Shropshire Railways E-Book

Geoff Cryer

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

An examination of four hundred years of railways in Shropshire, from the primitive wagonways of the pre-railway age to the county's current rail network and services. Fully illustrated with almost two hundred monochrome and colour photos, Shropshire Railways is an ideal resource for anyone with an interest in this county with its rich railway history, and home to one of Britain's top heritage railways. Including detailed route maps and a survey of timetables over the years, the book covers the pre-railway age and the coming of the main lines, with the opening of the Shrewsbury and Chester railway in 1848; the 'grouping' of the railway companies from 1923 - the Great Western Railway (GWR) and London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) era in the county; the British Railways period from 1948-1994 - nationalization and modernization, passenger and freight trains, and locomotive sheds; the minor lines, the industrial railways and the heritage railways; privatization and the current main line scene. Illustrated with 205 colour and black & white photographs and maps.

Leseprobe

Shropshire Railways

GEOFF CRYER

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2014 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

© Geoff Cryer 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 692 5

FRONTISPIECE: 46229 Duchess of Hamilton stands in the loop beside the main line at Crewe Bank, Shrewsbury, after working in with a Welsh Marches Pullman on 31 October 1982. Preserved steam locomotives were able to take water here, courtesy of the local fire service.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1     The Pre-Railway Age

Chapter 2     The Coming of the Main Lines

Chapter 3     GWR and LMS

Chapter 4     British Railways 1948–1994

Chapter 5     Minor Lines

Chapter 6     Industry

Chapter 7     Preservation, Leisure and Heritage

Chapter 8     Shropshire Railways Today

Selected Further Reading and Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many people. My thanks to everyone who has helped in any way, but especially Russell Mulford and Berwyn Stevens for access to their wonderful photographic collections, Dave Giddins for access to his archives, and Steve Price for checking the draft text (any mistakes remaining are the author’s, not his) and for his photographs.

Thank you to Jamie Green, Charles Powell and Rob Weston for their help with ‘Shropshire Railwaymen’, and to the following for supply of photographs: John Powell at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum; David Postle at Kidderminster Railway Museum; the Industrial Railway Society; the Shropshire Railway Society; the Shrewsbury Railway Heritage Trust; John Chalcraft (RailPhotoprints.co.uk); Phil Darlaston; Robert Darlaston; Mark Norton; Bernard Stokes; Rob Smout; and Rob Weston. All uncredited photographs were taken by the author.

Lastly, thank you to Richard Fairhurst for kindly allowing me to use his excellent ‘New Adlestrop Railway Atlas’ as a basis for the maps – and to anyone else whom I may have forgotten.

Introduction

Four Hundred Years of Railways

Mention the county of Shropshire in conversation in other parts of the country and the outcome will too often be a blank look, a polite smile perhaps. Shropshire? Where’s that? For some, Shropshire is that part of England which must be passed through to get to North Wales. Lacking the more spectacular scenery of its neighbour, the landlocked border county nevertheless has its attractions.

Shrewsbury, the county town, is one of Britain’s finest medieval boroughs, with splendid streets of half-timbered buildings. The town centre is neatly contained within a loop of the River Severn. Barely a quarter-mile (400m) across the neck, the very pleasant walk across that neck and around the river bank, inside the loop, is about 2 miles (3km). In times when proximity to the Welsh border meant uncertainty, the loop made a natural defence for the town; the castle, straddling the neck, completed the defences.

Immediately beneath the castle walls lies Shrewsbury’s substantial and attractive railway station. Despite losing its overall roof in the early 1960s, it is very much a ‘traditional’ large station, whose stone main building has been grade II listed since 1969. Shrewsbury’s signalling, though simplified over the years, remains primarily mechanical, with an interesting mix of upper- and lower-quadrant signals. Severn Bridge Junction signal box, also grade II listed, has been since 2008 the world’s largest surviving mechanical signal box and is likely to remain so for several more years.

The Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is mostly contained within a much greater loop of the Severn, which flows northeast through Newtown and Welshpool, enters Shropshire near Melverley, meanders eastwards through Shrewsbury, ever more southwards from Ironbridge to Bridgnorth, and on down towards Worcester. A.E. Housman’s ‘blue remembered hills’ are well worth visiting. Church Stretton is one of a number of places which, in Victorian times, bore the accolade ‘Little Switzerland’. An exaggeration, of course, but standing on the platform at Church Stretton station and gazing around, it can be hard to believe this is part of the English Midlands. Church Stretton marks the summit of the Hereford line’s long climb southwards from the county town, a notable challenge for locomotive crews in steam days. A plaque on the platform notes its height – 613ft (187m) above sea level – and its longitude. Church Stretton’s true noon follows eleven minutes and twelve seconds after Greenwich, although the coming of the railways would mean an end to ‘local time’.

