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Quote...15 the night of the raid that an underground shelter on Dakyne Street got direct hit and according to him they never bothered digging it out, just levelled ground over debris and bodies, sounds far fetched but then again

didnt they do the same at the COOP Bakery.......just something my owdman used to tell me

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Managed to buy 4 plates in '68 from a schoolmaster friend who had acquired 20 (!) from Derby Works for their brass weight. Paid £70 for Malay States, Queensland, Hood & North Borneo. Idiot that

Hopefully this will be a picture of the last northbound steam special, perhaps some of you recognise yourselves The last southbound York-Bournemouth is the train on the left.

A topic about old Nottm railway stations might interest a few of the train buffs on here !   http://www.nottinghampost.com/news/history/lost-railway-stations-nottingham-220673

Firbeck, I take your point but it does overlook the explosion of motorised road transport in the interwar period which was entirely oil fueled.

There is more on the UK railway industry's post 1890 backwardness here

Really interesting reading Bamber, it's interesting to think that Sentinel were still producing steam vehicles when such dinosaurs should have been consigned to the museums, but yet, I remeber such vehicles being gainfully employed in the late 50's.

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According to Wikipedia the last steam road vehicle was built in 1956. In the final years, most of them worked successfully as tar sprayers, a task ideally suited to the design. I guess the advent of bottled gas as a means of heating the tar, and also the insurance costs and lack of skilled operators, finally did for them.

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Ayup Scriv,

I read somewhere that the oil companies got together and had the law changed with regard to steam wagons, something to do with axle loadings and weight restriction, at the time steam lorries were reaching speeds of 45 mph and with coal being cheap enough they were economical as well.

As you say ideally suited to road working, alongside the steam roller

Rog

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Last couple of posts reminded me of when a mate concreted his back yard, merely to do away with gardening, nosey next door neighbour was trying to see and hear what we were up to so to wind him up we started talking re having a steam roller parked up there which led on to tar boiler next to it and discussion of smell from such plus noise from belt driven log saw ala Fred Dibnah etc! much grumbling and moaning to his wife heard through hedge!

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Thursday 27th...BBC 4:

20:30–21:00 Beeching's Tracks

West

2/6. Simon Calder takes a journey along the West Country's forgotten railway lines.

Rob

Something that got overlooked yesterday, did you see the programme and what did you think.

I know little about the Portishead branch, but looking at Bristols obviously overcrowded road network, it seemed to make sense to reinstate the missing 3 miles of track, most of which seemed to be in place. What seemed to be glossed over however was the fact that it looked as if level crossings had to be brought back into use, if the North Norfolk Railways experience at Sheringham is anything to go by, it costs a fortune to do this, they've had to compromise by planning to put back a tramway style crossing with limited use.

As far as the Minehead branch is concerned, I can see Network Rails reticence in running heritage trains or whatever along the couple of miles of track into Taunton station, it's a busy high speed line and pathing problems would make it difficult.

What it didn't mention was that the relief line from the Norton Fitzwarren junction into Taunton Station was pulled up several years ago, it would have made an ideal route into Taunton, which still has the disused bay platform available, the trackbed is all there, I don't think that anyone has the will to do it, why should they, WSR is a very succesful tourist line, they've just put a lot of money into building a turntable at Minehead and are currently putting in a turning triangle at Norton Fitzwarren, why should they have to chip in to provide the infrastucture for the odd morning and evening commuter train. If they want to run holiday trains to Minehead Butlins, fine, they've had the capability to do this for years. Like the previous programme, they don't seem to tell the whole story.

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Ayup Radford,

That could have been the third road bridge over the Trent if only the stupid planner realised it before they had it demolished, could have relieved all the A52 traffic coming from the east wanting to get into the city,

Great picture, bought back a few memories thanks

Rog

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Ha penny bridge, I can remember paying 1/2d to cross that thing to get to Iremongers pond for a bit of fishing, not long after a load/flock of sheep were driven over it )Ithink from the railway sidings) to graze around the pond, didn't cost the farmer a penny to cross with all them sheep and it ruined the fishing

Rog

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Walked across that bridge and nearly fell in river "liberating" distant signal blade! actually it was 2 seperate decks as 4 tracks wide, as regards conversion to road bridge it was then heavily corroded, but given Lady Bay one converted who knows

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Does anyone know the politics as to why this bridge was demolished, when was it, the 80's?

Surely the Lady Bay Bridge had been converted to road traffic by then, and was probably an older structure, I can't believe that it was so corroded that it had become dangerous.

You should see the state of the old girder railway bridge over the river at Great Yarmouth, it's appalling and a hazard to navigation to at high tide, but it's still there, unloved, but there must be a reason for it.

Perhaps the powers that be were concerned that the existance of the Wilford bridge might encourage thoughts of bringing back the GCR into the city, pity, it would have made a great tram route, linking up Midland Station to the GCR North at Ruddington.

