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

[Michael Hodgson]

Looks like it wouldn't be too big a job to make it runnable again if Alderney joins the common market and the Jerries come back.

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Looks like it wouldn't be too big a job to make it runnable again if Alderney joins the common market and the Jerries come back.

Personally the one on Alderney that I’d be interested to see is reopening of more of the existing standard gauge line towards the breakwater (and yes, I realise the practical difficulties with this that are probably why it hasn’t been done already).

[Johann Marsbar]

4 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Personally the one on Alderney that I’d be interested to see is reopening of more of the existing standard gauge line towards the breakwater (and yes, I realise the practical difficulties with this that are probably why it hasn’t been done already).

 

The current Alderney set-up hasn't run so far this year due to loco problems. Some of the foliage growth on the line - particularly at the Town end - looked as though it hadn't actually run for longer for that!

 

 

 

Rails are still in place on the breakwater but it's mostly removed between there and the current running line........

 

 

More interesting - which I hadn't noticed until I looked at my photo - is the pair of obvious marks in the cobbled road surface to the left, which look like they could be where an Organisation Todt 60cm line ran during WW2 - They look about the right distance apart!

[33C]

3 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

Pushing the thread title to its limits - 60cm gauge tracks on which mobile searchights were mounted at one of the WW2 German gun battery complexes on Alderney......

 

It counts! 

[Guest]

Tynemouth’s North Pier has tracks still visible on the lower level. I have read on the information boards at the pier that these were used to bring in stone blocks to repair storm damage, but the linked article shows the crane straddling them and the description isn’t clear what they were used for. https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/travelling-crane-north-pier-tynemouth-3053

[Artless Bodger]

On 10/06/2023 at 17:50, Gatesheadgeek said:

Tynemouth’s North Pier has tracks still visible on the lower level. I have read on the information boards at the pier that these were used to bring in stone blocks to repair storm damage, but the linked article shows the crane straddling them and the description isn’t clear what they were used for. https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/travelling-crane-north-pier-tynemouth-3053

Head Gardener (Mrs Bodger) lived in North Shields for a few years around 2010 and we can remember seeing both rails at the low level and the rail along the top of the outer wall of the pier as seen in the crane photo. The actual railway siding used to continue across the road and into the glen where the car park is now (left of the white building in the distance), this was the pier yard - presumably where the materials and equipment to firstly build, then later maintain the pier were stored. The yard was on an extended siding descending from the original Tynemouth station goods yard. See the OS 6" map 1888-1913 on NLS site, https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/swipe/#zoom=16.9&lat=55.0151&lon=-1.4234&layers=6&right=BingHyb

 

This Flikr site shows the double crane rail along the outer wall and the lower pier edge, with the siding between, https://www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/51316765908

 

Iirc there was a similar set up on the south pier, but I only walked that once, and have no clear memory, though I saw other sidings near the landward end, maybe originally associated with the Marsden line.

 

[Artless Bodger]

One example I learned of through the Berkshire Industrial Archaeology Group is in Fobney Street in Reading, originally a spur off the Coley Goods branch and now all redeveloped as housing.

 

Screengrabs from Google Maps and Streetview

 

[melmerby]

If you use Google Earth, rather than Google Maps the image isn't cluttered with unwanted peripherals and you don't need screengrabs:

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by melmerby

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Artless Bodger said:

Head Gardener (Mrs Bodger) lived in North Shields for a few years around 2010 and we can remember seeing both rails at the low level and the rail along the top of the outer wall of the pier as seen in the crane photo. The actual railway siding used to continue across the road and into the glen where the car park is now (left of the white building in the distance), this was the pier yard - presumably where the materials and equipment to firstly build, then later maintain the pier were stored. The yard was on an extended siding descending from the original Tynemouth station goods yard. See the OS 6" map 1888-1913 on NLS site, https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/swipe/#zoom=16.9&lat=55.0151&lon=-1.4234&layers=6&right=BingHyb

 

This Flikr site shows the double crane rail along the outer wall and the lower pier edge, with the siding between, https://www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/51316765908

 

Iirc there was a similar set up on the south pier, but I only walked that once, and have no clear memory, though I saw other sidings near the landward end, maybe originally associated with the Marsden line.

 

Thanks for the added info. It was only when I read about the original Tynemouth station a few years ago that I worked out how the pier track linked to the network. 
 

The upper rail is deteriorating quickly but still visible in places. It gets quite a beating there! 

[Artless Bodger]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

If you use Google Earth, rather than Google Maps the image isn't cluttered with unwanted peripherals and you don't need screengrabs:

 

 

 

Thank you for that info. I have not yet tried Google Earth - something to look at.

