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

[Judge Dread]

Midford S & D in 2008.

 

Old Camerton branch seen from Midford Viaduct.

005.jpg

 

Midford platform.

006.jpg

 

Platform steps.

008.jpg

 

Looking towards Bath.

009.jpg

 

Would you trust this individual?

003.jpg

007.jpg

Trust him? As my late mother would have said, "Not as far as I could throw him!"

[PinzaC55]

Of all the places I ever visited the most evocative was Burdale station on the old Malton & Driffield railway. The station closed to passengers -if any- in 1950 followed by the line closure in 1958. The stationmaster left to find work elsewhere and the building stood empty and increasingly derelict until by the time of my third visit in 1978 it was a ghastly ruin. It has been demolished now but the Yorkshire Wolds Railway are reopening the line further down at Sledmere & Fimber   http://www.yorkshirewoldsrailway.org.uk/

 

Burdale Station [5] 20.5.78 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Burdale Station 20.5.78 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

[david.hill64]

Interesting. It was quite common in France for a Fourgon Chaudiere - a van containing a steam heating boiler- to be marshalled at the head of a train of steam heated stock when hauled by an electric or diesel loco without a train heating boiler and I've certainly seen photos of those at Dieppe but I've not come across a generator van there. Do you happen to remember what sort of coaches made up the train you travelled on?

 

 

Sorry cannot remember too much about the coaching stock. I suppose it is entirely possible that it was a steam heating van. It surprised me that it was between the locos. I cannot remember what class they were except they were single cab Bo-Bos. I think I was too excited at the prospect of main line steam in Spain and Portugal to worry about some smelly diesels! Later in the trip my friend and I caught an electrically hauled Paris-Lisbon relief train at Miranda de Ebro. At Medina del Campo the electric came off to be replaced by a 141F which took us all the way to the border. I can still remember charging through the night sharing wine, cheese and bread with some Portuguese migrant workers returning home, listening to the loco working hard.

 

If you have any idea what would have hauled the Dieppe-Paris train I would be interested. My books are back home in Derby and it is just possible that I retained my spotting book from this trip but I don't have quick access to it.

[Reorte]

Presumably because it's not worth the scrap value to break it out of the concrete, quayside trackwork tends to get left in place and, unless there's substantial redevelopment, often just gets tarred over.

Which reminds me of some I saw the other day in Whaley Bridge, close to the end of the canal - remains of the Cromford and High Peak Railway?

[Pacific231G]

Sorry cannot remember too much about the coaching stock. I suppose it is entirely possible that it was a steam heating van. It surprised me that it was between the locos. I cannot remember what class they were except they were single cab Bo-Bos. I think I was too excited at the prospect of main line steam in Spain and Portugal to worry about some smelly diesels! Later in the trip my friend and I caught an electrically hauled Paris-Lisbon relief train at Miranda de Ebro. At Medina del Campo the electric came off to be replaced by a 141F which took us all the way to the border. I can still remember charging through the night sharing wine, cheese and bread with some Portuguese migrant workers returning home, listening to the loco working hard.

 

If you have any idea what would have hauled the Dieppe-Paris train I would be interested. My books are back home in Derby and it is just possible that I retained my spotting book from this trip but I don't have quick access to it.

If they were single cab BBs then almost certainly 66000s (the SNCF type not GMC "sheds"!!)

This really excellent night time image by Brian Stephenson (which he was kind enough to allow me to use in my article) taken in 1966 shows a 66000 about to leave with the overnight train to Paris and you can just make out the Fourgon Chaudiere behind it.

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/9/7/2997.1190314800.jpg

 

I did also find this photo on the Loco-Revue site

http://forum.e-train.fr/album_mod/upload/bd2efeb8d9eea323611b53db247782f5.jpg

which shows the arrangement you describe on a Dieppe-Paris train in July 1974. These mixed traffic-diesel electric locos were equpped for MU working and also, though not equipped to provide steam heating, could remote control a Fourgon Chaudiere. Apparently they were equipped - possibly retrofitted - with the necessary through pipes for train heating steam, something I certainly didn't know.

 

Ironically, preserved Fourgon Chaudieres are still very much in use but now accompanying steam locos. The operators of several preserved oil-fired 141Rs find them essential for pre-heating the heavy oil they are fuelled with. This has to be at about 80⁰C before it will vaporise in the burners. Steam sheds did of course have stationary boilers on tap but preserved steam locos now have to be more autonomous. 

http://r1199.aerius.fr/?22-fourgon-chaudiere-c-890.html

 

Fourgons Chaudieres had also been used much earlier during the steam era in particularly cold weather when the loco wouldn't be able to supply enough steam to adequately heat a very long passenger train.    

