Sawley Junc Station for Long Eaton & Signal Box - 1952


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  • 4 years later...

I guess the signal box was a necessity because of the junction to Trent which was immediately after the bridge veering to the left of the picture.

On the subject of Long Eaton stations, Sawley etc. has anyone got a picture of the original Breaston station?

(The one that was sited at the bottom of Sawley Road).

I believe it was renamed Sawley to prevent confusion with Beeston.

Then it was superceded by Sawley Junction (now named Long Eaton).

Draycott was then re-named Draycott and Breaston.

All very confusing huh?

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True. Seen at the end of the Nottingham-bound platform was a junction signal - for trains heading towards Loughborough/Leicester/London the two right hand pegs were pulled. For those going towards Trent and Nottingham it was the top peg on the right (the starter) and a distant on the middle arm. Anything going down the north curve to Trent had a separate starter peg on the extreme left (off the picture). Not much went round the curve during the day - although I think a train from Derby to London used it to call at Trent about 1 o'clock in the morning. There was also a local freight came that way about 7 in the evening. (I'm talking of about 1954-57). I seem to remember there was also a local freight that shunted in and out of the sheet stores about the same time. At the time there was a (supposedly) private footpath for sheet stores workers, that started at the end of Roosevelt Avenue (the signalbox was directly above). You went over a style where the fence is now, and the path ran along the base of the embankment before rising up to track level to cross the Erewash canal. The sheet stores were also served by a narrow gauge railway that ran through a tunnel under the embankment, linking the buildings on either side of the main line. Work at the sheet stores was punctuated by an air-raid type siren that marked starting and finishing times and a five minute advance warning at 7.25.

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That's the one - there was always a gang of lads sat on that stile trainspotting - mainly Jubilees on expresses, with a few Royal Scots and Britannias, lots of Black Fives and a sprinkling of Patriots and Crabs. Freights mainly 8Fs, also 4F 0-6-0s (traditionally known in the works as "Big Goods"). Locals before the introduction of DMUs in 1958 were a variety of 2P 4-4-0s, 2-6-4 tanks and Ivatt 2-6-0s. But there were lots of exceptions to the rule and non-Midland types appeared often - B1 4-6-0s and for a time Great Central A5 class 4-6-2 tanks. Well, you no longer have to suspect - you now know that I'm a nutcase. But it will all mean something to the railway cognoscenti out there!

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  • 5 years later...

I seem to remember the Station Master at Sawley Junction (Mr Manning?) telling me in the early 1960s how the Royal Train would sometimes stop overnight on the North Curve, and on one morning Royal Protection coppers wandered into the station asking where they could buy fresh bread. Don't know if that's true or not!  In the 1950s the pair of Victorian wooden waiting shelters at the top, on opposite sides, had gas lights. Now they have been replaced by a pair of modern monstrosities. 

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