Closed lines walked or former railway sites / stations visited

[John Luxton]

There has been a thread running for some time concerning closed lines people have travelled over - now perhaps it is time for people to consider lines or railway related sites they have visited post closure?

Perhaps as an explore of the abandoned or perhaps routes which have been converted into paths / roads etc.

I have quite a few and will write up my list shortly - but with me it all started in the 1960s as a young child probably with the Cheshire Lines Southport extension route at Birkdale Palace Station.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Done the Longdendale Trail/Trans Pennine Trail, from Hadfield station to Woodhead (Tunnel) any number of times. Trackbed of the fondly-remembered Woodhead line.

Also a short section on the Yorkshire side, from Dunford Bridge for a few kms Eastwards to Cote Bank Bridge. As well as another section of the Trans Pennine Trail in the Broadheath / Dunham / Warburton area.

In addition, short sections of the Monsal Trail, the Tissington Trail and the High Peak Trail in Derbyshire, as well as sections of the former Whitby->Scarborough line and Battersby->Rosedale line, which are now part of the Cleveland Way in the North East.

And one other, in East Anglia, have walked along what was once the branch line to Aldeburgh, and is now a surfaced path, from Thorpeness to Aldeburgh.

 

[duncanp]

In the UK I have done

• The Parkland Walk (London)
• The Harborne Walkway (Birmingham)
• The Fallowfield Loop (Manchester)
• The Liverpool Loop Line (Northern half as far as West Derby)
• Balerno - Colinton Line (Edinburgh)
• Murrayfield - Leith line (Edinburgh)

When I was in France last year, I walked along several Voies Vertes in and around Lille, which are former railway lines converted to cycle and pedestrian paths.

I have also walked along several "Rail-Trails", as they are called in the United States, in and around Chicago, St Louis and New York, and plan to do more when I return to the US later this year.

 

[oldman]

Last summer I walked as much as possible of the Talla Reservoir branch between Broughton and Tweedsmuir, lifted more than 100 years ago. It isn't a footpath, but mostly passable with a bit of fence- and gate-climbing. There is a project afoot - Destination Tweed - which is likely to use a lot of it as part of a walking/cycling route along the Tweed Valley, and which I have mixed feelings about.

(Unless qualified in some way, your question is going to produce some very long lists - I can think of several ex-railway footpaths within the boundaries of the City of Edinburgh, and several more in the Lothians)

 

[Gloster]

I have walked quite a few over the years, sometimes only short sections, and probably can’t remember more than a handful. I used to walk into Newport using bits of the trackbed westwards from Wootton, so that must be the one I have used the most. Most memorable must be the tunnels, or maybe only one tunnel, in the Aberglaslyn Pass south of Beddgelert on the Welsh Highland.

 

[John Luxton]

(Unless qualified in some way, your question is going to produce some very long lists - I can think of several ex-railway footpaths within the boundaries of the City of Edinburgh, and several more in the Lothians)

My list is getting fairly long!

I will post it later.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

One very long-standing ex-railway route - the Leek & Manifold (Waterhouses to Hulme End). You can drive along parts of it, including though a tunnel.
The Wirral Way is a 1960s (pre-Beeching) closure, Hooton to West Kirby, I've walked several separate sections.
Some closed railways were absorbed into widened/realigned roads, two that come to mind are at Nannerch (Mold-Denbigh) and around Market Drayton (Nantwich-Wellington).
Mold Tesco is on the site of the old station. The cafe used to have pictures of railway scenes on the walls, but it has been "normalised" now.
The old railway route through the town is now a linear car park, two overbridges remain.
Ingleton (Midland) station site is now the town's visitor centre and main car park.
The ex-CLC/GC route from Mickle Trafford to Dee Marsh, via the north side of the old Chester Northgate triangle, is now a cycleway.

 

[Benters]

The Isabel Trail in Stafford. It follows the trackbed of part of the long-defunct Stafford-Uttoxeter line. (Tracks lifted at the end of 1975). I walk back from town eastwards along it most days of the week. It affords splendid views of the adjacent Doxey Marshes Nature Reserve and the WCML. The annual Stafford Half-Marathon takes in the Isabel Trail westwards from Beaconside to Doxey as part of its course. I have done this race several times. The Doxey end of the trail was one of the to the most westerly points on the old LNER inherited the line from the M&GNJR at the grouping. Across the main (ex-LNWR ) line was the old WG Bagnall locomotive works, which subsequently passed into English Electric, then GEC and finally Alsthom ownership.

 

[John Luxton]

I never realised I had visited so many - might have been better breaking down to Standard and Narrow Gauge at least but anyway here is my list - which has probably missed some places out. I am sure there are a few converted railway tracks to roads I have not listed - probably my most used being the Seacombe Branch which is of course the Wallasey Tunnel approach driven countless times. Put in dates when remembered or confirmed by photos.


