Atomic Systems

There are a lot of sidings along the Woodhead route and I'd like to make my scenarios as realistic as possible. Is there anywhere I can find out what was generally seen in some of them, at least? For example, I've tried Googling for the carriage sidings that served Manchester London Road and Sheffield Victoria but haven't managed to phrase my question well enough to get a sensible response.

With Christmas coming up, is there a good book on the route I can ask Santa for?

Keith

Obviously Foxlines "Scenes From The Past:29 Part 3 - Woodhead, The Electric Railway"

http://britishrailwaybooks.co.uk/books/ ... 119819.php

You might find something in here http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
This has some amazing b/w photos of Manchester - I wish I'd had this resource when I did my MSTS Woodhead Route

The other thing to do is look for old b/w aerial shots of the sites you're looking for

My current favourite which has the Manchester end at about 1971 in quite good detail is on the Cheshire Council Website at
http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps/TwinMaps.aspx
Some things to look for:

a Class 506 unit at Fairfield
gazillions of coal wagons near Gorton Tank (Tub was the Swimming Baths )
loads of random stuff at Ardwick (sadly Piccadilly and Mayfield are just chopped off)

I'll rustle up some grabs I have to show you what I mean

Hee hee - lets see you try and recreate this scene at Dukinfield

or the Exchange Sidings between Broadbottom and Dinting

Thank you very much, Steve. It's a good job I wouldn't need to populate all the tracks at Dukinfield to make it look right from a player's train or I'd slow Rail Works down to a stuttering crawl! You've given me plenty of food for thought, though. As I expected, although there are a lot of mineral wagons there are also a lot of vans, showing that there was significant traffic other than coal. That's a good start.

Do you know where the coal flows came from? There were collieries along the route, of course, but also around St Helens, in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and with different varieties of coal being suitable for different purposes it wouldn't surprise me to find that coal ran over the line in both directions. Sheffield's steel works would have needed coking coal, for example, and that's one of the rarer types so it would definitely have been brought in rather than use a less-suitable local one.

Thanks again,
Keith

I believe that Fiddlers Ferry Power Station over Liverpool way was the destination for a lot of the coal - which came from the Arthur Scargill's Coalfields in South Yorkshire (starting at Wath etc) and it got as far as Mottram Yard by electric traction. And then a swap to diesel was made there and it ran off down the CLC branch at Godley Junction towards Woodley/Stockport and onto Glazebrook.

In the Filelibrary under Routes / Woodhead I did post a set of workings through Mottram Yard

Woodhead Workings 1962 Part 1 [28672 bytes] - WoodheadWorkings1.doc File ID: 4827 Date: 12 Feb 2003 - 748 Downloads

which gives you some clue as to what went up and down the line

Thanks! Just the job!

Keith

qzdcg8 wrote:I believe that Fiddlers Ferry Power Station over Liverpool way was the destination for a lot of the coal - which came from the Arthur Scargill's Coalfields in South Yorkshire (starting at Wath etc) and it got as far as Mottram Yard by electric traction. And then a swap to diesel was made there and it ran off down the CLC branch at Godley Junction towards Woodley/Stockport and onto Glazebrook.

I freind of mine often did the 'diesel' part of the run from Mottram. Steve is correct, most of it went to Fiddlers Ferry, but I think some also went on to Garston for export. (to Ireland?)
I'm not sure of the route though, my thoughts were that it went via Arpley from Skelton junction rather than via Glazebrook, but I could be wrong
If he's out for a pint tonight, I'll try to remember to ask him
The Diesels, again from a very hazy memory, were usually class 31's, but again, I'll ask!

This is all great stuff, chaps, and I'm very grateful. What would have preceded the diesels in the mid-fifties? With part of the route being LMR and another ER, presumably you saw engines from both? Given what's available for RW, would LMS 8Fs and O4/1s be a good start?

Keith

Rockdoc2174 wrote: What would have preceded the diesels in the mid-fifties?
Keith

From the same series, there are these excellent books - I have all three and they are always worth picking up for a quick flick through!



Alec

Cheers, Alec. I had a rummage around and all the books are on my Amazon Wishlist. I'm keeping my fingers crossed Santa reads it!

Keith