Beeston Rylands level crossing


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Does anyone remember the level crossing into Beeston Rylands pre 1969 (year the bridge was built). Going into the Rylands, on the left would be the signal box and the station would be on the right. After crossing the railway a large building on the left was the Co-OP skin processing plant (Skin Yard to the locals) which had a particularly pungent smell on warm days. Next door to the skin yard was another large house which was being used for meeting rooms in the 1940's. At the side of this house was an orchard and as a young boy in the 1940's I remember a crashed aeroplane in that orchard. I recollect it was a monoplane that had no fabric covering left but the cockpit controls to the flaps and rudder still worked. does anyone else remember this plane and if so do they know a little about how it came to be there. I remember the RAF coming with a low loader after the war had finished to remove the plane and transport it away. Anybody help to shed more light on this mystery plane?

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Shame my dad ain't around anymore as this was his 'happy hunting ground' as a kid !

I worked down Lilac Grove for a while and to get there we used to take a short cut through Beeston Boilers and over the railway line, to save a good 5 minutes on your journey time !!! As (Believe it or not) there were no buses that went down there regardless of the amount of people that worked down there. There was at least 30 of us on our bus alone and they only ran every 50 minutes. It's probably different now, with a bus every 5 minutes.

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I worked as a porter on Beeston railway station in 1957. I remember well the level crossing. During my break times, I used to go up into the signal box to assist the signalman. One of the jobs he let me do was to close the crossing gates. can you remember seeing the big wheel in the signal box?

I remember that one day, there used to be a train from Chilwell depot. it always came when Ericssons were turning out. The crossing gates were always left open for road traffic until the train was ready to depart. This particular day, the train was waiting to go, the guard waved his green flag and the engine driver just pulled away, going straight through the crossing gates. It was nothing short of a miracle that no one was injured as most of the road users were cyclists.

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