buckdancer

Have you had a look on facebook? Unlikely source you might think but I'm a fan of the Darlaston and Wednesbury (West Midlands) railway scene and have found a few unpublished photos of the area by looking for the "history of Darlaston" and the "history of Wednesbury" on facebook. The Wednesbury one has thousands of photos and is taking a while to trawl through but the railway photos are really interesting (to me at least).

Jim, love the thread and your photos! Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but what is the "point train"? I noticed a few wagons with points on them when I went past Bescot Yard a couple of weeks ago. It was a depressing looking site - so little activity now.

My favourite was always Tramway Crossing in Gloucester. Enormous amounts of freight plus many passenger trains of all varieties. Plus close to 2 sheds. The locals must have spent a good percentage of their lives waiting for trains to clear the crossing.

Top feed close to dome - 45298/45081 Top feed well away from dome - 44697/44986

45609 was involved in a bad smash on 18th May 1948 and was also a very early Jubilee withdrawal in September 1960: From http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMAW8E_Wath_Rail_Crash_Memorial "The express train was travelling from St. Pancras to Bradford. There were two locomotives, twelve coaches and 194 passengers. At a speed of 60-65 miles per hour the train derailed due to track distortion caused by very hot weather. Seven passengers and Driver B. Wilshire, of locomotive number 45609 "Gilbert and Ellice Islands", were killed and 55 injured. Fire service, first aid and mine rescue staff from the nearby Manvers Main Colliery helped at the scene of the accident, and the colliery canteen supplied refreshments for the rescuers."

We used to see sugar beet trains heading, in season, from the Burton direction, south, along the South Staffs towards Stourbridge. They weren't covered with tarps as far as I remember.

Thanks David - I now realise the platforms on my layout don't look authentic because they are way too narrow....

Hopefully this hasn't been mentioned, but I recently saw the Nicole Kidman/Colin Firth film "The Railwayman". Really enjoyable film. Set in the 50s, there is a very brief shot of a loco (a class 37?) in that nice maroon West Coast livery when Colin's character goes to meet Nicole off a train in "Edinburgh".

Well when I made my first trip to see the ECML from the West Midlands there were 3 locos we wanted to see as they were legendary amongst the Midlands spotters - Mallard, Flying Scotsman and to a lesser extent Silver Link. Just another A3? Not to us folk.

It was indeed heaven, but the foremen when I wanted to take a look around were most unhelpful! I'm a West Midlander but fortunately dad was a good sport and took me and my brother all over the place. Of all the places, locations on the ex-GC were my favourites. As another poster said above, there was an alien feel about the ex-Great Central lines. Alien, but brilliant.

I think this is very close to where the Stafford Road Coaler was. A magical place that we got dad to drive us to whenever we were in his good books. By the way, no Black Country scene is complete without Rosebay Willowherb - in season of course. There should also be various aromas around the layout - slurry, sewage works and gas odours. Charming place in the old days wasn't it?

Michael - thanks for these photos. I liked the Lowry one and so went off Googling to see what others are around - thanks for the inspiration and an interesting half hour or so!

Try copying the link at the top (cntrl C) then paste into your post... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG7jbpHjNPU&feature=youtu.be

On the subject of railway footage, I found this on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9pe4h0fV0I&list=UU2-ssI7UqwVjr_SP7k8IgMA&index=688&feature=plpp_video The same person has quite a few old videos of Torquay, Dartmouth and London as well as heaps of vintage car stuff.

Ah Bristol. I suffer from the "focussed spotters view" of a lot of major towns and cities and Bristol is one of them. What I mean is I'm familiar with the main station and the routes to the engine sheds but little else. Maybe the footie grounds. So I've yet to explore the normal "delights" of Bristol itself. A treat to come at some stage no doubt!

Marvellous shed SPM. Never had any trouble getting around it although the local rumour was they got you to spend 3 or 4 hours cleaning engines if they caught you. It was even more interesting when Bath Rd closed to steam as it saved you doing that shed too.

