Tintern Monmouthshire - Photos and trackplans wanted!

[Caterham7]

Hi, I've decided to model Tintern in Monmouthshire in 00 gauge. I live in Tintern, and as the station has been preserved it is the obvious choice.

 

However, there is quite of original detail (including track work) now missing, so if anyone can point me in the direction of any decent contemporary photos of the track and station in GWR days - I would be most grateful.

[Fair Oak Junction]

A few photos here: http://www.urban75.org/photos/wales/tintern.html

 

And an OS map of the site

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.5&lat=51.70281&lon=-2.67071&layers=168&b=1

 

Hope that helps!

[Caterham7]

Thanks for that - really helpful. Happy New Year

[Fair Oak Junction]

No problem, happy to help!

It's a lovely part of the world and should make for a very nice model.

Happy New Year to you too.

[Gordon A]

A site visit is definitely worthwhile.  The main station building is still standing, now a cafe and the signal box.

[Caterham7]

Thanks Gordon - I actually live in Tintern - which is why Ive made the choice, but contemporary photos and plans are not very easy to find for the bits that are not there today.

 

I walked there this morning to measure the platform

[Miss Prism]

How long did the goods yard last?

 

[Fair Oak Junction]

27 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

How long did the goods yard last?

 

 

Passenger traffic stopped in 59, but goods traffic survived until the line closed in 64

Edited December 30, 2023 by Fair Oak Junction

[Harlequin]

It's a lovely little station plan, with the island platform and the very quirky goods yard.

 

From the map @Fair Oak Junction posted, the distance between the two home signalposts works out as ~1035 feet. That's 4.14m in 4mm scale but some compression is almost always needed. How much space have you got?

 

It would be great if you could include the bridge over the river but maybe that's getting a bit ambitious.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the plans.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Harlequin

[GRASinBothell]

There's always the Oakwood publication on the Wye Valley line.

Gordon

[K14]

https://wyewalker.com/railways-and-train-memories-of-the-1950s-and-60s-in-and-around-tintern/

 

Photos are all low res, but this one gives a view of the goods shed & weighbridge hut:—

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

38 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

How long did the goods yard last?

 

It's still there!   https://www.visitmonmouthshire.com/things-to-do/old-station-tintern-p1502751

 

Somewhere I have a photo of the signal box derelict with roses growing through it, taken about 1970  when I lived in Llandogo (next station but one, or more accurately, they were halts), but lovely restoration job done on the whole under one of those job creations schemes many years ago.

 

Although the tunnel was bricked up, it was possible to walk through it. 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

It would be great if you could include the bridge over the river but maybe that's getting a bit ambitious.

 

 

The line was still open as far as Tintern quarry, and of course there is also Tintern Wireworks Branch  (only ever horse-drawn) at the south end of the tunnel, that bridhe still standing and in use for pedestrians.

[Harlequin]

Tintern is described in Volume 4 of "An Historical Survey of Selected Great Western Stations". Trackplan, signalling plan, 4 photos and separate plan of the line crossing the bridge, through the tunnel and the old wireworks private siding.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Harlequin

[Welchester]

Neil Parkhouse's West Gloucester & Wye Valley Lines (Lightmoor Press) has some excellent colour photographs of Tintern Station c. 1937.

 

https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/west-gloucester-wye-valley-lines-second-edition/L8405

[Happy Hippo]

Tintern's signalling diagram courtesy of the Signalling Record Society:

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Happy Hippo

[Captain Kernow]

5 minutes ago, Welchester said:

Neil Parkhouse's West Gloucester & Wye Valley Lines (Lightmoor Press) has some excellent colour photographs of Tintern Station c. 1937.

 

https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/west-gloucester-wye-valley-lines-second-edition/L8405

I can only echo this comment and would have made it myself, had Welchester not beat me to it. This book is absolutely excellent and if you live in Tintern, I would have thought that - once you have checked it out - that a copy should occupy a permanent place on your bookshelf!

 

[Captain Kernow]

Good luck with the project, by the way!

 

[Andy Kirkham]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

and of course there is also Tintern Wireworks Branch  (only ever horse-drawn) at the south end of the tunnel, that bridhe still standing and in use for pedestrians.

 

I always feel the GWR and BR (W) missed a trick by not opening a halt at the junction for the Wireworks branch. It would have been a lot more convenient for the village than the actual Tintern station.

[Michael Hodgson]

The line at the station is on the right side of the river for the village, but a halt would have been on the opposite bank.

Would pedestrians have been legally allowed to use the wireworks line bridge to cross the river to reach a halt there ?

[Michael Hodgson]

There was a proposal a good many years ago for a heritage group to try and reopen the line, or perhaps part of it.  It fell through for two main reasons, it would have difficulty getting volunteers as it was too close to the Dean Forest railway so there would be competition for resources and because the A466 had been widened onto the trackbed in a few places, and couldn't realistically be shifted back.

 

Monmouth Troy station survives of course, re-erected as Winchcombe on the Glos & Warwicks Railway.

[DCB]

The only issue I can see is the very limited traffic on this line, could quickly get boring if prototypical trains are run.   Great scope for scenic treatment, especially if you like making trees and modelling rivers.

[DCB]

The Village was made famous by the Tintern Net system of communication invented by Peter Kay and used extensively in Yorkshire.

Edited December 31, 2023 by DCB

[The Johnster]

On 31/12/2023 at 05:42, DCB said:

The only issue I can see is the very limited traffic on this line, could quickly get boring if prototypical trains are run.   Great scope for scenic treatment, especially if you like making trees and modelling rivers.

Not to mention ruined abbeys…

Edited January 1 by The Johnster

[Michael Hodgson]

On 31/12/2023 at 05:42, DCB said:

The only issue I can see is the very limited traffic on this line, could quickly get boring if prototypical trains are run.   Great scope for scenic treatment, especially if you like making trees and modelling rivers.

Yeah, winter weekdays would be pretty quiet, but operating summer Saturdays in the 1930s was not exactly limted traffic ... they often advertised cheap excursions from places like Bristol or Birmingham.  There would be more carriages than could be accommodated even after clearing out the goods yard.  So some of the trains usually had to be run on to Monmouth to be stabled and prepared for the return working.

 

Plenty of trees on the trackbed towards Brockweir now.

[Welchester]

On 31/12/2023 at 05:42, DCB said:

The only issue I can see is the very limited traffic on this line, could quickly get boring if prototypical trains are run.   Great scope for scenic treatment, especially if you like making trees and modelling rivers.

 

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Yeah, winter weekdays would be pretty quiet, but operating summer Saturdays in the 1930s was not exactly limted traffic ... they often advertised cheap excursions from places like Bristol or Birmingham.  There would be more carriages than could be accommodated even after clearing out the goods yard.  So some of the trains usually had to be run on to Monmouth to be stabled and prepared for the return working.

 

Plenty of trees on the trackbed towards Brockweir now.

 

The provision of three platforms suggests that at times traffic must have been quite intensive.

 

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Not to mention ruined abbeys…

 

When the Diocese of Monmouth was created in 1921, one of the madder schemes for a cathedral (before St Woolos, Newport was chosen) was to put a roof on Tintern Abbey.