Will Crompton

From the photographs I've seen and Googlemaps no - assuming I am getting my geography right - which is an 'if' as I am unfamiliar with Warrington and probably last passed this way on a train circa 1973. Looking at the caption on the picture in the BLS report here, https://www.branchline.uk/pastevent-alt.php?eventid=189 the line under is not electrified. From their caption; "The nearer overbridge carries the electrified West Coast Main Line; Crewe to the right and Wigan NW left. The second bridge carries the Up and Down Helsby lines. The line on the right (now OOU) went to Warrington Transporter Bridge, J Crosfield & Sons soap and chemical works and the delightfully named 'New Found Out Siding'! (Actually a foundry perhaps?) Our tour used the left hand line turning sharply and climbing behind the photographer to join the Down Slow, the line west of Warrington BQ Down Passenger Loop (P4)." Also looking at Googlemaps I can's see a catenary on the diveunder. Again this is assuming I'm referring to the diveunder as you understand it as I'm finding Warrington's railways past and present to be a bit of a maze. Here's a screen grab from Google maps. And here's a further scrren grab which I have annotated (crudely, with a blobby line) where I think the C and W siding with the hoist was approximately. The old Crosfield soap factory building is annotated 'cr'. The inverted v points along the line from the diveunder towards Bank Quay station. If I have got my geography right. 🤔. Perhaps wiser, more knowledgeable heads could give a referees decision. Apologies but I have not yet worked out how to make this image bigger.

Good point re timeframe Paul. I'm particularly interested if the facility was open during the 1970s. The pictures in Rail Express are from January 1987 to June 1993. Thanks for the further links. EDIT; just checked, the pictures in Rail Express were taken by David Ratcliffe.

I found this report of a Branch Line Society tour in 2017 which traversed the line under the WCML. They refer to this little nook as 'The Hole'. Scrolling down there is a nice picture of the track passing under the scenic break. https://www.branchline.uk/pastevent-alt.php?eventid=189

Many thanks for the links to the relevant parts of your site Paul. I found several photos of the location in question. There is one (of the internal user ex SMBP 20T class b tank) where one can see the same building as in one of the photographs in Rail Express and at about the same angle so you must have been standing in about the same spot. As ever when looking there I a) lose hours and b) wish for a time machine. EDIT: I'm guessing the building in question was the Crosfields Soapworks. There some photos I have found of china clay slurry tanks parked in sidings outside the same building in my copy of 'Private Owner Wagons in Colour' by David Ratcliffe. I am tentatively assuming the C and W siding(s) were between these and the WCML. Here's a link to an aeria..., arie...., aria..... doh🤔, photograph from an airplane of the district in 1938. https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/epw056684 Using the little yellow man on GoogleMaps one can find some of the factory inset trackwork still in situ. I guess this little beauty (photo by Peter Steel) used to potter around in here. "Preserved: Joseph Crosfield & Sons, Warrington. 'Persil' - John Fowler 4160001 Built by John Fowler, Leeds, and delivered to Joseph Crossfield Soap Works, Warrington, in 1952, this diesel shunter is seen here at the Ribble Steam Railway Museum, Preston, on 17/02/2013. © Peter Steel 2013."

Many thanks for the PM.

I have an old copy of Rail Express (no. 205, June 2013) with a feature on wagon repair facilities written by David Ratcliffe.There are four interesting photos of C and W sidings in Warrington which seems to predate the current facility in Arpley Yard. There was a connection with Arpley yard which ran under the WCML. There seems to have been a small number of sidings one of which had a small wagon hoist. Via another thread here ..... .....I came across this picture of the connection under the WCML where the site is named 'New Found Out Siding'. (taken and uploaded to Flickr by 37190 "Dalzell"). Going back through old OS maps these sidings seem to have originally led to various industrial sites in particular soap works. I'd like to know when this facility opened and closed and any other details about it's operation. Can anyone recommend any books regarding railways in Warrington that could shed further light on this rather atmospheric location? I'm planning a small layout based on a wagon repair facility and this site had been providing some inspiration in particular the overbridge providing a nice scenic break.

Browsing for blue diesels a couple of days ago on Flickr I chanced upon this photograph of a MOGO at Slough station (supposedely) in 1971. Photo by John Senior uploaded by John Turner. Nice weathering.

Blimey. I would have been nervous pushing a barrow across track frequented by Deltics white light or not! Searching Flickr I managed to find the picture of the parcels dock at Hitchin ( circa 1971) taken by the late Roy Dixon and posted by Kevin Lane.

