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The few sidings that remain at the former Tinsley Yard

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Intercity 225

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Hi,

For each of the past three months I’ve visited the site of the former Tinsley Yard - it’s now a very pale shadow of its heyday but there are a few sidings that remain... albeit in quite a dilapidated state.

My first visit was on 7th November and parked in the sidings were some rather sorry looking DB Schenker wagons that had definitely seen better days... in all honesty I thought they’d been abandoned there and left to rot.

I returned for a second time on 18th December and to my surprise the wagons had been replaced by a newer looking set - a set that were still there yesterday (2nd January) when I made my third visit.

It’s clear that these sidings are used infrequently but what is their purpose today? The sidings I’m referring to are slightly beyond SIRFT and considering that they have their own sidings I’m presuming it’s nothing to do with them.

I’ve attached a couple of images from each of my first and third visits so you can see the rolling stock and the location in more detail.

All responses appreciated.

Many Thanks
 

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unlevel42

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542
Hi,

For each of the past three months I’ve visited the site of the former Tinsley Yard - it’s now a very pale shadow of its heyday but there are a few sidings that remain... albeit in quite a dilapidated state.

My first visit was on 7th November and parked in the sidings were some rather sorry looking DB Schenker wagons that had definitely seen better days... in all honesty I thought they’d been abandoned there and left to rot.

I returned for a second time on 18th December and to my surprise the wagons had been replaced by a newer looking set - a set that were still there yesterday (2nd January) when I made my third visit.

It’s clear that these sidings are used infrequently but what is their purpose today? The sidings I’m referring to are slightly beyond SIRFT and considering that they have their own sidings I’m presuming it’s nothing to do with them.

I’ve attached a couple of images from each of my first and third visits so you can see the rolling stock and the location in more detail.

All responses appreciated.

Many Thanks
SMACC/Avesta/Outokumpu traffic.
Shunting on the "bank" is very limited and longer trains are formed up on the other side of SIRFT.
Search " 5028 Clan Line Outokumpu steel " for video and images associated with the anniversary Bessemers invention of steel in 2013. I think the wagons are Swedish built and the owners are Finnish on the former English Steel site

'Tinsley and the Modernisation of Sheffield's Railways', Chris Booth and Alex Fisher, Platform 5 is an excellent read
 
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Gloster

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Up the creek
SMACC is Stainless Melting and Continuous Casting, and Outokumpu is a Finnish firm with interests in steel. Avesta Sheffield merged with or was taken over by Outokumpu in 2001, becoming Avesta Polarit; Avesta is a town in central Sweden.
 

unlevel42

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SMACC is Stainless Melting and Continuous Casting, and Outokumpu is a Finnish firm with interests in steel. Avesta Sheffield merged with or was taken over by Outokumpu in 2001, becoming Avesta Polarit; Avesta is a town in central Sweden.
And now called Outokumpu Stainless Ltd. with SMACC being the original name of the British Steel plant and still its common name.
The railway link originally served the English Steel (later British Steel) Tinsley Park which had the largest arc furnaces in the UK and one of the heaviest and longest rolling mills, which and a extensive internal railway.
There were, when I was working there, regular train movements to/from Glasgow, Motherwell, Middlesbrough, Hull, Immingham Docks, Scunthorpe, East London and east London, Walsall, Bilston, Birmingham, Southampton Docks, Cardiff Newport North Wales, Manchester, Warrington, Liverpool, Preston, ROF, Leyland and more.
Before Thatcher most orders were in multiples of 110 tonnes ie one cast from one furnace. This was equivalent to 22 5t unrolled ingots at four to a wagon. One lorry -two ingots. In addition to home grown ingots, ingots and slabs from all over country were rolled into billets, bars and rounds and sent out again.
During Thatcher the orders became smaller and it became more economic to use road haulage and the number of trains declined rapidly from 1979.
 
