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The old Tyne Dock BR station

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robertclark125

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A google search by me has found just one image, of the old Tyne Dock BR station, which closed in 1981. The station is not on the exact same site as the present Tyne Dock Metro station, AFAIK.

But, where exactly was the Tyne Dock BR station, and was it a single track or twin track island platform? A look on Google streetview has found, on Hudson street, looking south west, a single track footpath on a bridge going over the road. Was this previously a rail bridge? The footpath crosses a car park for the disused crown bingo.

The photo had in the background, a building called "The royal", and a white factory which I guess was demolished after the photo was taken. So, over to you folks, where exactly was the station, and what, if anything, sits on the site nowadays?
 
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swt_passenger

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I’d recommended National Library of Scotland side by side maps for this sort of research. Select a detailed scale of pre or post war map and look at it alongside a modern satellite view.
Hope the link works, this is a 25” to the mile map:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...4.97684&lon=-1.44316&layers=168&right=BingHyb
Post war map with less detail:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...4.97677&lon=-1.44220&layers=193&right=BingHyb
It looks to me as if there were a few more bridge spans immediately on the north/west side of the Metro bridge, and the bridge further along was possibly always a pedestrian or minor road bridge.

PS using Google street view, I’d think the pedestrian route from Boldon Lane towards the Metro’s eastbound platform was originally the access ramp to the Tyne Dock island platform. When the route closed for conversion to Metro, the more direct route towards South Shields was used, rather than the longer route through Tyne Dock and another station at High Shields.
 
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robertclark125

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Many thanks. Looking at the National Museum of Scotland link, I can now see what the track layout was.

The old BR line was double track through Tyne dock, to an island platform. The single track bridge I mentioned carried the line to South Shields. The Newcastle bound line would've joined the Pontop and South shields branch line just after leaving Tyne Dock, and would've crossed Boldon Lane on the bridge that Metro crosses over Boldon Lane.

Whitehead Street is the clue in both maps; the BR line was to the right of it as we look, and the trackbed is now built over. Also looking at the earlier map, access to the station was from steps from Boldon Lane.

One other thing, until about 2007/8, on Hudson Street, was a building with an acute angle in its shape. That building was demolished by the time streetview started. That must've been the old "The Royal".
 

swt_passenger

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I don’t think that masonry bridge you can see now with the footpath (Red in screenshot below) was the single track railway bridge (Green) for the line towards High Shields, it is too far away. It’s visible on Google streetview from the Hudson St level and also seems to have a humped road surface
CF181B42-6BA3-4AE1-98F4-7258BF3EB5E0.jpeg
 
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arbeia

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The bridge you are talking about is/was the access to the houses called Station Cottages. They were ex railway houses sold off to the private sector in 1969. I moved into them in 1969, and was one of the last to leave in November 1977, when they were condemned. At the end of the street was access to the the railway land and Signal box at Harton Junction. The land further on was the lines down to the Coal Staithes at Tyne Dock, although they were redundant by the time i lived there.
The bridge is still there of course and is used as a footpath to the small industrial estate and the bridge over the line (still in use) out of Tyne Dock. That footbridge off the Middlefields Industrial Estate gives access to the Simonside Housing area.
 

swt_passenger

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The bridge you are talking about is/was the access to the houses called Station Cottages. They were ex railway houses sold off to the private sector in 1969. I moved into them in 1969, and was one of the last to leave in November 1977, when they were condemned. At the end of the street was access to the the railway land and Signal box at Harton Junction. The land further on was the lines down to the Coal Staithes at Tyne Dock, although they were redundant by the time i lived there.
The bridge is still there of course and is used as a footpath to the small industrial estate and the bridge over the line (still in use) out of Tyne Dock. That footbridge off the Middlefields Industrial Estate gives access to the Simonside Housing area.
Was Tyne Dock a “bare platform” by the early 70s? I last used the old line to South Shields in about 1969, but I did hear there was a bit of a scorched earth policy on the South Shields route a bit later on...
The density of tracks in the area around Tyne Dock and towards the river mouth is quite remarkable in those maps of 100 years ago...
 

arbeia

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It originally had substantial buildings, although I cannot recall when they were demolished. Entrance was via a steepish ramp up from Hudson Street, with about half way up a side entrance from the North from Whitehead Street to the said ramp. It went on a short tunnel under the South Shields bound line. As far as island platforms go, it was very wide. West of the station you had a 3 way fork of tracks. To the left towards Sunderland. Slightly left of centre the mineral line virtually dead straight up past Tyne Dock Shed and onto Boldon Colliery. The line straight on was the Newcastle line.
On the South side of the station was a branch where the NCB trains from Boldon Colliery diverged to go further down an dive under the South Shields line to eventually arrive at Harton Staiths for shipment by sea. Less than half a mile down this branch, a side branch from Harton Colliery joined it. I believe that Colliery closed about 1967. Boldon Colliery continued into the 1980's.
Westoe Colliery exported its coal via the electric trains down to Harton Staiths, and then via conveyor belt, but in the 80's major work allowed Westoe Colliery to move its coal out by class 56 up the branch to join the BR tracks at Tyne Dock. This had come about by the closure of Harton Staiths and Boldon Colliery.
As an aside, a road out of South Shields went under 5 huge Arches which carried all the coal exports into the now filled in Tyne Dock. The Arches were demolished about 1977 if memory serves me right. During the 1974 coal strike we would go over the ex sidings and dig what little bits of coal we found to keep the home fires burning!
 

swt_passenger

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As an aside, a road out of South Shields went under 5 huge Arches which carried all the coal exports into the now filled in Tyne Dock. The Arches were demolished about 1977 if memory serves me right. During the 1974 coal strike we would go over the ex sidings and dig what little bits of coal we found to keep the home fires burning!
The Chronicle did a piece about the massive arches:
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/long-gone-tyneside-landmark-it-13035126
The “disused stations”web site has fairly good info about quite a number of stations on the South Shields route, for example Felling, which also had a typical very wide island, and was reduced to a huge width of tarmac a few years before closure for Metro conversion:
http://disused-stations.org.uk/f/felling_second/index.shtml
They don’t seem to have included Tyne Dock BR on their site though.
 

