A series of videos exploring the lost railways, stations and collieries & quarries of Leicestershire, Rutland and neighbouring counties. Providing chronological information of each of the routes' histories, reasons for early closures, the impact of the Beeching Axe, and what survives today.
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Excellent. Very well put together. What is the rather grand looking station front one minute in? Thanks David.
@@davidshaw3303 thanks for the comment David. The picture is of the current Norwich station
Thank you! Ah that explains it. Quite different style, has a sort of Pavilion look. Lucky to escape the 1960s vandals!
Stamford East closed to passengers in 1957, the Stamford and Essendine railway closed altogether in 1959, Stamford East closed to goods in 1963 and the sidings at Blackstone's closed in 1967. The line was taken up after it closed in 1959 apart from a section that ran to the sidings at Blackstones and the Stamford East station yard which continued to be used for goods until 1963. This was taken up and the sidings left in use until 1967 when they fell out of use but I don't know when they were taken up.
Thanks for another of your informative videos. The graphics make things much easier to understand! In my younger days I remember well the approach through the tunnel from Stamford East to Stamford Town, which was a bit of a nightmare for drivers trying to spot the home signal which used to be hung below a wooden beam that spanned the line right at the tunnel exit. With steam and smoke often filling the tunnel it was a really bad spot to try to stop at and if you knew it was "on" you'd have to go very slowly through the tunnel to stand any chance of stopping near to the exit and still being able to breathe! The signal was a lower quadrant Midland Railway one, which lasted well into the 1960s. No problem today with colour lights and no steam getting in the way but Stamford is still quite a busy station.
Nice one Matt. Plenty of food for thought here for myself. I recently brought an Eric Tonks book, on part of Northamptonshire, because I wanted to read up on a place I’d been to.
I worked with number 17 pit locos Jupiter and Juno in the late 1960's. Jupiter was number 60 a Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns 0-6-0ST of the raised fire ox type known as "Uglies" (62 was preserved). Juno was a 1958 built Austerity 0-6-0ST and was offered to me to purchase on its retirement from service but sadly I had nowhere to keep it. It was eventually preserved and is a Isle of Wight Railway loco which is currently on loan to the NRM at Shildon. Several Andrew Barclay locos worked at S&L quarries at Harlaxton, Stainby and Colsterworth. The 15 Inch Barclay 0-6-0ST Ajax being now also at IoWRly. was last worked at Harlaxton in 1968. For a short time after its closure in 1959 part of the M&GNR line between South Witham and Thisleton was leased by S&L to work ore traffic out of the Thisleton Mine over to High Dyke firstly with steam locos and later with ex-BR class 14 diesels. It was an interesting experience working 16ton mineral wagons, up to 10 at a time over the ex-M&GNR line! I had often been over the line on passenger trains when going on holiday to Great Yarmouth Great memories of days long past. The O2 2-8-0 locos that worked the High Dyke Branch used to cross the A1 dual carriageway by a big steel plate bridge and there was a very steep gradient down to the sidings at High Dyke. They used to detach the brakevan and after the loco and about 6 wagons went down the bank and reversed into the sidings they ran the van down by gravity into a short headshunt that was arranged to go uphill in the opposite direction so that it could be attached to the rear of the empty train going back up to the quarries at Stainby. A very explosive run had to be taken at the bank to get back up onto the branch. An exciting move to watch!
Thanks for this video which fills in one or two gaps in my knowledge of these quarries. My grandfather worked at Holwell Works for much of his life and I remember riding on Holwell number 2 which I think may have been a Barclay 0-4-0ST. It worked at the time in and around the works and was a fairly new looking loco. I think its main job was taking the slag wagons upto Welby tip, which was a very large tip that could be seen from much of the county. The tip has now been long removed and levelled. Holwell manufactured many cast iron products including bullhead chairs for the railways under the Stanton name. I believe that these chairs carried the name Stanton followed by an H to show they were cast at Holwell.
@@rodsmith3911 there's some interesting history just there in this comment. Thanks for watching
Another very interesting video! I lived in E. Leicestershire in the 1950s and 60s and visited the Pilton Quarries quite a bit. It was a rather quaint establishment unlike the bigger E. Leics. and Rutland quarries. There was still a disc and crossbar signal which controlled access to the sidings from the quarry. It is a place I have not even thought about for a long time. I must look for the slides I took to see which locos were active at the time. Thanks for reminding me of those days of my youth!
Another magnificent video!