Many thanks for the link. Yes they do seem to have been popular with S and T don't they. The reason for my query is I'm thinking of trying my hand at an NGS kit and of those labelled 'level 1' [very much my level :-( ] the MOGO kit appeals. When time permits I am hoping to build a 1970s set layout. So far it looks like decorating a MOGO as S and T would be correct for the period at least.

Many thanks for the link.

I'm trying to find out what traffic MOGO vans were used for in the 1970s. I've seen pictures of them in departmental use in the early 80s so I assume at least some of the remaining examples had become departmental stock by the 70s. Were any still used in revenue service in this decade, including parcels trains?

This is something I've often wondered about but more with reference to parcels trains as opposed to passenger trains with one or two parcels vans in the rake. That being said you might be interested in Leicester station which had a parcels facility to one side. There are some interesting 70s pictures here. http://www.nigeltout.com/html/around-leicester-1970s.html I'm not sure if it was general parcels only or if post office traffic was also handled here. I have a long term layout project in mind involving a 1970s general parcels handling dock and the Leicester example has provided quite a lot of inspiration. On the basis of the pictures I've seen there seems to have been a bit of shuffling of parcels stock brought in by mainline locos by an 08. Given it's nature as a through station I wonder if parcels stock was taken out of trains here that then travelled further. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable could shed light on operations here. I think Hitchin also had a dedicated parcels dock in the 70s, rather smaller than the Leicester one. No doubt there are a number of other through station examples. A Flickr search for Leicester also brings ups some useful pictures eg this one from Nigel Walls photostream (albeit from the 60s).

With regard to the current layout see this image I pulled from Google Earth. I have marked the position of where I think the dock was using an inelegant big yellow blob! The site is now covered in new buildings which abut the suburban platforms trainshed. I'm pretty sure this is right but stand ready to be corrected.

Hi, here are two track layout pictures I have (I think downloaded from one of the threads so hopefully there are no copywrite issues). The first is a steam era plan with the parcels/motorail dock to the top left. The turntable marks the site of what became the small King's Cross diesel depot/stabling point of fond remembrance. The second plan is the other way up and shows the diesel depot and motorail dock layout. Hope these are helpful.

I'm looking forward to seeing this develop. King's Cross was one of my favourite spotting haunts in the 70s and this corner was fascinating and atmospheric. You may already be familiar with these RMweb threads which contain lots of useful info and pictures but just in case:

That's my AI's excuse and it's sticking to it!

This has inspired me to generate a couple of images using the Stable Diffusion AI image generator. First up is 'Deltic Locomotive designed by Oliver Bulleid'. I now fear for the sanity of the 'Imaginary locomotives' thread. Secondly we have 'British Railways poster by Cezanne' which I think captures his use of 'passage' rather well.

Many thanks. my main purpose in posting the aboove is to alert people to the rather useful trays from The Works. I might obtain some more for dioramas etc.

The final touch was to surround the board with some cheap coloured lights. All aboard the Polar Express! And with one bound he was free!

Decoration now commenced. I bought from a local pound shop a polar bear, a santa, an ice palace and a snow covered house. From 'The Works' were obtained a packet of little wooden Christmas trees whch SWMBO very kindly painted. She also had the genius idea of putting some strips made from Christmas napkins around the edge of the baseboard.

SWMBO then painted the top with one coat of white emulsion which I thought gave an effect of drifting snow. Then I placed the oval of track on it. Whoops! Er, erm, measure twice, buy trays once! It was a bit tighter than I had figured. However I decided I could just about get away with it.

Thence came the bolting.

To keep things simple and as the display is was just meant to be temporary for this Christmas I decided to see if I could get away with just bolting them together. I marked out three equidistant points in the short side of one of the trays and drilled holes to match some small bolts. Then I married the trays together to make matching marks in the second tray. These were then drilled to a lightly larger diameter than the first set so as to allow some 'play' when bolting the two trays together. This advisable as one was a couple of mm deeper than the other.

Hmmmm. The oval of track supplied was a little under 52 cm along the long axis and a little under 40 cm along the short axis. Was there a short cut which would avoid carpentry related angst? the I remembered seeing some plain wooden trays in one of our local 'The Works', a chain of shops selling books, stationary and art/craft materials. These were about 26.5 cm by 40 cm. Bingo! So I bought two. Normally they are £7 each but they were on 1/2 price special offer so they came in at £7 for the pair. So far so good.

For last Christmas my inlaws presented me with a rather charming Marklin Z-gauge Christmas railway set. I had been toying with the idea of making a scenic baseboard to run it on but due to my usual indolence hadn't actually got around to doing anything about it. I was spurred into action recently when SWMBO announced that she would like to see it running as two friends were coming to see us, both of whom are railway buffs. What could I do with 3 or 4 days to spare! I will outline the gory details in a series of posts.