Edited May 27, 2015 by Pacific231G

[Reorte]

I spotted this in Buxton yesterday, which looks rather like a water crane to me.

[big jim]

I spotted this in Buxton yesterday, which looks rather like a water crane to me.

thats the old 'peak rail' platform from the 80s, they had a plan to open from the buxton end through towards matlock but it got abandoned for some reason, probably because the track was still in use by BR (and still is!)

[unclebobkt]

Whatever your favourites are, they may well be featured in the lovingly produced Disused Stations Website here:  http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/

Not just a valuable historic resource, but a highly recomended way to waste a few hours wallowing in historic nostalgia!

 

      Knowing the English I'm surprised that there's not some sort of Preservation Society or similar - at least a place where olde foggies can gather to yarn about times gone by.

      Laudator temporis acti -

[PinzaC55]

thats the old 'peak rail' platform from the 80s, they had a plan to open from the buxton end through towards matlock but it got abandoned for some reason, probably because the track was still in use by BR (and still is!)

 

It was partly that BR was increasing use of the goods line thus it would be difficult to fit Peak Rail trains in, plus the fact that Peak Rail were short of money at the time and were offered a substantial amount of money for most of the Buxton site and it made sense to concentrate operations on Darley Dale - Matlock rather than having two sites. Unfortunately by this time they had rebuilt the bridge at Buxton which was in effect wasted money. It does seem odd that they have left a perfectly good water crane there. Here is my shot of Buxton in 1988.

 

Buxton Peak Rail Signalbox 27.2.88 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

[unclebobkt]

 

      ... . 

I've been so fascinated by this ferry port, [Dieppe],  in the street for so long that I've even written articles about it (Continental Modeller January and February 2010 and,  in translation, in the French magazine RMF in 2013)

 

      Yes - I well-remember reading your articles in Continental Modeller, and would have been happy to make an attempt at building Dieppe Maritime.   However, our local model-shop, here in BANGKOK, while stocking Peco track seemed to concentrate more on German & Italian rolling stock in HO. or in American & Japanese in Z scale.   Thoughts of trying to import SNCF. items - international postage rates and Thai Customs being what they can be - eventually disuaded me.  

  Possibly I gave-up too easily?

       

[Fat Controller]

Maybe bought as an animal shelter by a local farmer?  It would have suited pigs allowed to roam around in woodland.

 

A lot of redundant van bodies were sold to farmers in the 50s and 60s, and they made good storage sheds, or animal shelters until our inclement weather began to have the upper hand.

It'll have been sold on by a scrappie; in the early 1980s, I remember a yard near Darlington that had a huge pile of Vanwide bodies stacked one on top of the other. One thing to note, which is often forgotten by modellers, is that the headstocks and solebar are still present. If they weren't, it would have been very difficult, perhaps impossible, to lift the body.

[Mr Brunel]

The railways around Cheltenham are arguably not too evocative as very little actually remains of them - however, there are some reminders left if you know where to look. Here's what's left of Malvern Road:

 

The Travis Perkins yard which obliterated much of the site has at least been kind enough to retain the yard gates, complete with GWR monograms.

 

There's also the 'STAFF ONLY' sign around the back which I'm fairly certain is original.

 

And here is the approach to St. James station, in whose place a Waitrose now lies. The road bridge has been replaced, but it's clear how the track would have split (the left-hand line continuing to Stratford-upon-Avon, and the right-hand entering the station).

 

The Waitrose is a dull alternative but it's slightly spooky to think, when rifling through magazines or wandering the fruit and veg aisle, that I'm stood where GWR Prairies long ago brought in trains from Kingham.

 

 

 

 

[PinzaC55]

The railways around Cheltenham are arguably not too evocative as very little actually remains of them - however, there are some reminders left if you know where to look. Here's what's left of Malvern Road:

DSCF7748 - Copy.jpg

 

The Travis Perkins yard which obliterated much of the site has at least been kind enough to retain the yard gates, complete with GWR monograms. DSCF7817 copy.jpg

 

There's also the 'STAFF ONLY' sign around the back which I'm fairly certain is original. DSCF7810 copy.jpg

 

And here is the approach to St. James station, in whose place a Waitrose now lies. The road bridge has been replaced, but it's clear how the track would have split (the left-hand line continuing to Stratford-upon-Avon, and the right-hand entering the station). DSCF7770 - Copy copy.jpg

 

The Waitrose is a dull alternative but it's slightly spooky to think, when rifling through magazines or wandering the fruit and veg aisle, that I'm stood where GWR Prairies long ago brought in trains from Kingham.