 

31 minutes ago, Gatesheadgeek said:

The upper rail is deteriorating quickly but still visible in places. It gets quite a beating there! 

Agreed. The flat Head Gardener lived in had a bay window with views both up river and down to the mouth, watching the ships pass was interesting. One winter when I visited we saw a small container ship leave, once clear of the piers it was pitching alarmingly, glad I wasn't a mariner. Waves breaking over north pier were obscuring it from view.

[25kV]

 

Bude beach in 2012.

 

[Pacific231G]

On 10/06/2023 at 17:50, Gatesheadgeek said:

Tynemouth’s North Pier has tracks still visible on the lower level. I have read on the information boards at the pier that these were used to bring in stone blocks to repair storm damage, but the linked article shows the crane straddling them and the description isn’t clear what they were used for. https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/travelling-crane-north-pier-tynemouth-3053

Both the railways that ran on the North pier and the South Pier at South Shields were used to take stone blocks which were lifted into postion by the block setting crane that ran on its own rails along each pier. When I was an MN student in S. Shields in 1969-1970 the railway on the south pier was still completely  intact with wagons sitting on the sidings in the pier yard at the shoreward end.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l1tXTulftCk/XC21KCN04YI/AAAAAAABN-I/fyx_J0U0fYoQB_OYqD_wVCCgf8QU7oxcACKgBGAs/s1600/South%2BShelds%2Bpier%2Brailway%2Bworks%2Btrain_B.jpg

 

The Titan crane was still in use (until 1987) but I thought the railway was disused, though I may have been wrong about that. At that time the pier railway consited of a single track running almost the whole length of the pier and fanning out into three sidings in the Tyne Improvement Commission yard at the foot of the pier. Earlier though it had extended to stone quarries at Trow Point about a mile down the coast with a line running  up the coast to a quay on the Tyne presumably to supply stone for the north pier. The South Pier system was SG but AFAIK was completely unconnected to any other railway.  

Edited June 12, 2023 by Pacific231G
clarification that I'm decribing the South Pier railway onl, not the one along the North Pier

[melmerby]

8 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

The system was SG but AFAIK was complettely unconnected to any other railway.  

It connected to the main line near Tynemouth Junction:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.3&lat=55.01511&lon=-1.42492&layers=168&b=1

[Pacific231G]

2 minutes ago, melmerby said:

It connected to the main line near Tynemouth Junction:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.3&lat=55.01511&lon=-1.42492&layers=168&b=1

The North Pier railway at Tynemouth did (though I didn't know that till looking again at the 25inch maps just now) but I was describing the South Pier railway which didn't. It had though been far more extensive than what was left in 1970 with far more extensive sidings at the foot of the pier, a branch to the south groin at the actual mouth of the Tyne and a couple of what appeared to be sidings running onto the beach just before Trow Point and also just before the line turned onto thesouth pier. I don't know if these were for sand or small stones used for ships' ballast etc. At the very end of the south pier the line had doubled to form a run roud but I think that had gone by the time I saw it with the line ending a bit further down the pier. There didn't appear to be any kind of run-round at the depot  end so latterly the line must have been run with the train being propelled out by the diesel shunter and hausled back to the depot.  

[melmerby]

If you want remote how about the Spurn & Kilnsea railway, little of which remains but a bit here towards Spurn Point:

 

Another bit near the northern end:

[Pacific231G]

1 minute ago, melmerby said:

If you want remote how about the Spurn & Kilnsea railway, little of which remains but a bit here towards Spurn Point:

 

Another bit near the northern end:

Interesting. I didn't think anything was left of the Spurn point railway with the land shifting away from it. I did find this 2017 photo by David A Hull (CC by SA4.0)

 

The railway, built for the military, was famous for the locals (including lighthouse keeprers) using home made sailing wagons to get along the point.

[Enterprisingwestern]

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The North Pier railway at Tynemouth did (though I didn't know that till looking again at the 25inch maps just now) but I was describing the South Pier railway which didn't. It had though been far more extensive than what was left in 1970 with far more extensive sidings at the foot of the pier, a branch to the south groin at the actual mouth of the Tyne and a couple of what appeared to be sidings running onto the beach just before Trow Point and also just before the line turned onto thesouth pier. I don't know if these were for sand or small stones used for ships' ballast etc. At the very end of the south pier the line had doubled to form a run roud but I think that had gone by the time I saw it with the line ending a bit further down the pier. There didn't appear to be any kind of run-round at the depot  end so latterly the line must have been run with the train being propelled out by the diesel shunter and hausled back to the depot.  

