Warwickshire Railway's Guest Book: Period 2005 to 2008

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Guest Entries from :  Period 2014  :  Period 2009 to 2013 :  Period 2005 to 2008

Hi! Can anyone tell me what happened to the drivers and fireman at the Stratford on on Avon, Western loco shed when it closed. I left the shed, in the 1950s to go to Old Oak Common then left the railway in 1965.

Many Thanks - Roger Hutton

Great website! Thanks! My parents house on Duke Barn Field backed onto the Coventry Loop Line. I just wish I had the forethought to photograph what we saw over the years. Always wise after the event!

Chris Bevan

Fantastic site! I worked over many of these lines as a driver with BR & Chiltern, sadly they were much changed. Regarding the photograph of Nuneaton shed on its final day with all the staff present. The missing name of the Fireman is Lol Green, later a guard and a C&W examiner at Nuneaton. Lol was a smashing fellow to work with always great fun.

Marc Jones

A fantastic record of a valuable part of our social history. Congratulations to everyone involved, and thank you!

Adam Moore

Hi, I thought you may like the attached photos of D5193 and D7624 Bromford Bridge in the1960s. They are both diesels but you would be surprised how much of a following these have nowadays! Please credit them to www.rail-online.co.uk who own the copyright. We are a new Internet venture and have over 5000 images on the site and a really useful search facility. It would be great if we could have a page on your site. If this is possible drop me an e-mail giving details of the format you need it in and we will provide this. If you need any other pictures off the site just e-mail us, there are a lot of modern(ish) diesels at present but we have thousands of steam pictures to upload!

Cheers Tony

Hi, this is a brilliant site. Well done! I have spotted a couple of errors, image 'mrwhg345' and image 'mrwhg355' are actually Wigston Sidings and ex MR shed, not Washwood Heath. Sorry to give you the news but I thought you needed to know. See Keith Turtons PO wagon book a Fifth Collection.

Cheers Tony

To say that I am gutted is an understatement as these two photos (and the numerous enlargements to show details from the two sets of images - see 'mrwhg345a', 'mrwhg345b', 'mrwhg345c', 'mrwhg345d', 'mrwhg345e', 'mrwhg345f', 'mrwhg345g' and 'mrwhg345h'. as well as 'mrwhg355a', 'mrwhg355b' and 'mrwhg355c') are particular favourites of mine and were supplied by the NRM some thirty years ago with Washwood Heath stated as their location. I checked with Bob Essery and he has confirmed you are right much to my great disappointment. I will be removing the thumbnails soon but will leave the large images linked to the guest page so that others can enjoy the fantastic atmospheric scenes.

I came across your site whilst researching the track and signalling layout of Solihull station. I grew up in Solihull and spent many days in and around the station. My recollections come from the 60s and early 70s during the end of steam and the rationalisation of the lines. Notably the removal of the slow tracks and the abolition of Solihull as a block section and its replacement with Track Circuit block operation. The photographs are excellent but some of the captions are I believe inaccurate.

The platforms were numbered 1-4, 1 being the up fast, 2 the down fast, 3 the up slow and finally 4 the down slow. Thus the fast lines occupied one island and the down occupying the other island. The booking office was on the up fast side and the signal box was on the down slow side. Image 'gwrs268' - this picture is taken on the down fast platform. The up fast is on the right and across the tracks is the up slow. The roof of the booking offices and cycle sheds and be seen on the right. Image 'gwrs266' - this picture is taken from the slow platforms and shows the fast platforms with the booking office behind it. The goods shed can be seen in the distance in the Snow Hill direction. Image 'gwrs266a' the platform edge in view is the down fast. Image 'gwrs274' - taken on the down fast but facing away from Snow Hill. Image 'gwrs274b' - shows the slow lines platform. The signal in the background is the Up slow starter. The higher arm is for departure on the up slow, the lower of the arms allows a train to cross onto the up fast. Image 'gwrs1012' - train standing on the down fast. Picture taken from the station approach road.

Thanks - Nick Milsom

Hi Nick - Many thanks for the correction to my captions. It is important to correct any mistake that I make to ensure the website is as informative as possible but obviously the information needs to be correct . If you see any other howlers (I am not a GWR man and I do find the running line configuration between Solihull and Tyseley a little confusing) please do not hesitate to contact me. If you also feel you can write more informative captions to any photo or biographies of the station please feel to do so. Best wishes - Mike

Hello - the photograph on Andy Doherty's website looking towards Saltley Station and Birmingham is definitely the definitive photo of Washwood Heath Sidings No 1 (third row on the right) which was the mainline box as can be seen. Notice the six windows at the front. Often confused with the sidings boxes which is your photo - Pete Kinsey's was confused seeing it was a sidings photo - I believe your photo is of what I think was called Washwood Heath No 1 under the bridge looking the opposite way at the sidings - very confusing I know. This was a sidings box and can be seen as being taller. I was the Signalbox lad at Washwood Heath Sidings No 1 from1965-67. It was a mainline box and a fantastic job. It was between a single goods line and the main lines as shown. The goods trains should normally proceed on the goods line into Washwood Heath Sidings - a hump shunting yard which had a maze of little boxes.

John Coy

Hi John - Many thanks for your information about Washwood Heath Sidings No 1. Your comment and those of Nick above have spurred me on to re-visit this location next so that I can add more images and correct the captions. Best wishes - Mike

Dear Mike - Many thanks for the website, which due to professional involvement with the recent changes in the Rugby area, has been very interesting indeed. And as you say, it certainly does have a professional appearance. Firstly, I wondered if the image of the view from Rugby No 7 signal box (quality not good) is one already known to you, or of possible use. It has arrived with me ‘umpteenth-hand’ and I have no idea of its origin or the photographer, or the accuracy of the '1936' in its file name. Secondly, I wonder if you know, or would like to investigate at the bottom of your 'MISC' web page the link 'info@warwickshirerailways.com' which appears to be a failed link.

Finally, I am one of many regular contributors to the Forum of 'The Signal Box' website 'www.signalbox.org/forum', in which one of the many ‘threads’ there has lately touched on discussion on unusual ways of indicating junction routing on colour-light signals. I know that Rugby No 7 had some oddities of this type, would like to share this with the group, and some of your photos would help illustrate the point, so I wonder, do you give usage permission against your copyright in these circumstances?

Many thanks. Regards, Stephen ('Steve') Gwinnett

Steve - Many thanks for your kind words and the scan of the photograph which I would agree was probably taken in the mid-1930s so 1936 is most likely to be correct. Thanks too for pointing out the link was not working. Its very helpful if visitors to the site let me know of any issues as with 5000 pages the site is too large for me check on a regular basis. Regarding the use of photos I do grant permission provided the photographer is acknowledged - an acknowledgment of the website would also be appreciated.

This is an excellent collection and really well organised. I've spent many a lunch-time browsing! May I correct your description of Warwick Station in the GWR section? It is described as being one and a half miles from Warwick centre, but in fact is roughly half a mile east from the centre. Warwick Milverton on the LNWR line was about a mile and a half east from Warwick centre but actually in Leamington about a mile west of Leamington centre.

John Tolson

John - Many thanks for the correction. You are indeed correct in that Warwick is only half a mile from the town centre - at least as the crow flies - a bit longer if you go by road!

I saw many of the loco types pictured in your most interesting site. They passed through Bath during and after the war. Though now living in Phoenix Arizona USA I have a small GWR layout as a reminder of the unique atmosphere the company presented.

Cheers - Mike Sargeant

The photos and captions brought back so many memories, especially the ones of Small Heath and Sparkbrook. Thank you for a very enjoyable link to yesteryear. BRILLIANT!

P Battey

Hi Mike - Had a look at your pictures of the gun barrels being moved on the Foleshill Railway. The shot on the bridge was I believe over Widdrington Road - the brick abutments of which are still there. Also, when I was an apprentice at Coventry Gauge and Tool Co., one of the old boys who taught us in the apprentice school was, in his turn, an apprentice in Coventry Ordnance Works and reckoned that because of the very tight curves, especially under Foleshill Road, the barrels had to be slewed across the trolley wagons to prevent them hitting the retaining walls. He was a little chap, even then, and was actually sent down the 15 inch gun barrels with a brush, to sweep out the swarf!

Dave Walker

Well done - a very useful resource.

J E S Bradshaw

Great site for the railway fan, love it!

Tony Kosarew

I have just obtained a copy of Tony Higgs excellent book on Monument Lane. I have a particular interest in this shed because my Granddad Joe Simmons (mentioned in the list of drivers at the shed in 1951) and my uncle George Simmons were both footplate men there. My granddad started work there in 1906 as a cleaner and retired in the early 1950's because of ill health. My uncle started in 1934 as a cleaner and became a registered fireman before going off to war in 1939.

He was seriously wounded at Dunkirk and never returned to the railway. In the late 1960s my uncle recorded his life on the railway but unfortunately he was never able to get it published. It's a very detailed account of the times and makes compelling reading but because of its length and lack of photographs the publishers never considered it commercially viable. A great pity. Ironically he died last year at the age of 89, I'm sure he would have liked to have contributed to Tony's book.

Bruce Morgans

An invaluable website for the train enthusiast. Congratulations!

Kevin Parrish

It is good to see these interesting photographs. Tamworth is no longer the fascinating place it once was!

Firstly, No. 1676 'The Nile' (image 'lnwr_tam1261' is not a ‘Newton’ but an ‘Improved Precedent’ or ‘Big Jumbo’. The original ‘Newtons’ and ‘Precedents’ were replaced by ‘Improved Precedents’ between 1889 and 1901, No. 1676 being replaced in 5.1891. Secondly, the date ‘circa 1919-1923’ must be, at best, a wild guess, as there can be no evidence for it whatsoever, and several features of the engine and tender enable the date to be determined more precisely at an earlier period. Firstly, so far as I can see from the computer screen, the engine has no centre lamp socket on the bufferbeam. This fitting was required from 1st February 1903, when the LNWR, along with most other companies, adopted the Railway Clearing House head lamp codes. So the date must be before that. Secondly, another early feature is the stanchion by the tool box on the front of the tender. This supported the communication cord on its way to the second whistle on the cab roof. This system was done away with over time in the early twentieth century but had certainly gone by the post-war period. Thirdly, coal rails were first fitted to tenders in May 1895, so the date must be after that. In fact, The Nile was scrapped in 9.1906.

Incidentally, some writers on LNWR locomotive history have used lurid language about the scrapping of the Webb three-cylinder compounds – ‘the slaughter of the Webb compounds’ and even ‘the slaughter of the innocents’ – but in fact all the Problems and Jumbos that were scrapped before the Great War were newer engines than the compounds. Finally, two more points: in view of the head lamp code, the train is likely to be an up express, rather than a Stafford to Rugby local, and LNWR engines were only coded by the LMS as ‘1P’ or whatever after the Grouping. Perhaps a better caption would be: LNWR ‘Improved Precedent’ 2-4-0 No. 1676 The Nile at Tamworth with an up express sometime between May 1895 and February 1903.

