Contrasts in railway stations One thing you notice when you follow the Cumbrian coast railway is the wide variety of architecture. The southern end of line is home to some sumptous Paley and Austin designed palaces, now grade II listed buildings echoing the designs the firm did for churches and cathedrals through the north of England. Dalton in Furness is one such building, once the historical capitol of the Furness the town became rich when large deposits of high quality iron ore were found. You can see how much attention to detail was put into the design of the building in this shot of the roadside aspect. The station is approached from Barrow in the west through a short tunnel seen behind 153 310 heading for Lancaster Heading in the opposite direction DEMU class 175 106 sweeps through the Dalton Curve heading for Barrow in Furness Back toward the north end of the line the buildings are much more mundane, Braystones, the next station down from Netherton is a lot less interesting 156 425 barely pauses at the halt as no-one is waiting
Up North Still at Braystones this shot gives you an idea of how remote and exposed the line is here and as regards the weather we are not talking the Pacific Coast Line here! We had strong gales at work today and my car is covered in dried salt blown off the sea. The very salty atmosphere also plays havoc with the railway wagons I look after. the big mountain in the background is 'Black Combe' a big buttress of a hill where the Lake district mountains meet the Irish Sea. In an earlier picture I showed you some of our class 20 Bo-Bos. As a railway company we have a big railfan base here in the U.K because we retained some old and unusual traction, long discarded by other sectors of British Railways, because of their high route availabilty. The 20s were a key part of the British Railways modernisation plan and a very reminiscent of some of the Fairbanks Morse switchers you had in the USA. 20 304 and 20 305 wait in Carlisle Citadel station. One unusual thing we are noted for is 'topping and tailing trains' whereby we put a loco at each end of a train. Although this is quite a common practice on some railfan tours we do it to make reversing the train easier on some of the more interesting branch lines we work on . At Workington Docks 20 301 and 20 311, having arrived light engine, are split ready to receive a short train of DRSL container wagons. Once the dock shunter has brought the wagons off the dock a 20 is attached at eihter end because there is no southbound loop out of the docks 20 301 will haul the train north the short distance to Maryport, where the crew will change ends and use 20 311 to take the train back south to it's destination at Drigg LLWR.
Class 33s Another set of 'celebrity' locos we had were some of the surviving class 33 Bo-Bos. These were by now very non standard but much loved by railfans. Topped and tailed 33 025 and 33 030 are seen in Citadel on one of the trial runs of the 'Minimodal' containers, an attempt to service inner city supermarkets with smaller lighter containers than the normal ISO ones 33 025 is seen in close-up at one of our open days at Kingmoor depot, Carlisle
Kev, very interesting. Your access to remote and otherwise inaccessible locations thanks to your profession and employer makes this thread all the more enjoyable. One thing however, the assignment of two locos for the transport of two or four loads merely to lessen inconvenience to the driver by not requiring him/her to perform a runaround and to operate a single loco in reverse appears to be an extravagant waste of power. :tb-ooh:
How'd Duchess get here? I couldn't resist offering this, here. Black Butte, California sure ain't Dent, but there are few railroading areas as wonderful as those throughout the UK. How did my Princess get to California? N-Scale magazine, May/June 2008 cover and text. Scott
Millom, so near and yet so far Askam sits near the mouth of the Duddon estuary on the south east side and just across the water sits the town of Millom. If you were to walk across to Millom at low tide it would be about a mile taking the train up the estuary,swiging across at the top and coming back down the north west shore takes in 3 intermediate stations ina journey of about 17 miles! Milloms prosperity in olden times came from the same rich seams of heamatite iron ore that brought riches to the whole Furness area and the ironworks at Millom survived quite late on. Millom station is now a folk museum a bus shelter now provides protection from the elements for the passengers. note the original lattice bridge The canopy supports still show it's Furness railway heritage On a wet saturday summer morning 4-6-2 71000 Duke of Gloucester blasts throuh on an excursion heading to Carlisle. The unique, caprotti valve geared, express loco provides some unexpected exhaust on this soggy day. Framed through the road bridge is the signalbox
Millom II The arrival of the Duke brought many people out to see it from the vantage point of the road bridge you can get a good view of the north approaches to the station and the signalbox behind the box you can glimpse Millom's cricket club ground with a match 'in play' A view of the other aspect of the signalbox showing the all timber construction more soon!