The railway from Welshpool to Shrewsbury runs little more than a couple of miles south of the river; the Severn Valley line followed the river downstream from the county town. North of the river lies a gentler landscape, more arable with fewer sheep. Radiating through that country are the lines from Shrewsbury to Chester, Crewe and Wolverhampton.

Shropshire’s attractive old market towns deserve exploration, although today significantly fewer are served by the railway. Whitchurch, Wem and Wellington can still be visited by rail, but Market Drayton, Oswestry and Bridgnorth are no longer on the national network. It is, however, towns such as Bridgnorth and Ironbridge that have, in relatively recent years, really helped to put the county on the map.

Bridgnorth was a popular destination for tourists and day-trippers long before the Severn Valley Railway (SVR) began running steam trains in 1970. Today, the SVR is recognized not only as a premier heritage railway, but also as a major tourist attraction on a national level. Almost forgotten until recently was Bridgnorth’s role in early steam locomotive construction – Richard Trevithick’s 1808 Catch Me Who Can, which pulled the world’s first steam-hauled passenger train, was built at Hazeldine’s foundry in Bridgnorth’s Low Town.

Bridgnorth also has what claims to be ‘England’s oldest and steepest inland electric funicular railway’. Similar to seaside funiculars, it is still in operation more than 120 years after its construction.

The Ironbridge Gorge was declared a World Heritage Site in 1986, in recognition of the area’s role in the Industrial Revolution. The Ironbridge Gorge Museum is a substantial and rewarding tourist destination for visitors. Notwithstanding Abraham Darby’s major contribution to industrial history – the first use of coke in iron-making at the Coalbrookdale works – Ironbridge can claim a number of railway ‘firsts’, including the casting of the world’s first iron rails and the building of the world’s first steam railway locomotive in 1802. Two hundred years earlier, across the River Severn in nearby Broseley, a wooden wagonway is known to have existed in 1605. It is possible that it predated the Wollaton Wagonway, the world’s first documented railway, which was completed just west of Nottingham in 1604. A significant mileage of pre-railway age wagonways or tramways existed in Shropshire when conventional railways came to the county in the mid-nineteenth century.

Given this place in early railway history, it is ironic that Shrewsbury was the second to last English county town to be connected to the growing national network of conventional railways. Thomas Telford’s Holyhead road passed through the county and, in the same way, the earliest mainline schemes to be planned for Shropshire would have passed through en route to the Welsh coast for the Irish Sea traffic. In the event, none of those schemes came to fruition – Shropshire’s railways eventually came as lines to serve Shrewsbury. At the time of writing it has, once again, no through service to London. Nor are there any electrified railways in the county.

Shropshire’s railway history may appear contradictory; it is certainly quirky, particularly in geographical terms. The River Teme threads the county’s southern border country, almost from its source in the Welsh Kerry Forest until it leaves the county to the east of Worcestershire’s Tenbury Wells. Tenbury’s railway station, on the north side of the Teme, was in Shropshire. Until 1961, one could travel by rail from Tenbury to Knighton, about 25 miles (40km) upstream. It could take a couple of hours or more, with two changes of trains. Knighton is in Wales, but its railway station, like Tenbury’s, is on the north bank of the Teme, in Shropshire, England.

Geographically, the biggest Welsh railway was the Cambrian Railways (always plural) Company, whose headquarters and substantial railway works were in Oswestry, Shropshire. Today, other than the Wolverhampton line’s stations and local trains, all of this English county’s passenger train services and stations are provided and managed by Arriva Trains Wales.

The magnificent stone frontage of Shrewsbury station, as seen from the Dana footpath on Sunday, 30 June 2013. The line to Hereford was closed for engineering work (lowering the track under a number of bridges along the line, to enable trains carrying large containers to use the route), hence the substitute road coaches in the forecourt.

The railway network of Shropshire, at its fullest extent. Note that the stations depicted did not all exist concurrently.

Trevithick’s 1808 Catch Me Who can was built at the Hazeldine foundry in Bridgnorth – it was the world’s first railway locomotive to haul fare-paying passengers, on a circular track in London. This replica was also built in Bridgnorth, 200 years later. Not quite complete, the loco was on blocks, in steam and rotating its wheels slowly in June 2011.

When the Bridgnorth Cliff Railway opened in 1892, it used the water-balance method, but was later converted to electric power. It connects the Low Town with the High Town, saving pedestrians from a long flight of steps; 21 April 2013.

This working replica of Trevithick’s 1802 Coalbrookdale locomotive was completed in 1990 by apprentices at GKN Sankey’s works in Hadley, Telford. It is regularly demonstrated in steam for visitors to Blists Hill Victorian Town; 30 July 2009.