The second photograph ('lnwr_tam1243') requires fewer comments. Although the class was originally known as the Alfred the Great class, they were all soon modified with separate valve gear for the outside cylinders, as seen here, and with the long splasher above it. The first to be so modified was No 1952 Benbow on 22nd September 1903, and for that reason the modified engines were generally known as ‘Benbows’. The head lamp code, ‘one on the right’, is that adopted in May 1919, replacing ‘three on the bufferbeam’, and denotes a ‘through goods’. In later years the three cattle wagons would have been vacuum-fitted but the entry in ‘LNWR Wagons Volume One’ makes this unlikely, though perhaps a wagon specialist will comment. Finally, may I suggest that Prospero (Mike Musson's pen name) acquires two books which between them contain all the above information. Both are out of print but almost certainly available second-hand: ‘British Locomotive Catalogue 1825-1923 Volume 2A and 2B London and North Western Railway and its constituent companies’ compiled by Bertram Baxter and edited by David Baxter, and ‘An Illustrated History of LNWR Engines’ by Edward Talbot

Ted Talbot

Ted - Many thanks for the information it was very informative. I have also added the books to my want list for future reference. I did have both books years ago but when I went to Spain I had to reduce my books to a handful because there was just no space for storage.

I'm just a browser with good memories of train spotting down south years ago, but I greatly appreciate the efforts you have made.

Mike Barham

Further information for you image 'Inwrrm 1056' the locomotive behind No 41909 is No 41902. I know because when I lived in Rugby I went on both locomotives' footplate whilst they were being stored. In 1959, the probable date of this photo, I was aged 12.

With best regards Dane Garrod, Abingdon, Oxon

Thanks Dane for the information which is now added to the page - Mike

A very good website. I found you looking for information on the GWR '2021' Class pannier tanks. You have a great picture of 'No 2036' outside Tyseley roundhouse. Do you know when the photograph was taken as I wish to build one in Gauge '3' with the open cab as in your picture?

Ian Norman

Ian the date on the reverse of the photograph taken by Leslie Good is 21st June 1931 - Mike

Congratulations on a superb site. I've just been browsing the photos of the old MR shed at Bournville, which brought back many memories. However, I was intrigued by the reference to the MR 'Flatirons' as being 0-6-2T's in a number of the shots. This should surely be 0-6-4T.

David E. Whittington

David - You are absolutely correct they are 0-6-4T's - I have booked an appointment with Specsavers and started my medication for senility!

Great site - keep up the good work! I wish there were sites like this for all counties - what a resource that would be! One suggestion I would have to add to the site would be a link to locations on to some mapping software, such as Google maps... For example, I was looking at Leamington Shed and wondering where it was - this is where the link would be perfect! Feel free to get in touch if you need assistance - I'll help out if you choose to implement such a thing... Anyway, keep up the good work!

Kind regards, Chris Allen

Chris - Coincidentally I have added a Google map to a photo of Atherstone. Your idea is a good one and perhaps we can liaise off-line regarding your kind offer of help.

Mike - May I offer a possible correction to Michael Byng’s comments on the dates of the photograph of No 5579 at Canley Crossing as seen in image 'lnwrchg544'. The photograph was taken on 23rd August 1936 when No 5579 was at that time on a three months loan to Camden from Aberdeen Ferryhill. Also the credit for the photo should be given to HW Robinson copy right 'Steam Archive'.

Regards John Hyde

Morning. Such a minor point but that is life Braunston in Northants on the Weedon line is 'e'less Braunstone in Leics has the blessed 'e'. Can you point me in the direction of any information about an accident at Birdingbury on the Rugby to Leamington line in 1856 or at Draycote in 1859 ? Fascinating photos.

Best wishes Chris Barney

Chris - You are absolutely correct and the first person to notice the error in the three years since I started the site. I can change the Home page but the other LNER pages will need the help of my son to search and replace because of the number of pages to be changed. As he lives in London I will have to wait until next time he is up in Stratford upon Avon. Regarding your query about the railway accidents, I have tried a number of sources to find out the information you required but to avail. I suggest a visit to the local study centres in Coventry/Rugby and Warwick to look through their newspaper files as most accidents were recorded in the press. If you do get any information please let me know.

What a 'GREAT' site, brought back memories of Henley in Arden where as a 5 year old I was placed in the care of my grandfather in the 'box' whilst my mother went to Stratford shopping on the train. The loco in 'gwrha467a' is coming off the storage sidings (the left hand line went to the Old Station yard) which were often used. Quite often stock was routed to Platform 3 to form a stopper service (as against the Semi-fast) to Moor Street once the loco had run around - and why there was a headshunt to allow for overlap and not interfere with the up line operations. Thanks for taking me back in time! Is it possible to obtain a high definition copy of this picture?

Martin Green

Hi Martin - Many thanks for your kind words and the information about the photograph which I will update soon. Regarding your request for the photograph, I have now seen this photograph for sale from several sources and suggest you contact Roger Carpenter for a copy. Roger also sells copies at Photograph Fairs and Model Railway Exhibitions two of which I can personally recommend. These are - The Kidderminster Railway Museum, normally the first Saturday in January and July each year and the Leamington and Warwick Model Railway Exhibition which this year was held on 21st January 2009.

Regarding Henley-in-Arden, you will be pleased to know that I have acquired a number of photographs of both the new and old station which I will be addressing in a couple of months time. I am currently revisiting the Trent Valley line and after Nuneaton has been complete this will hopefully not take too long. Nuneaton has been a bit of a marathon as there will be some 150 extra photographs added when complete - hopefully by this weekend. I will then be returning to the North Warwickshire line to complete the Stratford to Tyseley section.

Hi - I've just been looking at your photos and getting so nostalgic! Regarding Bournville station and Bournville Lane: 'mrb476' and 'mrb488' are in fact taken from the same side of the Bournville Lane overbridge. The other end looks quite different being an older structure. It is the canal bridge. I can do you a photo if you want.

Best wishes - John Bishop

Thanks John for both the kind words and the information which I will update at the weekend. Regarding a photograph, many thanks for the kind offer but I do not need you to provide a copy to prove you are correct. Having checked the two images with new eyes I can see that you are indeed absolutely right.

I have to be careful in adding post 1968 images and information as the website is already problematic with the amount of work that still needs to done. Both in terms of revisiting existing photos to improve their quality and to increase their size in addition to uploading new photos and then having to write the captions. If I reflect on the size of the task ahead it can get very daunting. However if you can point to me to other photos of the pre-1968 scene then this would be very useful as this section of the website needs strengthening.

I find your website most interesting and especially the old photo's of the old East & West Junction Railway station at Stratford. My Great Grandfather lived in the railway cottages adjacent to the station when he worked there as a Permanent Way Inspector. He collapsed and died in the waiting room in 1902 on returning from Blakesley Hall.

Best Regards Keith Bolland

Hello Mike - I am perusing your excellent website on Warwickshire Railways. Super stuff and excellent photos. Regarding one photo: Entitled 'Whitacre Junction Station: mrhiaj392'. It shows an MR 0-6-0 loco at the original (1839) Hampton Station. (Not Whitacre Junction as titled), originally called Derby Junction as in other photo.

Colin Maggs has suggested that this train is leaving the station, but your narrative raises some questions about this view. I researched this line in considerable detail when writing "The Stonebridge Railway" back in 1992/3. I have various maps and track layouts and therefore I would make the following comments: The line upon which the loco is pictured is part of the double track layout as shown in the 1903 Ordnance Survey maps. The line curves around to the right to join the single line section just past MP 6 1/4. The signal box shown is not the LMS one on the London-Birmingham Down line. It was on the MR branch, positioned between the two running lines in the yard of Wyckham Blackwell, just north of the station.

Its position is clearly shown as SB on the 1903 map. The shadows are therefore consistent with a morning sun from the East. The loco and single coach are either on their way into Hampton, or are returning to Whitacre, with loco running tender first and propelling the coach. It is difficult to determine which, as the single daily train went from Whitacre to Hampton and then straight back. But as the driver (or fireman) appears to be looking backwards, I would therefore support Colin's analysis.

Best regards - Roger Waring www.pianola.co.uk

Following the above guest entry, Roger has subsequently contacted me as follows, "As your website is so comprehensive I would like to put my research materials at your disposal. My book is now out of print, and so anything from it that you might consider useful would at least help to keep the information in the public domain. Specifically: Loan of a copy of my book, Original and copied photographs, Copies of 1903 maps, MR track diagrams etc.".

Needless to say I am very pleased that Roger has kindly offered the fruits of his extensive research to the website. Such calibre of information will help to move the website up many levels from just being a photo library to a resource of serious historical information. I just need to persuade Roger to be the webmaster of this section of the site!!!

Hello there - I wonder if you can help me. I'm trying to locate a track layout for the original Snow Hill station before it was so tragically ripped down in the 70's. I'm sure there were more platforms that there are now and I'm interested in any associated plans of the station itself. The problem is that I am a complete novice to all of this and I have no idea where to start looking.

The reason for my interest is that I'm finally getting to grips with a promise I made to myself many years ago to construct a replica of the old station in OO/HO gauge. Finally I've got to a stage where I think it is doable, but now I need information on its layout. Any pointers you may give me would be much appreciated. By the way, I'm using my dad's email at the moment. My email address is: paulmarson@blueyonder.co.uk.

Thank you for your help - Paul Marson

Dear Mike. Some time ago I sent you a potted history of Monument Lane engine shed taken from research that I carried out in preparation for a book about the shed. The book is now completed and my research has unearthed some additional information and corrections to the original note that I sent you. I have therefore attached an updated version. The book is called 'Monument Lane Loco Shed' and can be obtained from me at 22 Maxstoke Close, Matchborough West, Redditch B98 0EJ, price £11.95 plus £1.40p&p.

Keep up the good work on your excellent site and very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Tony Higgs

I think you have done a great job with this site. I worked on the railways as a cleaner/fireman, I started in Pwllheli in 1960 and then transferred to Leamington Spa in 1961 and stayed there until 1964, but I was young then, and made the mistake of transferring again to Willesden Junction, I stayed there about a year, then I left the railway to go on the Queen Mary as a fireman, your site brings back many great memories.

Thanks - Bernard Roberts

A really interesting site, well done. My grandfather was a signalman at Newbold on Avon signal box in the early 1900s.

In response to an earlier query as to whether the GWR at Stratford upon Avon had a turntable.

Hi Adam - the Great Western did not have a turntable at their Stratford on Avon station although the LMS at their SMJ Stratford upon Avon Old Town station certainly did. I was a fireman on the Western in the 1955- 1960 I then went to Old Oak Commom and left the railway in 1965.

Roger Hutton

An excellent website, as there is little else available on the Railways of my home County. Many thanks for putting it together, and be assured that I shall be spending many a happy hour revisiting the pages for new detail.

Best Wishes, Roger Clemons

I find this an absolutely fantastic site, I worked on the railway in Nuneaton but lived in "Beduth". I especially like the Abbey Street part of it as I spent many working hours there. I would love to speak to the person who is responsible for this site, by e mail, I live in Bletchley now, but that is another story from another railway town. But Nuneaton was the place that I loved and miss so much even today. I am retired now and disabled, but when I talk to other retired railwaymen here, from Bletchley, I still like to be known as the "Nuneaton man" Well done for a fantastic brilliant site.

Peter Walduck - Bletchley

Hi - I am Vice-Chairman of the East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society. I think you are doing a great job. The value of it will only become apparent as time goes on...

David Flood

Hi - A great site bringing back lots of memories for me. I was a fireman and station porter at SALTLEY in the 1960s and 70s. Great times!

Barrie Jeremy

Does anyone remember the access to Leamington shed (road name)?

Michael Austin Elkington

The shed was located at National Grid Reference SP 3121 6530. The site of an engine shed is marked on the Ordnance Survey map of 1886. It is situated west of Leamington Station.

