Arpster

I used to go to The Riverside (just over the road) every Thursday night for years but now it's a Tesco Extra! It used to be great to explore around there when it was still all factories and warehouses but now it's a bit of a student ghetto of cheap flats. The power station for the Tyneside electrification was at Carville, if I remember correctly. I'm sure it will be in the NERA publication Arthur mentions. On that subject, I can't see anywhere on the NERA website where that publication is available for purchase. Any tips? Arp

It was the generator station for the Tyneside Corporation Tramways ( see: http://www.heritage-explorer.co.uk/web/he/searchdetail.aspx?id=5236&crit=Art ) From the listing document: "A municipal power station and administrative building, designed by Benjamin Simpson and constructed between 1901 and 1904 for Newcastle Corporation built to supply electricity for trams and lighting. A substantial building group in brick and stone with eclectic details and some architectural pretentions. The stained glass windows depicting tramcars and the building's imposing entrance are particular features. The generator hall and offices are built externally in red brick wirh cut and moulded sandstone details. The south wall is lit by 14 tall arched windows, and the north by 16 similar but shorter windows. The east end has been extended, possibly in the 1930s, and is lit by 6 oblong, metal-frmaed windows. The interior of the generator hall is lined with turquoise and white glazed bricks. A well-preserved World War 2 air-raid shelter of brick with steel blast doors and internal hatches survives in the basement." Quite a lot on Wikipedia too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manors_Power_Station Arp

I had Payroll out on Lovefilm a few weeks ago and annoyed the other half by constantly pausing it to look at the scenes and work out where they were! The parts filmed in Tynemouth (at the 'inside man's' house) haven't changed a bit (apart from the back gate being bricked up) and the area round the bank in the city centre is remarkably familiar. I found the acting a bit melodramatic but I guess that was a sign of the times. Very enjoyable film though. The lane up to Trafalgar Yard where the getaway car was stashed was the one around the back of the tram depot/power station, wasn't it? Arp

There's a photo in that set of pictures of the Point Pleasant viaduct over Willington Dene, further downstream from the taller viaduct which currently carries the Metro. I've never seen a photo of that viaduct from "the ground" as it were and now really struggle to work out where it was (despite photographing Point Pleasant and Willington Quay stations for the Disused Stations website). Has anyone ever seen a picture of it? Arp

Ah, on the other side of the line to the modern one. I remember that footbridge being there until recently, with a big wooden North Eastern buffer stop at the foot of it. Arp

Crikey, I never realised such a grand old building was ever a house of ill-repute! The Fish Quay at North Shields is very gentrified now, but there are still some good pubs down there. It seems to be having a bit of a resurgence with new restaurants and fishmongers, which is good. To get back to topic, a photo of Pelaw in electric days here: http://isee.gateshead.gov.uk/detail.php?t=objects&type=browse&f=PLACE_MADE&s=Pelaw&record=16 Arp

http://isee.gateshead.gov.uk/detail.php?t=objects&type=all&f=&s=pelaw&record=25 Is it right that this is the original Pelaw signalbox which was replaced by the 'futuristic' version (this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/4874789967/lightbox/ )? You can see the three lines in this photo, the HST coming off the Leamside, the Durham Coast line to Sunderland straight ahead, and the South Shields line going off to the left. There is some great footage of the Harton electrics on one of the old Railscene VHS tapes from the early 1990s. The speed at which those old electrics used to barrel around with the 21ton hoppers was incredible! Arp

You can get a Daysaver for the Metro and that's valid on the Shields Ferry too, and the trains to Sunderland. It's about a fiver. If it's pub recommendations you need, I can happily furnish you with some of those! I forgot to mention the Tanfield Railway too, which is worth a visit particularly on the gala weekends when they have the coal trains out. There's some footage of the Harton Electrics towards the end of this clip, plus some bits of Newcastle Central in 1968 in the middle: Arp

The Bowes Railway is really on its last legs at the moment through a mixture of lack of volunteers (and interest generally), its location, and arson attacks! The incline is still in use but is badly over-grown and the remaining volunteers seem to struggle on trying to keep as much of it running as possible. It's a shame, because it's a unique piece of railway history. There's also the Stephenson Railway Museum over in North Shields which has the last remaining Tyneside Electric vehicle (the NER baggage car) and the Monkwearmouth Station Museum in Sunderland should you ever pay a visit. The road/rail bridge in Sunderland is the Queen Alexandra ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3522241758/in/photostream/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3532629821/), the railway part of which lasted barely a decade before it closed. Arp

I'm not sure they did ever put any of them back into service. One was towed to Greece for scrapping (the one which lasted the longest on the Tyne) and the other went to Middlesbrough where it still resides, looking rather forlorn and awaiting its fate. The Shields ferry still runs, happily, and is a lovely trip. Arp

There's a map of the railways and waggonways of 'North East Durham' here: https://sites.google.com/site/waggonways/nz/30/nz3065 Arp

