Woofferton Junction & Tenbury.

[46256]

We are finally moving to Tenbury early April. It has been a long stressful process. We have though been in the area a lot recently . I have got to know the A 456 to the A 49 very well indeed over the last few months. I can’t help it, I always try and follow where the line of the railway ran alongside. I know and keeping my eyes on the road not least to avoid potholes. 
No matter how well you know an area it always throws up things of interest . I thought the line followed the A 456 on the left hand side of the road travelling from the Salway Arms back towards Tenbury . I then noticed the remains of a bridge to my left the other day which showed the line crossed over the road before going back to the other side by Little Hereford. Apologies to those not familiar with the area as I have become recently. This was confirmed by my examining a 1902 OS map. 
 

I am too committed to modelling my old Midland haunts at Coleshill Warwickshire, but I will though run the Heljan ex GWR railcar through it, I have in homage to my newly adopted area. I also have a three car ex GWR set which I altered as per Monty Wells article in MRJ in the eighties. I needed it for my then model of Water Orton. In 1955 the Westminster Railway Society used it to travel to Derby.

 

photo taken by Andy York when he photographed my model for the April 2014 edition of BRM.

 

 

[Methuselah]

47 minutes ago, 46256 said:

No matter how well you know an area it always throws up things of interest . I thought the line followed the A 456 on the left hand side of the road travelling from the Salway Arms back towards Tenbury . I then noticed the remains of a bridge to my left the other day which showed the line crossed over the road before going back to the other side by Little Hereford. Apologies to those not familiar with the area as I have become recently. This was confirmed by my examining a 1902 OS map. 
  

 

Brian,

               Heading east from Woofferton, the branch is to the north, your left hand side. It crossed the River Teme, then crossed the road at the Little Hereford level-crossing to the south side of the road. Then about a mile or so on towards Tenbury, after Eastham Court Station, the line re-crossed the road to the north side. That is the single bridge abutment that you probably saw. The road used to run where the lay-by is, to sweep under the bridge in a double-bend, the westerly abutment now having been removed to straighten the road. There are quite a few bridges still extant, that cannot be seen from the main road.

 

Did you kit-bash the three-car DRC set...?

 

Cheers,

                 Stephen.

Edited March 28 by Methuselah

[46256]

Hello Stephen the three car set which I still own ( I had a big clear out of stock as well as dismantling Water Orton) was created from Lima single railcars and a collet coach. There was an article by Monty Wells as stated in an early edition of MRJ . It involved cut and shut, and fitting flushglaze. I have still to fit wipers as you can see.

 

if I were doing it again I think you can / could get etched sides from Worsley models. 
 

I have used those and MTK cabs  to create a four car class 123 unit, which also used the Derby line for a short period in 1964. 
 I still own that set as well. I found it easier to part with a lot of beautiful RTR rather than some of my worked on models.
 

I will reply to your pm

 

best wishes Brian
 

 

Edited March 28 by 46256

[Methuselah]

I'm not really a serious 'railwayana' collector, but I do have some of this old 'junk'. One recent addition was a Woofferton - Kidderminster double-sided destination board. It's only a weener, as rather than originating off a bogie-coach, it's actually one used on the GWR Diesel Railcars, and would have slotted-into a mount next to the main entrance-door.

 

See below ;- 

[Methuselah]

     Further to my previous post showing Harp Bank Cottage, here is the brick outbuilding that was in the garden. It is visible in many of the old images of the station.

 

     Again - all credit due to John Woodhall.

 

     S.

 

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[MrWolf]

That looks suspiciously like a wash house, the washer itself being built into that odd corner. I do like to see models of things that were once very ordinary but now all but extinct.

A very nice job you made of it too.

[Methuselah]

4 hours ago, MrWolf said:

That looks suspiciously like a wash house, the washer itself being built into that odd corner. I do like to see models of things that were once very ordinary but now all but extinct.

A very nice job you made of it too.

     Thank you.  Extinct - indeed. One of my earliest memories is of just such a building. Warm, candle-lit, and sat with a 'Play Hour' whilst my mother worked away in the warm gloom with a time-worn stick when she lifted the old wooden lid of the boiler. It was the end of an era - within a short time, the wash-house, and all the street were gone forever - the back-to-backs, the alleyways - along with a way of life and communities. No more women painting the threshold and polishing their brass letter-boxes in the mornings, no more horses with the nose-bag on following the baker, or the loud calls of the rag & bone man.

     There was the whiff of coal as winter set-in, and the smell of the newspaper held across the open hearth to draw a new file - about to self immolate and disappear up the chimney.

     Shops had awnings, and smelled very strongly of whatever they sold - policemen walked in pairs, and so did nuns in a cloud of black & white linen.

 

     Not for long was the sound of steam trains either, and the clattering and shrieking of endless lines of protesting loose-couples wagons, or the echoes of doors slamming in a station. Never a thought what those bells really meant, ringing-out from the open windows of a signal cabin on a summers day - except that they presaged the appearance of some snorting - and invariably filthy behemoth.

 

     So many small details of the tail-end of the Victorian world, so ordinary at the time as not to require comment or a second glance. Most people were poor by modern standards....yet, we had a more cohesive society, and 'happier'....? Oddly, - yes.

 

S.

Edited April 14 by Methuselah