MoleStation

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It originally had substantial buildings, although I cannot recall when they were demolished. Entrance was via a steepish ramp up from Hudson Street, with about half way up a side entrance from the North from Whitehead Street to the said ramp. It went on a short tunnel under the South Shields bound line. As far as island platforms go, it was very wide. West of the station you had a 3 way fork of tracks. To the left towards Sunderland. Slightly left of centre the mineral line virtually dead straight up past Tyne Dock Shed and onto Boldon Colliery. The line straight on was the Newcastle line.
On the South side of the station was a branch where the NCB trains from Boldon Colliery diverged to go further down an dive under the South Shields line to eventually arrive at Harton Staiths for shipment by sea. Less than half a mile down this branch, a side branch from Harton Colliery joined it. I believe that Colliery closed about 1967. Boldon Colliery continued into the 1980's.
Westoe Colliery exported its coal via the electric trains down to Harton Staiths, and then via conveyor belt, but in the 80's major work allowed Westoe Colliery to move its coal out by class 56 up the branch to join the BR tracks at Tyne Dock. This had come about by the closure of Harton Staiths and Boldon Colliery.
As an aside, a road out of South Shields went under 5 huge Arches which carried all the coal exports into the now filled in Tyne Dock. The Arches were demolished about 1977 if memory serves me right. During the 1974 coal strike we would go over the ex sidings and dig what little bits of coal we found to keep the home fires burning!
Brilliant description!
 

robertclark125

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Looking on Google Streetview, I noticed on Boldon way, there are old railway walls between the arched footbridge, and todays metro bridge. At one point, it looks like there has been an access bricked up. I say that, as the bricks look similar to those around it, but are not exactly the same. Todays ramp up to the South Sheilds bound Metro platform is further along still.

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.9755386,-1.442418,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shER_4pYCyC6EM6UxKwIdXA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

It's not the bricks or the breeze blocks where the metro ramp arch is. Its just north of that. You'll see the bricks slightly inset to the rest of them.
 

swt_passenger

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It’s possibly been somewhat rebuilt as part of the Metro conversion, especially if the tracks were realigned and straightened. But another possibility is that it was altered previously under BR, or even earlier. Given the complexity of the tracks in the local area, I doubt things ever stood still for long.

Interestingly, there is still a single unused railway bridge span, to the east of the twin track Metro bridge, and the “bridge bash notice” on the wall immediately under it seems to give a non-Metro designation, of BNY 1-11. ELR is for the Boldon and Tyne Dock Branch. Would that have ever still been in use alongside the Metro?
 
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Malcmal

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Interestingly, there is still a single unused railway bridge span, to the east of the twin track Metro bridge, and the “bridge bash notice” on the wall immediately under it seems to give a non-Metro designation, of BNY 1-11. ELR is for the Boldon and Tyne Dock Branch. Would that have ever still been in use alongside the Metro?

Yes. There was a single track which was the line to Westoe colliery in South Shields. It ran as far as Chichester station and then split off north-east on an embankment. After the colliery closed (around 1993) there were a few railtours and training exercise specials down there over that bridge. I remember seeing a class 153 and 2x class 56 with a single HAA sandwiched in around 1994 that went past Tyne Dock metro.
 

swt_passenger

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Yes. There was a single track which was the line to Westoe colliery in South Shields. It ran as far as Chichester station and then split off north-east on an embankment. After the colliery closed (around 1993) there were a few railtours and training exercise specials down there over that bridge. I remember seeing a class 153 and 2x class 56 with a single HAA sandwiched in around 1994 that went past Tyne Dock metro.
Thanks. My memory must be going because I must have been along there when it was still open, and just can’t picture it. Do you know how the line got past the entrance to Tyne Dock Metro on that side?

Ah, looks like the footbridge has been shortened on the Newcastle bound side, I assume there must have been a third set of stairs?
 
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swt_passenger

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This page on the Tanfield Railway’s site has a couple of pictures of Tyne Dock station (10 and 11 reading down the page). In the first one, the Brandling Junction Railway version, it has two side platforms, in the later colour picture we have the single wide island built by the NER, looking towards the Newcastle direction.
https://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/2019/01/south-shields-stations.html
I suspect that in changing from side platforms to a wide island they would probably have had to alter the alignment of the tracks and bridges over Boldon Lane.
 
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WesternLancer

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I’d recommended National Library of Scotland side by side maps for this sort of research. Select a detailed scale of pre or post war map and look at it alongside a modern satellite view.
Hope the link works, this is a 25” to the mile map:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...4.97684&lon=-1.44316&layers=168&right=BingHyb
Post war map with less detail:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sid...4.97677&lon=-1.44220&layers=193&right=BingHyb
It looks to me as if there were a few more bridge spans immediately on the north/west side of the Metro bridge, and the bridge further along was possibly always a pedestrian or minor road bridge.

PS using Google street view, I’d think the pedestrian route from Boldon Lane towards the Metro’s eastbound platform was originally the access ramp to the Tyne Dock island platform. When the route closed for conversion to Metro, the more direct route towards South Shields was used, rather than the longer route through Tyne Dock and another station at High Shields.
Some serious siding capacity shown on the old maps!
 
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