More of Kirkham http://www.bafrua.connectfree.co.uk/achive.html Plus more photos from the esteemed Arthur K - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/6933-br-london-midland-region-1950s-80s/page__st__75

Thanks for the photos. Not much symmetry to junctions these days is there? So the sidings on the left of your first photo were for what do you think? Overflow from Central/South and North? Or just to replace the stuff removed from Central/South in case of excursions? Be interesting to see what the layout is in the opposite direction too. You realise what an important junction this was when you see photos like this.

Excellent site! Looks like there were 2 turntables. In the 60s map, there appear to be a number of locos at the head of stock ready to back down into Central? Might have been taken on a summer weekend as there seem to be plenty of road coaches, although the shed doesn't seem to be particularly full. There looks to be plenty of stock in Central but few locos. You realise what a smart move it was having the Illuminations as this bought in the punters even late in the year.

I've got "Memories of Blackpool - a nostalgic look at the Railways of Blackpool and the Fylde" by Barry McLoughlin. It's an absolute goldmine but probably out of print as it still has the Severn Valley Railway Bookshop sticker and 5.99 on it. I think I actually emailed him - he was the editor of one of the Railway Magazines (Backtrack?). The reason was that I have always wondered whether Blackpool Central was like say Paddington in that it had tank engines etc bringing in and taking out empty stock. My visits in the 60s concentrated on the shed at the expense of the station so I never got to observe operations. I still don't know the answer by the way (he didn't know) although I suspect train-engines did the empty stock manoeuvres. Sadly, being a Midlands based lad I didn't know about North shed so missed out there! The Central/South area was breathtaking and unparalleled in size and amount of locos and stock so you'll need the next 10 years and 10 acres to model it and get the right feel. It must have taken a smart bunch of people to have run the operations there.... I'll drag out the loco numbers for my 2 or 3 visits when I get the chance just for interest sake.

I think there has been a thread on the Blackpool area before - I vaguely remember seeing lots of photos by "Arthur" about 6 months ago. Maybe do a search to see if you can locate it. If you can't find it, I'll add a few notes of my own although I only visited the area a few times it was magical - it's excursion traffic was a world wonder.

Mention of Garth Hall reminds me of a somewhat creepy happening. A few friends and I spent a fair amount of time at Wednesbury Central in the early 60s - probably when we should have been studying. Anyway, it was starting to get to the point where the Westerns were coming in and the writing was starting to appear pretty boldly on the wall for the old GWR route. One cold late autumn night, just me and a friend were down at the station when the signals came off for a train from the Wolverhampton direction just before we left. I said something about still needing to see Garth Hall and how it used to be an oil burner. You guessed it - the train was actually a tender first light engine and the engine that loomed out of the dark was Garth Hall. It came out of the autumn mist and we looked at each other and said something like "oh dear". I could go on about the station being deserted and the smell of gas and the sizzle of the gas lamps and the muffled sound of far off shunting over on the old South Staffs line and the dim lights in a distant signal box but I think you get the picture that we were a bit spooked....

Wow! Thanks for that - another superb resource. I especially like these photos of the 4 line section near Blackpool.... http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=19821970

Yes, the water issue is one that is rarely spoken about in mags and most books, but I have a few autobiographies of drivers and firemen in steam days and keeping a good supply of water was a bit of an obsession.

I remember a holiday in the West Country in the early 60s. Our train picked us up at Wednesbury Central then picked up at a few more "unimportant" stations before arriving at Birmingham Snow Hill. A wheeltapper then proceeded to check all of the non-platform side wheels before we set out for warmer climes. I've no idea what the wheeltapping arrangements were in the West Country or indeed what the arrangements for wheeltappers generally were. On the other hand, with expresses, Kings used to zip into Snow Hill from the Paddington end and deccelerate markedly before stopping so maybe they did the same at Exeter and Plymouth. I'd probably be not too far off saying they were doing 30mph at the time they came out of the tunnel at the south end of Snow Hill.