to follow what might have been a tramway track-bed rather than the footpath.

The feature, partly hidden from the footpath by tree branches, doesn't include abandoned rails, strictly, but it is abandoned infrastucture with evidence that rails may have been present. It is a small concrete bridge or culvert over a land drain.  

Embedded in the top surface, not rails but two parallel, rusty I-beams, axis-to-axis about 20-24" apart.  As this feature was on the apparent track-bed alignment it's reasonable to speculate that the beams were supports for decking or simply for the sleepers of a narrow-gauge line.

Now, having made a swift check by computer, there's RMWeb mention of the tramway and other general mentions of the area:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/162267-seaside-holiday-island-narrow-gauge/page/9/#comment-4330328
https://www.sevensisters.org.uk/
https://www.cuckmerehavensos.org/history

Best clue on the 'heritage feature' is the NLS OS 25" map of the area, 1939 revision.  The small bridge is bottom centre of the linked map image:

https://maps.nls.uk/view/103675294#zoom=4&lat=8842&lon=7524&layers=BT
 

[big jim]

Couple from trafford park, part if the old MSC lines around the estate 

 

[Engineer]

Back in the summer, I walked from Snodland in Kent back to Strood and made a detour to pass through the hamlet of Upper Halling.  The footpath to get there rose steeply alongside an abandoned quarrying area.  The satellite map link below shows part of the present-day footpath rising roughly East to West from lower right to upper left in the image.  

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Halling,+Rochester/@51.3450416,0.4324492,920m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d8cb49e70e315d:0xbc09c8d6ca824f9a!8m2!3d51.352063!4d0.441702!5m1!1e2?hl=en-GB

The 25-inch OS map 1939 revision shows roughly the same area, again with footpath but also a parallel tramway to the top of the quarry, rising from a Lime works in the river valley.  

https://maps.nls.uk/view/103678508#zoom=4&lat=8692&lon=2932&layers=BT

Given the steep gradient, and the presence of a top and a bottom 'Engine House' on the OS map, there might have been cable haulage on this section of the quarry tramways.

The footpath has remnants of rails along its straight section, mostly well hidden in thick undergrowth and shadows.  

At one place it was possible, just, to find both rails, the spacing of which suggested this might have been standard gauge line.