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Re- Smiley Sal

Sorry I offered to post pics and then never checked back. Well I took some video too so I ended up sticking them all togetther along with some old pics and some pics taken by a brave person who went right inside. on you tube here:

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  • 3 months later...

Maybe a bit late in the day - but I've just found this thread.

Sherwood Station and the allotments at Sherwood Vale were my playgrounds in the late 1940's and 1950's. I derived great pleasure watching a twice weekly goods train (Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings) shunting trucks of bricks and coal at Sherwood Station.

The railway, which ran up to Mapperley Brickyard from a junction on the southeast side of Ashwell's Tunnel, was standard gauge. (There was also a 15" or 18" gauge line running throughout the clay quarry system from Sherwood Vale to Breck Hill, Mapperley.) I well recall the 'brickyard man' sitting astride a buffer as he rode with his charge of trucks down the incline! (No health and safety fears then!) Just to the right of the point from where an earlier posting/picture was taken, of the Brickyard Incline bridge on Sherwood Vale, once stood a brick built hut with a slated roof. Inside this was a full width wooden bench, and a stool. On the wall was an electric bell and a telephone wired through a system of telegraph poles to the cable winding room at Mapperley Brickyard.

Twice a week the brickyard man would ride down with his wagons full of bricks and meet up, near the hut, with the LNER guard from the pick-up goods. Both men would have shunting poles and would discuss instructions for the transfer of the bricks in exchange for wagons of coal and empties. The visiting goods engine would push a mixture of full and empty trucks over the points at Ashwell's Tunnel and round the steep curve to the hut. It was here that LNER territory met up with Nottingham Patent Brick Company railway. Here, the NPBC man would secure the steel rope to a chain and shackle, then hook it on to a rake of 5 or 6 trucks. Through means of a bell-code he would signal the winding room 'up top' and away the convoy would go. I used to watch this procedure countless times during my school holidays and Saturday mornings.

Meanwhile the LNER guard would walk along the line of remaining trucks pinning down their brakes so that the engine could safely uncouple to continue with work at St Ann's Well and Thorneywood stations. As my father had an allotment on the railway land, to the left of the Sherwood Tunnel portal (1442 yards), I used to climb down the embankment and stand on the platform, waving to the crew, as the train trundled into the tunnel. ( See attached photo: I used to stand near to the platelayer's cabin in the foreground.

On Sunday 9th February 1930 the line was singled, signalling removed - and later the main station buildings at Sherwood were demolished. Local folk scavenged the timber to build sheds and greenhouses.

In my youth I remember seeing only three passenger trains on the line. Two during the summer of 1949 originating at Basford and running through to Thorneywood and return. The third and final being already referred to as the RCTS special excursion just before the line finally closed - and which I watched pass Sherwood station in both directions.

Until closure there remained the signal box, weighbridge, lamproom, nameboards for both tunnels, two groundframes (one at Ashwell's Tunnel and one at the northeast end of the station platform) and a very well maintained permanent way.

A very recent book The Rise & Fall Of Nottingham's Railway Network : Vol, 1 'Lines In The City' by Hayden J Reed shows photos from the 1950s and 1960s by a friend of mine, the late Tony Hill, who made an archive of the post war Nottm Suburban Railway.

I recommend this website http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/ a joint venture between Notts and Derbyshire Library Services. Go to 'search images' tab and type in Sherwood Station and you will see an early tinted postcard looking straight at the entrance to Ashwells Tunnel (taken from between the platform ends at Sherwood). Also see page 86 in Henshaw. The attached old photo at Sherwood looks towards Ashwell's Tunnel, which is obscured by the bend in the track, and Woodthorpe Park. You can just see the outline of Ashwell's farmhouse on the skyline.

I hope you find the above of interest. Do contact me if you feel I can offer any further information.

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I read it all...was interesting too...but it kept going on about attached photo....and there wasnt one........Ard Dunby.....yep we were :blink:

No attached photo. I was referring to Post#25 from Dick Hatts May 13 2008, 01:31 AM showing the bridge under Sherwood Vale taken from the trackbed of the brickyard branch looking towards the main line. Woodthorpe Park is on the right of the photo.

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rob237, was reading an earlier post of yours re ex LMS enines on the GCR, think you'll find the eastern region was absorbed into the midland? or the GCR became part of the midland region (I think).

