Bilsthorpe Colliery Branch

This is where the branch line for coal trains from Bilsthorpe colliery [1928-1997] to Mansfield Concentration Sidings, west of Clipstone Forest, crossed the main A614 road. It is now part of national cycleway 6, which skirts Clipstone Forest, once part of the original Sherwood Forest. Bilsthorpe was linked by rail to Ollerton to the north, MCS to the west and Farnsfield to the south. This latter section is now also a cycleway and an extension to the Southwell Trail.

We have cycled from home to Sherwood Pines Forest Park visitor centre and tearoom three times and somehow failed to find the quickest route there on each occasion. This is because there is no signpost on the cycleway indicating at what stage you should leave the old railway route to strike north through the forest via the many possible forest tracks, nor are there any obvious signs in the forest once you are there that lead you directly to the centre, though there are plenty which guide their own cycling routes within the area. This strikes me as a little unhelpful and certainly not indicative of joined up thinking between the cycleway and forest park authorities.

A Standard day at Loughborough

On duty yesterday on the GCR was BR Standard Class 5 4-6-0 No. 73156, looking and sounding in very good nick. She was built in 1956 in Doncaster works but ended up at Barry scrapyard in the mid-1960s before being rescued and restored.

Ah Hah, Jim Lad!

The Black Pearl pirate ship looked as good as ever at the weekend; an amazing, spontaneous community project made of driftwood and run aground at New Brighton. She certainly had an enthusiastic crew on board. No pressed men amongst that lot.

A care home now stands where we remember Mother Redcaps from our youth, a little further along the promenade, with its tales of smuggling and underground passages for the distribution of contraband. When my great grandfather took his photo about 115 years ago it was known as Mr Kitchinman’s house.

Chris’s great, great, great grandfather, William Henry Thorpe, was Master of the Princes Landing Stage in Liverpool during the mid-nineteenth century, overseeing the comings and goings of ocean-going vessels, including, no doubt, coffin ships which were knowingly in poor condition, overloaded and over-insured. They were thus more valuable to their owners if they sunk. 

Chester Tardis

I passed this seat in the NRM on Wednesday. I could easily have spent quite some time sitting there in the Sixties. With Scots and Semis, Counties and Castles, Chester was a busy location. It was either a bike ride along the New Chester Road to sit on the steps alongside the Hoole Road bridge, or a blue number 10 bus from Stroude’s corner to Woodside for the train and a day on [and off] this seat. 

From sheds to transformers

It was another pleasant, bright, warm summer day. I thought I’d go and spend it in the library. Search Engine is the research centre at the Railway Museum in York [they seem to be intent on dropping the “National” bit for some reason.


As I waited for my train back home, I was joined by these two examples of current diesel power. The Class 66, known as “sheds” for fairly obvious reasons, I think, and the more recent Class 68 - a more pleasing design - though the front end reminds me a little of my grandson’s transformer figures. I was half expecting it to suddenly rear up and zap me one. Its even got an appropriate name for the job.

Kingswear

Our destination on the Riviera Express last month was Kingswear, including the ferry crossing to Dartmouth, from where we took a trip up the estuary on board the old steam-driven Kingswear Castle.


Kingswear station is a cosy ex-GWR affair and in the days of steam was the terminus for regular Castle Class hauled expresses from London Paddington.

My type of garden shed

This one was built by the Midland Railway in around 1871. It still stands in the grounds of the old station house, which is now a private residence. Kirklington and Edingley station was on the Mansfield to Southwell line, which closed to passengers in 1929 and to freight in 1964. The shed is on the approach road to the station building and the former goods yard.


The old goods yard site is now used as a car park and picnic area on the Southwell Trail. This is now a peaceful place to watch and listen to birds, though the turtle doves that were annual visitors here are no longer in evidence, nor the cuckoos. A concrete framed loading gauge still stands on what would presumably have been the siding leading into the yard.