Dear Mike - I live at Birdingbury, not far from what's left of the Birdingbury Station on the old Rugby-Leamington line. I'm retired and I've joined a Warwick University course on local history. For my written assignment I decided to find out what I could about that line - and that's how I came across your superb and very helpful website. If you or any of your contributors happen to know of anyone else I might contact who has expertise in the history of the line I'd be glad to hear from them. Meanwhile, again, many thanks for a fascinating web-site which has already stolen one afternoon from me and doubtless will do so again.

Leslie Turner - gleberise@aol.com

Excellent program. I am ex-Coventry. Now retired in Wiltshire. Lifelong rail enthusiast and photographer. Have some 50's & 60's B&W's, around Coventry, are you interested?

Best wishes, Vaughan Gallois

You are to be congratulated for the development of such an excellent web site, useful equally to the historian and railway modeller.

Phil Coker

Excellent site keep up the good work!

Peter Hepworth

The year was approximately 1946, and my 4th grade class was assigned "pen-pals" in England. My pen-pal was Anthony ("Tony") Williams, and his address was "Station House, Salford Prior, Eversham, Warwickshire, England". Tony and I corresponded for several years, and both our mothers also began to exchange occasional letters.

We lost touch after awhile, and I have always wondered what became of Tony in later life. We were about eight or nine years old at the time, and now, at age seventy-one, a wave of nostalgia has hit me! I believe that I saw a list of British individuals who have taken responsibility for the histories of specific stations, but I failed to record the e-mail address of the person who dealt with Salford Prior.

Just for the record, my father's forbearers came to the "new world" in 1635, settling in Milford and New Milford, Connecticut, and my mother's forbearers arrived in 1638, settling in the area of Stonington, Connecticut. I was raised in Wapping, Connecticut. I'm sure you can guess the origins of that place name! I now live in western Pennsylvania. Sir Patrick Duffy, former First Lord of the Admiralty under the Calligan government, is an old and dear friend of mine.

With Warm Regards! Edward E. Platt, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Political Science Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Great site, we are tracing Angie's family tree, her great-grandfather was station master at Birdingbury 1888 to 1917? If you have any info or know where there records to search then these would be most welcome. We are also very interested in the origin of the pictures on your site.

John Angie Howlett

Hi John - I do not have any information myself but if anyone else can help please contact John and Angie via their email address which is - John.Howlett@tesco.net

Regarding the photographs, I think but I am not sure that one if not both came from the Lens of Sutton collection. You could also try Roger Carpenter and the Kidderminster Railway Museum.

Before I get down to the reason for contacting you let me introduce myself. My name is Harold Pearson I am 67 years of age. served a five-year apprenticeship, 1956 -1961 as a jig and toolmaker with Metro Cammell, Saltley. In 1969 I departed overseas as a volunteer and thus started a career of 35 years in development aid. I have been involved in small-scale industrial development in a number of developing countries in Africa and Asia; I now reside with my Chinese wife in Cambodia. My life long hobby has been model engineering; I have constructed two passenger hauling live steam locos and am currently constructing two 7.25 gauge locos in Cambodia. When complete they will be exported and sold in UK.

The reason I am writing to you is that as well as model engineering I also write the occasional article for The Model Engineer or Engineering in Miniature. At the present I am putting together an article that comprises various memories passed on to me by my father, Sidney George Pearson who was a cleaner, later fireman and driver based at Saltley Depot from around 1925 to 1972. The stories are, I suppose are anecdotal. They are purely from memory and unfortunately lack detail such as train identification, loco types dates and times other than in general, such as pre war, during the war or after. However they are true and I believe, belong along with other railway history. The following is an example:

"As a young fireman his direct boss was the driver who expected him to report for duty one hour before the official booking on time. When the driver arrived he would inspect the loco to see all was in order. On one occasion dad was called over and ticked off for not topping up one of the sand boxes to which he replied that it was already full? The driver pointed out that he had left a piece of cotton on top of the sand which showed the box had not been topped up. On another occasion dad was sent home to change his shirt from a light blue one to a white one with a black tie!". Please see attached photo of my dad; taken around 1960 I would think.

Would you be interested in a copy of the completed article, also would you allow me to use some of the photos of Saltley sheds, with due acknowledgment of course? I look forward to hearing from you.

Harold Pearson. Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Harold - Naturally I would love to host on the site any information or memories you can add. Regarding photos, any that I have where I can give you permission you are most welcome. Any others I will give you their contact details where I am sure you will be given a warm reception. I look forward to hearing more about your Dad and his days at Saltley Shed.

I had to contact you again after reading the article on Hockley Goods Depot. This was my first place of employment on British Railways Western Region - in 1958. I was first a messenger boy in the Correspondence office, and remember John Davies and Frank Popplewell, both clerical chaps, along with Charlie Turner, Mr Fitzroy, Don Spargo and Maurice Overton - who mended a clock for me and who has supplied information to your wonderful website. I became a van driver eventually, and left Hockley for Saltley in March 1963.

Albert Horton

A most interesting site. I am sure I will revisit in the future.

Paul Rouet

Hi Mike - Just to let you know that my website is at last up and running at billdargue.jimdo.com 'A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames' . . . from A to Y. I haven't used all the images, but may do as I start to rework the site. I have attributed them to you and your site which I've included in my Top Ten sites list, also in the Acknowledgements section and the websites list. So far I've got pictures of yours in the Snow Hill and Castle Bromwich articles.

Many thanks and kind regards - Bill Dargue

I am a retired driver ex Saltley, and as was Mike Green (see notes in image 'mrsalt80'), a fireman in the 1960s and remained at Saltley until early retirement in 2006. The buildings in the photograph 'mrsalt80', are soon to be demolished, completely eradicating the whole of that which stood before. Most of the trackwork has been lifted, only two lines remaining to allow scrap trains access to Dunns scrapyard. Incidentally, Dunns have purchased the site of what was Saltley. The remaining drivers there will move into new accommodation soon. This information was received from a present driver at Saltley.

Albert Horton

Congratulations on your site as I hope to construct a model layout based on Barnt Green some of the images I will find very informative. Thanks.

Alan E Smith

The building on the right hand side in 'gcrcs1c' became the station masters house. Usually the GCR built them all the same, along with the stations on the London Extension. Rugby was unique in that respect.

John Larkin

I come across this site every now and then when I am searching for Western Region items and always get lost in your very interesting pages. Keep up the good work.

Ken Green

Hi. Love the website. Well done. As a resident of Kenilworth I can't help but mourn the demise of our lovely station. Still, that's progress!

Kind regards - Paul Williams

Hi - I just came across your fascinating website while researching old stations around Coventry and Warwickshire. At some point during October, we are planning on creating a feature on the BBC Coventry & Warwickshire website about the old railway stations - particular those that were closed by Beeching. I was wondering, would you be able to help us with our research into this? We don't know how the information will be displayed on the website yet, but any help would be appreciated. We are also planning to do features on the radio also. As I said, it's all very much in the planning stages at the moment...

Many thanks & best wishes, Hannah Tobin, Web Producer, BBC Coventry & Warwickshire .

As can be seen from our appeal above I have agreed to help and so have other railway enthusiasts too. You can help to by filling in the gaps of our photographic coverage and by writing about your memories. For instance, we need more photographs of the Coventry to Nuneaton line as many of our views are poor in quality and too few in number. If you know of the whereabouts of photographs or books that contain views of stations from Warwickshire please let us know and we will track down the photographer.

On the subject of anniversaries to celebrate in 2008. Its One hundred and Seventy years since the London and Birmingham Railway opened; One hundred years since the Great Western Railway opened the North Warwickshire line; Sixty years since British Railways were formed by the nationalisation of the big four - the Great Western Railway, London Midland Scottish Railway, London North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway and Forty years since steam locomotives were retired from mainline duties in the UK.

Excellent site. I have lived in and around Henley in Arden for many years. I was fascinated to see the photos of the old Henley in Arden Station.

Ken Smith

Used to be a mad Leamington train spotter. My favourite spot was on top of a concrete shed behind Leamington Avenue station. You could see anything on the GWR and anything on the Midland line. Another good spot was the 'cattle pens' near the Ford factory. Best memories - City of Truro coming through on the main line, and a Sunday morning diversion on the Midland line - 'Sir William Stanier FRS' came storming through, and I swear the station shook for three minutes afterwards. I could also see the raised Midland lie beyond Victoria Park from my bedroom window, but it was just too far to ever see any numbers. Once travelled all the way from Leamington Avenue to Louth via Rugby, Peterborough East, Peterborough North and Boston. My granddad worked at Leamington sheds (84D?) I have a picture of him with a loco in the 1920s if anyone's interested

David Prestidge

David - Many thanks for sharing your memories and yes we would certainly welcome the photo to add to the site. If you can, please scan it as normal and save it as a jpg.

The Great Central photo 'gcrcs21' is dated to around 1950. I believe that it is much earlier than that. The left hand chimney stack on the booking hall was struck by lightning in the 1940s and demolished. Great site keep it up.

John Larkin

John - Thanks for the information as it helps to make the site better informed and accurate.

At last I have found some information about Rugby Locomotive Testing Station, and all the routes that I worked on in my period as a locomotive foreman.

Thanks - Michael Hutchinson

What memories - Pebworth Halt, Long Marston and many others. Thanks for bringing such wonderful memories back of the days of the steam train and No 25 diesel car train all passing through Pebworth. Memories also of helping the fire brigade to put out grass fires on the railway embankments when an old freight train going up towards Honeybourne would chuck up a load of sparks and set the banks and fields alight. Many thanks and keep up the good work.

Jim Keyte

Hi - I was a fireman at Saltley in the 60`s, and I can confirm that the room on the right in image 'mrsalt80' was referred to as "The Checker`s hut". This was where all the locos were booked on and off shed. The checker also gave loco crews who were working on the shed link instructions on where to place the locos they were disposing or preparing. The long room to the left of the checkers hut was the crew canteen, where you would sometimes pass many hours waiting for work. Hope this information is of use. Great site - it brought back many memories for me.

Regards Mike Green, former Saltley fireman.

I think your website is great! It is easy to navigate and search, and its contents are fascinating! I moved to the Midlands (specifically Kenilworth) ten years ago, so I am not an LMS guru, and this morning was the first opportunity I had to walk along part of the disused line from Kenilworth Junction to Balsall Common. Having done that walk, I wanted to learn something of that line's history, and see photos of what types of locos and trains used the line, so I searched the Internet and found your website.

It showed me just what I wanted, and very easily too! Trouble is, as someone else said, it is so interesting I have spent far too long just wandering around it when I should be doing something else. Your years of work are without doubt worthwhile; I have book-marked your site and will return to explore it further soon, so please keep up this excellent piece of work.

Thanks - Tony Darlington

I hope you will not mind offering a comment about other photographs on the website. Photograph 'lnwrchg544' showing Jubilee Class 4-6-0 5579, later named 'Punjab' on 2nd October 1936, passing the site of what was later Canley Halt; according to all available records, this engine spent its whole working life, prior to nationalisation, on the Northern Division of the LMS, after a brief stay between 6th October 1934 and 2nd February 1935 at Crewe North, which shed plate 5A the engine is carrying in the picture; for that reason I would date the picture as being late 1934 very early 1935, given the shed plate and the absence of a nameplate, and the absence of any Stanier coaching stock in the part of the train shown in the picture.

