Disposal of the Ashford turntable.
The 70ft (we think) turntable that we recovered from Ashford, Kent in the early 1980s is now up for disposal. We were going to say 'sale', but in fact we are prepared to give it away to a good home.
Over the nearly 40 years we have had it we were never able to agree definitively to where it was going to go. There is no room at either end of the railway. Then, 10 years ago, one of the two wings was scrapped, leaving the other wing and the centre portion, as on the photograph. We also have the centre pivot casting, some of the wheels and the vacuum engine to propel it. So there is still a substantial part of it there.
 |
| The turntable on a wagon at CRC. Photograph by Jim H. |
So, sadly, it now has to go. We can't keep storing it where it is.
If anyone is interested in taking it over, get in touch with breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk.
Derek's 1963 steam photographs in colour
Continuing with the Oxford University Railway Society tour to Gloucestershire on 15th June 1963 here are three photographs of the train at Chalford. Derek can't remember the sequence of movements that took place for the train to change platforms and the loco to run round.
The first picture shows the special on arrival at Chalford. The guard is having a chat with the loco crew, while the members of the tour have got out to take this souvenir picture. One, in regulation tweed jacket, can be glimpsed on the right with his camera.
On the other platform is a poster advertising trips to Jersey, and one of those all wooden benches we managed to secure for Broadway. Built to stand indoors, or under a canopy, over their long lives they were invariably dragged somewhere outdoors, where they would start to rot, like here.
To prepare for the return to Gloucester the train was shunted on to platform 2 and the loco run round. A lady has now sat down on the bench in the sun.
Pannier 8491 is blowing off gently, ready to go. The loco is one of the newer 94xx class of which 10 were built by the GWR and another 200 by BR, many by outside contractors. This one entered service in 1952 and was withdrawn in July 1963, just a month after the picture was taken and after a brief 11 year life. Their duties had disappeared, as would Chalford station.
The third and final picture of Chalford was taken from the footbridge, just before the train departed. When the line between Kemble and Gloucester was opened in 1845 no station was envisaged for Chalford, but eventually one was built in 1897. It then became famous for being the terminus of the new steam rail motor service from Stonehouse in 1903, those new services also being the reason Broadway didn't get one straight away as there weren't enough of these revolutionary units available yet. A special corrugated iron shed was built for the rail motors here.
Sadly Chalford station was closed in November 1964. Presumably the decline of industry in the Golden Valley prompted this, leading to fewer goods being transported, and fewer workers. The line to Kemble and beyond, through Sapperton tunnel, is of course still there, so maybe one day it will be re-opened, as the valley is quite well populated.
Then back at Gloucester we boarded the 4:08pm for Hereford with 4161 in charge.
4161 was a local engine, being based at Hereford where Derek and the OURS members were going. It was a large Prairie, of which 140 were built by the GWR, with the last 20 even built by BR after nationalisation. The loco is pretty dirty here, although it still had a good 2 years to go, before it was withdrawn from Worcester in 1965. The maroon carriages were strikingly shiny though. Of the 140 built a total of 10 survived scrapping, but not all are preserved. Five are currently runners; two became parts donors.
We had time at Ross-on-Wye for a photograph of our train....
Ross on Wye was an intermediate station between Gloucester and Hereford, and you wonder if the OURS didn't have some sort of an inkling about its future, as the line has not survived and Ross on Wye was closed to passengers in 1964, and to all traffic in 1965. The station buildings were demolished and the site is now an industrial estate. But - its design was used to closely inspire the new SVR Kidderminster station, so an echo of it survives.
.. and to watch the arrival of a Hereford to Gloucester train headed by 5154.
This incoming train was also hauled by a member of the GWR 5101 class. Prairie 5154 entered traffic in 1930 and in the picture it seems to be equally as dirty as its classmate hauling the OURS train. Both locos were shedded at Hereford, so at the time there can't have been much money for cleaners there, even for passenger trains.
The picture, we recall, was taken on 15th June 1963 and 5154 was withdrawn a short while later, on 29th August 1963. The loco was scrapped at Cashmore's of Great Bridge in April of the following year, after a service life of 33 years.
Then a final shot approaching Colwall Tunnel on the way back home to Oxford on the 6:05pm from Hereford.
Derek managed this final shot of the day out of the train, as they entered a tunnel. It's near the village of Colwall, between Malvern and Ledbury. That line of course is still open, part of the Cotswolds line, being the Worcester-Hereford section.
Colwall tunnel closed though.... how is that possible? In fact there are two Colwall tunnels. The first one ended up rather too narrow for comfort, dating from the Worcester and Hereford railway time and being opened relatively early in 1861. It was found to contain some of the hardest rocks in Britain, and digging it was painfully slow.
In 1926 it was replaced by a newer, parallel bore which was much roomier. This is the one you see in the picture. Colwall (old) tunnel is still there, was used in the war, and even had a little n.g. railway run down the middle of it. After the war it fell into disuse again, and is now the roosting place for a large number of bats. An idea put forward is to re-open it for cyclists. It is 1567yds long, quite a distance for a narrow bore.
