One of the things you'll find when you start hanging around with rail fans in the UK is how many train nuts are also fans of 'Real Ale'. Since the launch of CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale)many years back as a pressure group to preserve the diverse brewing scene in England and Scotland and to preesurise the big brewers into retaining cask conditioned beer there has been a sea change in public attitudes to Britains traditional ales. many small pubs have specialised in keeping a varying line up of guest ales served in the traditional way. One of the unexpected things to come out of this has been the appearance of great drinking spots on railway stations which also happen to be Rail 'Hotspots' One such is 'The Mallard' a real ale pub on the station platform at Worksop station in Nottinghamshire. With your indulgence I'll give you a potted tour of this classic railway station back during the 1990's when the class 58's pounded through on coal trains from the Nottinghamshire pits to the power stations on the river Trent. My friends and I spent many a happy hour sat in 'The Mallard' drinking Ale, talking rubbish and dashing out with cameras and camcorders when we heard the crossing barriers go down! Worksop is on the Sheffield-Lincoln section of the Great Central Railway and was the hub of the North Nottinghamshire coal traffic with a large diesel depot and wagon repair facility. Along with its Southern neighbours Shirebrook and Toton it was one of the best areas to see the class 58 Co-Cos with their unusual cab layout which gave them the nickname 'Bones' 58 027 heads East with a 33 wagon long MGR rake in May 1994. The architecture of Worksop station reflects the affluent nature of the railway that served the coalfields and agricultural area of North Notts Some idea of the extensive rail traffic around this town can be seen in this 'Quail' map of the town A view towards the platforms showing the very handy footbridge to film from.
Semaphores and signalboxes The area around Worksop was a treasure trove of mechanical signalling until the dreaded 'R' word (Rationalisation) was heard. The section from Kiveton Park through Shireoaks and on into Lincolnshire retained its full complement of original signalling long after Sheffield had been brought under the control of a 'Power Box' Worksop West had stood for over 100 years and controlled the extensive sidings and depot. Worksop East was at the level crossing at the east end of the station. One of the may fine signal gantries in the area. From the footbbridge 58 023 rumbles west an empty rake of HAA coal hoppers past Worksop East box
wow, I am jealous. GREAT beer and a great place to watch trains. Here in the states, it is crappy lagers and normally a bad neighborhood. There are a few stations in a nice area that have coffee houses. Here in the states, most Americans have no idea what good beer is. I'll take a porter please....even in the Sonoran Desert at 50*c
MGRs ? MGR is the phrase that described the new coal trains introduced in the 1960s to streamline the supply to power stations. The idea was to run constantly between the collieries and the power station with fixed rakes of HAA coal wagons. This method of working was described as 'Merry go round' as the trains worked fixed circuits. They did not stop when unloading but discharged their loads at slow speeds with the hopper doors opening and closing automaticallyat about 2-5 MPH. 58 011 blasts up the hill towards the station with a 36 wagon long train in 1993 and passes the repair yard seen below In a landscape scarred by a century of coal mining 58 031 rounds the curve from Hall Lane junction with a rake of emptied bound for Oxcroft Coal Concentration sidings This decptively rural looking view belies the fact that main M1 motorway is in the background and the area is highly prone to subsidence due to the underground workings as a loaded train leaves Seymour junction
What first prompted me to post this ramble was my continuing task to scan in all of my Black and White negs, make a start on the huge amount of E6 and Kodachrome colour slides that i shot and also to edit the 8mm camcorder footage into something I can post on Youtube. here are three chunks of footage taken at Worksop first is footage from march 1997 with long gone colour schemes on the passenger trains and the 58s going strong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMfKTdBiQzk the month after (Ignore the typo on the title page) more action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xVeoSmcMYg The third video was shot in December 1998 during the very short dark days of winter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OwoDjBzh78 58 011 seen at Manton Colliery
The writing on the wall! When British Rail was fragmented for privatisation the freight side was split into sub sectors to reflect the industries they served, eventually a lot of these were bought up by Ed Burkhart of Wisconsin Central (Yes, That One !) and collected under the abnner of EWS. Ed, who did not want the rich diversity of the british frieght fleet placed a huge order with EMD for the now universal class 66 Co-Co. The 58s days were numbered! Even the younger class 60s heavy haul Co-Cos were deemd to be non standard 60 043 in the colours of EWS (English Welsh and Scottish railways) heads east. Some diversity cam from railtours on the Old G.C 33 051 and 33 115 blast through the station on the 'Swineshead revisited' excursion in 1997 KEV
Kev, great photos and film, thanks. Please lift a pint for me, I'll pay you when we next meet....:tb-wink:
Interesting! The earth could swallow a whole train or town... Great tour. I envy you for that footbridge. Most of them in the States have chain link fencing to keep folks from falling and suing, tossing debris, etc, etc. It's hard to find such a clear viewpoint these days. Boxcab E50
Drinking on the train? We had bar cars in Maryland and Chicago....But I poped a cold one in boston and got tossed from the train....