Photograph 'lnwrrm766' shows Jubilee 5597 'Barbados"' at Rugby; this almost certainly a picture taken in wartime as the cabside window in front of the crew member is blacked out; secondly the shedplate carried appears to be a Midland Division one either 22A - Bristol LMS - Barrow), where the engine was shedded from 18th November 1939 until 2nd March 1940, when it was transferred to Leeds Holbeck - 20A; as the engine was in works between 23rd October and 4th November 1939 for a heavy service and entered works again for a heavy general repair on 3rd July 1940, I date the picture during the period between works visits. Possibly it is on a "running-in" turn after the first shopping in November 1939.

Photograph 'lnwrrm708' is not a Stanier Black 5 but rebuilt Patriot 5526; the locomotive was rebuilt and returned to traffic on 6th February 1947. The tender is not red but a rather dirty tender number 9754 taken off Jubilee 5611 which had acquired it recently as 1941 when the last series of 4F 0-6-0's was built but ordered with Stanier 4000 gallon tenders.

Michael Byng

I am having trouble in accepting the Patriot 4-6-0 in picture 'lnwrth715' is 5538 "Gigglewick". Firstly the locomotive in in the short-lived 1936 livery which No 5538 did not carry from through records currently available. I think the engine may be No 5523, later named "Bangor"; this engine received a heavy general overhaul between 8th October and 7th December 1936 in which it would have been repainted and the 1936 insignia applied; secondly the shed plate appears to be 3B - the code for Bushbury at the time.

No 5538 was last shopped for heavy overhaul in April/May 1935 and would not have had the 1936 livery, this is perhaps born out by a picture of the engine at Derby in May 1937 awaiting a heavy service still in the more normal LMS passenger locomotive livery for 1935. Finally No 5538 was allocated to Leeds Holbeck - code 20A - from 25th July 1936 until it was loaned to Willesden in 1948 after nationalisation.

Michael Byng

Thanks for your observations Michael as I have checked the original scan and when I invert the image I think you are correct in saying the number on the cabside is No 5523. I have corrected the caption accordingly. Regards Mike

After sending the above information, Michael wrote:

'Returning to photograph lnwrth715 and 5523 at the head of a down express, I have looked at it again and suggest that the first 5 (five) coaches represent all periods of LMS coach construction. The first coach is a 57' 0" BTK (Brake Third) to D1905 with a large luggage compartment, the second coach is a 57'0" TK (third compartment) to D1899, the third is a 60' 0" RTO (open third) used as a dining vehicle next to a 68' 0" RC (composite restaurant car) to D1938 followed by a 57' 0" FK (first class compartment coach), the remaining six coaches are too indistinct to precisely identified albeit the sixth and seveth coaches are Stanier Period III stock. However the train is a typical Euston - Wolverhampton set of the late 1930's, an eight-coach set with possibly three strengtheners.

A very useful resource - and links page!

Anthony Nelson

Hello. First, may I report a faulty link on your Useful Links page? The link 'Signalbox' in fact goes to the Old Maps site. I guess the 'Signalbox' link is intended to be to John Hinson’s most excellent site which is at: www.signalbox.org Secondly, is there any way to get a print for an image credited to 'Anon', please? I'm referring to 'lnwrrm853', interior of Rugby No 7 box, which would be ideal for a revised cover I'm preparing for a book for the Signalling Record Society. Any help you could give would be much appreciated. And last but not least, thanks for a most enjoyable site – only too tempting to browse when I should be doing something else!

Best wishes - John Creed

Request for help from the Nuneaton & Bedworth Rail User Group
We now have most of the proposed timetable for Nuneaton on the west coast mainline post December 2008. Its a bit of a mess as Virgin has first pickings of when to run trains and London Midlands is banned from running trains down the direct line that would serve Nuneaton. The line has a monopoly agreement called moderation of competition which makes it very hard for anyone to run direct services except Virgin but do not require them to do so.

For parts of the day we are only served by Virgin Trains and the rest of the time by London Midlands. The cheapest tickets are likely to be offers from each firm that will not operate on the others services. We will end up with good local trains which stop in the peak hours and risky 6 minute changes to make at Rugby. For some that will not matter but it will put a lot of people off using the railway. One missed connection at Rugby will lead to an hours wait!

We are trying to get the Moderation of Competition Lifted along the Trent valley. This would allow London Midlands to serve us better and permit open access operators to do a few stops. If Nuneaton was the only "open access" station in the area it would attract train operators.

To make the point I would like to do a spoof submission to the rail regulator to operate a historic service from the 1930s. We think the best time from 1938 was 1 hour and 32 minutes. I hope your visitors have some old timetables and information that could help. We have 7 platforms at Nuneaton and it would be useful if the ban on anyone other than virgin providing direct services was scrapped. Our main aim would be to get TV and nation press coverage.

Keith Kondakor - please contact me via keithk2t@gotadsl.co.uk

I lived on Mitchell Avenue, Canley in Coventry from 1947 until I married in 1964. We then lived on Torrington Avenue and eventually Nailcote Avenue in Tile Hill Village. Wendy and I were members of the Sunday School at Canley Gospel Hall throughout the 1950's. One year, the Summer outing saw 350 children board a special train at Tile Hill station for the one-stop journey to Berkswell, for our annual games and picnic in a farmers' field near the station.

Your photos of Canley Halt, Tile Hill & Berkswell are so fine! My memories of growing up in the area are vivid! Mr Bullivant - "Bully" - was the signalman at Tile Hill for many years. He grew potatoes and peas behind the box.

Eric Hollingsworth

Hi Eric - We must have been near neighbours for a while as I was born in 1948 and lived in one of the 'steel houses' in Hayton Green, Canley until I was 7 years old when I moved to Parkwood Lane at the top of Charter Avenue not far from Tile Hill Station. I certainly recall the signalman at Tile Hill station who let me visit the box but I cannot recall his horticultural talents. Tile Hill was my local station and my friends and I spent many an hour sitting on the site of the old cattle dock. The idea that you could hire a train for a one-stop journey seems incredulous now. I remember when I was about ten being able to catch a special train that called at Canley and Tile Hill taking us to Dudley Castle Zoo. Regards - Mike

What an extraordinary site. Thank you - fantastically absorbing and informative.

Bob Guntrip

Mike - Before you rush to correct me, the Redditch - Evesham line should read MR not GWR.

Best regards Geoffrey

Hi Geoffrey - I agree with you that my description of Evesham was a little sloppy and confusing as it read: "Evesham station was the end of the single line route which commenced at Redditch the line doubling from Evesham to Ashchurch. The GWR also ran into Evesham and the two railways helped to increase the prosperity of the area by being able to transport produce to markets otherwise too distant".

I agree and I have now corrected it to read: "The Midland Railway's station at Evesham was the sited at the end of the single line route from Redditch, the line being built with double tracks for the portion of the route running from Evesham to Ashchurch. The Great Western Railway also ran into Evesham and together the two railways helped to increase the prosperity of the area by being able to transport produce to markets otherwise too distant".

Its one of the hazards writing the vast majority of the captions - you just get stale, tired or careless and sometimes all three together. Its why I do appreciate corrections and constructive criticism because by nature I want to produce the best possible job. (You can tell that I am nearly 60).

I have posted your comments in the guestbook to encourage others to pick up on errors as I really do appreciate your input in making the site accurate and readable.

Best wishes and thanks Mike

I studied at Warwick University in the 1970s and made many expeditions around the county in search of old lines, notably Coventry to Leamington, the Great Central between Rugby and Woodford Halse and the western end of the SMJ. This site is excellent - if I could make one suggestion - a good map of the county with lines marked. Best wishes from Warsaw, Poland.

Michael Dembinski

Michael - many thanks for the kind comments about the website. There are major issues regarding producing a map of the county, not least it being beyond my technical skills. The county border constantly changed over the last 150 years so for instance when Tamworth was once part of Warwickshire (until the 1870s) Shipston-on-Stour was not. Similarly many Worcestershire stations were incorporated into the county between the wars when the districts they were located within were merged with the City of Birmingham as it expanded its own boundaries. Its often forgotten that Birmingham was part of the county until the formation of the West Midlands County Council in 1972. WMCC only lasted a short time and was subsequently scrapped in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher.

You have some excellent photos of a William Clarke designed station. I have provided a link to Bearley, and all others I know about, from my site.

K Ellis of www.loddiswellstation.org.

Mike, further sleuthings from Owen indicate this loco is, IMO, almost certainly 60053 (given that we know it cannot be 35). Owen wrote;

Hi Kester, I've had a better look at Yeadon's volume on the A1/A3 locos and Vol 2A of the RCTS "Locos of the LNER". These revealed the following:

A1 to A3 rebuilds with 1930 type high-sided LNER non-corridor tender* and banjo dome as at 14 May 1949, with shed. These were all RHD at the time.
60048 "Doncaster", Leicester Central
60053 "Sansovino", Leicester Central
60060 "The Tetrarch", Gateshead
60064 "Tagalie", Haymarket
60072 "Sunstar", Heaton
60111 "Enterprise", Leicester Central *

There were two types of high-sided LNER non-corridor tender that ran with the A1/A3s: Yeadon calls them the 1930 and the 1936 types. The former had beading while the latter, which had a more streamlined look, didn't. The tender in the photo clearly has beading and so is one of the 1930 type. No 60103 had one of the streamlined 1936 type tenders from the 1930s until withdrawal in 1963 and was a Leicester Central loco in the period 1950 - 1953.

The loco in the photo appears to have the oval Doncaster works plate on the smokebox. Nos 60064/72 were built by NBL Hyde Park Works, and unless they were given a Doncaster plate on rebuilding to A3(?) would probably either have had the circular NBL Hyde Park plate or else no works plate at all - some photos in later years seem to show the NBL locos without works plates.

Given the potential for the photographer to have written down "60035" instead of "60053" I'd say the loco in the photo is most probably "Sansovino".

Best wishes - Owen

Dear Mike - The note by Martin (Page 9) that Windsor Lad was a Scottish loco all its life and would have been the "cop of cops" in the history of the world to be seen in London got me sleuthing, or at least, organising a sleuthation (he he, like that word?) I wondered about the train itself - from the lighting I would say the sun is high and likely to be around 12.30 - 13.00, meaning the train would have depart Marylebone at 11.15-11.45 ish.

Several people came forward with possibly useful info, including the fact that May 14 was a Saturday that year. Another person said that by blowing up the photo, the nameplate is a double name, but the two words are of roughly equal length. BUT, the clincher was a chappie called Owen, who wrote as follows;

"It seems to me that the loco in the photo can't be Windsor Lad. The loco in the photo is right-hand-drive because the exhaust from the vacuum ejector to the smokebox is not visible on this side. Windsor lad was built new as an A3 and as such was built as left-hand-drive. The loco in the photo would have been one of those originally built as an A1 and later re-built to A3; most (all?) of these latter remained right-hand drive on re-building although they were all left-hand drive by withdrawal". Best wishes, Owen

So, it wasn't Windsor Lad, that's nailed that one - but what was it? My suspicion is that it is 60052 Prince Palatine, which was RHD and a GC loco, if I remember correctly.

Best wishes, Kester

An interesting site. I particularly enjoyed the pictures around Tyseley and Snow Hill as I used to go train spotting there. I will put a link from my website.

Regards Raymond

What a brilliant site! A small point regarding image 'gwrkd127', the D15 is No 465 and not 468 as captioned. As No 30465 it was withdrawn Jan 1956, by then the last survivor of the class.

Keep up the good work - Chris Knowles-Thomas

Chris - Many thanks for the correction. It was a bit daft of me to miss it bearing in mind the number was on the bufferbeam. I must visit Specsavers!

