Small oil terminals

[Supaned]

Ripple Lane men by then, surely?

[nigb55009]

Quite possibly Ripple Lane men. As I said I`m not sure where the train crew moved to when Stratford closed. Probably different locations if passenger and freight were involved. The same thing happened at Springs Branch, the freight jobs went to Warrington, along with train crew. Passenger work moved to Wigan Wallgate, only drivers moved as there was no passenger work for guards at the depot. There was a small diesel servicing point at Temple Mills, IIRC. I think there`s someone on here modelling it, I would have thought some train crew would have made the move over to cover engineers workings based around Temple Mills yard. Ripple Lane would have been more involved in petroleum and container traffic from sites along the Thames estuary, including Fords at Dagenham. I think it closed in 1992 or 3. Temple Mills closed later to allow building of the Channel Tunnel depot.

[Morello Cherry]

On 27/04/2022 at 18:29, Northmoor said:

What a super video; particularly appropriate to me as I visited Margam area a few times during late 80s summer holidays when my Dad was working in the area (that path crossing by the West end of the Knuckle Yard is an enthusiasts' dream location) and in early 1996, I moved to within walking distance of North Camp station.  The tanks had already gone but the sidings were still in place for a few years.  A few observations:

• I think "Tony" Smith was still working the ticket office there when I last visited about five years ago.
• The shunt seemed to be done very quickly (reversing faster than I would have expected), but the crossing was closed for a significant time.  By 1996 it was by-passed by a bridge connecting to the new Blackwater Valley Road, which ended there at that time and was only extended to the A31 in 1997 or '98.  The crossing remains but hardly anyone needs to drive across it now.
• Note how the guy holding his young child and watching the trains is inside the barriers!  I'm amazed none of the railwaymen asked them to stand on the platform (and that child will be about 30 now!).
• Why did the train depart towards Guildford?  Surely going to Ripple Lane it would have been easier to reverse at Reading and join the NLL at Acton from the GWML?
• Note that the sidings are accessed via a facing connection, using a double slip.  That's not at all common.

 

 

The discussion of the routing of the train is here, it was sent all the way around Woking, Feltham etc.

 

My guess is capacity at Reading, it was pretty busy and you already had the cross country trains with run rounds etc going on and Guildford was an easier place to do it.