Recent content by karlos

I see in the news today is that Shotton Paper Mill is getting a £1bn investment to turn it into the UK's premier paper and card recycling centre where it will recycle a quarter of the cardboard waste that is currently being sent abroad. The mill still has a connection and sidings but they've...

Re: the Manchester Airport sidings, there was still some track in situ in 2010 and it can be seen using Google Earth's historical imagery feature. Has since been paved over for a car park.

There's a certain hypocrisy of banning smoking on platforms while people are still getting gassed with diesel fumes at many stations. Smoking a cigarette is probably a healthier than spending an hour inhaling the air at Birmingham New Street. If someone's smoking a fag and they're not bothering...

Detonator salute for the last train at Banbury North box before closure (6:41). I bet that woke up the neighbourhood.

I lived next to a track until recently. The noise usually didn't bother me but freight trains used to make my house shake thanks to jointed track, around 2005 they upgraded the line to welded rail and it became a lot quieter.

Looking at the street view taken in July 22 from the Bankers Hill crossing (https://goo.gl/maps/yNn1JeU95QLX4ssQA) I'm guessing this line hasn't seen a train in some years.

Trivia question: Is this the only signal box that's still heated by coal or are there others?

There was a brake van that lived on the Shotton Paper sidings on the Borderlands line that I remember seeing in the early 90s. Google Earth suggests it wasn't removed until around 2018/19.

I find it puzzling that Network Rail have problems sourcing parts for mechanical signal boxes. With the number of boxes that have closed in the last couple of decades you'd think they'd have enough block instruments, repeaters, point rodding etc to fill a warehouse.

Anyone care to estimate the cost of a siding? The only thing I've got to go on is that 500 yards of sidings at Buxton cost £14 million, though that was for two roads and was little more complex with it being built on a refuse tip with needing a footbridge as well.

Chester has some fine examples of the hubris of 1960s and 1970s town planners and architects. Not least the huge hole they knocked through the medieval walls to put a dual carriageway and concrete flyover with the plaque there unveiled by Barbara Castle to celebrate the fact. As for the...

I've never had breakdown cover in 28 years of driving. On the two occasions I have broken down, I called a local recovery service and paid cash for them to take me home or to a garage. Total cost so far: £110.

Is the HGV driver crisis is an opportunity for rail freight in the medium to long term? OK, so going back to the days of goods stations and yards everywhere may be optimistic but there must be some feasibility in having more intermodal terminals around the country. It certainly would enable...

Beeching's closure of the the Ruabon-Barmouth line was largely justified but in hindsight should have been kept open as far as Llangollen, even if just a single track. At the time of closure there was still a reasonable amount of goods traffic from the Acrefair/Cefn area and together with the...

From my neck of the woods I think Penyffordd has the only semaphores in North East Wales since part of the coast line was resignalled in 2018. In North West Wales Llandudno Station and Deganwy still has them, along with the boxes on Anglesey. Moving into west Cheshire, I've seen them recently...