Evocotive railway remains, what derelect or abandoned structure stirs your emotions?

[Danim]

Believe it was part of the anti sparking measure as they were carrying very high explosive material and sometimes things such as naval shells and mines

[PhilJ W]

Was that as an anti-sparking measure or was it just a convenient local material?

 

 

Believe it was part of the anti sparking measure as they were carrying very high explosive material and sometimes things such as naval shells and mines

Probably both, the explosives works at Coryton on the Thames estuary had an extensive ng system using wooden rails.

[Market65]

Hi, everyone. Here's some photo's of the remains of Market Weighton station in August, 1976, with all the destruction that there was by that time. These are scans, and are variable in quality.

 

With regards,

 

Market65.

[Market65]

Hi, everyone. Here's a photo' which I took on Sunday of the onetime station house at Holme-Upon-Spalding-Moor, E. Yorks,. (On the Selby to Market Weighton line). Those trees were not there to that extent back when the railway was in use!

 

With all regards,

 

Market65.

[mikemeg]

Driving into Hull, along the A63, through the site of what was once the largest marshalling yard complex in Great Britain, on the left hand side of the road, standing perhaps a hundred yards from the road is a long building, now used to service road transport. This is all that is left of what was once the largest locomotive shed on the old North Eastern - Hull Dairycoates - with six turntables under cover and a dead end straight shed. Even after the building was rationalised and rebuilt, in the mid 1950's, it was still large, though nowhere near its earlier enormity.

 

I pass this place very occasionally on my infrequent visits to Hull but each time that I do my mind is transported back to a day in the Autumn of 1958 when first I encountered this place. It was a late September Sunday afternoon and I and a few mates were taken round this place by an elder brother of one of the party.

 

It was a magical place; these great sheds were all magical places. Filthy, tired, often delapidated, they stood testament to their purpose; these great 'cathedrals' of places dedicated to the steam locomotive.

 

Never were they more evocative than at dusk when they and their charges stood silhouetted against a darkening sky, with that all pervading smell of smoke and oily steam.

 

That day, in 1958, over a hundred steam locomotives lay at rest; in 1950 almost two hundred would have filled this place. There was no sound, save the dripping of leaking pipes, the hiss of steam and the soft cracking of metal cooling down for this was their day of rest. The next day would be full of movement, the hussle and bustle of a working shed but this day the place slumbered. I won't bore anyone with a list of the locos on shed that day but there were representatives of many of the classes of the old North Eastern and LNER with the ubiquitous WD 2-8-0's there in great profusion, along with a number of visiting locos from as far afield as Woodford Halse and Manchester.

 

Inside the shed, before the sun went down, great shafts of sunlight, thick enough to have been cut with a knife, would reach down, Illuminating one of more of the locomotives and bathing them in a soot filled pool of light, occasionally alighting on a locomotive newly painted and gleaming, though in 1958 that was a quite rare sight.

 

We left the shed, on that Autumn day, as darkness was beginning to fall leaving the abiding memory - a lifelong memory - of that place and its lines of locos, framed against a clear evening sky.

 

Over the next six years there would be many more steam day Sunday afternoons, in a host of places, but none quite like that first one.

 

Perhaps the photos say it so much better than the words ever could!!!

 

So, such are memories made and so long do they endure.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

Edited September 12, 2015 by mikemeg

[mikemeg]

Just as a postscript to the posting above, this is now the site of the A63, though then it was the site of the end of Hull's outward yard; one of four huge yards formng the marshalling yard complex. Now all gone!!

 

Cheers

 

Mike

Edited September 12, 2015 by mikemeg

[Chameleon]

What a wonderfully eloquent description. Makes me wish I was around in those days.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot left of Edinburgh's old railways. Everything in the east was demolished and swept away. I did get a look at Leith central before it was demolished. Could have still been in use today if it wasn't for short sightedness.

[pointstaken]

Mikemeg,

 

An eloquent AND elegant description indeed, sir ! Well worth reading.

 

Dennis

[Market65]

Those are really excellent photo's, and even better for being in colour - I think that I've only seen Dairycoates shed photographed in black and white before. Very atmospheric.

 

With best regards,

 

Market65.

[mikemeg]

Those are really excellent photo's, and even better for being in colour - I think that I've only seen Dairycoates shed photographed in black and white before. Very atmospheric.

 

With best regards,

 

Market65.

 

Thanks to those contributors who have commented so kindly on the postings above.

 

It's strange how the photos being in colour adds to the atmosphere, yet for the ones taken inside the shed (and these were not taken by me) the prevailing colours are black and grey; a myriad shades of black and grey.

 

As a final aside, wouldn't that first photo make a great painting, for it encapsulates so much of what we knew and loved of the days of steam. Perhaps ......