The picture on the south side was quite complex. Pelaw was a three-way junction, where the line to Sunderland (non-electrified) carried on straight ahead, the South Shields line (electrified) split off to the left and the Leamside split off to the right. I don't think the electrified line swung over the top until the advent of the Metro in the early 1980s. The Tyne Dock - Consett ore trains ran directly from Washington (further south on the Leamside line) via Pontop Crossing over the Sunderland line into Tyne Dock. This was the former Pontop and South Shields Railway opened in 1834 which ran all the way from Stanhope in Weardale via Consett to the Tyne. The line from Pelaw to South Shields skirted the river through Jarrow and is still open as the Tyne and Wear Metro. As Brian mentioned, freight trains still use this line but run on a parallel track to the Metro as far as Jarrow in order to reach the oil terminal there. Other freight, for the Port of Tyne (where coal is imported now, remarkably) diverges from the Sunderland line at Boldon Colliery to enter the port. Add into the mix the 'other' Tyneside electrics of the Westoe system (e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/55727763@N02/8044478612/in/set-72157625953380992 ), the line along the coast to Marsden which carried passengers (http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/marsden/index.shtml ) and Pelaw Main and the Bowes Railway coming down the hill to Jarrow staithes ( ) then you've got a really interesting mix of railways! Arp

The time I was in Julies it smelled horribly of gas, just to add to the delights! Not a lot really. North and South Tyneside are, in many ways, considered one place and each have their own areas which are more upmarket and others which are less desirable. Newcastle is very much the big daddy culturally, but North Shields, South Shields and Gateshead all have their own character and identity too. I suppose overall Newcastle is more affluent. And then there's Sunderland... Arp

Ah, that makes sense then. I didn't realise they'd demolished a load of high rise flats from that area. I only ever went to Julies once and also ended up in pretty unexpected surroundings. Perhaps it was some kind of wormhole?! This accident report about a runaway electric at Manors makes interesting reading: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_ManorsJunction1926.pdf Arp

I'm trying to work out where that photo might have been taken. I know it is captioned as being Gosforth East Jnc, but I live not a mile from there and I am struggling to think where those flats might have been. They are very much in keeping with other flats built in the 1960s by T Dan Smith's mate Mr Coulson at Shieldfield, Elswick, Walker etc but I can't recall seeing any over Longbenton way. Perhaps they have been demolished in the intervening years but the ones at Cruddas Park of that design were probably in the worst state of repair and they were only demolished this year. The low-rise houses, however, are in keeping with the estate to the north of the line at Longbenton. Arp

The rails were still there when I cycled along the Quayside before Christmas. I can't see them taking them out for a while, although there are plans afoot to redevelop that area of the quay next. Off topic, I know, but it's amazing how long rails hang around in roads long after the railway has gone. The rails along the south pier at South Shields are still in situ, but the strangest ones I ever found were left, still surrounded by their stone setts, in the level crossing where the old Wallridge Mineral Railway crossed the 'Limestone Road' west of Ponteland here: http://binged.it/YmAbqs Or in Streetview: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ponteland&sll=54.577211,-1.211843&sspn=0.017138,0.055747&g=Middlesbrough,+United+Kingdom&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ponteland,+Newcastle+Upon+Tyne,+Tyne+And+Wear,+United+Kingdom&ll=55.048446,-1.788969&spn=0.008421,0.027874&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=55.048415,-1.789186&panoid=9R7VtnXqu_NCI_ptKN15_Q&cbp=12,82.61,,0,18.49 Arp

If you enter the co-ordinates 425952, 564555 into old-maps.co.uk it's possible to see the old portal disappearing under the Stoddart Street bridge. To the south of the Quayside branch here was a factory where wagon sheets were manufactured, with rail-served sidings linked to Trafalgar Yard. Looking at this aerial view: http://binged.it/15QNiW8 - it is possible to see the old New Bridge Street portal (from earlier photos in this thread) in the bottom right-hand corner (now disused) and that the current Metro turn-back sidings occupy the site of the cutting at the start of the Quayside gradient and the former wagon sheet factory. Similarly, here is the other end of the branch: http://binged.it/140ACy6 - the portal was somewhere south of the church. Arp

