1442 at West Country Junction

[carlwebus]

Hi All

 

Please see my photo of 14XX 0-4-2T on a  two coach train approaching a junction.

 

It must be  somewhere out west as the loco was  shedded Taunton and Exeter for much of its later life (and now sits in Tiverton Museum as "The Tivvy Bumper"..

 

BUT what is the location in the pic?

[The Johnster]

It’s leaving, not approaching, the junction, propelling the single 70’ trailer (A26?), shown by the cleared signal it has just passed.  Not that that helps with the location…

[bécasse]

Stoke Canon?

[SD85]

This took a lot of working out but the clue here is that the locomotive has a BR number plate but is still in GWR livery (look closely at the tank sides and one can make out the lettering). This would date the photograph to the early 1950s at the latest.

 

During the early 1950s 1442 was based at Oxford, so I looked around the junctions in the area.

 

The most likely candidate is the junction at Kennington just south of Oxford. The train has just left the main line to join the Oxford - Princes Risborough line and is about to pass over the Kennington bridge across the River Thames in the background. It can be seen that the bridge is of bowstring girder construction.

Link to description of the bridge and picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennington_Railway_Bridge

 

It will also be noted that the branch line the train is venturing onto is singling, and that the point where the single track begins is over a small culvert bridge. As this section of the Oxford - Princes Risborough line is still intact (it serves the Cowley works), it is possible on Google Maps to confirm that the point at which the line singles after the junction is located over a culvert bridge.

 

In the left background can be seen (just above the railway) what looks to be a river which I think is the Hinksey Stream channel which branches off from the Thames at this point (again, Google Maps confirms this). Finally, overhead power lines can be seen in the background; and these correlate to the approximate positions of overhead power lines in the same area today.

 

One thing that is odd is that in order to take the picture the photographer would have to have been standing on the main Oxford - Didcot line, part of which can be seen in the foreground.

Edited June 21, 2022 by SD85

[4069]

Kennington Junction box was between the up relief and up main lines, and I suspect the photographer was standing at the foot of the box steps.

[Mike_Walker]

That too was my conclusion.  The only niggling doubt is that the bowstring bridge in the distance appears only to have a single span whereas it actually has three.  But I can't find anywhere else that remotely fits!

 

Sorry, just enlarged the photo and realised it does have three spans!  😬

 

Kennington Junction confirmed.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Mike_Walker

[carlwebus]

Thanks Guys.  Magnificent response!