DSCF7781 copy.jpg

 

My views of Cheltenham Racecourse station in 1979.

Cheltenham Racecourse Station  {1} 7.8.79 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Cheltenham Racecourse Station  {2} 7.8.79 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Cheltenham Racecourse Station  GWR Nameboard 7.8.79 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

[PinzaC55]

Bishops Cleeve station site where a bridge had disappeared and the track was suspended in mid air.

 

Bishops Cleeve Station  7.8.79 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

The rusty tracks near Gotherington.

 

Cheltenham-Honeybourne near Gotherington 7.8.79 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

[Astockfan101]

The other day when I was out I found the Old Claydon station!

[Reorte]

The railways around Cheltenham are arguably not too evocative as very little actually remains of them - however, there are some reminders left if you know where to look. Here's what's left of Malvern Road:

DSCF7748 - Copy.jpg

Blimey, not even disused railways are free from being lined with palisade fencing and a whole heap of tree growth that eventually sometimes gets cleareed!

[Coach bogie]

Easy to miss when entering Darlington station from the south is the derelict and now disconnected turntable.

when less overgrown

 

Another one close to my home is the former signalbox from Stokesley Station , now moved a short distance into the front garden of a house.

Mike Wiltshire

Edited June 2, 2015 by Coach bogie

[Porcy Mane]

Easy to miss when entering Darlington station from the south is the derelict and now disconnected turntable.

Darlo TT.jpg

when less overgrown

Here's some links to phots of that turntable in use.

 

http://www.traintesting.com/images/D344%20darlington%20bog%20rot.jpg

 

http://www.traintesting.com/images/D344%20darlington%20bog%20rot1.jpg

 

Porcy

[Porcy Mane]

Like a hand clawing its way out of a grave in a Hammer horror movie, the brake handle of a buried chauldron wagon points out the way its colleagues took for a last time over ninety years ago.

About 20 feet downstream, a hexagonal axled wheel set, probably from the same wagon lies in the stream bed amongst the remains of a long collapsed culvert.

Unlikely as it is; the railway term, "Gricer" developed in the same area.

 

Porcy

Edited June 2, 2015 by Porcy Mane

[Market65]

Hi, everyone. Here's the Crossing Keeper's House at Burnby No. 2 L.C., near to Pocklington, East Yorks, on the former Market Weighton to York line. It is surrounded by trees, and overgrowth, and it is hard to believe that it was once on an important railway line.

 

All the best,

 

Market65.

[jamessolomon]

Theres a place in the peaks I rememebr a few years back did a walk there its a station that goes into a tunnel at one end and a bridge at the other used to be able to walk the tunnels i got told on the day but you couldnt anymore shame looked like a nice little diorama thing to do that place. Shame I cannot remember the place unless someone on here knows where I mean basocally went bridge > station > tunnels had the river next door where you could walk along under a overhang remeber it well i think because of the snow and big icicles hanging from the rocks

[jamessolomon]

From a friend that did the walk with us millers dale station is what I'm thinking of

[Davey]

And now for something completely different, the remains of the turntable pit at Kirk Smeaton on the long since closed Hull & Barnsley mainline. Also a picture of the station building at the same location which is still in use as a private residence.

 

Davey

[PinzaC55]

Further down the line from Burdale was Sledmere & Fimber station, once the busiest on the line. When the line closed it was simply boarded up and British Rail wanted so much for it that it gradually became derelict. In 1978 it was still repairable but the local authority decided to demolish it and erect a timber cabin selling tea and snacks rather than the more sensible idea of restoring the station ! 

 

Sledmere & Fimber {3} 25,2.78 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Visible in the distance is the grain warehouse. This was built in 1860 on a 100 year lease, and when the line closed it was still a thriving concern having been repainted and modernised recently. 2 years later the lease expired and British Rail told the tenants, who wished to buy it , that they would have to buy the whole site including the station and Fimber Road gatehouse. So they had to move elsewhere and the warehouse gradually fell derelict until by 1978 it was a dangerous roofless ruin. Another own goal for BR.

 

Sledmere Grain Warehouse 25.2.1978 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

See more pictures here   http://www.yorkshirewoldsrailway.org.uk/history/stations/sledmere-and-fimber-station/

Edited June 3, 2015 by PinzaC55

[Davey]

And now for something completely different, what remains of the turntable pit at Kirk Smeaton on the long since closed Hull & Barnsley mainline together with a view of the station building at the same location and now in use as a private residence. The pictures were taken in August 2013.

 

Davey