Shropshire’s involvement with the main-line railways began several years before it had any of its own – this tube for Brunel’s ill-fated atmospheric railways, seen at the National Railway Museum (NRM), York, in July 1984, was cast at Coalbrookdale in the early 1840s.

Minor Lines

Shropshire was once blessed with a wealth of minor railways, each with its idiosyncrasies. The Bishop’s Castle Railway opened (unofficially) in 1865 and (officially) in 1866. The only part constructed of an intended through route, it ran in the hands of the Official Receiver from the end of that year until its inevitable closure in 1935.

The grandiose Potteries, Shrewsbury and North Wales Railway scheme also only partially achieved its ambitions. Opening in 1866, it was closed completely fourteen years later. Reopened by Colonel Stephens as the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway (S&M) in 1911, it was moribund when it became a World War II military railway, which survived until 1960.

The ‘Potts’ extension from Llanymynech to Nantmawr passed into Cambrian hands, and the last mile or so remains in existence, in the hands of preservationists. It connects with a remnant of another minor railway – the Tanat Valley. The first 8 miles (13km) of the 20-mile (32km) branch, which ultimately became part of the national network, were in Shropshire.

The Snailbeach railway, which also became part of the Colonel Stephens empire, was a 2ft 4in (711mm) gauge line opened in 1877 to provide lead mines at Snailbeach with an outlet to the main lines. In its last years, with no usable locomotives, a farm tractor, wheels straddling the rails, was used to haul and shunt its wagons.

The Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway survived until 1965. Like the S&M, World War II extended its life. Despite its distance from the sea, it was operated in its last years by the Admiralty.

Industrial Railways

Despite its generally rural nature, Shropshire had some significance in the field of industrial railways. Its mines had railways and most used locomotives. Ifton Colliery, in the north-western corner of the county, was at one time Shropshire’s biggest mine; its last was Telford’s Granville Colliery, which closed in 1979. Granville’s railway was the last surviving part of the Lilleshall Company’s private railway, which once served mines, a steel works, brick works and the company’s engineering works at St George’s. The company was, for a time, a builder of steam locomotives, though sadly none has survived into preservation. The locomotive Peter, a static exhibit at Blists Hill, first worked at Kinlet Colliery, one of several in the south-east of the county, around Highley.

Ironbridge Power Station had its own steam locomotives, two of which are preserved. Lewisham, from Allscott sugar factory, also escaped the scrap man. The army depot at Donnington, Telford, had its own internal railway system. Although no longer using locomotives, its rail connection, lifted in 1989, was reopened twenty years later to serve the depot and a general freight terminal nearby.

Shrewsbury was a significant builder of industrial locomotives. Sentinel’s economical little vertical-boilered machines were turned out until 1958, then, taken over by Rolls-Royce, the business made a very successful transition to diesel power. Later sold as Rolls-Royce locomotives, Shrewsburybuilt diesel shunting locomotives were widely used in industry.

The subject of railways in Shropshire is both broad and deep. The topics within each chapter would themselves be worth a substantial book, many of which have been published, and many topics have been tackled more than once. This book cannot hope to encompass the depth of those works, but in exploring the breadth of the subject, will perhaps encourage the reader to further study of those areas that particularly catch the imagination – for a good imagination is a valuable asset where much of the county’s railway interest is concerned. Much has gone, and redevelopment has in some cases removed all traces of what was once there, especially within the bounds of Telford.* The appended bibliography may provide a useful starting point for further reading.

*   The Borough of Telford and Wrekin is a unitary authority, historically and geographically located within Shropshire.

CHAPTER 1

The Pre-Railway Age

Earliest Times

Mining for coal in East Shropshire can be traced back at least as far as the thirteenth century, possibly to Roman times. The numerous bell pits and adits were already a feature of the area when the first tentative steps to railway construction were taken. In 1605, a wooden railway carrying coal from Broseley, via Birch Batch* to the River Severn at the Calcutts, was the subject of a dispute between James Clifford, lord of the manor, and his tenants Messrs Wilcox and Wells, who had built the line.

It is not certain when, exactly, the line was constructed. In 1604, the Wollaton Wagonway opened in Nottinghamshire, to carry coal from mines at Strelley to Wollaton, mostly for onwards movement by road to the River Trent. The Wollaton line is generally regarded as the first overland true railway in the world (more primitive wagonways in mines used plain wheels on boards, with pins and slots for guidance). Recently, there have been suggestions that the Broseley line may already have been in existence when the Nottinghamshire line opened – might Shropshire be the home of the world’s first railway?

Without further documentary evidence, that claim may have to remain unfounded. Huntingdon Beaumont, who built the Wollaton line, went on to develop primitive railways in Northumberland, where a horse would haul a single large chaldron wagon. The practice that developed in Shropshire was to haul several small wagons, coupled together – if not the first railway, then perhaps the first trains.