Walking the old railway lines after closure.

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

You are right about military installations. I have a wartime OS 1 inch map of Nottinghamshire and there is no sign of Chilwell COD, the gun factory or any airbase. Can't say that I blame them.

[Compo 10,102]

I have a cold war air map of UK and Western Europe. That one shows the bases

[Bubblewrap 3,815]

True, but don't always treat them as gospel. Lots of things weren't updated properly, even when new editions came out. Other things were deliberately missed off - like (until very recently) most military installations

Most of my maps are Ordnance Servey maps so I trusm them to be correct.

My large scale maps(1880s) were the first produced at that scale.

[notty ash 344]

I was referring to Ordnance Survey maps. They really weren't as up to date always as you might think. They also have deliberate (small) errors to catch out other map publishers trying to use their information for free. Bartholomews got caught out that way, I believe.

[Bubblewrap 3,815]

I thought it was A-Z that put errors on it's maps.

[... 1,411]

took track up and removed gates near denby pottery.

[philby 21]

Have decided for my own use, interest etc to put together all the railway photo's I can find that are of interest to me, namely local stations and track features around such, an example being say New Basford, the station itself, the tunnel one end and the bridge carriage works etc the other, anyway whilst looking around I came across a site with chat and found one guy asking where the rat hole etc was, and if it was true (as he had been told) that it was still intact (post was in 2012) seemed to have the idea that if he knew where it was he could dig a hole down to it!

And you know what? I don't know if it is still there! or the actual route if under the new housing or if still there the BT depot or whatever,

Around 1980 maybe earlier maybe later used to go up "the banks", the name some local bikers we met called the area behind that BT depot where sidings and a line to a turntable had formally been after the pubs shut and kipped out some weekends around a bonfire, the land there had already been made safe, bridges over Arnold Rd removed, embankments gently sloped and the dive down to the tunnel filled, ditto the exit plus either side of the bridge under Arnold Rd.

Some time later they started to level the land properly and remove the GCR embankments and Valley Rd Bridge, know at that time the contractors dug down and reopened the bridge under Arnold Rd so tipper lorries could use that to get up to onto the GCR rail bed, know that as I did it myself! but can't for life of me remember 1) if the rathole had been opened up and was part of the route or 2) it had been dug "up" or "out" or 3) left buried and is still thus?

hello ash! it was actually about 1982 when they came back to level out all the embankments and sidings, it was where me and all my mates would hang out. they did indeed use the bridge under arnold road to get big dumper trucks from one side to the other, but the tunnel was not used, what they did was to cut a sloped ramp from what was the G.C.R. embankment towards the bridge, that ironically looked like a slanted railway cutting! there was no trace of the rathole as the bottom of this slope must have been over the demolished and filled in arnold road end of the tunnel. what was semi uncovered at one point was the brick buttresses for the G.C.R. bridge over the lower railway line. at this point in time i had no idea that there had ever been a tunnel there, so completely was its demolition and in-filling.

one more thing, those bikers might not have been as local as they made out, as those embankments were called "top banks" (the G.C.R. line) and "bottom banks" (where the rat hole was) also the bridge over park lane was bottom bridge, with the halfpenny footbridge being top bridge (if you lived on the gayhurst estate this then makes sense!)

[Ashley 288]

Thanks Phil,

Those lads fair bit younger than me, mostly nick names but you may know some? Steve Naylor, Pero Pearson, Muz, Mick Sirs & Scaz plus others, who's name I forget, all local, yes knew Gayhurst, had a "friend" lived on there called Tracey, nice girl! That "road" you mentioned would be that ramp I drove up after going under Arnold Rd, remember also walking from wrecked New Basford station up to Valley Rd earlier but access to bridge looked like anzio beach , coils of barbed wire everywhere!

ps. I recall 2 bridges over Arnold Rd

[firbeck 859]

Quote from Bilbraborn

'​We often 'borrowed' artifacts from SBs. Usually the acid batteries in the basement had been tipped over by yobbos making them dangerous places to enter. The Bakelite labels on the levers were removable and described what the lever did. In Leen Valley Junction Box were brass labels above the set of levers referred to. Such as 'Up line from Basford' and 'Down line from Daybrook'. The little sign on the basement door which said, 'No unauthorised materials to be stored in here' was fastened to my shed door for years.'

Hello old friend, many years (45?) since we last met, I haven't been on here for a long time, but had a look this morning and realised straight away who you were.

You'll be pleased to know that I still have the whole lot that fell into our cycle bags and rucksacks all those years ago apart from one item, the CKPR bridge plate from the bridge near Keswick Youth Hostel that 'fell off' during one of our adventures, an avid CKPR enthusiast offered me silly money for it and I couldn't refuse!

