Saddest Sights on the Railways (Trivia)

[bigmanaiq]

What, exactly like Northern 150s are now?

Also falling to pieces - but we haven’t got to the point of not bothering to touch the paint up every now and then (yet…)

 

[StewartB]

For me, it’s has to be demolition & dismantling of railway infrastructure.
The absolute haste in removing any indication that there ever was a railway, back in the 60s & 70s is heartbreaking.
It almost comes across as rather spiteful.
An example would be the Southport to Preston railway, closed in 1964. Within weeks, stations, bridges & embankments had been completely removed. Ensuring there was no way of reinstatement in the future.
At least other countries had the gumption to mothball their closed lines..

Talking of actions perceived as spiteful, the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway Order 2005 came with specific provisions (article 53) to nullify the relevant 19th century railway acts affecting its route, thus ensuring that any attempt to replace the guideway by reinstating the disused railway would be much more costly and difficult.

Maybe it was just my perception, but IMHO, it seemed a widely held one during the public inquiry. I don't think it's Hanlon's Razor or even Grey's Law ("Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice") either.

 

[sharpener]

For me a sad sight is the remnant bridge abutments for once great bridges that were demolished as soon as the lines closed in the 50s and 60s, all that effort and engineering just ripped down leaving an orphaned stump of masonry behind. Crumlin, Belah, Severn. What great monuments they were, scrapped in haste.

Even modest overbridges have that same sad air. Frequently go past where the Primrose Line crossed above the road between Kingsbridge and Loddiswell and muse on how much tourist traffic it would now be carrying if it had survived. In its day it had through carriages to Paddington and took rabbits to the Midlands by the skipload.

 

[Rab Smith]

I always feel a bit sad when passing overgrown track that you know is never getting used again. Sometimes you wish they would just pull it up and that would be it.