From the SLS talk I attended recently, it seems the ES1s were used very much as testbeds by General Electric, and to show the railway world what electric traction could do. They seemed to be very simple beasts, with tram-style controllers and very mechanical set-ups inside. They certainly did the job, but it appeared that the establishment of the Tyneside Electric systems was a bit of a trial-and-error job, slowly figuring out this new form of traction and gradually perfecting it over the decades. As Porcy says, the tunnel under New Bridge Street (classified as a tunnel because it was over a certain length which I can't remember) is still there, but it's hard to find the spot where the Quayside branch proper swung off to the right to head down the gradient. As for the lower portal on the Quayside proper, the best point of reference is the church on City Road which is visible in some of the older photos. The tunnel mouth was directly due south of the church, between it and the river. It is therefore buried somewhere under the corner of the new flats and the vacant plot covered with a grassy bank is over the exchange yard area. Photos from this Flickr set here show the site being redeveloped in the early 1990s: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seacoaler/sets/72157631896656199/ The location of the Co-operative Warehouse, now the Malmaison Hotel, help to position the old yard too. For example, this photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seacoaler/8144049286/in/set-72157631896656199 Can almost be recreated in Google Streetview (although the perspective is out): https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=54.97142,-1.594529&spn=0.004754,0.013937&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=54.97142,-1.594529&panoid=KXCaI8onNmA4hHCauix7xA&cbp=12,274.91,,0,0 I guess the massive stone retaining wall is somewhere under that grass bank to the right. Arp

I took several of the photos for the Disused Stations surveys of the Riverside Branch and B&T and found it absolutely fascinating to trace these routes. It was a really interesting system. I also attended a talk by Bill Donald at the Stephenson Locomotive Society recently in which he detailed the building of the Quayside branch (which was hugely expensive!) and the electrification. The locomotives didn't seem to do much work other than travelling from South Gosforth sheds down to Manors, round the curve at the back of Manors North and over to Trafalgar Yard. They spent most of their day shuttling up and down between Trafalgar Yard, occasionally Manors Yard, and the yard at the bottom of the tunnel on the Quayside. The tracks on the Quayside itself were shunted by J71s and later 03s. Sadly I missed the talk the week after about the Tyneside electrics as I had to go to the match! Bill seems to have done a lot of research though and I think may be collating it all for a book on the subject. The short branch to Collywell Bay which I mentioned earlier is detailed here on the Disused Stations site: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/collywell_bay/index.shtml - it would have been really interesting to see how that branch would have developed if WW1 hadn't intervened. It was built to be electrified from the start so would probably have survived well into the 1970s. It's definitely a model waiting to be devised! Arp

The parcels unit is available from Dave Alexander (I don't think he has a website but is at most North East shows) - I can't recall if it's the LNER version or the original NER version though. Could you point me in the direction of the article on converting an EPB to a Tyneside unit? It's been a long-held ambition of mine to build a layout depicting a 'what-if' of the Collywell Bay branch being opened and the electrics surviving into the 1970s. Arp

An LNER unit at Heaton station: http://www.time-capsules.co.uk/picture/number2914.asp

Not sure if you chaps have seen these before, but there are a few Waverley photos in the 'Dusty' Durrant collection on the Prorail website: http://www.prorail.co.uk/open_ERlist.htm. Such as: "V2 2-6-2 60813 heads a lengthy freight train through the fells at Whitrope 10/65": http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_2183.jpg "60835 "The Green Howard, Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment" on freight train Newcastleton 9/65 (1, 2, 3): http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_A187.jpg http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_2187.jpg http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_B187.jpg "60955 V2 on freight train Riccarton Junction 10/65" http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_2208.jpg "B1 class 4-6-0 61099 crosses the viaduct at Shankend with a freight train 9/65 (1,2)": http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_2220.jpg http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_A220.jpg "B1 class 4-6-0 61099 on freight train at Stobs 9/65" http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_2219.jpg "B1 class 4-6-0 61099 on freight train at Whitrope 9/65": http://www.prorail.co.uk/archives/images/large/AED_E_2221.jpg There might be some more on there but I just had a quick skim through. Apologies if they've been posted before! Arp Admin EDIT to avoid Copyright issues. Super find Arp!

Whilst looking for something completely unrelated, I came across this footage of a strike in the 1960s. From 2:00 onwards is some great footage of unfitted freights going across the viaduct, wherever it is, with some interesting wagons and payloads in the trains. http://www.britishpathe.com/video/sit-in-strike-metal-box-factory Arp

I attended the talk Bill Donald (the mysterious Man in Dublin?) gave to the SLS earlier in the month on the Quayside branch. He had lots of good photos of the yard, the locos, and the aforementioned brakevan (a couple of close-ups of the ES1 disappearing into the tunnel at the bottom of the branch with the brakevan in full view). I'm not sure where he got them from though. There's another talk tonight about the Tyneside Electrics I think, but alas I have a football match to attend. Arp

Those are incredible photos, and some of the only ones I've seen of the little branch up to Glebe Colliery and the 'F' Pit. I went to primary school just behind where the photographer is standing in the second photo and you would never know there was ever a railway there. There used to be a colour photo somewhere on Fotopic before its demise of a Q6 trundling over that crossing, guarded by a chap with a red flag. I'm damned if I can find it now though. And the stories I've heard from my mam about being made late for school by having to wait for a coal train to pass... Thanks for the comments, chaps. I think the addition of people certainly makes Blackgill feel more alive! Glad you've enjoyed the latest photos. I do enjoy taking them. Arp [Edited for fat-fingeredness.]