Wonderful site, keep up the good work. Now, a question. How could I find out what colour rolling stock was used by the London & Birmingham railway before it became part of the LNWR?

Neville Philpott

Neville - Many thanks for your kind comments about the website. Regarding your query regarding the livery of L&B coaches if you look at this image it might help. Its from London and Birmingham Railway Centenary souvenir produced in 1938 by the LMS and one would assume that the LMS would have the records to be able to illustrate the rolling stock of the period. As you will see the coaches carried different liveries reflecting their class of carriage. Hope this helps.

Following my response to Dave's earlier entry Dave replied with the following.
Dear Mike - I am sorry I don't have any photographs I could pass onto you. My brother who I haven't seen in years and is two years younger than me was the photographer. As we were sons of a railwayman we used to travel around quite a bit train spotting so his photos tended to be at Bristol, York or Kings Cross. I just remember Saltley, Aston and Monument Lane as sheds that you would go past as a kid and try and scribble down as many numbers as possible in a few seconds. I did go round Saltley and Aston a few times as I was older.

Aston was a strange shed as I don't recall it having a turntable as there was limited space. From what I recall it seemed to provide motive power to north bound trains out of New Street., i.e. Glasgow, Blackpool. One of the biggest events was when the ex Cardiff Canton Britannia's (Morning Star, Ariel etc) were moved there after Canton went diesel. Mind you, the Brits seemed to spend a lot of time on freight work from what I can remember around Bescot.

Saltley, of course, was where the freight locos that came into Washwood Heath Yard were serviced. They also had the mechanical stoker fitted 9Fs for the Washwood Heath -Carlisle run. I have seen photos of the odd Royal Scot on Saltley shed but I don't think from what I can recall in my Ian Allan book that they ever had any "namers" allocated.

Monument Lane was somewhere that I never went around. Of course now it's a housing estate but again I think it was mainly a freight shed with servicing locos off freights coming into Monument Lane Goods.

I think you are doing an excellent job. When I watch programmes like Time Team trying to uncover history long buried, people like yourself perform an invaluable task in making history available now. It's just such a pity that so much of the stuff we used to produce ourselves is now produced elsewhere.

One final point, there is an excellent book out on Bournville Sheds in Birmingham. My daughter bought it me for last Christmas. It's The Railways of Cadburys and Bournville Shed. It is mainly devoted to the internal railway system that Cadburys used to have BUT I was delighted to see that the portion on Bournville sheds was much bigger than I anticipated. It gave the history of the sheds, the types of locos it had allocated and the "turns" it covered. The photos even went back to the 1920s. Unfortunately, I lent it someone recently and haven't had it back yet. Once again, congratulations on a job well done.

Kind regards - David Dalton

Wonderful site that keeps the memory of steam alive. Thanks for allowing people to see it. I am an ex-Burton-on-Trent boy living in Australia.

Phil Banton

As a former resident of Warwickshire when Birmingham was part of the county, I really love this site. I used to train spot at Shirley station as a kid. I am now 64.

Barry J Purslow

Robert Hayles has provided a response to my reply to previous entry as follows:
Hi Mike, next chance I get I will go into the collection and see just what is in there. From memory there are pictures of me as a 4 year old in 1954 on the miniature railway, it was gone well before 1960, as I regularly travelled to Rugby to spot about that time.

Rugby was an interesting junction at that time, we went mainly for the GC trains, by that time it was V2s, B1s, 9Fs, WDs etc, with a regular WR Hall every Saturday. On one occasion it failed to turn up and had a SR unrebuilt West Country instead. The West Coast mainline rarely produced anything unusual but was still fascinating. My father has had several photos published and held an official lineside pass between Lichfield and Tamworth in 1953, the document is in the collection.

I am moving property to be nearer my work in North Staffs and will live back in Cheshire where I was from 1992-2004, close to another favourite railway spot, Crewe. The other series of photos that will I'm sure interest you is the tragic smash of 1955 which wrecked most of Sutton Coldfield station. Apart from Steam locos my other passion is Birmingham City Transport and I own a BCT Double Deck bus dating from 1952.

Regards - Robert Hayles

I spent my happy days as a trainspotter in the mid 50's early 60's with my late father. Spent lots of time at Rugby, including entry into the sacred testing plant. My fathers photo collection includes pictures in the testing plant and one unusual shot of a Duchess on the 'Royal Scot' on Coronation day complete with a commemorative smoke box disc. Plus an A3 on GC viaduct and the prototype Deltic at Rugby Midland. One of these days I will get the negatives out and scan them on to my AppleMac with a view to publishing. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

P.S Do you remember the live steam miniature railway where the new platform is ???

Robert Hayles

Hi Robert - Thanks for sharing your memories and wetting our appetite regarding your fathers collection of photographs. You could always consider practising publishing one or two on the site!!!

Although I did live near Rugby in the 90s I never heard of the live miniature railway.

Congratulations on an excellent site. I too came on it purely by chance. I found the sections on Saltley and Monument Lane sheds fascinating. A big thanks to you.

David Dalton

This website is excellent, and a valuable tool to those writing about railway history. It must have taken an enormous amount of work and knowledge.

Geoffrey Kingscott - Author of 'Last Train from Trent Station', 'Lost Railways of Nottinghamshire', 'Lost Railways of Leicestershire & Rutland', 'Lost Railways of Derbyshire' and 'Lost Railways of Northamptonshire' (due out in October 2008).

Hi, I've literally just stumbled across your website, well done! My interest is the GC and Rugby in particular and so feel I should add a word or two concerning the two photos of the howitzers being loaded. I first saw these as part of a large framed 'montage' hiding in the back of Rugby library in the early 90's. Other photos showed troops on the way to the station and on the Hillmorton Road bridge outside the booking office.

Interestingly one showed artillery horses being loaded into cattle vans. All the loading photos were taken in the GC goods yard, around the loading dock which was situated at the rear of the yard and which had an end loading facility, very useful for big guns! Construction of the ordnance depot at Barby wasn't started until June 1943, by the way. Hope this helps.

Cheers - Tony West

Mike - Fantastic site easy to navigate and full of nostalgic memories for me! I was browsing through the pages of routes where I used to live and wanted to let you know about one minor correction needed to the Soho Road page. The map you show is actually of Soho Station that was sited in Smethwick and was the stop immediately after Smethwick Rolfe Street heading towards Birmingham.

The Photo marked 'lnwrsoho1514' is actually taken at the site of Soho Station. If you look at Andy's great site too you will see he has a different map listed at Soho Road and this explains the siding disappearing out of view in the photos of Soho Road. Thanks for a superb site that brings back many happy memories of train spotting in Smethwick especially Handsworth & Smethwick on the GWR.

Regards, Frank Garrison

Hi Frank - Many thanks for the correction which I have now changed. As someone who did their trainspotting at Tile Hill station near Coventry and only occassionally went to Birmingham New Street, the far reaches of the county's borders (which mirrored Birmingham's) are unknown to me and somewhat confusing with two LNWR stations and one GWR with Soho in the name. If you can recommend any good books for information and/or sources of photographs please let me know. Regards Mike

I have been looking further at your photos of Brinklow station preparatory to starting a model and am worried about the image labelled 'lnwr_brin1101' as this shows extra tracks to what I believe existed at Brinklow. When I print out this photo it comes up labelled 'lnwr_shil1101' and I think this should in fact be labelled as near Shilton not Brinklow. What do you think?

Have you any suggestions where I might find a track plan for Brinklow, it would save a lot of guesswork. Thanks again for a great site.

Mike Sloan

Hi Mike - Thanks for the comments regarding the site, its very much appreciated. Regarding the query, whilst you are right to say that I initially logged the photo as from Shilton it is very much Brinklow as close inspection of the other photos of the station show there were three tracks including the up slow.

A copy of the rebuilding plan dated 16 January 1882 is to be found in Dr R Preston-Hendry & R Powell-Hendry's book 'A Historical Survey of Selected LMS Stations' published by OPC ISBN 086093 168 4. It too shows three tracks. Hope this helps.

As an ex-trainspotter and former resident of Leamington in the good old days I found your web site really fascinating which brought back many happy memories. Many thanks for taking all the trouble to create this site. Now I have more time, I am indulging in building models of Southam and Harbury and Leamington engine sheds, so I'll be a regular visitor to your site. Once again, many thanks.

Chris Berry

Excellent site, will be back. Especially if I get started on my model of Brinklow station!

Mike Sloan

I have just been browsing through your web site on the North Warwick line as I have lived all my life in the area. I have seen a lot of changes over the years. Back in the late 50s there used to be a circus held on the main Stratford Road in Shirley. The circus animals used to arrive by rail and I use to see elephants being unloaded at Shirley cattle dock and paraded up Haslucks Green Road. The Shirley carnival used to start from the station with some of the railway lorries being used as the carnival floats. The station master, a Mr. Jones, was involved with the event. Last of all there were some cottages at Earlswood whose only source of drinking water was brought in by rail every day on the local tripper and placed in the sidings. Hope this is of interest to you.

Roger Stanbridge, Hall Green, Birmingham

Many thanks Roger for your memories. I am sure that there will be many people who would be surprised to hear about the elephants arriving by rail and cottages being supplied by water. I wouldn't like to depend on today's operators for this service. Regards, Mike.

Wonderful site. I was taking some photos today of Marton Junction, and Googled to see what it looked like in it's heyday - and found your site. Thank you

Further to my message in your Guest Book, thank you for such a great site. I was at Marton Junction today taking some photos from the cast iron road bridge, and from your site learnt that it's 50 years since passenger services ended. I didn't see any modern photos on your site, but if a "today" image of Marton would be of interest, I'd be happy to send you one. With best wishes, and thanks again for such a detailed and fascinating site.

Joe Godwin

Thanks for the offer Joe but I must regretfully decline your kind offer. I have at least three years work ahead of me in upgrading the site and if I started to add photos that portray the post-steam scene then I will never complete the task. Andy Doherty of Rail Around Birmingham might be interested as he portrays the scene today. Regards, Mike.

Thanks for keeping the railways alive. They were the life line of the UK when I was young and living beside the main line from Newport to the Midlands ,the Palethorpes sausage van came through every night !!

Alan Hughes

I visited your site as I was looking as my Grandfather came from Nuneaton and he and his family ( brother and father) all worked on the Railway. My grandfather was a signalman and his father a ticket collector. They appear to have moved to London during the late 1890s. I shall visit the site again as it looks interesting.

Mary

I was pleased to come across your excellent site recently. I wondered if you could advise how to obtain a copy of the photo of 7301 (gwrw382) on the Banbury to Wolverhampton section of the site. I have owned one of the cab side plates from this loco for over 40 years and that is the best photo I have seen of the loco yet! Thanks for any help you can offer.

Malcolm Garner

Mike, Reference to Martin Beckett in the Guestbook, Page 9 (referring to A3 'Windsor Lad' heading into Catesby Tunnel on the GC main line. Another occasion to rival that was in 1956 when we were informed that a streak would be passing through the bird cage. After a two week wait Saturday 12th May arrives - what was it going to be? Silver Link with a rake of Pullman's. Absolutely jaw dropping!. My second item photograph miscfr010. The location is Stoney stanton Road as line crossed under the Foleshill Road between Courtaulds works the canal bridge. Constructed in 1901 to serve Websters brick works extended 1902 to Mullinets Ltd. which became Coventry Ordnance Works. My friends father Arthur Franklin worked on the footplate of Henry and Rocket during the 50's.