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In this months Bygones there is a picture of Sherwood Station taken iin 1905 and also a picture of the suburban railway at Thorneywood in 1904

I wonder if the picture you refer to is this one - or another on this interesting site?

Sherwood2.jpg

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  • 7 months later...

Re- Smiley Sal

Sorry I offered to post pics and then never checked back. Well I took some video too so I ended up sticking them all togetther along with some old pics and some pics taken by a brave person who went right inside. on you tube here:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="

name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Hi All

New to this forum so just like to say Hello to you All

Ive Bin intrested in tunnels for years no I have walked sherwood tunnel and weekday cross and old vic and kirkby tunnel before it was re-opened

Now I would like to go to mapperley tunnel so can anybody tell me where it is and how to get to it and where the best place is to park my car...

My dad worked on railyway at Annesley yard back in his day And he would like to ask as anybody got any photo's of Annesley tunnel as he used to walk through it everyday to and from the sheds and he still remembers the lenth of the tunnel 1001 yards long and some of the cutting is still there down on portland park....

And we are willing to pay A small price for photo's if needed..

Thanks to all for a good forum...

Perry

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Yes Am just off station street back of tesco with the goods line at bottom of my gardon

Thanks for All your replies..

That Annesley website is great Thank you..

Pez

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Must be Bonsall Street! I nearly bought a house down there back in 1978! That "goods line" used to be a major railway thoroughfare - both goods and passenger. Long Eaton station was just around the corner on Station street - where the level crossing is. There used to be a good chippie there too - a favorite stop on the way home from speedway on Thursday nights!

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  • 1 month later...

Yes. Hackett’s abattoir. Regularly blocking the drains down to Daybrook Square, and yes, RHM foods.

Well, Be-Ro flour packing plant but owned by Rank Hovis McDougall’s, though they changed who ‘owned’ it on a regular basis for some reason. Tax probably!!!

Anyway, I worked and did my electrical/mechanical training there.

A rather belated reply but hey, that's one of the benefits of Nottstalgia! Pictures of the Past as is oft-quoted on here has a lot of images of old BeRo scenes and staff and sporting team group pictures. Just search on 'Arnold'.

Regarding Daybrook Station, former local Arnold footballer, Roger Rann makes much mention of his childhood days trainspotting there in his second book about Arnold football and life When Marys Were Kings!. It's quite a lovingly told and 'Nottstalgic' journey generally and well worth a read, even for those not necessarily that interested in football. a nice social commentary of growing up in the Arnold area in the 1950s'.

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I forget where and when I heard this but around the time of the Beeching cuts it seems one of the railway unions (ASLEF or similar?) came up with some plan to keep at least part of the former GCR/GNR routes open? I recall some drawing/plan with I think traffic bypassing Nottingham using the "back route" ( " " there as this was in fact for over 40 years the Great Northern Railway Main Line with at one time over 200 trains a day passing through Daybrook Station and was the last route in Nottingham to have extra lines built to increase capacity) What the plan intended doing with Mapperley tunnel I don't know, and as mentioned don't recall details, Anyone else hear of this?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Don't know whether all you guys saw the bit in the Evening Post, but a new book about the Nottingham Suburban Railway has just come out - by David Birch, who unfortunately had to destroy some of the railway in 1983!

There will be two volumes. The first one (out now) is about planning, construction and opening of the line, and the second one (due September I think) will deal with everything else. Published by Book Law and presumably available in bookshops in Nottm. I got mine from the Nottm Model Railway Exhibition last Sat, and David kindly signed it.

Volume 1 is excellent - with lots of photos I've never seen before and LOADS of maps which should clear up any doubts about what was where. It is 20 quid but very good value and obviously a labour of love. David does tours of the line (what's left of it) so look out for that.

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Any body able to get me a copy?? I'll pay for, it and postage of course , failing that I'll send me mum out on a labour of love !!!!

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Any body able to get me a copy?? I'll pay for, it and postage of course , failing that I'll send me mum out on a labour of love !!!!

Just had a look at Book Law's site - the book's obtainable online from them - see

http://booklaw.co.uk/eshop/product_info.php?products_id=4952&osCsid=cda794c9ed8c1d6a57c31d32e5110033

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