Redhill

[roundhouse]

The office block in the background has been demolished down to ground floor then a new structure built  to about the same height. The cinema has now been demolished apart from the front elevation which is now being incorporated into new flats.

 

The sidings are now very rusty!!

 

Update

 

As of Feb 2017

 

The work on the old cinema ground to a halt and now the facade (with its temporary support) is sitting there decaying

 

All the sidings have now gone as its a construction site for he new platform

[brushman47544]

I've just found these photos of green Class 31s on 4O16 vans in 1972 between Dorking and Redhill.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26292271@N05/32294572192/in/faves-66842977@N06/

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26292271@N05/31602514214/in/faves-66842977@N06/

 

I didn't know Class 31s were ever diagrammed to work on that line, I certainly never saw them, especially whilst still green and presumably before the WR (OC) had an allocation. 

[Nearholmer]

As one of the comments under those photos says, the train often had a hymek, somewhere I've got some rather awful photos of it at redhill c1972. Westerns also ran there, with stone trains that went, I think, to haywards heath, or possibly Ardingly.

 

You've chosen a marvellous place and time to model, but a biiiig project!

 

K

[brushman47544]

As one of the comments under those photos says, the train often had a hymek, somewhere I've got some rather awful photos of it at redhill c1972. Westerns also ran there, with stone trains that went, I think, to haywards heath, or possibly Ardingly.

 

Hymeks I can understand as they were also for a time diagrammed for an early morning Reading to Redhill passenger train, returning to Reading around 11.00 IIRC. So crew traction knowledge wouldn't have been a problem. But at that time were Reading and/or Redhill drivers trained on 31s? Presumably one of the other at least must have been...

[Nearholmer]

Were the WR trains crewed by SR staff, or did some WR men have route knowledge all the way through? I'd assumed the latter, but thinking about it, it would have made rostering a nightmare, because surely not many WR men could have been kept up with it.

 

K

[brushman47544]

Were the WR trains crewed by SR staff, or did some WR men have route knowledge all the way through? I'd assumed the latter, but thinking about it, it would have made rostering a nightmare, because surely not many WR men could have been kept up with it.

 

K

 

My understanding is that WR crews from Reading depot have always had route knowledge to Redhill and in steam days that morning return diagram was a Manor or 43XX to maintain that route knowledge. When steam went, that diagram changed to Hymeks.

 

Even now with Class 166s surely there's a link from Reading depot that works to Redhill, or perhaps even to Gatwick.

[Nearholmer]

Makes sense.

 

Hymeks were also used on freight over the route, by the way.

 

To get the full atmosphere, any layout will need to have room for shunting of freight on the up side. The sand trains worked to and from there, but there was also a steady amount of other freight, I know not to/from where, that seemed to keep a shunting loco and crew busy for most of the morning.

 

K

[Fat Controller]

As one of the comments under those photos says, the train often had a hymek, somewhere I've got some rather awful photos of it at redhill c1972. Westerns also ran there, with stone trains that went, I think, to haywards heath, or possibly Ardingly.

 

You've chosen a marvellous place and time to model, but a biiiig project!

 

K

At that time, there were several temporary stone terminals, used in conjunction with the M23 construction. There was one at Merstham, just north of Redhill, and others at Salfords and around the Crawley/Gatwick airport area, as well as the one at Ardingly. Most closed when works were completed, apart from ARC at Ardingly, and Foster Yeoman at Crawley. Trains were worked by Warships, and later, Westerns, and usually formed of 21t hoppers (HTV). 6O14 was one regular working.