 

Tynemouth station, train set curves, bridges for scenic breaks and a goods and fish branch, has it ever been modelled?

 

Mike.

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The railway, built for the military, was famous for the locals (including lighthouse keeprers) using home made sailing wagons to get along the point.

Interesting place. an extreme example of longshore drift

It's position in the mouth of the Humber has constantly moved over the centuries.

Ten years ago a large stretch was washed away during a storm and it became a tidal island, more recently new deposits, have re-filled the breach and it is continuous again.

 

[009 micro modeller]

13 hours ago, Artless Bodger said:

One example I learned of through the Berkshire Industrial Archaeology Group is in Fobney Street in Reading, originally a spur off the Coley Goods branch and now all redeveloped as housing.

 

Screengrabs from Google Maps and Streetview

 

That’s an interesting one. Has it been deliberately left with rails in place as a feature?

 

9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Interesting. I didn't think anything was left of the Spurn point railway with the land shifting away from it. I did find this 2017 photo by David A Hull (CC by SA4.0)

 

The railway, built for the military, was famous for the locals (including lighthouse keeprers) using home made sailing wagons to get along the point.

It’s a place that I haven’t visited yet but I was under the impression that there are bits of track left but they aren’t continuous from one end to the other, because of parts being washed away. Spurn Head though was an isolated standard gauge line, not connected to the main network (on this subject, isn’t there a thread somewhere on RMWeb about unconnected standard gauge lines?).

[Artless Bodger]

12 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

That’s an interesting one. Has it been deliberately left with rails in place as a feature?

I think so, the setts in the road suggest it is deliberate. The large building adjacent was a maltings for the brewery, it has been converted into flats. I think several of the old industrial buildings in the area have been converted likewise. There's a series of information boards along that stretch of the Kennet, it's part of a tourist trail.

[Ben B]

Back on page 35, there was some talk of the Middleton Railway, and the connection between their running line, and the original link with the mainline (the Balm Road branch to Hunslet yard).  Anyway, last weekend I was there for the gala, and with Elder Child needing some pics of disused railways for a project inspired by Joel Sternfeld's excellent "Walk the High Line" project, we strolled on with the cameras...

 

 

Level crossing, very much disused.  I'm sure I remember being on a train which reached this crossing this a few years back.  One of the gates is missing now too.

 

 

Looking towards Hunslet.  I gather the last time the mainline connection was used was in the 1990's?

 

 

Flangeways very blocked.

 

 

Looking back towards Moor Road.  There's something fascinating about a disused railway, though it is a little sad.

 

 

:) But then, at least some of it is still in use, if only on galas.  Apparently a lot of work had gone on here the weeks before, ballasting, new sleepers, etc.  A vol was even there trimming the greenery moments before this, the first train of the day, arrived.

 

 

Look at the dust being thrown up from the flangeways of the crossing.

 

 

Moor Road crossing, I gather the main reason the branch is so little-used, as it has to be flag-controlled.

 

 

Visiting Kerr, Stuart on the overgrown link to the Moor Road crossing.

[Ben B]

Another one from me, from May of this year.  I have family in Cemaes, and over the winter we went for a walk in the village, on a footpath to the quay.  I thought it looked a bit too level and with a heavily-engineered bridge, and looked it up to discover it was a tramway.  Anyway, the May weather proved rather better for photography.

 

 

The quayside, where wagons had their loads transhipped to boats.

 

 

The bridge in the middle of the village.

 

 

Pathway a little inland.  So far, so much a trackbed, but my Dad mentioned there was something interesting a bit further on the path...

 

 

 

And there we go, rails in the... dust?

 

 

As best as I can tell, the original track.  The tramway served a brickworks inland (still there though mostly in ruins, and the tramway soon dissapears under the embankment of the new road).  It was 2ft gauge, horse/man worked, and brought coal in and bricks out.  Info from the Cemaes Bay Heritage Centre indicates the works only ran from 1907 to 1914, and the tramway was turned into a footpath in the mid 1970's.

 

 

[Nick C]

This seems appropriate for this thread - not in the road, but an entire abandoned marshalling yard, turned into a national park:

 

[dagrizz]

I saw this one today.

 

 

The rails are further apart than standard and a slightly different view suggests we are in Ireland.

 

 

Turning around, one can see the original site of the station.

 

 

 

It is Fenit, in Kerry.

 

Graham

 

 

[melmerby]

It's changed a bit recently from what it was a few years ago: