soundcutter

Hi. I've found this site by putting 'Downton Tunnel' into google. I have a special interest in the Salisbury - Downton section of this line. I was born in 1966 (20th December Ironically) and raised in what we called a 'wooden shack' on Junction Rd in Alderbury and used to cycle up and down the old track bed from the point where it crossed the mysterious 'canal' to the back of the council estate known as 'spiders Island' which was built on a Whaddon section of the route. I remember.. well... let's say 'gaining access' with some older lads to the LSWR signal box c1970 after it had been boarded up. The last signalman there had the surname 'Bell' as far as I remember. I also remember the old railway cottages which according to my mother at the time 'went down like a pack of cards' at the first touch of the wrecking ball in 1976 when construction on the Alderbury By Pass started. The family had friends who lived in one of them . We were at the top end of the road and could feel the vibrations when the Yeoman trains thundered through, so God knows what it must have been like to actually live in one of those houses, which were at the base of the slight embankment there. On the Tunnel at Downton... It was used as a landfill sight in the late 70s (I remember seeing the signs for it when we used to go up and down Standlynch Rd to Downton, plus seeing the eventual levelling off of the chalk in what would have been the approach cuttings. I've just picked a book up off ebay called 'memories of dad and downton station' .. seems to be the story of the last station master there. Another memory of the area.. unrelated... I used to play around in the remains of the twisted aluminium and wiring looms of a german WW2 plane that crashed into the woods that are on the north side of Alderbury Junction. Hope this has been of interest.. or have I missed the boat ? Chris. Lapsed Railway buff but can still talk the talk.