Regards, Barry McGory

I have a number of black & white photos you may be interested in adding to your site. Whilst they are later than many of your shots (they were taken circa 1978), almost all of the traditional railway infrastructure they show has long since gone. The main pictures of interest are a series of 15 photos I took at Abbey Junction, Nuneaton, showing; the (LMS or MR?) goods sheds the signal box, operational at that time, the loading facilities of Judkins quarry, the extensive PW yard, the Nuneaton to Birmingham line including the then active Abbey 'flyover', the truncated branch line to Ashby, including an apparently operational semaphore signal.

As I said, very little of this remains today, just the highly rationalised main line. If you are interested I will have them scanned and forward them on. I also have colour photos taken in the late 70's / early 80's around Nuneaton which are of less interest to you, but there are a few featuring the goods shed at Nuneaton (demolished for Asda), the PW yard on the west side of the station (highly rationalised), the signal box just north of the station (gone), trains on the abbey flyover (now diverted / closed), and the sidings off platform 5 (now built upon as platforms 6 & 7).

I would also like to write a small update to one of your captions to photos of the goods shed at Stockingford - I remember playing on the remains of the shed's foundations as a boy.

Ian Bishop

Ian - Whilst my declared time line for the site is 1968 there are occasions when I bend this rule, primarily when there are photographs showing the county's railway infrastructure little changed to the end of steam on British Railways. Therefore I would be delighted to take you up on your kind offer of the photographs.

With reference to captions please feel free to provide extra/correct information and in particular, past memories of the railways. - Mike

Hello Mike. I have just been pointed to your web site and it is great. Although I now live in Buckinghamshire I was born and brought up in Leamington. I have thoroughly enjoyed scanning the photographs - they bring back many happy memories of my time photographing and "spotting" in the area. This was mainly during the last years of steam in the early to late 60's.

Having bunked Leamington Shed for example on many occasions I am sure I have some photographs of it as well of course many others taken on this route. They will mostly be 35mm black and white film. Whilst the site welcomes additional contributions I am sure you don't want to be flooded out. Do you have particular gaps etc that you would like to fill? I guess you would prefer them ready scanned but as JPEGs? Look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Very best wishes - Gerry Batchelor

Hi Gerry - We are obviously of a similar age as my memories of steam are from the very late 1950s to the mid-1960s too. The ending of my interest in railways was as much to do with the discovery of 'girls' as with the end of steam in the area. However I did my 'spotting' at Tile Hill station on the ex-LNWR Coventry to Birmingham line. The Western Region, with locomotives carrying brass boiler fittings and bearing four digit number plates, was altogether another and rarely visited world for me.

With regard to your kind offer of copies of the photographs you took (something regretfully I never did) and your query as to whether I want to be flooded out or not, without wishing to be seen as greedy I welcome as many photos as you have available although where they fill gaps they are doubly welcome. The site currently has about 4000 images but this uses only about 5% of the available disk space so its not so much as to how many can I handle, its more about the time required to create the files and upload them on the site. Images are best supplied as JPegs preferably un-sized so I can crop accordingly or 'zoom' in for a close up.

Remember every photo is a unique record of what happened (close to fifty years ago now for the late 1950s) and can never be recaptured. Someone somewhere might just want to model a particular locomotive in this area and it might just be your photo that proves it was prototypical. If you can provide captions it will speed things up because then I only need to copy and paste the text and insert the photo into the HTML page. If you are providing a caption of a locomotive you could add, as I do, some historical facts about the locomotive by visiting British Steam's database of locomotives at their website which will help to put some 'meat' into the text. I very much look forward to receiving your photographs.

I would be grateful to anyone who could help by writing more informative captions. This is one of my biggest chores as after writing captions for the best part of 3750 pages it becomes very difficult to make them fresh. Similarly its time consuming and I would rather spend more time adding new photos to the site and revisiting old photos to increase their size and improve their quality. Robert Ferris made a big impact recently on the GWR (around the Bearley area). Robert hopes to recommence writing captions soon.

I am the webmaster for Alton Douglas, the Midlands best selling author of local history books. His books are image-driven and contain over 200 photographs in each edition. Our client base is of course mainly comprised of people who have an interest in images of times gone by within the Birmingham and the West Midlands area. We have often thought that these images should be seen by a wider audience – so we have constructed some “free pages” on the Internet aimed specifically at certain subject areas.

Our first little feature is entitled “The Magic of the Railways” – and it can be found at our website. We were therefore wondering if you might like to link to this feature which we feel would be an interesting addition to your website. We will be creating an additional category in our Links section called 'Sites we like' and all sites that link to this feature will have a reciprocal link placed there. Thanking you for taking the time to read this unsolicited communication and we look forward to hearing from you.

Ken Windsor

My pleasure Ken - I have long admired the work of Alton Douglas. I am in the process of revising the links page so will add your link soon.

I used to live in Rugby, Warwickshire but no longer live any where near. Mike's site though is fantastic, bringing back many memories.

Bernard Dodd

I work for Warwickshire County Council’s Education for Children who are Out of School Service (ECOS) – based in Rugby. The reason why I am writing to you is that we are working on a fascinating project called 'Beyond the School' which compares historical photographs with images of the same places today.

Our young people are tasked with identifying the locations featured in historic photographs so that they can capture new photographs of the same locations. The educational project involves young people tracing the story behind changes to our environment. We have regular meetings in Rugby Museum and Art Gallery; the project will culminate in an exhibition in April on the same place. We will also print calendar with best results (best pairs of photos) and pairs memory game.

More information about the project can be found on project website Beyond the school. I have found your website, which is really amazing and full of great photos and information! I am wondering if there is some possibility of using old photos from your website for our educational purposes. I am particularly interested in photos with reference gcrcs98 – 100.

I went through the copyright section, but I have not found the right person to contact. I would be really grateful If you can help me with it.

Thanks a lot Looking forward to hearing from you - Bara Peskova

Hi Bara - The photographs you refer to are by SWA Newton now part of the English Heritage collection and whilst I have the odd photo the majority of my collection (including the ones you are interested in) are derived from their website. Some 6,500 of SWA Newton’s glass negatives survive in the care of English Heritage’s National Monuments Record in Swindon and the Record Office for Leicestershire Leicester and Rutland in Wigston and Leicestershire County Council hold the rights to lots of them, so I am sure they will help should you contact them. They have 'The Learning Zone' - designed for teachers and students to use actively to build upon the resources provided in the rest of the Transport Archive'.

In the 1890s Sydney Walter Alfred Newton, a young commercial photographer in Leicester conceived a singular passion – to record in detail the construction of the London Extension of the Great Central Railway, from Nottingham to Marylebone. Travelling the route with his heavy plate camera he produced a unique archive of the railway and its associated engineering triumphs, the navvy gangs who built it, and the people and long-lost rural life of the villages along the line. I hope this helps - if you need any help regarding other areas where I probably have a photo - please do not hesitate to ask. All the best with your project and tell us when its complete and we can see their efforts. - Mike

Hi. I am helping a friend to research a death of a Thomas Price on Christmas Day 1899. He was decapitated by a railway engine. His occupation was an engine driver and we understand he worked at Saltley Gas Works, Birmingham.

I just wondered if you could offer me any advice as to how we might get more information about this man. We can't currently access Central Library Birmingham until February, its our intention to see if there are newspaper reports from the day, and also a coroners report. Would the engine drivers involved in shunting be employed by the Gas Board or the Railway Company? Do you think maybe there might be other records? And if so where might we look for them?

I am stunned with the fantastic images you hold on your website, I'm not what you would call a railway fanatic, but I am heavily involved with the history of Aston & Birmingham. Thank you for what is a brilliant on-line resource.

Rod Birch

Rod - Thanks for the kind words regarding the website. Large private sidings such as Gas Works etc often had their own locomotives with their own drivers. I do not know in this instance but I can suggest some forums where you can ask the question with hopefully a better chance on getting some answers. Try the following forums/archive sources:

New Railway Modellers
Google Groups UK Railways
National Preservation Steam Traction
The Railways Archive
National Archives

If anyone can help by providing information or pointing Rod in the right direction please let me know.

WONDERFUL SITE!!! Congratulations on this fabulous collection. My wife's grandfather was an LMS driver out of Saltley Sheds so to come across all these fantastic photos is just brilliant.

Thanks a million - Terry Stanners

The caption with your picture of No 44942 says "Ex-LMS 5MT 4-6-0 Black 5 No 44942 runs forward to be turned on Rugby's turntable after being coaled and watered. Its excellent condition indicates that it must have only just left the works after being overhauled." - I think this picture was taken on the day of the Queen's visit to Coventry to consecrate the new cathedral. This engine was one of a pair of Black 5's that hauled the train.

Michael Byng

Excellent site. Found it by Googling "Lens of Sutton".

Peter G Scott

Why can't we simply download the lists of photographs available? I am looking for anything re: Bridgend.

Peter.Pimwong

Peter - I can understand your frustration. You need to understand that I am not connected to the selling of any of the photographs and the lists are only included on the site as a service to readers. If they were made available I would of course make them downloadable.

My grandfather was a steam engine driver on the LMS. Excellent web site. When I was young he always told us stories of the railway and the LMS/GWR conflict in the area. Great web site. Will continue to use it.

Steve Parker

Hi Steve - If you can recall any of his stories I am sure we would all like to hear them.

In response to my reply to his earlier email, Gerry wrote "Hello Mike. I quite understand the point about captions. I have just set up a much more modest web site to display my wildlife photographs and up loading was the easy bit, the narrative was the challenging bit. My main problem with detail is that when she was alive my dear mother had one of her clear outs and with all the rubbish went my photographic note books. As I have now just retired I will make it a small project to sift out some of what I think may be the more interesting stuff.

I have a scanner so it will be a good rainy day job. (at our present rate that wont be long coming) Fortunately my brother in law has a much better recall of dates so I can draw on him when I have got the list together It might take a little while but I will let you have some stuff. Equally I am happy to take responsibility for the words if you think the photos are OK".

Best wishes - Gerry

Many thanks Gerry. It was my 'first' wife not my mother who did the damage to the records of my collection of photos. Dates are obviously helpful if known, otherwise use the proverbial 'circa' to give an approximate date. My main point regarding the expansion of descriptions was that locomotive build and scrapping details turns a half sentence caption into a reasonable length as well as adding information. Anyway, I am more than happy for you to take responsibility for the words.

Just wanted to say fantastic website and that I have linked to you from my site: The Sectional Appendix

Up until recently, my website included a lot of detailed information that covered the Birmingham/West Midlands area. To appreciate just what kind of information will be included, follow the links off the front page or head directly to: WLNCGO1

Unfortunately, I realised that my site design techniques have not kept pace with developments and I finally bit the bullet and included Cascading Style Sheets, which promptly destroyed the layout of so many of the tables that I was forced to withdraw the whole site. I have just put a few bits back on line, but it will be a hard slog to get back where I was two months ago. (The only sections of the country that I had not covered at that stage were Bristol, Plymouth and the North of Scotland.) I am spending so much time doing this that I think my poor wife has forgotten what I look like and can only recognise me from the back of my head, framed by a computer monitor!

Anyway, the point is that I would much appreciate a return link and would gladly provide a small banner and a promise that I will target your area of interest asap to compliment your amazing work. If you would prefer to wait until the Birmingham stuff is up and running again, I would understand.

Slightly off this topic, I have a friend who's father was a fireman in the 1940s at a West Midlands GWR shed. I will mention your site to him. He might have some pictures and would certainly derive a great deal of pleasure from the ones that you already have.