I've just looked at the map of the proposed new Clifton tram route, does this mean that they will have to build a new bridge on the same spot, ridiculous, how much will that cost.

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Let's be honest: the Ladybay bridge is a bodge job. If you were to purpose build a crossing in that location you wouldn't design it so narrow that it barely accomodates two lanes of traffic. But in the context of Nottingham's terrible road network it's better than nothing.

The GC bridge is similar. First you would have the engineering problem of providing suitable road links on both sides of the Trent. And even if this could be achieved you would still have the difficulty of it being insufficiently wide and, I suspect, a lack of overhead clearance for high vehicles.

Demolition Pictures

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As they chose to demolish the existing GC Broad Marsh viaduct only to build another on the same line, and of similar height, don't have too much confidence in the NET planners!

Always considered that the use of the old MR Lady Bridge, despite lacking some width, was a sensible scheme.

Cheers

Robt P.

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Ayup all,

The GC bridge, if I remember correctly was two double tracks which would have made it twice as wide as the Lady Bay bridge, as for access, the A52 crosses the trackbed just before Ruddington lane, quite easy to put a slip road in at the time, at the other end though the road would run parallel to Queens drive or further up the track bed to the Broad marsh area as Rob points out to a perfectly good viaduct above the Broad marsh area and onto the Victoria center, how much closer could you get to the city center?

I could never understand the demolition and rebuilding (at great expense) of the NET bridge/viaduct at Broad marsh either Rob

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Hi Ashley,

I think I read or saw a picture somewhere about the building of this bridge and I think the pillars are mounted on a base that is built on the original bedrock (using casons) or they themselves are built on it, think the picture might have been on "picture the past" or sommat like that, the first structure to cross the Trent in that location was wooden

Rog

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If you checkout "Annesleyfireman" website and look for "Signal boxes" you can get a good picture of the bridge and it's two roads to give an idea of the width, ideal for a road

Rog

Wilfordrailbridge.jpg

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Do rose coloured spectacles come any rosier?

The engineers for the GC bridge put the overhead bracing in for a purpose. Now you're saying that it could be ditched without any engineering consequences. ?????

And when you've built the Clifton Bridge what exactly is the purpose of a road over the - still too narrow - Great Central structure a few hundred yards down the way?

!clapping!

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blow that photo up full size and it gives off a real powerful image typical of what the former GCR was about, Makes me wonder what would have happened had the LNER adopted the Central route instead of the Eastern? who wanted to go to Newark Grantham Doncaster etc anyway?

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Erm...just a mo, keep it in perspective.

This short Trent crossing was the only 4-track stretch on the GC main line between the GW/GC joint at High Wycombe/Ashendon Junction, to the southern outskirts of Sheffield!

Cheers

Robt P.

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I think that the bracing probably is important, why it was needed though is another matter, it's obviously to stop the support spans spreading outwards. I wouldn't be surprised if the structural engineers made a mistake with the original design and chucked them on afterwards.

Not difficult to get round though, higher goal post style bracing with a 45 degree fillet would sort that.

It would have been interesting what they would have done if they had extended the electrification south from Sheffield, there's no way that overhead catenary would have fitted under that bridge in its original state.

When you have a City with a large river flowing through it, all bridges are important, don't forget that there are only two major road crossings between Clifton and Gunthorpe, and of course it was wide enough, one lane each side.

When it was demolished in 1985, I'd be interested to know whether any preliminary thoughts on the tramway system were implanted in the Local Authorities minds, as was said earlier, why the viaduct was demolished from Weekday Cross is very odd, and now it looks as if they will have to spend huge sums of money crossing over Midland Station, but Civil Servants always know best don't they.

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Don't know much about railway history , but the next rail bridge south (Over the main road from West Bridgeford to Clifton ) was demolished because it was a "Low Bridge " and restricted the flow of traffic that could use that access to the city , and the wholesale markets.

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Thats an interesting point, I wonder therefore whether the proposed tram route will cross that road on the flat and they'll flatten all the embankments, or whether they intend to put in a higher bridge.

Incidentally Beefsteak, I read an interesting article in this months Railway Magazine. Remember when you went to see 'Duchess of Sutherland, come through Winsford station in October. Well an unadvertised positioning run involving Southern King Arthur Class 'Sir Lamiel' was running down from Carnforth to Southall and passed the Duchess south of Preston just after 10 that morning, there's a nice picture of them passing taken from the cab of Sir Lamiel, two steam locos passing on the WCML is a bit of a dream, I don't know how long it takes to get from Preston to Winsford, but it must have come through about an hour after you saw the Duchess, shame that Network Rail don't advertise these things to the public on stations, I'm sure that many people would have liked the opportunity to see steam engines come by, they are part of our heritage after all and two in a day on a main line is a real sight to appreciate.

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