Recent content by Andy873

A new video about the area around Martholme (East Lancs) has been made by Nodrog (Gordon to you and me!) just a couple of days ago. He explores the viaduct, remains of the signal box and the colliery that was once there, he also has what I presume are some short CGI scenes which I think are...

PW Gang No. 10 based at Harwood should have had a compliment of five. 1 Ganger, 1 Sub-Ganger, and 3 Lengthmen, the reality was 1 Ganger & 1 Lengthman, BR included the wages of all five instead of just the two which caused an argument at the staff consultation meeting regarding the proposed...

I must say straight away, this one is not a Beeching topic, It's one about overturning a loss of £3,600 at one particular station in 1964 - Gt. Harwood. For six years until April this year I've known BR were blaming a loss of £3,600 on one third of coal traffic to the station, but now with the...

@Dr Hoo , Thanks for more details on the CCD's, it's very helpful. Yes, there were many arguments about costs back then, some were extremely exaggerated on the part of BR management in order to justify closures.

The bottom line then - It's not practical that way, could as an alternative BR simply say to the contractor they are lifting the remaining track from date X and you can remove all ballast up to the point near to where we have got up to?

While on the subject of ballast I'd like to ask what might sound a silly question - If you have a double line and one of the two lines has been lifted, could you remove the ballast of the lifted track while the other line is still in situ?

It seems it was BR with a track lifting train pulled by a class 40, One person on Facebook says they used to live close to the line in Adlington and recalls it was the summer of 1973 when this train came along. They state it took only one week to lift the rails. Can't tell you anything about the...

Thanks for the explanation. The coal traders at Padiham then could only have gone to two possible places, Burnley Daneshouse or Burnley Central. Burnley Manchester Road was closed, Burnley Barracks couldn't have accomodated them, and Rose Grove only had four short coal roads for its coal...

That's truly superb, thanks very much fir that. The dates tie in very nicely with Padiham goods depot closing 17 June 1968. Blackburn King street was where the coal traders frpm Gt. Harwood had to go. One thing I don't understand is the British Fuels connection with these depots? Did they...

Thanks for the replies, very helpful. And thanks for clarifying the point. It appears these terminals are Blackburn and Rose Grove. By the end of 1963 there were just two freight trains running Mondays - Fridays, one starts at Blackburn and calls at two stations and terminates at Rose Grove...

I'm struggling to understand what the word "Terminals" means when describing a railway line? One internal BR letter dated December 1963 which is a proposal to close the branch line I'm researching has in it the financial section of the report under the general heading Savings, there are three...

You can see it on the White Bear article: Disused Stations - White Bear Station

Yes, that's right, house building was one arm of the company. That's certainly one then to add to the list albeit a smaller company. Another one was Leonard Fairclough of Adlington (near Chorley, Lancs). Probably best known for the demolition of the Doric arch at Euston station, they also...

After having no luck with regards to which company recovered the tracks on the branch line I'm researching, I decided to look at the next best thing - The main companies that lifted track during the 1960s. So far, I have the following: Thomas W Ward Ltd of Sheffield George Cohen Ltd of London...

What I've done here is to simplify the BR departments involved with the disposal of a branch line during the 1960's. Firstly, you will need to look at my diagram which really is a template for disposal of most branch lines closed in the Beeching era, all you would need to do is replace the...