Farnsfield

These two lovely old pictures taken in the village during the late 50s or very early 60s are very evocative of the country railway as it once was. Many small country stations had their own goods yards and goods sheds. Pick up goods trains would take out agricultural produce and bring in coal and manufactured items.

By the time these pictures were taken, Farnsfield had long lost its passenger services, so the train shown here would have been a summer seaside special from the industrial towns further west and heading for the east coast. The locomotive is an ex-LMS 0-6-0 No. 44415, which had already been withdrawn for scrapping by 1962.

Farnsfield signalbox covered the passing loop into the second platform on what was otherwise essentially a single-track route, theoretically allowing trains to pass each other here. It also controlled access to the sidings, the goods yard and shed and the junction with the line from Bilsthorpe colliery, which joined the Mansfield to Southwell line at this point. There was also a siding further east from Farnsfield that served the Victorian water supply pumping station adjacent to what has since become the Southwell trail. The signalbox diagram can be viewed on the internet but without the necessary permission to reproduce it.

I am indebted to Gill Sarre for allowing me access to these splendid photographs.

The Bridge

The bridge crosses the track bed of the former Mansfield to Southwell line at the site of Kirklington and Edingley station. This is now part of the Southwell trail which provides a very convenient, local off-road cycling route. The platform edge and the station house are still in place and the ramp at the end of the platform is clearly visible in the photo.

It’s gradually downhill all the way to the Trent valley, as the Midland Railway engineers smoothed out the grade with a series of cuttings and embankments. The route closed to passengers in 1929 and for goods and summer specials bound for the east coast, in 1964.

Intervening Opportunities

Missing the sea means valuing frequent trips to the river. There are broad vistas, ever-changing skies, swirling or calm waters - and kingfisher, goosander, grey wagtail, common sandpiper, redshank and goldeneye, this week alone.

Getting to the river at its nearest point to home means crossing the railway at Fiskerton station. Unlike most road users, I love it when the level crossing lights flash and the barriers fall ahead of us. Will it be something interesting or just another bug cart?

Yesterday, it was Class 60 No. 60040 The Territorial Army Centenary returning oil wagons to Lyndsey terminal from Kingsbury. Simple pleasures.

Arts and Crafts

Our day out took us to Stoneywell, an Arts and Crafts house from the late nineteenth century, built away from the road and deep in the woods. It was not an advertised running day on the GCR but we stopped on the way at Quorn and Woodhouse station. The café is always open and there was what I thought was likely to be a photographers’ charter train in the down platform. 4953 Pitchford Hall then backed down through the up platform and I just managed to get a shot of her, as well as some intervening foliage.

Stoneywell is carefully tended by the National Trust and it turned out to be a delightful venue with a very welcoming staff. We had a tour of the house and garden. Waiting for the guide to arrive, I half expected a fictional character from the grand-childrens’ books to open the front door - would it be Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, or the Three Bears?

No, it was Doug the guide. He told us about how the Gimson family had first created the house as a summer retreat from their engineering business in Leicester. By the time they had made it their permanent home, down the road at Quorn there was always a chance of a Hall Class locomotive straying onto LNER lines via the connection with the GWR at Banbury. They may even have been able to hear its whistle from afar as they sat in their garden on a pleasant summer’s day.     

Alderley Edge

This is the best picture I could get which would include the two essential items of the story, so sorry about all the trees. This is Alderley Edge, where I stayed with my Mum and Dad as a toddler in the early 1950s, at the home of my grandmother in Trafford Road. My Dad pushed me in my pushchair to the park next to the main line from Manchester to London Euston via Crewe. It provided me with my first memories of the steam railway.

Dad told me later that from the swing park - then not hidden so completely from the line by that row of trees and foliage - I watched named trains like The Mancunian, The Comet and The Pines Express speed past. In fact, he told me about it so many times as I was growing up that in the end I don’t know if its my memory or his telling of the story that I can see in my mind’s eye. I imagine myself at the top of the slide as an un-rebuilt Patriot powers into view under the bridge from where the picture is taken. Fact or imagination, it doesn’t matter. I’m just grateful that he took me at all and that it kick started my lifelong interest in the railway.

Knutsford

The name of the town is derived from Canute’s ford. We stayed at an excellent hotel there - Cottons - which also has a good-sized swimming pool. The railway station is on the route between Manchester and Chester. It was opened in 1862 as part of the Cheshire Lines Committee’s network. The heritage centre had the Knutsford West signalbox board up on a wall in their garden. 

Merseyrail

Recently announced as the most punctual performer, we sampled Merseyrail on Tuesday on our way to watching Everton throw away, in time added on, what would otherwise have been a well-deserved win. After the match, we failed to get on to the first three-car train back to Central at Kirkdale station, which was packed out, but followed ten minutes later by a six-car unit which was comparatively empty, which seemed a strange arrangement and rather difficult to fathom - a bit like Everton, really. Pictured is the 17.36 from West Kirby.