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unlevel42

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Some are
I think they are coil carrying wagons (BVAs)
Yes, they are the ones with troughs.
There are all kinds of flats for moving blooms, slabs and billets.
There used to be "barrier" wagons for internal and external use as the majority of blooms, slabs and billets would only be held down by gravity. Chains and side bars prevent lateral movement, in a collision they would not stop the forward momentum of a 10 tonne slab or a pile of billets.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Another planet...
SMACC is Stainless Melting and Continuous Casting, and Outokumpu is a Finnish firm with interests in steel. Avesta Sheffield merged with or was taken over by Outokumpu in 2001, becoming Avesta Polarit; Avesta is a town in central Sweden.
I remember for years in the 1990s the Avesta site next to the M1 (south of Tinsley viaduct) had several old Peaks parked up in the sidings.
 

_toommm_

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If it’s where I’m thinking of it the cliffs used to be used by Brinsworth kids to drink Frosty Jacks on a Friday night....
 

WestRiding

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Pity GBRF didn't carry on using the Yard for their container trains. Worked better than at Masborough, from a Signalling point of view. Though the yard in general seems to have quite a bit of traffic lately. May it continue.
 

55002

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Ldn
What a sorry site that is..very sad for us 80s spotters
 

Novern Uproar

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And even worse for us 70's spotters. Loved all the variety at Tinsley & the ease which we wandered all over the place on a Saturday afternoon. Cheap as chips rail & bus tickets to get there as well.
 

37424

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SMACC is Stainless Melting and Continuous Casting, and Outokumpu is a Finnish firm with interests in steel. Avesta Sheffield merged with or was taken over by Outokumpu in 2001, becoming Avesta Polarit; Avesta is a town in central Sweden.
It was initially merged with Outokumpu hence becoming Avesta Polarit, but was effectively taken over by Outokumpu when Corus sold out their holding a few years later.

SMACC is the name of the Melting Shop which is the large Building that can be seen from Europa Link. There are other Outokumpu Business units on the Site including Distribution which are the buildings at the side of the motorway. The Cold Rolling Mill which were the Buildings that you could mainly see from Shepcote Lane were closed in 2006 and has since been redeveloped as an industrial park.

There were plans at one point to build a Hot Rolling Mill on part of Tinsley Yard, but that was in the nineties when the plant made decent money until the Chinese started building Stainless Steel plants like we build Supermarkets.
 

unlevel42

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BSC Shepcote Lane was part of BSC Stainless and was at the bottom, Tinsley Viaduct end of Shepcote Lane.
The much bigger BSC Tinsley Park was part of BSC Special Steels and was at the top of Shepcote Lane and ran parallel to the western side of the Tinsley Marshalling Yards. It had an extensive internal railway and was connected by the current line.
BSC SMACC was built later on the BSC Tinsley Park site, but was part of BSC Stainless. It used the same road and rail access.

Of these now only Outokumpu SMACC remains.
PS Opposite BSC Shepcote Lane was Edgar Allen Engineering now Progress Rail which is still using manganese steel castings for trackwork.
 

Intercity 225

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329
Thanks for all the replies, really interesting read.

SMACC/Avesta/Outokumpu traffic.
Shunting on the "bank" is very limited and longer trains are formed up on the other side of SIRFT.
Search " 5028 Clan Line Outokumpu steel " for video and images associated with the anniversary Bessemers invention of steel in 2013. I think the wagons are Swedish built and the owners are Finnish on the former English Steel site

'Tinsley and the Modernisation of Sheffield's Railways', Chris Booth and Alex Fisher, Platform 5 is an excellent read

Cheers for this and for the very detailed information provided in subsequent posts, given me a lot of insight. I'll treat myself to that book too - thanks for the heads up.

If it’s where I’m thinking of it the cliffs used to be used by Brinsworth kids to drink Frosty Jacks on a Friday night....

Haha - I promise that I took my empties home with me :lol:

Also I'll be returning to the yard again at some point over the next few weeks, is there a way of finding out when a train is going to using the remaining sidings? Not entirely sure what to search for on RTT.
 
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