Colwick

 In April 1969, we called in at Colwick on our way home from overnights at youth hostels in Lincoln and Grantham. If my memory serves me, there was nothing on the sheds except one diesel shunter. The former sprawling yards that had been a hive of activity in the days of steam just a few years beforehand were silent and deserted. Many of the former sidings were then replaced with a retail park and the old shed site is now a Lidl. A couple of years ago, however, Boden Rail Engineering developed a facility adjacent to the Netherfield lagoons wildlife reserve, at the end of a spur connecting the new sheds to the Nottingham to Grantham line just before the Trent crossing. Railway maintenance had returned to Colwick. As with Leeds Midland Road depot, as a visitor one is hardly made to feel welcome. The same warning signs, gates and robust high fencing surround the site, which is also physically closed off at its single track access point on the spur. Boden Rail looks after Colas locomotives from classes 37, 56 and 70. Two superfluous Class 60s, Nos. 60057 and 60075, are also parked up there. Nos. 37099 and 56087 were also visible on recent visits. 

Leeds Midland Road Freightliner depot

They really don’t want you at the sheds these days. The resolutely high and sturdy fencing, the closed and locked gates, the no parking zones, the CCTV cameras, the warning notices and the double-yellows on the road round about the entrance, all serve to make you feel like an intruder, as your eyes search for convenient gaps in the fence big enough to take a picture through. It’s a world away from a leisurely visit to the sheds as it was in the sixties, when part of the fun was to get round without getting caught, ticked off or thrown out - a necessary game to be played in the quest for numbers. It’s a non-starter these days. These places are secure fortresses today sealed off from the world outside, as those inside protect their assets from graffiti artists, vandals and thieves. It’s sad that its necessary, of course, but I get where they’re coming from. The world has changed but we have lost something along the way. The innocent spotter and photographer has become a figure of suspicion. It makes you feel almost guilty to be there, at all, snooping around on the periphery at the weekend, where it appears from the outside that 7-day working is largely also a thing of the past. At least you could park the car near the entrance to Leeds Freightliner depot. There was no sign of life through the bars, but the stored Class 70s that had prompted my visit were there and a line of them could just about be viewed from the other side of the bridge after a short walk through the rain on an overgrown footpath strewn with rubbish as far as a brief gap in the foliage. Even with binoculars I couldn’t make out the numbers I was separated from by two sets of railings. I’m assuming that one of those in the middle distance was No. 70013, which according to other peoples’ online records has been parked up there for years, even though its place in the line has changed from time to time. Confirmation from elsewhere that I actually saw 70013 yesterday would help me rescue an otherwise rather depressing sojourn.

  

Leicester Diesels 6 June 25

Rather quiet outside UKRL at Leicester this morning. Class 69 No. 69010 lurking round the back and 57 No. 57303 leaving the depot light engine going south.