CLC Southport Extension:

Birkdale Palace Station – 1965

Southport Lord Street Station – 1965

Ainsdale Station

Lydiate Station

Maghull to Old Roan

Woodvale to Birkdale (via coast road by car)

The above were all done as a young child mid 60s

LMS

Cromford & High Peak – High Peak Junction and lower half of Sheep Pasture Incline - 2021

Fleetwood Station (original) to Wyre Dock which became Fleetwood 1966 - 69

Glasson Dock branch from Glasson Station to dock 1966-69

Edge Hill / Crown Street Cutting and Moorish Arch 2022 (private group visit to normally closed area).


GWR / LMS Joint

West Kirby to Hooton – various visits since 1968 – but only managed to walk the full route in 2020 spread over three visits.

Odd bits of Severn & Wye in Forest of Dean



GWR

Bovey Tracey Station

Dolgellau Station 1972

Hayle Wharves Branch – 1980s - 2016

Morpeth Dock Freight Terminal, Birkenhead (early 1970s)

Neyland 2013 & 2019

Penmaenpool - 2018

Penzance Albert Pier Branch 2016 and 2021

Princetown Branch – Princetown to Swell Tor Quarries (several visits most recent 2021/2)

Severn Railway Bridge 2014

Wye Valley Line – Tintern Station – Brockweir

Wye Valley Line – Redbrook 2016 and 2021

Wye Valley Line – Tintern Wireworks Branch and Wireworks Jct to Wye Valley Junction 2022



Southern Railway

Sourton to Okehampton – 2021

Torrington to Watergate Halt 2020

Torrington northwards for a bout 2 miles 2021

Petrockstowe Station

Meath Halt to Meath Quarry 2019

Tavistock Station & Viaduct 2016

Ryde Pier Tramway



Standard Gauge Other

Shropshire and Montgomery – Shrewsbury Abbey Station - 2022

Devon Great Consols Railway various dates most, but not all of route.

Kit Hill Quarry Incline (East Cornwall Minerals Railway)

Redlake Tramway 1989

Liskeard & Caradon Railway Cheeswring Quarry to top of Goonamena Incline

Liskeard & Caradon Railway Minions around to Tokenbury Corner 2020

Mersey Docks & Harbour Co Railways – various dates

Minera Lead Mines Railway (2020)


Narrow Gauge

Bude Sand Railway

IOMR – Union Mills Station 2018

IOMR – Peel Station (various dates)

Welsh Highland Railway Bryn-y-felin to Nantmawr 1990

New Brighton Tower – Tommy Mann’s Narrow Gauge Line 1965

Conglog Quarry / Cwmorthin Quarry Tramways 2020

Oernant Tramway – various dates

Glyn Valley Tramway Chirk and Glyn Ceiriog Stations

Penlee Quarry Railway (early noughties)

Pentewan Railway – to 1 mile north of Pentewan

Snailbeach Railway 2016 and 2020

Haytor Tramway

Stover Canal Wharf – 2021

Haytor Down to Haytor Quarry – 2022



CIE

Youghal Station

Baltimore Station

Foynes Station

 

[Richard Scott]

Have done most of the Wye Valley, already mentioned in another post, and the former Honeybourne line from Honeybourne to Broadway and then the route into Cheltenham from Pittville.

 

[Western 52]

The former line I've walked the most is the route of the Mumbles railway around Swansea bay. This is a very well used footpath with nice seaside scenery.

In 1982 I walked part of the former Waverley line through Melrose when the station was still more or less all there. It seemed quite creepy walking between the platforms on a misty day- just me and the ghosts of trains long gone.

 

[MisterSheeps]

Not long post closure : Cromford & High Peak, then in use Cromford Wharf - Middleton quarries. Great Rocks - Bakewell when mothballed. Mapperley Plains tunnel. GC Sherwood Rise tunnel. Calverton - Longdale Lane. Drewton Tunnel just before was blocked. GN/LNW Jt from Harby to Stathern. Barbon - Middleton on Ingleton - Low Gill line. Apperset - Garsdale. Barry Island tunnel.

Trail ones - those in Peak District. Five Pits trail (ex GC around Heath). Peasley - Silverwood. Marple - Macclesfield. Rocester - Alton. Wirral Way. S & CLER (Ainsdale - Aintree). Wath - Penistone. Deepcar - Dunford Br. Scarborough - Whitby. Rosedale - Battersby. Barnstaple - Torrington. Glen Ogle.

 

[Rescars]

Some stretches of the Port Road in Galloway are quite walkable - and wonderfully remote.

 

[Magdalia]

Perhaps as an explore of the abandoned or perhaps routes which have been converted into paths / roads etc.