Brings back a lot of memories. Last time I travelled from Wroxham to Leicester we went via Peterborough to Market Harborough it was not long before the GN&LNW joint line closed I think. The only thing I recall about the trip was just before getting to Harborough we passed a goods train waiting on the joint line for us to pass and the loco was B17 4-6-0 61660 Hull City. It was minus its nameplates but in fairly clean green livery. It was withdrawn a few weeks later. At the time we lived in Leicester and our house backed onto the GNR Belgrave Road Branch, so it felt like sacrilege to be going to London Road Station! A memory I had almost forgotten revived some 60 years later thanks to the video. I can also recall cycling to Seaton to watch the push and pull service to Uppingham before it ended. My last memory of Seaton was seeing an 84xxx standard 2-6-2Tank loco in the platform.
Did you mention the Malybone Rugby Lutterworth Ashby Magna Leicester (Great central stn ) Nottingham Sheffield . I believe that it was the last railway to be built in this country . Good video .
Yes the Great Central appears at 12:00, it was the last mainline railway to be built in this country prior to HS2. I'm currently working on a detailed video covering that line.
Great video Matt
Thanks Sean. Are you watching the other videos, covering each one of these histories?
Thank you for the video. I used to work for USC at Colsterworth. One of the photos is of Stainby Glebe. Many people thing that it was Exton Park. It was a high intesity pit with two production faces. The pit nearer Stainby was shallower and this was operated by two diesel draglines, the other was deeper and nearer Colsterworth North, there was a 5W employed here stripping the overburdon.
Excellent stuff. Thanks for your comment. Nice to see stuff from those who actually worked there, what were conditions like, were women employed anywhere, was it a mucky job?
@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts No women employed other than in the offices at Colsterworth. It could be filthy if you were on the water pumps. Could be bad if you were on the drills and you hit water, it would go straight up into your face. This in the 1970’s .
It is interesting to see how many railways there were in Leicester. It showed what Beeching talked about with duplication of routes. 2 railways to London from Leicester, just because railway companies wanted the profitable traffic. You can see why 95% of traffic was on 50% of the lines. The one calculation Beeching struggled with, as everything was calculated by people, not computers, was how the 95% would be affected when the 5% was removed, which fed the 95%. To try and ensure that traffic wasn't lost, he planned that little used lines would be replaced by buses for passengers and lorries for freight. The government ignored this important part of the feeding of the railways to make them work. This led to a loss of traffic. There were also lines that Beeching said should stay but the government removed. The varsity line was one, which is now being reinstated. The other major mistake of the government was not safeguarding land that the lines occupied, in case of future need. A number were swalled up by roads like the A38 in Devon. This stopped the heritage line, the South Devon Railway continuing to serve Ashburton. Which was actually reopened by Beeching, as he stated he never closed this station, so was happy to reopen it. The station did close again after the A38 was built.
Because of how suburbs have grown, a lot of these "duplications" would no longer be duplications because they linked different parts of where they served.
As a previous resident of Desford I found this incredibly interesting. Thank you.
Nice representation. Not much about the line onto Burton from Ashby though and the Wooden Box loop, or the Ashby Burton Light Railway. Or the Ticknall Tramway.
Thank you for your comment. Ticknall tramway is a future project and I will cover it in detail, as with other tramways. Is the Wooden Box Loop related to the Swad loop?
I live in this area with all 3 parts surrounding where I live i've enjoyed your video's well done :)
Loved it. Great photos and music and the end too.
Rutlander here. I understand the need for Beeching's rationalisation, but the reason why he is viewed - rightly - as an "axeman" is that he did not provide for the future viability of the network. I have spent my professional career creating telecommunications networks and it is essential to provide for so-called "redundancy" in order to reroute traffics in the case of line closures. The minimal measures required are the planning-safeguarding of trajectory ("mothballing"), the maximum measures are the retention of the line in full working order. Maybe all this wasn't in his brief, but if the politics of the day had refused on (Beeching's) request to write it into the brief retrospectively, there was always the option of an "obiter dicta", where Beeching could have added such recommendations on his own initiative. Both ECML and WCML need side routes. As an Eastmidlander it irks me that not only has BR (in fairness, not Mr. Beeching) closed the March - Spalding line, they have now even built a prison on the trackbed to ensure that any recovery of the line will be really expensive.
Hi Matt. That was a fantastic bit of history brought to life. My own opinion about Beeching is were it not for his 'axe' then we wouldn't have many if not any of the amazing Heritage Railways that we have today. He wasn't wrong though when he said that he'd be the scapegoat for many years to come! Thanks again for this
Just brilliant! To see the map drawn on a timeline is genius and really puts things in perspective, especially when you consider that early passengers at Leicester would be nearly 60 by the time the GCR was open! Out of interest do you know when the first trains to London ran (presumably through Rugby?). Thank you so much.
