Rosyth Naval Dockyard railway

[murray1]

I am toying with the idea of researching a model of Rosyth Naval Dockyard. I remember visiting in the 70s and 80s for navy days and thought the combination of industrial and BR blue side by side could be interesting. there are a few pics of class 101 DMUs heading down from Inverkeithing out there - but I wondered if you good people out there have any info on traffic to and from or sources of extra pictures for inspiration.

 

Many thanks in advance - Murray.

[newbryford]

IIRC, some London Underground 1967 stock was refurbished there - that would make a good model.

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

EDIT - refurb work done 1991-1995.

[Graham R]

I visited Rosyth a couple of times in the 1970s: the first on a railtour by class 101 (Angus Railway Group "Five Counties" in 1974) when we were made to hand over our cameras before entering the dockyard... the second with a club in 1978, when the MoD rather sportingly allowed us to take as many photos as we wanted of the remarkable collection of pre-grouping wagons they had as internal user stock.

 

Here's one of the shunters you may remember from your visits, MoD Yard 2868, (Planet 1952), on 16 Sep 1978.

 

 

The Rosyth branch was latterly served by trip freights from Townhill yard in Dunfermline. See http://www.rmweb.co....925#entry590925

 

Good luck with the project!

 

cheers

Graham

[scotcent]

More atmospheric than informative, perhaps. This is the Rosyth trip coming up through Inverkeithing in about 1961.

 

Allan F

[Lochty no more]

Rutson & Hornsby shunter originally from RNAD crombie ( see separate post ) later tranfered to Roysyth Naval Dockyard preserved at the Kingdom of Fife Railway Preservation Society at Leven

The loco is longer than your average Rutson & Hornsby being both flameproof / explosionproof for obvious reasons, i`ts now in working order and work is ongoing on a re-paint ( the loco was originally green with red buffer beams ).

[scottishlocos]

Hi Murray

 

An interesting project, please keep me updated.

I have lived in the area for 25 years so I have some info on the trains that could have been seen at Rosyth dockyard mainly the 1980's to 1990's as mentioned there was a trip working from Dunfermline Townhill in the 70's and 80's this yard closed in the early 80's and the trip workings were then from Thornton yard. Locos used were class 20, 26, 27, 37 and maybe even class 24 and 25. Freight wagons used would have been vans of various type the standard BR van and then into the late 70's early 80's it would be airbraked wagons including OCA, OBA, ODA, VEA, VDA, VAA, VBA.

 

Rosyth was mainly used as a navy base and refitting/repair of ships and had a large stores I am not sure if bombs and bullets went to Rosyth in this time period but they did go to Crombie a bit further up the river this was the arms depot. I am sure that the end of the speedlink services in the early 90's brought the end of regular workings to Rosyth and Crombie and not long after this the navy cut back its operations at Roysth to a massive extent.

 

In the mid 1990's as mentioned above there was movements of London Undergroud tube trains to Rosyth for refurbishment I have a picture of a dutch 37 a barrier and tube stock comming off the Rosyth branch. Also in more recent times 1999 - 2000 Babcock rail built Eurospine wagons at Rosyth these were I think for trucks to go on trains as well as a different type for containers.

 

To bring things right up to date a few Nuclear flasks the MOD ones NOTthe FNA Bachmann have done went down to collect material from old subs this was top n tailed with Riviera Trains class 47's working on behalf of DRS. I am also sure but dont have as many details that painting of trains was carried out by Babcock at Rosyth not sure what though maybe some Scotrail units. In the past few years I think the odd test train has gone down the branch although the last few that have been booked to go down have not actually went on the branch.

 

regards

 

Dave