Great post, Kev. I haven't been to the UK since 1974. I do remember some great brews there, like Double Diamond, Watney's Red Barrel, just about everyone's Special Bitter. Loved the Off License pubs with great variety. :tb-biggrin:
I'm trying to understand the trackwork at the bottom of this photo. It looks like a switch (turnout). The reddish rail seems to change from being on the right to being on the left.
You had me at Ales. Neat photos! I gotta get myself up to the UK sometime while I'm on this side of the pond.
Patrick, you are correct, it is a turnout, thus the path of the reddish rail is logical. While the reddish rail appears to change from right to left as it goes through the frog, it actually is the same rail relative to its track partner on the left next to the platform. On the other hand, the darker rail crossing the reddish rail through the frog is part of the track diverging to the right. Apparently the track that diverges to the right through the turnout is the commonly used track, thus is free of rust. Whereas the track continuing straight through the turnout has not been used recently, thus has accumulated a coat of rust. Note that the rail next to the platform, what little of it is visible, has the same coat of rust as its partner.
The rusty track is what you would call the RIP track (Repair in Place) and I think was used for wheelset changes on the HAA coal wagons. As this doesn't happen that often it gets that dark rust colour. It only takes a couple of vehicles going over it to brighten it back up though.
Southeast of Charlotte, NC along a former SAL line in Matthews is Seaboard Brewing. Someone's an SAL fan. Selections include Silver Meteor IPA, Sunland Light Kolsch, Tidewater Red Amber and Juice Train Hazy IPA.
So. What would be my favourite ale and rail venue so far? Llama Dog and Yopa Yopa craft ales bars in Santa Barbara, two minutes walk from the Pacific Coast line and the station? Worth nipping out even though it never rains in Southern California Joes Country Café at Devore at the foot of Cajon Pass, Before, they built the road bridge to eliminate the grade crossings? The Mallard on Worksop station? Betjemans bar on London St Pancras, HQ of the former LMS ? Drinking Ice Cold Singhas in the caddy Shack at Khon Kaen ? ( Which, incredibly, was the surviving roundhouse and turntable at the Thai Railway owned golf course) with the aforementioned Caddies and some golfers fascinated at what the crazy Farang was taking photos of. We kept giving them money and they kept fetching beer from the clubhouse! Any of the Rail-Ale festivals at Barrow Hill Roundhouse ? Good as they all are, it is the Prince of Wales pub at Foxfield on The Cumbrian Coast Railway in England. Google Maps or Earth it and you will find an ariel view of 'not very much'a Station, a small trading estate, a few houses and a PH, Public house Teaser pic.The classic Water tank, Built on a base of Burlington Slate with the Prince behind. At this stage still owned by Stuart and Linda. the crossing allows the public to access the island platforn on this station on the Cumbrian Coast line and in its heyday I will almost certainly ramble on with this for a while More soon Kev
Long before I moved up to the Lake district I used to exhibit Model Railroad layouts at the Easter Furness Model Railway exhibition show C.1987 onwards. The Saturday night party for the exhibitors was the Prince of the Wales. The live band was called 'Live Steam' and was made up of members of the Furness Railway Trust ( The guys who run the the oldest working standard gauge steam loco in the world).The beer was brewed on the premises and the food was fantastic. Stuart and Linda sourced all their ingredients as far as possible within a ten mile radius. When you walked in there was a chalkboard menu on the wall. each item had a row of marks showing what was available and as they sold them they rubbed them off. If you fancied the Lamb Goulash or the Parsnip and Coriander soup, with three different types of homemade bread you had to make sure you got it before they sold them all Time for a train pic One of the now withdrawn, and much detested, class 142 Pacer four wheel railbuses trundles into the up platform looking towards Skelly Crag manual operated level crossing is a first generation British railcar heading for Millom So where we live is two station stops away.Askam to Foxfield has one intermediate stop so it was quite pleasant to walk down to the station and hop on a train to the pub. However most of the people on the train also got off at Foxfield with the same idea as us! Another vintage photo The Pub on the left. The station before much of it was demolished. The Whitehaven and Furness junction railway on the right and the Furness railway Coniston branch on the left The pub (PH) on the trackplan More soon
Obviously Nukes are a common sight 20 306 heads 6C53 Crewe Coal Sidings to Sellafield with three FNA Nuclear Flask wagons. 16th of August 2002 later 20 310 and another 20 and 37 609 are in charge of 6K73 Sellafield to Crewe Coal sidings. It was unusual to see an odd numberof locos on this service. The 20s are paired up so the 37 move was probably to go to Crewe Gresty bridge depot for maintenance The last day of our Class 37s on passenger service on the Cumbrian Coast 37 409 'Lord Hinton' January 2019 displays the commerative headboards More soon Kev