In this part of the world the railways converted to roads list is quite long.

• A17 South Lynn-Sutton Bridge
• A141 March South-Chatteris
• A16 Algarkirk-Boston
• A14 Bury St Edmunds bypass
• A148 Holt bypass
• A143 I think bits of Harleston-Bungay

I have also done the A66 over the Pennines which is on old railway for at least 2 sections near Bowes and Stainmore summit. I have detoured from the latter to visit the site of Belah Viaduct.

Then of course we have the guided busway Chesterton Junction-St Ives and Cambridge-Trumpington.

Walking/cycling my list includes:

• Lochearnhead-Glenoglehead
• Talybont on Usk-Torpantau
• Blythburgh-Southwold
• Beck Hole-Grosmont
• Kenilworth-Burton Green going towards Berkswell
• Kings Heath-Pitsford and Brampton (Northampton-Market Harborough line)

There are possibly others that I've not remembered. I doubt that I will add any more to the list but I would like to find a way of doing at least some of Bishops Stortford-Braintree.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Between 1975 and 1981 I visited nearly every one of 500 ex North Eastern Railway stations and walked several lines plus stations and lines in other parts of the country.
Some of the more memorable walks were
Hull - Hornsea and
Hull - Withernsea both in 1977 and Berwick Kelso in 1978 and the Stainmore line Barnard Castle - Kirkby Stephen in 1996.

 

[Calthrop]

I being a -- relatively recent -- convert to the delights of the Isle of Wight ... a number of abandoned lines or parts thereof on the Island, have been made -- officially -- into footpaths / cycling routes. Of the just-mentioned, I have walked: Cowes to Newport -- the greater part of which has been made into a footpath / trail. The great majority of the former Newport -- Merstone -- Sandown line, ditto. Parts of other lines, likewise made-over, which I have walked: Shanklin -- Wroxall; and Yarmouth -- Freshwater. I have also walked a couple of short sections, not "officially converted" but still possible to walk along: westward from the Isle of Wight Steam Railway's Wootton terminus, to some way west of the former Whippingham station; and the northernmost part of the one-time Ventnor West branch, running a little way south from the former Merstone station.

 

[Mat17]

Oxspring through to Penistone along the old Woodhead route.

 

[2392]

Over the years I've walked the "rail trail", the original Grosmont-Goathland-Summit line. The best way to do that is to get the train to Goathland and walk down the bank. In the process you can watch/see/hear the trains on the Deviation line along the other side of the valley as they go up the bank from Grosmont to Goathland. Whilst walking down the bank, you can call at the Beckhole pub. A really olde worlde pub if ever there was to top up the tanks and have a blow up if travelling up the bank! This section of the Moors was replaced by the "deviation" way back in the Victorian era. The section from Grosmont to the bottom of the bank at Beckhole had a push-pull service up until the start of the first world war. With the stump to Esk Valley Cottages going in 1950 when the road down the bank was built.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Over the years I've walked the "rail trail", the original Grosmont-Goathland-Summit line. The best way to do that is to get the train to Goathland and walk down the bank. In the process you can watch/see/hear the trains on the Deviation line along the other side of the valley as they go up the bank from Grosmont to Goathland. Whilst walking down the bank, you can call at the Beckhole pub. A really olde worlde pub if ever there was to top up the tanks and have a blow up if travelling up the bank! This section of the Moors was replaced by the "deviation" way back in the Victorian era. The section from Grosmont to the bottom of the bank at Beckhole had a push-pull service up until the start of the first world war. With the stump to Esk Valley Cottages going in 1950 when the road down the bank was built.

Another line worth walking in that area is the Rosedale branch from Battersby. I walked it in about 1994 and was amazed to find sleepers and bits of rail which had been lying there since 1929.

 

[steamybrian]

I have walked a number of closed routes here are a few that I remember

Polegate- Heathfield and as much as continuation to Redgate Mill Jn as possible
Horsted Keynes-Ardingly
Sheffield Park- Culver Jn
Crowhurst (site of viaduct) - Bexhill West ( before construction of Bexhill Relief Road)
Dunton Green-Westerham (before construction of M25)
Canterbury West- Whitstable
Rye- Camber
Groombridge- East Grinstead-Three Bridges
Christs Hospital- Peasmarsh Jn (Guildford)
Nunhead- Crystal Palace HL
Merton Park-Tooting
Finsbury Park-Alexandra Palace
Seven Sisters-Palace Gates (before redevelopment)
Margate- Ramsgate (SER route closed 1926)
Folkestone Harbour branch
Weymouth Quay branch..????
West Drayton-Uxbridge (after track lifting and before redevelopment of land)

Morfa Mawdach- Dolgellau

 

[fandroid]

As foolish schoolboys we walked the Shanklin to Ventnor line, including part of the tunnel, on the day after it closed!