Kind regards and best wishes with the site - Brian Robertson.

Brian - Its a pleasure to link to your site which I hope will quickly recapture the information you once had on-line. Perhaps we can work together when you populate the Warwickshire area by linking different pages together where they compliment each other. My wife too makes similar comments and I have to say I have sailed very close to the wind on occasion. My wife's New Year Resolution is too see more of her husband which is I believe a warning shot across my bows.

Whilst looking on your site I happened on the 'Whoops' section and in particularly 'lnwrar3' the Coventry derailment - LNWRS Journal December 2007 issue page 37-39 has a detailed article on the incident - also see Ted Talbot's book 'LNWR railway heritage' page 69 for the above photo trusting this to be of assistance.

Have you also availed of the prints from 'Transport Treasury'? I am researching the Irish LNWR outpost - Dundalk, Newry & Greenore Railway and I am endeavouring to gather as much photographic & mapping material as possible - perhaps as part of your own research you may have found some references which you might share?

Best wishes for an excellent site - John Martin (joanjohnm@eircom.net)

John - I was not aware of the article which I must read, especially as I have just become a member of the LNWR Society. Whilst I have yet to order photographs direct from the Transport Treasury I have several photos that are now available through their good services. I fully endorse the idea that photographers should leave their collections to organisations such as the Transport Treasury or Kidderminster Railway Museum as their pricing policy makes certain future enthusiasts can afford copies of their work whereas public sector organisations charges effectively price the private historical researcher out of the market.

With regard to your query as to whether I have any resources that might help you with the Irish LNWR outpost - Dundalk, Newry & Greenore Railway? I use the Internet extensively both to search and to ask questions on various railway forums, public libraries, local history groups (often listed by local studies centres or libraries) and second-hand book shops. Hope this helps - Mike

I am Secretary of the Stephenson Locomotive Society, Midlands Area. We celebrate our centenary in 2009, and I note the SMJ was formed in the 1908-10 period, also. It might be a suitable idea to have a 'Centenary Lecture' from someone who can talk with authority on the SMJ - and invite any of your members along (we meet at Kidderminster Railway Museum). Any help gratefully received - how do you react?

Roger Hennessey

Roger - Other than Robert Ferris' work on the GWR, the principal contributor to the website is myself. You will note that when others contribute to the site I credit their contribution. The 'Study Group' never really took off and and therefore there are no experts - just myself - best described as being obsessive in populating the website rather than being more knowledgeable than anyone else. The captions you read on the site are from my own observations and extensive reading but not from primary research which is I believe the threshold you must cross before you can claim to be an expert on something.

Regarding your search for an SMJ expert. In July 2005, when I was living in Spain, I read in the 'club news' section? of the Railway Modeller that the University of Warwick was to commence extracurricular classes on the SMJ commencing October 2005 in Rugby (and at another location which I forget). A telephone number was provided and I spoke to the gentleman and it was apparent that he and a friend had amassed considerable material much of it new. The edition would have been August or September at a guess. I regret I no longer have or have been able to find a past copy of the Magazine which is a pity as I would now like to contact him myself. I hope this helps as you never know one of your members might have a copy of the relevant edition of the magazine - Mike

Dear Sir; Thank you for an amazing set of photographs of Coventry - Nuneaton - Rugby. Brought a lot of memories when I lived in Coventry.

Stuart Wheeler

Very enjoyable. The Coleshill - Hampton branch brings back early memories.

John Mills

I'm really enjoying a browse on your excellent site and I have noticed a few thumbnails which don't connect to the right photographs on the Moseley Station page.

Thanks - James Baker

James - I was very pleased you told me of the problem with the links as with some 4000 pages to manage on the website its impossible to personally check all the links etc. May I encourage everyone to let me know if they too see broken links, spelling or factual errors.

In response to Andy Lawton's communique below Gordon Snelgrove wrote - Hi Mike - I can see from the information given in the posting that I made an error in my attempt to put a date to the photos, and would accept the dating given in Andy Lawton's posting. My thanks to Andy for pointing this out.

Gordon

My thanks to Andy too for correctly identifying the date of the photos. I would like too point out that the original error in the captions was mine in that I confused the original station with it's replacement and that Gordon's correction was required to put right my captions.

Its very healthy that the majority of people interested in our hobby are able to be corrected on mistakes and react in an adult manner when so corrected. Its only by testing our thoughts and statements in public that we can ensure that as much as possible is true. We see too many erroneous statements being accepted as fact and thereby confusing to the future historian etc. The best such example for me is the case of the 'Midland' shed at Coventry. For years as a youth (in the 1950s & 1960s) the shed was so described by my 'elders and betters' even to the point that it is so described in Hawkins & Harrison's book on the Midland Railway's LMS Engine Sheds. This shed is actually a historic London & Birmingham Railway engine shed built in 1838 long before the Midland was created.

Whilst I don't want to start an argument I feel that in the interest of accuracy I should point out that the dating of some of the Sutton Coldfield photos by Gordon Snelgrove in his post below as prior to 23 Jan 1955 may not be correct. I believe the ones he refers to are "lnwrsc92", "lnwrsc92a" and "lnwrsc92b". The down platform canopy was not completely destroyed in the 23 Jan 1955 accident, the official report refers to "almost 60 feet" being torn down. Also the cover photograph, which is dated July 1955, of John Boynton's book "Rails Across the City" shows the same down platform awning as in "lnwrsc92" & "lnwrsc92a".

In addition the caption to that photograph refers to platform repairs following the accident being clearly visible. These repairs, the rough platform surface in the foreground, are also seen in "lnwrsc92". The same book also has a photograph of the accident scene showing part of the down platform awning still standing. In addition I remember the canopy in question and down platform buildings being in situ in the late 60's. The canopy may well have survived until the demolition of the down platform buildings.

I therefore submit that the photograph in question dates from after the Jan 1955 accident. As the service was dieselised from 5 Mar 1956 and the trees are in leaf it was probably taken in the summer of 1955. The original platform, off to the left in "lnwrsc92" did see passenger use after the Lichfiled extension was opened. In the late 60's I remember there being a service off New Street at about 16.20 which terminated there. It was also used by the Car-Sleeper (Motorail) service to Stirling from 1958 until 1972.

Andy Lawton

In response to my reply Mike Bryant wrote - Mike - Thanks for your message. You have nearly convinced me that it is Hampton Station. I agree that it is identical to Hampton Station except that the chimney stacks are different but that could easily change. My photo, which only says "Hampton", is in Roger Waring's book "The Stonebridge Railway" on page 58. I am not capable of sending it to you on the Internet but will find it at the next meeting of our local history group in January and send you a copy if you let me have your address.

Regards Mike Bryant

I found this website very interesting as I am a member of the Hampton-in-Arden Local History Group. My first comment is that the GP to whom you refer is Dr Alan Smyth of 72 Fentham Road, Hampton-in-Arden who is a railway buff.

My second comment refers to photo in 'lnwrhiaj707'. I do not believe this to be a photo of Hampton as I have a photo which shows that the Hampton Station was labelled Hampton Junction and your photo clearly shows the Station as Derby Junction. Did Derby have a station of the same design as Hampton. Secondly from ordnance survey maps of Hampton, admittedly of a slightly later date, I have seen no evidence that the tracks were so far apart. Have you discussed this with Roger Waring who wrote a book on this railway?

Mike Bryant

Hi Mike - Many thanks for providing the name of Dr Alan Smyth - its always nice to give credit where its due (as I have now done in the caption). With regard to your observations regarding Derby Junction/Hampton Junction. I would love to see a copy of the photograph not just to answer your question but also to add to the site.

The photo seen in 'lnwrhiaj707' is I maintain the original Hampton station, something that I can confirm personally because it was still there in the 1960s when I use to commute from Tile Hill to Birmingham each day. The name Derby Junction refers not to its location but as to its purpose, being the 'junction for Derby'. In the very early years of railways (prior to 1845) the only way north from London to Scotland was to travel from Euston via Hampton to Derby and beyond. The opening of the East Coast main line and the cut-off from Whitacre Junction to Birmingham meant that within just a few years the station had gone from being strategically very important to an absolute non-entity in railway terms. The image seen in 'lnwrhia705', taken in the late 1950s or early 1960s, provides the most conclusive proof as it shows the spacing between the LNWR and MR tracks and the original station, all as seen in 'lnwrhia707'.

The photograph was given to me by Dr Alan Smyth and he copied it from a photo that hung on the wall of a local lady patient. Whether Dr Alan Smyth gave a copy of this photo to the late 'Cam' Camwell (a very highly respected railway historian) I do not know, but Cam did have a copy and in his very writings he also attributed the photo to being the original Hampton station. It has certainly caught out a few people over the years who have also jumped to the natural conclusion that 'Derby Junction' is the station's name.

Does your photo show the name 'Hampton Junction' on the structure or is it the title of the photograph written by the photographer? If the former then I can only assume that your photograph must have been taken at a later date when the authorities had finally changed its name to one more becoming of reality. I personally believe that the station name was 'Derby Junction' until shortly after the opening of the new station (about the time when the photograph was taken) and was then renamed 'Hampton Junction' reflecting its new, albeit less grand, purpose in life. Hope this helps to clarify the situation.

I've looked at the above mentions pictures, and thought that you might like to mention that they show Sutton Coldfield station prior to 23 Jan 1955. This can be assumed from the presence of the canopy on the down platform, (to Lichfield) that was destroyed in the crash of the diverted York to Bristol express that happened on that day, following the derailment of the train on the bend through the station.

Also, in the write up under 'lnwrsc92a', mention is made of the goods siding to the left of the photographer. You should be aware that all the photos, with the exception of lnwrsc90/90a/95 show Sutton Coldfield station as rebuilt on a new alignment, when the line was extended from its original terminal station in Sutton Coldfield to Lichfield. Pictures 'lnwr90' & 'lnwr90a' show the original terminal station at Sutton Coldfield, that was later to be used as goods sidings, as mentioned in the write up.

It may be that the back wall and the platform shown in those pictures are, in part, still in existence, the back wall with the windows filled in, and the platform, some what higher, and used as part of the walkway from the carpark, that was made from the goods sidings.

Regards - Gordon Snelgrove

Many thanks Gordon for the corrections and extra information on Sutton Coldfield. As Gordon knows the station whereas I do not, I have asked Gordon if he would kindly help rewriting some of the captions.

I have just found your site and thought that I should contact you as I have lots of old B&W photos taken by an old friend of mine who sadly died a few years ago. He lent me the collection in the 80,s when we worked together and I copied as many as I could onto agfa dia-direct, and still have some photos and negs. They are not all brilliant pictures but a good record. I have shown quite a few at Rugby Railway Circle meetings when I was a member.

His name was Albert Davies and he worked on the railway at Rugby from the late 40’s to the early 60’s and always had his camera with him. I was also friends with the late Tony Norton whose dad, Norman, was foreman on the test plant. I have a few photos that Norman gave to me, taken by his colleague John Click. I have enclosed a couple of shots, and if you are interested in the rest please let me know. I live in Norfolk now but come back to Rugby occasionally as my daughter and son still live there.

Kind regards - Ian Williams

Ian - Many thanks for your kind offer. Yes I would be delighted to receive copies of the photos especially as the two you sent are on subject areas where I am a little light e.g. the GC and the Test Plant. I will try to add these to the site over Christmas. I try to upload photos that I am given in strict rotation in order to be fair to all contributors. These will be added after I complete Rugby Shed's upgrade (I uploaded the improved images etc to the station last night).

