Greeni's Creeper signals

[PFX]

You two should start a BR reminiscence thread. I'm not saying that jokingly, but rather because your stories are interesting and entertaining. It's a social history of sorts.

Cheers,
Innis.

[Nexusdj]

Is Bescot still open Dave? It looked a very bleak place the last time I passed by there on the Motorway (4 or 5 years ago now. Wow! Where does the time go?)

The yard is still open but its mostly for infrastructure trains , I think the main downside yard (North end) is more for storage now . The main block was demolished a year or two ago and was replaced by portacabins . The down tower was demolished after they resignalled the area . There are some ground staff but they got tuped over to GBRf who now operate the yard . DBC got rid of the shunt engines and shunted for a while with whatever mainline loco was available , As soon as GBRf took over they brought back 08 shunters that are hired in and I'm sure I was told that some of the ground staff where trained up to drive them so they are now dual purpose . The remaining Bescot and Saltley DBC drivers are now west midlands traincrew and book on at whatever place they start from .

The north end yard was under threat from being lifted and being replaced by a new build concrete sleeper factory , which is to replace the one currently at Washwood Heath west end which is to be demolished to make way for the HS2 mainline out of Brum (The old Metro Cammel works site is to become the new HS2 depot) . The existing stone and Tarmac facility which is also in the way is being moved over to the former Washwood Heath UP side yard site .
As for the plans for the concrete sleeper factory at Bescot north end Sandwell council rejected it after a huge uproar from the local residents over noise , dust and lorry movement concerns . Network Rail then put in a new set of plans to move the site to the tame bridge end of the yard but I think that's been rejected as well .

Sleeper factory
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/loc ... -planners/

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/201 ... -planners/

https://consultations.networkrail.co.uk ... -facility/

https://www.therailwayhub.co.uk/1415/pu ... ant-plans/

But that's not the end of the story for the North end yard as West Midlands Railway have submitted plans now to build a new EMU depot which will cover the existing depot site , some of the north end yard and the old steam shed site . This is to house the new EMU's that they have ordered , Soho isn't big enough and they where looking at the old carriage and wagon site at Duddeston , but they would need to extend out further taking up land from a park and it will need extensive signalling and track work to plumb that site back into the network.

EMU depot article in the Express and Star : https://www.expressandstar.com/news/tra ... r-factory/

West Midlands Railway : https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/newtraindepot

You two should start a BR reminiscence thread. I'm not saying that jokingly, but rather because your stories are interesting and entertaining. It's a social history of sorts.

Cheers,
Innis.

Sounds like a good idea though some of the shenanigans I've witnessed over the years are probably best left off the net

At this point I'll apologise to Gary and the mods for hijacking his signalling thread .

[cyberdonblue]

My apologies too, Gary. Must be the lockdown... oh hang on a minute. I seem to remember it's happened before somewhere (several times .) Sorry

Cheers

Dave

P.S. Thanks for all the info, Dave. I wasn't aware of any of it.

[Nexusdj]

Sorry for one final off topic post...

You two should start a BR reminiscence thread. I'm not saying that jokingly, but rather because your stories are interesting and entertaining. It's a social history of sorts.

We can call it .....

Dave & Daves Tales from the power handle

[Briggsy]

here is a bit of the mgr crazyness first one shows signals 2nd one shows the mgr unloading and the fella's with poles to empty HAA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o7n-8LvKTI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLd5Qq8 ... jreload=10

Thanks for these vids Gary. Very fascinating. I never really knew how the MGR wagons worked when it came to unloading, and I'd also never seen these signals in use before either - so I really enjoyed these videos