Also just off the presses is this news item, for which we will post a link to the BBC website:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-55647029
Welcome news for this blogger, as we have so far not had the opportunity to help our railway with a specific COVID appeal. How ever did we manage without one? Look out for the formal appeal when it is launched.
That's it for today, more of Derek's pictures next week, when we pay a visit to the unusual Cromford and High Peak Railway.
If anyone is interested in the 70ft Ashford turntable, get in touch with breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk. If no interest, we may have to think of the ultimate solution, which we would rather not. But it has to go.
In the third pic down on this page:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/locos/01_page/65picturegallery.htm
it looks similar to the 65' table that was at Hither Green.
Best regards,
Martin S.
It would be a great shame to cut it up as it has survived for so long.
ReplyDeleteThanks for showing the pictures of the railtour at Chalford and Ross on Wye. My Dad's relative Albert Hoare was the signalman at Chalford Signal Box. You can see the signal box in the distance on the third Chalford picture. My dad used to visit him just after WW2 and used to go into the signal box. He remember seeing the express trains running through. In the third photo which also shows the valley, Albert Hoare's cottage was on the hill near the station. Albert used to use his signal box megaphone to shout to his house keeper to make the tea for him whilst on the platform. Albert Hoare in the 1911 census was also signalman at Bourton on the water station. Ross on Wye station was finally demolished in 1976. I remember being taken down to the station with my dad and seeing the demolition guys pulling down the station. I remember my dad driving us on the old trackbed between the platforms and under the footbridge, and seeing the men pulling stuff off the roofs. Although the station building was demolished, the engine shed and goods shed still survive to this day. Best Peter Young Steam loco Dept
ReplyDeleteThe Ashford turntable was put in by the SR and was 64' 10" diameter.
ReplyDeleteThanks, we too think it was SR. We will double check the length.
DeleteGreat shame about the turntable but we do agree that the line GWR not LMS! Cost to Fabricate from new would probably be the same a making parts for this half of a turntable! Again thanks for the pictures from the sixties, bringing back memories again from my time at Slough Station watching the trains, never did the numbers though! That and traveling as far as Bristol and not getting home till late without parents or older brother to keep an eye out happier safer times then! Another reason we love the line!
ReplyDeleteRegards
Paul & Marion
I well remember this turntable arriving at Toddington from the defunct Ashford Steam Centre on 3 separate flatbed wagons in April 1982. ( I am sure I've sent the photo I took of it arriving at Toddington to you Jo.)The haul included a water tower which now graces the loco yard at Toddington. Whilst some people will perhaps express surprise that the GWSR rescued an ex-Southern Railway turntable, there weren't many around to choose from at the time and an embryonic heritage line, such as the GWSR then was, had to take what it could get. In the end, it proved to be a false purchase (I have no idea how much it cost but I would imagine not a great deal by current standards) and, as you say, a GWR pattern table would be better constructed from new (something that people would laugh at in 1982!) and they generally require a much shallower pit. See the example on the West Somerset Railway at Minehead. http://cgibin.wsr.org.uk/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?h=Picture+search&q=turntable Also a photo of the Ashford Depot in SR days showing part of the turntable: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashford_Locomotive_Depot_Ex-SE%26C_0-6-0_geograph-2655764-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg
ReplyDeleteYou did, it's a picture of 3 flatbeds, but unfortunately the turntable parts are not very visible. We'll have to take some more recent pictures.
DeleteIs there much rot in it?
ReplyDeleteThose photographs of Ross station are the best quality colour I have seen. Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteDerek will be pleased to read that! I thought Chalford had some good colour too, and there is more to come.
DeleteC&HPR next !
If its still there one bit of the turntable was restored. A roller wheel and its housing was stripped , checked for size , grit blasted, reassembled and painted. It was one of the first projects that my Daughter Deborah did when she joined the Loco department as a teenager in the early 1990's. Why the expense of grit blasting ? We were re-commissioning some plant ready to grit blast the frames of 76077 ready for painting the first time around and we wanted to try it out on something.
ReplyDeleteFascinating to see the photos of Chalford - excellent shots. It's very difficult to spot where the station used to be these days. But it might indeed be viable to open a new one.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that there used to be a string of halts along the Stroud valley line, serving every little settlement even though very few people lived in the area at the time. Now, the population is so much bigger. Stonehouse-Stroud-Brimscome-Chalford are effectively one big, long town. There must be some sort of scope for a new very-local train service.
The Stroud Valley line was the first line to be provided with halts (as distinct from stations) when the GWR invented the concept of small, minimalist stopping places for local trains. It seems odd to think of it now, when so many stations around the rail network are small and minimalist, but in the 19th century this was a new idea.
There is some good information about the railmotor service to Chalford, and the concept of halts as a whole, in Kevin Robertson's books 'Great Western Railway Halts' (2 volumes, possibly a little hard to track down these days, but worth the search).
Incidentally, Stonehouse station has just been refurbished with longer platforms. But the original 1845 footbridge deck has been re-used, now raised up to the new standard height, and with new steps at each end. The footbridge is the last part of the original Brunel-designed station to survive.