Bert Blissett

Hi guys: I've only just picked up on this, whilst researching the subject of this siding. If it's of any help, I was Asst Yard Manager at Eastleigh from 1970 to 1972: the traffic to Coxes Lock was by then the only regular flow of grain wagons on our patch, but it had survived the closure of Feltham Marshalling Yard in Jan.1969. Always in 2-axle wagons (bogie grain hoppers were concentrated on more major flows elsewhere), usually metal-bodied but with the occasional antique-looking wooden-bodied one. The regular traffic was from Tilbury, and reached Coxes Lock (after the closure of Feltham) via an elaborate circuit involving Temple Mills and Eastleigh (in practical terms, the siding at Addlestone could only be shunted in the Up direction): any wagons for Coxes Lock were attached in a block on one of our 3 Up services/day from Eastleigh back to Temple Mills. The same Eastleigh - Temple Mills services would have collected the empty wagons, so the total mileage of the circuit would have been more than 4 times the loaded distance Tilbury - Coxes Lock...I don't know when the last such traffic passed, but (from the earlier postings) likely to have been in the mid-1970s.