THE VIEW FROM THIS SIDE

Industry

A brief cross section of industrial systems as running in the late 60s/early 70s.
Included are :-
Quite a lot of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, although it was a BR through route once.
NCB Waterside (Ayrshire) - much of this system.
NCB Barony (Ayrshire).
Wemyss Private Railway Methil and NCB Wellersley.
Northumberland - NCB Ashington, Backworth, Derwenthaugh.
South Wales - NCB Merthyr Vale and  Pontardulais.
London Transport, Neasden depot (ex GW Pannier Tanks).
Longmoor Military Railway open days (WD 2-10-0 'Gordon' and some unbelievable coaching stock).
Kingston on Soar Gypsum Mine Railway.
Wirksworth (both locos - Uppingham and the venerable Black Hawthorn Holwell No3).
NCB West Hallam.
Tutbury Plaster Works.

Samples from this show. These images are compressed. Actual images on the CD are high resolution:-


 

Pontardulais (NCB), 10th July 1969. The afternoon shift being taken up to Graig Merthyr colliery, on the ‘passenger train’. The motive power is Barclay  0-4-0ST Glan Dulais (1119 of 1907). Actually, most of the miners seemed to prefer riding their bicycles and motor bikes up and down the ‘four foot’ to using the train.
Scary stuff....


 
 

Waterside (NCB), 9th September 1968. Giesl ejector fitted large Barclay 0-6-0T No 24 (2335 of 1953), shunting in the washer plant.


 
 
 

Methil, (Wemyss Private Railway), 6th May 1969. Most of this strange little system’s entire working fleet, at the exchange yard with BR and the NCB at Methil. Barclay 0-6-0T No 20 (2068 of 1939) and ‘J94’ type 0-6-0ST No 15 (Barclay 2183 of 1945).  An underground colliery fire soon afterwards precipitated the WPR’s complete closure.
 

Hopton Top, (Cromford & High Peak Railway), 6th April 1966. J94 class 0-6-0ST 68012 clambers over the vertical curve with a portion of its train from Middleton to Friden and Buxton. Note one of the McConnel tenders to left.
"...my first experience of the famous incline at Hopton, though, was in the fog, and the memory of that J94 looming, so gradually,  out of the gloom and mist to the accompaniment of the most violent, awesome, almost frightening noise will live in my mind forever. All that sound and fury, just for a couple of wagons of ballast...."


 

Minninglow Yard, August 1964. The running of a brake van/open wagon enthusiasts' special over the Cromford and High Peak. J94 0-6-0STs 68079 and 68012 about to negotiate the level crossing at Minninglow. The fun we had. This very spot, by the way, is where several of the interviews to camera were shot for the 1997 Robert Cartwright Video Production 'Memories of the High Peak'.  Very well worth finding.

Parsley Hay, August 1964.  J94 0-6-0ST 68079, just arrived from Buxton, simmers in the wooden station, not long before the building was demolished. It is waiting for sister engine 68012 to arrive with brake vans and open wagons from Middleton Top to provide the stock for one of the several enthusiasts 'brake van specials' that were operated over the line in its latter years. It simply couldn't be done nowadays, one suspects, even if such opportunities existed.
 

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