 

Regards

 

Mike

[barrowroad]

Driving into Hull, along the A63, through the site of what was once the largest marshalling yard complex in Great Britain, on the left hand side of the road, standing perhaps a hundred yards from the road is a long building, now used to service road transport. This is all that is left of what was once the largest locomotive shed on the old North Eastern - Hull Dairycoates - with six turntables under cover and a dead end straight shed. Even after the building was rationalised and rebuilt, in the mid 1950's, it was still large, though nowhere near its earlier enormity.

 

I pass this place very occasionally on my infrequent visits to Hull but each time that I do my mind is transported back to a day in the Autumn of 1958 when first I encountered this place. It was a late September Sunday afternoon and I and a few mates were taken round this place by an elder brother of one of the party.

 

It was a magical place; these great sheds were all magical places. Filthy, tired, often delapidated, they stood testament to their purpose; these great 'cathedrals' of places dedicated to the steam locomotive.

 

Never were they more evocative than at dusk when they and their charges stood silhouetted against a darkening sky, with that all pervading smell of smoke and oily steam.

 

That day, in 1958, over a hundred steam locomotives lay at rest; in 1950 almost two hundred would have filled this place. There was no sound, save the dripping of leaking pipes, the hiss of steam and the soft cracking of metal cooling down for this was their day of rest. The next day would be full of movement, the hussle and bustle of a working shed but this day the place slumbered. I won't bore anyone with a list of the locos on shed that day but there were representatives of many of the classes of the old North Eastern and LNER with the ubiquitous WD 2-8-0's there in great profusion, along with a number of visiting locos from as far afield as Woodford Halse and Manchester.

 

Inside the shed, before the sun went down, great shafts of sunlight, thick enough to have been cut with a knife, would reach down, Illuminating one of more of the locomotives and bathing them in a soot filled pool of light, occasionally alighting on a locomotive newly painted and gleaming, though in 1958 that was a quite rare sight.

 

We left the shed, on that Autumn day, as darkness was beginning to fall leaving the abiding memory - a lifelong memory - of that place and its lines of locos, framed against a clear evening sky.

 

Over the next six years there would be many more steam day Sunday afternoons, in a host of places, but none quite like that first one.

 

Perhaps the photos say it so much better than the words ever could!!!

 

So, such are memories made and so long do they endure.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

Fabulous photos Mike - I particularly like the first. Truly atmospheric!

 

Robin

[PinzaC55]

Hi, everyone. Here's a photo' which I took on Sunday of the onetime station house at Holme-Upon-Spalding-Moor, E. Yorks,. (On the Selby to Market Weighton line). Those trees were not there to that extent back when the railway was in use!

100_6809 - Copy.JPG

 

With all regards,

 

Market65.

 

On a dreary day in 1977. Note the intact wooden nameboard as this line was demolished in a very halfhearted fashion.

 

Holme Moor Station 10.4.77 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Holme Moor Station (2) 10.4.77 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Nearby in a field was this lovely old coach. I have never been able to find out what became of it.

 

Old Clerestory Coach at Holme Moor 10.4.77 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

 

[runs as required]

I can't really cope with abandoned railways. I walked a good length of the old Midland route around Bakewell years ago, and I should have loved it. The sun was shining ... but all I could think about were the trains that would have raced by decades before.

Here is another sad one, not a million miles from the Midland mainline at Bakewell

 

We were on a trip down memory lane last weekend visiting wife's surviving old schoolfriends around Buxton.

We passed through Hulme End enroute to visit an old friend in Leek whose dad had been the licencee of the "Light Railway Hotel" in Hulme End.  We drove up and down before it dawned on us that the pub had been renamed.

 

http://www.themanifoldinn.co.uk/

 

As you can see from the above web site, all the Manifold valley's unique railway history (the Indian Barsi Light Railway origins and the famed milk tank transporter waggons) has been obliterated in favour of the ubiquitous 'coaching inn'.

Strange.

Its not only Communist States who re-write history.

 

dhig

[runs as required]

The other Evocative Rail Remain we happened upon was this poor old ruin:

at the National Stone Centre at Wirksworth, just alongside the C&HP stone embankment.

I've just discovered this interesting web page which relates its history:  https://inlanding.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/rs8/

 

Wife's late stepfather used to be a signalman at Tunstead/Peak Forest and used to take our children along with him on backshift, but I don't remember this sad little loco that had once been a pretty young Avonside 0-4-0ST in her youth.

 

We were lurking around the old stone quarries because long ago as a student, I clad a small building in Hoptonwood stone and received huge support from the quarry (which back in 1958 used a steam crane stabilised by elaborate triangulated trusses). 

 

dhig

 

[Nodrog1826]

Earlier post (Page 8.) shows part of this..

 

The installed and little used, because it was too successful Black Fell retarder, put in to prevent over running of a set landing from Blackham's Hill.

 

Too successful, because it worked, the only trouble was it was difficult to release it to get the wagons to move again, so it was decommissioned.

 

Equally useless was the sand drag on the left, put in the early days of preservation, should stop a 125, or so the experts said, but no one told the six hopper wagons that ran straight through it in 1980!!

