THE first stop north of Derby, and certainly on 4 Shed’sdoorstep, was Chaddesden Civil Engineers Tip Sidings, which consisted of eight roads with an outside road separate from the main body of the sidings shared in part with Steetley Construction Materials.
Its shunter, built by the Yorkshire Engine Company in 1964, sat out of use on No. 1 road at the ‘Wyvern end’ of the sidings until 1992, when Redland acquired the company. But at least it had its own loco up to then.
About a mile further north was Thomas Hill’s scrapyard, which used a suitably modified agricultural tractor to shunt wagons on and off its weighbridge. These were left to be collected by a Derby crew and tripped across to the adjacent St Mary’s Goods Yard, although this site was closed in 1989.
Still heading north, and just before the London Midland/Eastern Region boundary at Horns Bridge near Chesterfield, was the Avenue Coking Plant (National Smokeless Fuels) where two Hudswell and two Vanguard diesels were employed for internal work.
These locos could sometimes be glimpsed in the plant whilst passing on other jobs, but once I had an unplanned excursion in there. This occurred whilst I was second-manning an engineering train during a possession and the guard, using Clay Cross ground frame, set the wrong route and sent us across the flyover into the plant. As the main lines passed beneath us, our worried driver kept glancing out of the side windows and repeating: “We really shouldn’t be in here.” We were not permitted to propel back out, and so had to run round within the confines of the plant. A ‘Please Explain’ form soon followed to all of us involved.
POWER STATIONS
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Denne historien er fra December 2019-utgaven av Rail Express.
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LNER puts remaining ‘91s' into warm store
The ongoing pandemic restrictions and major engineering works have resulted in the complete withdrawal of the last remaining ‘Electras’ from passenger service, although the plan is to resurrect them in the summer.
Mk.1 Restaurant-Buffet (RBR) cars
A SURPRISING number of Mk.1catering cars have survived to see service on the privatised railway, in private operator and charter trains. They may turn up on anything from an enthusiast special to higher-end dining trains and have been formed in trains as prestigious as the locomotive-hauledBlue Pullman’ set, the ‘Great Britain’ tours operated by West Coast Railways and the ‘Northern Belle’ tour train.
Powerscene
Our authoritative class-by-class review of newsworthy locomotive workings.
End for Freightliner Class 86/6s
The company’s Class 86/6 fleet down to just two examples as seven locos are stored.
Service reductions as Covid cases increase
An increase in Covid-19 cases in early January saw the governments in Ireland and Northern Ireland impose stricter lockdown measures that impacted on public transport.
East West Rail funding go-ahead
Although it was expected, £760 million of funding has now been confirmed to build the Western Section of the East West Railway scheme.
Travellers-Fare with Hornby's Mk.1 Restaurant-Buffet car
Hornby expands its range of retooled ‘OO’ gauge Mk.1 coaches with a brand new tooling for the Diagram 24 Restaurant-Buffet car (RB) and the Diagram 33 refurbished version (RBR). It models the vehicles in both original form, finished in BR maroon and Southern Region green, together with the RBR refurbished coaches. They remained in frontline service well into the 1990s, including Cross-Country workings.
Class 92 revolution
Despite its complex shape and high detail ratio compared to other modern six-axle locomotives, Revolution Trains chose the Class 92 to be its first 'N' gauge locomotive model.
Bottling it!
A dig into the Rail Express archive has revealed some rarely-seen photographs of the former rail-connected Express Dairy bottling plant in South West London, which today is the site of a large mosque.
1990s ‘N' gauge Class 950
Work on the ‘N’ gauge Class 950 Track Recording Unit project, a conversion based on a standard Graham Farish Class 150/1 model, is concluded by finishing the model in 1990s condition.