9th April 1838 it was possible to get to London from Rugby but only from 17 September was a through route available. Thanks for the lovely comment
Superb. Thank you. My cycling around Leicestershire and Rutland in the 1950s/60s enabled exploration of much of this and a continuing interest in railways. Very useful.
Great thanks 👍 Very interesting 🧐
Glad you enjoyed it
Very interesting Matt. I love these iron stone lines. Very interesting about the four gauge sizes. Thanks for the mention to, and yes, I’ll be checking these tunnels out haha!
Fab!
Matt is back!
Very many thanks for all the detail - fascinating
A pleasure to view. Thank you
Great vid Matt, as others have said you went into amazing detail. I've been building a Train Simulator Classic route from Wansford to Nassington mine and this has given me a great understanding of how the mines worked. Looking forward to part two!
Thank you! Christmas and having covid has delayed part 2 as I've been unable to talk the narrative. I hope the simulator proves to be a great success.
Great video Matt - the timeline makes the quite complex ‘big picture’ very consumable. Just one thing to mention- you mention Yarwell Junction station right at the end…..it’s important to understand that this was once the point where the line to Nassington/Seaton diverged from another line that went south t Oundle, Barnwell, Thrapston and beyond (I think to Northampton) Given that your primary focus was on Stamford this omission is understandable, but this part of the picture adds yet more traffic through Sibson and shows its importance to be even greater.
Thanks Alan. You're right and at the very beginning I explain about the LNWR coming into Peterborough from the London & Birmingham but don't mention from where it has travelled so that's good feedback, thank you. You're right it's not in the scope of the film, but I must say its my error leaving it out opposed to not knowing it, as at 13:25 I mention about Wansford being an important junction station, but don't provide detail. I'm doing four videos at the moment on Ironstone, one has been uploaded. Once these are finished, I have the short M&GNR and the Great Central remaining. After that I'm looking at where I go next and I've been studying, among other things, the rail map of my home county of Essex and also as one of the first comments on any videos was, "I can't wait til you do Northants", it's in my sights. An opportunity will present itself to get the Northampton & Peterborough Railway mentioned. Thanks again for the comment.
Battlefield line, only ran to Bosworth originally, then a V small band of volunteers extended to Shenton
When did the heritage Bosworth close ?
Not sure what you are asking, they ran to Bosworth only, for a long time, then opened to Shenton, but for many reasons (inc 1 krap neighbour) trains didn't stop at Bosworth for some years, it had definitely been used before the arson attack, I used to be a member, we never stopped there when I volunteered, back in maybe 1998, so it didn't really close they just stopped using it, (but is used again now) love cycling to Shenton from Cov, will be there for the gala on 3,4 Feb to hopefully see the partly new "Betton Grange" see you there ?@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts
Enjoyable, I can tell you are not a native of the county, some of those pronunciations made me chuckle, I was born and raised in the county and lived close to the old Great Central near to Whetstone station. I have fond memories of travelling all over the county by train mostly by steam power. There was a mineral line that ran to Croft Quarry that ran into the 21st century I think.
My great grandad was a signalman on the Leicester to Swannington railway at Fosse road, he & my family lived backing onto the “ rally” my family then went to live near the Glenfield tunnel , Kirby Muxloe,Ellistown & Coalville. Finally worked as a planner & senior PICOP on the railway myself. Where would we be without the train. My son is now in charge of WCML southern possession team
I was a fireman at Market Harborough till it closed.
Did you book on there or remain at the station?
@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts I would book on at loco then I left and went to 1A Willesden
@@ronaldhaynes4042 blimey that's a commute! Before retiring I commuted Leicester to London daily but trains are much quicker these days
@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts one of the last jobs I had at loco was the take the empty wagon on to the Melton Mowbray branch were the contractors were cutting the tracking to load on to the wagon we pulled the last lot of wagon out of Wellam that was with a 4f and my driver was Jack Shelve.
Nice one Matt. I enjoyed that, and it’s explained a few things to me since I did my last exploration around there.
And I shall look forward to the next instalment about woolsthorpe, as I’ve been looking at the area on old maps.
Christmas might get in the way of the next few videos, Steve. Thank you as ever for watching@@LeiceExplore
Fab! Amazing how much detail in this. Huge amount of research. Thanks.