Rather more sensibly I regularly walk part of the Basingstoke -Alton line south of Cliddesden where it is a permitted bridleway. It's a very handy connection between normal public footpaths.

I've also done several other IoW routes, far more recently, Cowes-Newport, Yarmouth-Freshwater and the Brading-Bembridge branch where it runs on the causeway beside Bembridge Harbour.

A line which others haven't mentioned is the one to Ballachulish which I walked in part not long ago and provides a handy alternative to walking along the main coastal road.

Is there a thread on railway conversions to footpaths/bridleways/cycle tracks? I am aware of several campaigns to open up more routes and a permanent thread would help keep tabs on progress and potential new routes for us obsessive walkers.


I realise that there are rather a lot of these and that if lists/threads were created then it might be best to do them on a regional or even county basis.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Isabel Trail in Stafford. It follows the trackbed of part of the long-defunct Stafford-Uttoxeter line. (Tracks lifted at the end of 1975). I walk back from town eastwards along it most days of the week. It affords splendid views of the adjacent Doxey Marshes Nature Reserve and the WCML. The annual Stafford Half-Marathon takes in the Isabel Trail westwards from Beaconside to Doxey as part of its course. I have done this race several times. The Doxey end of the trail was one of the to the most westerly points on the old LNER inherited the line from the M&GNJR at the grouping. Across the main (ex-LNWR ) line was the old WG Bagnall locomotive works, which subsequently passed into English Electric, then GEC and finally Alsthom ownership.

I think Heswall station (ex-MS&L/GC) was the most westerly LNER station in England/Wales* - further west than Wrexham Central, Connah's Quay or any part of the CLC route to Southport.
The junction with the LNWR north of Stafford was certainly the furthest west of the GNR network.

* most LNER lines west of Edinburgh are further west than any in England/Wales.

 

[OVS Flatbottom]

I remember walking the old Caley route from Wanlockhead to Leadhills and back (including the section then quite recently relaid by the Lowthers Railway Society with 2' gauge track) one fine summer's evening in 1989.

 

[Harvester]

On a visit to Louth in the early eighties I can remember going to the closed station to take some photographs. The large station building was derelict, the track had been removed, and rubble from the demolished platforms was still to be cleared. Not a pleasant sight.

 

[weepingwillowb]

I've not walked any long stretches of disused lines - Bishop Auckland to Hunwick, and Lancaster Green Ayre to Morecambe, are the longest, I think. Not having a car makes it difficult to get to rural railway walks.

I've been to over 50 sites of stations, in various conditions, the most recent being Claughton, Lancashire, which closed in 1853. The building's still there, although with some alterations, and it was great to get some photos of it.

 

[D6975]

Here in Bristol we used to have two old trackbeds to walk, one is now a cyclepath (LMS line to Bath) and the Portishead branch (now mostly back in use) I walked both of them when they were just abandoned trackbeds. Bath Green Park station buildings are mostly still there - worth a look if you're in Bath.
I have also walked part of the Portpatrick branch from the edge of Portpatrick to Dunskey Castle.

 

[RichJF]

Cuckoo Line:
Heathfield - Polegate
Redgate Junction - Mayfield (not all public footpaths)

Tunbridge Wells line
Three Bridges - East Grinstead
East Grinstead - Tunbridge Wells West

Steyning Line
Christs Hospital - Shoreham by Sea
Christs Hospital - Guildford

North Devon Railway
Barnstaple - Bideford

Crab & Winkle
Canterbury - nr Whitstable

Elham Valley Line
Canterbury - Barham

Bluebell Railway
nr Horsted Keynes - Ardingly

Folkestone Harbour

 

[D821]

Someone on here pointed out that there is a decent wikipedia article list many disused lines, if that helps people remember:

List of closed railway lines in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I regularly cycle the West Kirby to Hooton Wirral Way trail. I've also walked the disused tunnels near Beddgelert, whichever line they were on.

 

[Bobdogs]

11 years ago I walked north on the track of the former Waverley Line to Riccarton Junction, what a strange atmospheric place.
Once a railway town with about 150 inhabitants, it now completely deserted apart from, then, the school masters old house.

 

[chipbury]

I regularly cycle the following routes in our area which are partially on old lines:

Frome - Radstock
Radstock- Midsomer Norton
Pill-Portishead
Bristol-Bath
Bath-Radstock

All are offical cycle paths so are mostly in good condition.

I've also walked through the Windsor Hill tunnels north of Shepton Mallet (they may be gated now?). One of the tunnels was used by Rolls Royce for a destructive test of an olympus jet engine - you could see the concrete blocks on the tunnel floor that the engine was bolted to.