Leen Valley signal box was the first place from which we 'rescued' items and there was a reason for this. My uncle worked as a signalling maintenance engineer on the former GCR lines out of Vic. When they took out Swithland Sidings Signal Box near Loughborough he asked me if I wanted the sign off the box, of course I did, but when he checked if it was OK with the 'Powers That Be', they demanded £25 for it, which was a huge amount of money for a schoolboy to pay in 1965. When I said I couldn't afford it, the b******s made him burn it on site instead, sheer bloody spite on their part. Knowing that the authorities couldn't care less apart from no doubt money in their back pockets, we embarked on a mission to save as much as we could, just think about that stuff at Edwalton Station, nobody cared, we went back a few days later on the tandem with saddlebags attached to retrieve more and the place had been bulldozed to the ground, bit's of torn, sacred documents were just blowing about the yard.

Many years on, I know of an abandoned, completely untouched country station sitting in a farmyard just over the border in Suffolk, the track was pulled up 50 years ago, but it still retains it's peeling LNER green paint and booking hall window with a very tempting loft hatch above it, I wonder what treasures might still be up there.

[plantfit 7,098]

Good to see you back posting again Pete

Rog

[Rob.L 1,027]

On the subject of walking the lines, I noticed a still-intact bridge over the Trent between Torksey and North Leverton when idly looking at Google maps the other day.

http://goo.gl/maps/d7pNc

Anyone been there?

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Wotcha Pete. I remember you borrowing that CKPR sign from Keswick station on one of our school autumn trips to the Lake district.

Can you remember what I said at Edale station in 1966 when we were on that Easter youth hostelling trip? We took a trip to Manchester for the day. As we wanted to keep our tickets, we jumped off the train at Edale and legged it. However. I slipped and fell down on the platform, ripped my jeans and cut my leg. I can't print on here what I said.

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Rob L. Seen that too but is it safe? As a teenager I wouldn't have hesitated but I'm a rickety old 62 year old now.

[Rob.L 1,027]

Looks safe enough from this video.

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Yes it might be safe. It's me that isn't. Last year on a walk with one of the grandkids up the towpath of the Chesterfield Canal at Brimmington, I slipped on the wet grass by the lock and slid down the bank on my arius and nearly ended up in the canal. My wife keeps telling me off for thinking I'm still a teenager.

[poohbear 1,358]

Re your pics at 22 CliffTon this was that area in 1928 showing the pedestrian tunnel I mentioned on another thread.My workshops were where the X is in the 70s.The Daybrook went underground at this point not through the tunnel.

Enlargement from 'Britain from Above'

[Ashley 288]

Take it this was the GNR/NSR junction? great pic, do you have 100yds or so to the right?

[Rob.L 1,027]

Amazing just how much that area has changed in such a short time.

I've also noticed that when I'm walking the dog round there, bricks and hardcore are slowly starting to emerge from the made-up banking as it weathers.

[Rob.L 1,027]

Ashley, this is the original image...

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw020940?search=Daybrook&ref=1&quicktabs_image=2#quicktabs-image

[poohbear 1,358]

Enlargement from 'Britain from Above'

[Ashley 288]

Took me some time for me to figure out what I was looking at! Did not "see" the railway bit at all! Was as if the "area" to the right of top left corner down to bottom right corner was part of the aircraft !!! (I'm cracking up) then suddenly I realised what it was and can,t picture the former image at all! and it's like it's in 3D. can even see through the bridge, and is that a coal train on the GNR? Some of those buildings are I think still there? and I remember that row of terraced houses sunlit on far side of Mansfield Rd, in the late 1960's think all of them minus front gardens were offices and stores/workshops of "Clowers Builders" I worked for them a couple of years, only visited there a few times but still remember the immaculate vivid green paintwork of the doors/window frames etc.think whenever they had a quiet time they'd get the painters they employed to redo the woodwork.

Would that be a railway property right next to the bridge? don't think "Station House" as think that was actually on the down platform at "Daybrook for Arnold" anyway at the back of that property there looks to be a way up to the signal box, no doubt a set of wooden stairs climbed up and down by the shift working signalmen looking after the at one time 216 scheduled trains plus another 19 that ran "when required" that passed that box in a 24 hour "day"

[poohbear 1,358]

Looking at these pictures of 80 years ago....you can understand now what Grandad meant when he said..."When I were a lad this was all fields"

Which is not that different to the older generation now, sat with their grandchildren looking over fields of weeds and rubble and saying... "When I were a lad this was all factories"

[Ashley 288]

And all with a preservation order on it! as per the GNR warehouses

[Cliff Ton 9,955]

The second of poohbear's photos makes the area look incredibly rural compared to today. A "Then and Now" centred on the church - which has survived - shows the changes.

[poohbear 1,358]

That row of trees at 2 oclock in old pic are still there along the edge of the playing field.