Wartime Branch lines.

[flymo]

This is beginning to get very interesting...well done KF for kicking this off.

Indeed, a thoroughly enjoyable thread.

Just to add my thanks also to the many posters giving such amazingly detailed information thus far.

 

[Kernowfem]

Thanks to each and every one of you for the help, advice and info, it really is appreciated!

 

[Madge Wildfire]

What amazes me is that 3 million loaded wagons a month were being forwarded by 1942. That is about 100,000 per day every day of the week, which when you consider the average train may have only been 40-50 wagons is phenomenal.

2000 freight trains a day! I find it hard to comprehend the complexity of organising everything. And then there were large numbers of troop trains and and movement of tanks/armoured vehicles to fit in.

 

[Oracle]

Feltham Marshalling Yard features in a short wartime propaganda docu available on YouTube...it's the one about the ammo wagon that was in danger of blowing up. It gives you some idea of how busy the Yard was. It must have handled inter-regional traffic from all over the south, especially to/from Salisbury Plain, and of course the military branch into the Feltham WD depot.

 

[caliwag]

I'm popping over to the KWVR this Friday (half term running) and intend to look in on the VCT archive/back sales shop at Ingrow. If anyone wants me to check out any Backtracks (see above link to Pendragon publishing for a fantastic detailed index) or anything else for that matter, I'm happy to oblige.

As usual there will be a CAMRA award winning real ale buffet on train, but I will check the journals first LOL.

Incidentally that index looks a bit daunting at first, but reading the opening page (yes, I always dived into the Airfix kit and then read the instructions when I couldn't get a bit to fit!) the codes mean Volume number and page over the year, and an asterisk means means mainy a photo or photo feature...geddit!

Jim
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Well...that's generated a lot of interest! No matter. Apropos my comment on the Ranskill military set-up East of the ECML: see above, it appears that it was very much there...both goods and passenger (well workers trains).

I was looking on the LNER site researching D10 ex GC locos, another story, and mention was made of several reserved for the Langwith to Ranskill ROF (royal ordnance factory) for workers trains.

So onto www.oldmaps.co.uk the 1948 version of the 6 inch map...search for Ranskill and lo...the fan of sidings, a triangle off the ECML, just South of Ranskill, and a branch to the two passenger platforms with central release road. Of course there should be no photographs anywhere other than military ones I guess, but I wonder if any exist around the dismantling. I will post further on the LNER site. By it's very nature it was short lived...probably 1940/1 to end of war. Indeed a piece of the map has been revived and the workers station has gone.

This really is a rich thread of an idea from Kernowfem.

Incidetally the D10s were the forerunner of the more successful D11s (Directors) with wonderful names like Purdon Viccars and Walter Burgh Gair. I assume these were indeed GC directors! They would be designed by John G Robinson...I finally found a delightful book of line drawings and photographs called 'the Harmonious Blacksmith' by AC Hancox...all a bit exotic I'm afraid. I only wanted a side elevation of an LNER J63 (designed by Robinson) but that's another story. So did our man Robinson ever have a locomotive named after himself?

Happy researching, Jim