Thank you Gordon
Glad this popped up … terrific post .. thank you …
Kist another gov.pawn GIT ! destroyed our once proud railway system
Nice article but one branch line has not been discussed I.e. the branch which served Groby granite. This however may have been a private venture! This extended from the Groby quarry (Groby Pool is near the works entrance) to a junction adjacent to the Glenfield brick works I.e. between Ratby and Glenfield adjacent to the current M1. Also here during the First World War was an ammunition works known commonly as the Dumps. A second set of sidings also existed at the Western side of Ratby (again known as the Dumps) which latterly served the Alexander Stone Co.
Is this branch different to the Groby Granite branch that appears at 10:09 and disappears at 13:49? I walk this branch on a regular basis on my way to Sheet Hedges Wood and Bradgate Park and the A50 road bridge creates a curiosity to its existence here.
You seem to have overlooked the branch line from Ratby to Groby granite quarry. Also there was to the west of Ratby serving Alexander stone works. During the First World War east of Ratby near to the Groby granite junction there existed an ammunition works connected to the Ratby Glenfield section. The location was referred to as the Dumps. A buffer block is still extant here next to the M1.
Great video
Great video but you have misunderstood the iron. England has massive quantities of iron ore, most is siderite (iron carbonate) "iron stone" but the iron content is really low (e.g. 30% iron) and needs a lot of processing. It is much cheaper to buy more expensive iron ore from abroad because even though more expensive per ton the best stuff (70% haematite) can be crushed and added to blast furnace directly. The iron is plentiful here, just too low quality
Thank you. I shall add this extra information into the ironstone video which I am still labouring away at
Excellent video and superbly explained via a timeline. I remember the goods yard at Loughborough Derby Road station, walking around the perimeter on my way to Rosebery Junior School. Condemned wagons were stored there for many years before disposal. The station main building survived into the 1960s, and the Station Hotel was an active pub into the 2000s. It had an odd exterior gents urinal which was a useful watering hole on the walk back from town after a few beers. Nostalgia is not what it used to be.
Great job on this one
Great vid thanks some if best on local railway
When can we expect your Ironstone 'Vale of Belvoir' video you mention ... ? Highly anticipated.
Thank you for the interest. The most difficult challenge I've had. With only one real source of information (Ian Tonk's books) and some other unreliable information that backs it up but also gives different perspectives, and trying to explain the different gauges, contours and gradients it's proving difficult - especially as I want to show them (as I always do) in chronological order. Coupled with my other volunteering work at Glenfield Tunnel (and encouraging the city council to allow us to extend the tours all the way to the end) it's taking considerable time to compile. Then there's the different companies involved in ironstone mining and all the equipment. As of 22 July I'm probably 40% complete on the map drawings but the compilation of the background of the railways and the subsequent closures will fall in place quickly when the maps are complete. I've had to redraw them a number of times. After this, I've only the Great Central and the M&GNR to cover and in between the headaches I've been giving myself, I've been working on those too. There are others planned after this such as the Ticknall tramway and version two of the introduction. I'm glad you're enjoying them. I honestly couldn't tell you when but I will have more time on my hands in August and once September is over.
Thanks for responding. I have explored this iron ore branch on many occasions, Harston , Denton, Harlaxton, woolsthorpe. Some of the original loco's from it are at Rocks By Rail, Cottesmore. I believe it was Stuart & Lloyd's who opened the quarry at Woolsthorpe... hope you manage to document this branch and do your video. Kind regards.
Very informative and well made video. Thanks.
Why wasn't a spur built to allow access to Peterborough?
Thank you for your comment. Neither the Midland nor Great Northern would authorise the private railway to join their tracks, so no spur could be built. This was also the opinion of the LNWR as it would allow railways in competition with them to access their own routes - such was the complexity of such a large railway network run by opposing factions. Grouping would have resolved these issues, but most of the railway had gone by then, and no logical route would require building spurs in either direction. Peterborough was accessible by all three railways, so except as a 'via' route calling at other companies stations, spurs wouldn't have been of any benefit without incurring costs, and building spurs after 1948 nationalisation would have been quite spendy at a time when money was not in free demand.
@Matt Davis thanks for this. A sad waste of a fab route.
Very good video. I never did like Beeching (or Marples, who was just as blameworthy). O ne point - please, Matt, this is England - please talk in MILES, not wretched kilometers !!
Thank you for the comment, much appreciated. We (the UK) adopted the metric system in 1973 and all educational establishments were using it by 1988. Although railways do still use miles, chains and yards, I do my best to adopt BOTH systems in other videos in order to cater for a worldwide audience. In my humble opinion, kilometres and metres are so much easier to calculate and break down than how many times 22 goes into 1760 - I'm not old enough to remember tanners and florins so I've always worked on decimalisation, based on the number of digits on my hands. Rest assured though that the subsequent series of videos should meet your requirements.