 

On the right was a loco shed to test underground loco brakes, added prior to closure by the N.C.B., the test track ran down (Behind the camera.) to Long Acre, under the ECML at Tyne Yard, and is now part of a foot/cycle way.

The shed was dismantled in the 1980's and the metalwork recovered by a rope hauled train, during a "Schools Open Day" by first dropping off two flat wagons on the right to be loaded with girders slid across and lowered onto the wagons,

whilst normal running was going on, but stopping short, then during the lunch break, between the morning and afternoon visits, these were then hauled partially up and dropped back to collect other pieces, then the whole lot hauled up to Blackham's Hill. All shunting done by indicator alone, as the driver can not see the Incline, from the Hauler at Blackham's.

 

Now before anyone asks, yes the driver did get his lunch, as the hauler can be driven whilst eating a sandwich, or having a brew as well, trust me it can.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Nodrog1826

[Porcy Mane]

Now before anyone asks, yes the driver did get his lunch, as the hauler can be driven whilst eating a sandwich, or having a brew as well, trust me it can.

 

And The Ship booza in the background. During the 1980's always full of tottie on a Frida neet and half decent Yorkie puds for free on a Sunday lunchtime.

 

The NCB test track and training track built on the Bowes incline was a grand failure and resulted in the building of the Loco Training facility as part of the centralised training centre at Seaham.

[Nodrog1826]

The "Ship" has been extended, now serves Thai food, as well as traditional fayre. Although it's just along the road, never been in since the "Garbutt" family ran it so that has to be the late 70's.

 

The farm buildings in that picture have now all gone as well. proves nothing stays the same.

 

As for the sand drag, well this is what you could have seen in 1980, for a few weeks at least....note the second to last pic shows the arm of the retarder, in the debris.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Nodrog1826

[Porcy Mane]

Although it's just along the road, never been in since the "Garbutt" family ran it so that has to be the late 70's.

 Related to the Pragnells if my memory serves me right, but that's us moving of railways.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

If I'd been standing in this exact spot on a Summer Saturday some 55-60 years ago, I'd just be about to be run over by the 7.40am Birmingham New Street - Bournemouth West train, possibly hauled by an ex-SDJ 2-8-0.

 

 

The location is just north of Blandford station, near the end of the single track section from Templecombe.

[bingley hall]

I was rather taken with the old water tower at Faversham a couple of weeks ago, now converted into a residence.

 

[John M Upton]

Peek through the gate and you can still make out in the undergrowth the former platforms 5, 6 and 7 at Christ's Hospital which served the line to Guildford.  Hard to believe this station once boasted seven platforms and a fine station building.

A line I would very much like to see rebuilt one day but I think that is probably a pipe dream

[luckymucklebackit]

Hi all - I went on the Glasgow Central tour this afternoon and I was not disappointed, The tour takes you down into the maze of subterranean passages below the station including the fabled "lost platform".  The stairs down to this old platform were only competed two weeks ago adding this feature to the tour.  Only one of the two island platforms was returned to use when the line was reopened in the 1970s, the other was sealed off behind a partition wall, and part was lost to the foundations of a new commercial development

 

 

This is the view from the bottom of the stairs

 

 

Then on down to the trackbed, the flash on my camera was just not up to throwing enough light, with the naked eye you could see an eastbound train leaving the working platform in the background

 

 

The next part of the tour caught me by surprise, to the north of the old track formation there is another chamber, described by the guide as the "ladies waiting room", fellow urban explorers think this was a means of getting parcels down to the low level station

 

 

 

The tour guide was brilliant, he has some very ambitious plans to relay track and get a couple of old replica coaches parked next to the platform, this would then be augmented by photographic exhibitions.

 

All and all an enjoyable day

 

Jim

[locoholic]

Way back in 1985 I went to Snailbeach, in Shropshire, and there was still some 2-foot gauge track, although it obviously hadn't seen a train for decades.

 

 

 

It was like a secret railway from a children's story. If only there had been a steam loco locked up in a long-forgotten shed...

 

 

[Devonbelle]

What a fascinating thread. Well I have a few.

 

I always get quite overcome at Torrington, in North Devon - I travelled the last train (33 years ago on Friday 6th Nov), I first went back in June 1984 - with track still down, then next in Summer 1999 - very sad bereft of track - at least a loco, green MK 1 and some wagons are now there.

 

Walking the Cheddar valley line (section Yatton-Congresbury), as a lad, in the 70s the concrete sleepers and a distant sig post were still there, between parts of Yatton and Congresbury then they disappeared and now just a path.

 

Bridgwater freight yard - was bustling in the 80s, and had its moments in the 90s, desolate now apart from the occasional flask train. So whilst track still down, the fact it's so dead stirs the emotions.

 

Paul

[ParkeNd]

This is the sides of the platforms and the trackbed at Severn Bridge Station this summer. And the bridge over the farm track just before entering the station.