Remember to refresh your page if you have visited the pages recently otherwise you will not see the new photos. If you note any broken links please let me know (except for Rugby shed which I am working on right now).

Excellent site. I discovered it while looking for Bournville Loco. I started there as a cleaner in 1957, became a past cleaner and then a registered fireman. I transferred to Saltley after Bournville closed on February 14 1960. Wonderful pictures and happy memories.

Thank you - Tony Burton

'I came across this photograph whilst sorting out my things from my parents house sale which I thought might interest you. If you look closely at the sign on the left of the photo you can see that the location is Nuneaton railway station. My father, Frederick Brooks, spent a number of his childhood years at nearby Attleborough, where his father was minister at the Baptist Church, and was fascinated by trains from an early age.

In his memoirs he mentions two stations at Nuneaton and from the sign in the photo, which possibly says London North Western Railway, I take this one to be the Trent Valley station.

I have no idea who the people in the photo are and they are unlikely to be relatives of my father's as from the dress the lady is wearing I would say it was taken sometime between 1890 and 1900 - long before my family's association with the area began in 1925. There is a name and address written on the back of the photo, 'Mrs Edge, 9 Quarry Lane, Off Lutterworth Road, Nuneaton' and I can only guess that it was she who had some association with the people in the photo. It may have been Mrs Edge who gave my father the photo knowing of his love for railways (he subsequently spent most of his working life as a signalman).

Please feel free to reproduce this photo on your website (see image 'lnwrns1536') - I ask only that you credit it as follows: 'C & S Gordon' and if you think it appropriate, link the credit to my father's memoirs which, as well as childhood memories of Nuneaton and Attleborough, includes memories of working as a signalman on the London Midland Region.

Sue Gordon

Thanks Sue for the photograph which intrigues me. It must be of the old LNWR station on which I have very little information. I have repeated your email as part of the caption as your comments in the guest book will not always be read by those who will visit the station on the website.

Hi - a minor typo in the description for image 'mra133': 3rd line reads "accept for" should be "except for" Really first class website.

Regards - John Rigby

I've just been browsing your fascinating site and can add a little more information on Butlers Lane. I believe its official name was Butlers Lane Halt, rather than station.

The caption to photo 'lnwr_blane1529' states that it is not known whether the station was manned or not. I used it daily from 1966 -1973 to travel to school and for that period it certainly was manned. In 1966 the booking office was at the south (Birmingham) end of the Birmingham platform. Like the rest of the station it was wooden and I think it was relocated nearer the waiting room during improvement works, which involved platform lengthening, some years prior to the rebuild in 1991-2. From talking to relatives I understand that Butlers Lane was manned from the outset, neither I nor they don't remember having to buy a ticket on the train.

I've got a few colour slides of Butlers Lane dating from 1965/6, and also some of Birmingham New Street in the same period showing the rebuilding. They're not top quality being from a bottom of the range Kodak Instamatic wielded by a 10 year old! but I'll gladly scan them and send them to you - just let me know the best size, dpi etc for your purposes.

Regards, Andy Lawton

Being interested in the general history of Warwickshire, Leamington Spa in particular, I wanted to be reminded what Milverton Station looked like. On finding your site I have discovered so much about all the long gone railways and have even walked a few of them. I did not realize just how many stations there used to be and I hope Dr Beeching is turning in his grave!

Regards John Paveley

With reference to your images 'smjsa59c' and 'smjsa65b' of the SMJ shed at Stratford upon Avon. Looking at these images of the shed area you mention the coaling facility. Between 1953 and 1956 I was a regular visitor to the shed, and have travelled on the footplate the complete length of the line from Broom Junction to Olney many times. As far as I can remember, this coaling facility was only used to unload coal for the coal stockpile.

The coaling facility for locomotives was a purpose built split level building of corrugated iron construction situated behind the photographer in view 'smjsa65'. The track from the turntable leads to it: see the S-on-A station track plans in Arthur Jordans book: pages 52 & 56 (key 18). In this coaling facility the locomotive tender was at a lower level than the coal trucks so that coal could easily be loaded from the truck into the tender. I would like to complement you on your site, I find it extremely good, well organized and very informative.

Kind regards - David Wellstood

Many thanks David for your observations. The coaling facility you note was adjacent to the line to Broom and can be seen in a photograph by RC Riley reproduced in 'Railway Bylines Volume 13, Issue 1, December 2007, page 14, in the first part of a two-part article by IC Coleford. RC Riley's photographs are available from the 'Transport Treasury' together with many others by such renown names as Dr Ian Allen, JC Flemons, RHN Hardy et al.

I had always assumed, although I had not made this clear in the captions, that the coaling facility adjacent to the shed was the original facility built prior to the 1909 change in layout to the shed and yard. When the shed was enlarged, requiring the original turntable outside roads 1 and 2 (see image 'smjasa55') to be moved forward, the coaling facility alongside the Broom extension was built. I need to look at pre-1909 EWJR records to prove my theory which I am afraid with my current workload that will be a long way in the future.

Hello there - I have got a old water colour poster by George Beeny, it is a Navy blue red piping steam train and the number of the train is 1531, and it also has a slogan saying "to save L.S.D. travel by L.M.S". I have had this poster now for a good few number of years and I can't find nothing out about it, and I was wondering if you you could help me, it is a very nice picture and well painted it is a shame that I don't no a lot about as I think it may be dated at about 1968 going by the data I have received. And so if you can help me in any way I would be truly grateful. And yes I do think the time you have spent on improving your site was worthwhile and I think there should be more sites like it as the Railways are a very important issue in are British history and heritage.

Thanks a lot. Wade Crosweller from Brighton Aged 15

Wade I do not know anything about the poster but will enquire for you. The LMS was nationalise and absorbed into BR on 1st January 1948 so its an original it would be dated prior to 1948.

Dear Mike - I have recently come across your Warwickshire Railways website, and spent far longer than I should browsing it. Fascinating as I was born and brought up at Leamington. I have quite a few pictures which might be of interest to you - which I took in the late 60s/ early 70s of buildings etc. I know that there are some of Leamington Avenue (these have already been scanned Milverton - particularly goods shed / signal box Kenilworth Coventry ( a couple taken inside the old goods shed Lapworth (the station buildings before demolition Stratford on Avon (GWR) If these are of any interest, let me know and I will sort them out and scan them (gradually as I have the time).

Best wishes David Churchill

I have taken David up on his kind offer as whilst 1968 is our declared time line, photos taken of structures in the early 1970s are very rarely different to those taken ten years previously and therefore worth viewing.

In response to Peter's earlier email, I asked what was the story behind his interest in Hockley and his reply is below.

Dear Mike.

Thank you for your reply. It's a long story as they say which started off with us tracing our family history. Our parents married in All Saints Church Hockley (slap bang in the middle of GWR Hockley Depot) in 1937 and we had made one or two sorties to the area. We found out quite a bit (or so we thought) about Hockley but when I happened upon your site I realised we knew nothing.

The quality of the site itself is top drawer (did I read somewhere that its your son's handiwork?) and the photos and the information are staggering. There's no other word for it.

We went on another sortie recently armed with the photos and they gave us carte blanche everywhere we went, so its not just we who are impressed. People were fetching ladders to see things and offering transport and cups of tea and it all caused quite a stir.

I can't understand why so much has been demolished but whoever had the foresight to take those photographs has done us all a very great service. As I'm sure you know its all still there today in spirit and even though superficially its gone everything has left its mark and is still traceable from your photos. Sorry to bang on, I bet you wish you hadn't asked! Let me finish, if I may, by giving you an example?

Before warwickshirerailways I, like everybody else, would walk up All Saints Street from Lodge Road and see a railway bridge straddling a couple of local lines, a day care centre on the left down the hill, an old school now being used by the council on the right, next to the school a caged area where a Church probably once stood and a blue wall.

Now when I walk up all Saints Street I set out from Scribbans bakery and watch the no 32 tram picking up the kids ready to turn into All Saints Street and passing the Hydraulic public house on the corner. As I progress I look left down All Saints Road and see the round yard and Hockley Station with Frank Popplewell eating his sandwiches on the platform. There are 15 or twenty tracks and hundreds of wagons spread as far as the eye can see.

On the right of All Saints Street are a few terraced houses butted onto the old school and next to the school and obscured from the road by trees is All Saints Church. Looming over the Church sitting atop of the blue brick wall is an enormous hydraulic lift used to raise railway wagons from the tracks below up to the level of the canal basins behind the Church. This after they have made the journey from the goods yard via the tunnels that run under All Saints Street. (They are hauled past the veterinary quarters and the old water tank which serves stations for miles around and the stables on the left before being unloaded either from the first uncovered basin platform or its covered twin a short distance away.

A little further on up All Saints Street, this time on the left, is the invoice office somehow built into the side of the bridge and disappearing inside the roof of the top shed. Its light, spacious modern design a lesson in open plan. Back on the right a little further on are the workshops which tower over everything and see everything in the yard except perhaps the amenities building which is tucked into the corner next to the top shed just across the road. As I get to the end of the road I have to turn back just to see it all again.

I think your website is wonderful even though I am sorry to report that I haven't the slightest interest in trains. Goodness knows what a railway enthusiast thinks of it? Heaven I shouldn't wonder.

Very many thanks. Peter

Peter - Thanks for the story which I have put up on the guestbook page as I think it demonstrates exactly what the site was intended to do - to provoke memories for everyone not just the railway enthusiast.

My son built the 'skeleton' of the site with the navigation etc but I have pulled together the rest which means scanning the photos, writing the captions etc and then loading these on the site. Of late I have been getting some help from Robert Ferris who has worked on the Alcester to Bearley line. The photos of Hockley etc are from a variety of sources but the majority and the information behind the captions come from two Great Western Journal publications listed in the bibliography.

Wonderful site - found it through the Towcester Railway History link. The SMJ is a big favourite of mine, and although I have seen quite a few of your images, it is great to see a few more previously unknown shots. Can you clear up one mystery for me ? I have long thought that Bidford station had a siding behind the station platform - one of the shots shows what looks like a wooden stop block there behind the fence. However I cannot find confirmation of this in track plans etc - and indeed have been told some time ago that there were only ever the two sidings for the brick works etc under after the road bridge.

Barry Taylor

Hi Barry - My evidence shows there never was a siding behind the station although I agree that photo 'smjboa1' does show what appears to be a wooden stop block. I would go further and say that I can see a set of rails in front too. However these and the wooden buffer stop are at platform height so some two foot above the running line and are therefore unlikely to be evidence of a siding. Most likely they only resemble what we think they are and must have been used for some other purpose now lost in the mists of time. Can anyone offer an explanation?

Barry replied to my thoughts as follows:

Hi Mike - Thanks for your thoughts on Bidford

I have looked at this 'problem' on many occasions over several years, and I have however come to the conclusion that there was in fact a siding behind the platform. My (admittedly circumstantial !) evidence is:

a) as agreed there does appear to be a set of stop blocks, and probably rails in situ

b) apart from the handrails indicating a foot access down alongside the bridge, there seems to also be an approach road curving down from presumably overbridge road level, behind the trees, and then alongside the siding - entirely consistent with road traffic access to a siding, rather than just to the platform . This area does however seem to be grassed over in later views

c) the OPC view from the road bridge looking down along the platform does show rather a strange, and otherwise unnecessary, widening of the railway fenced area beyond the platform end - again consistent with a siding connection off the running line at this point

d) this possible siding could just have risen behind the platform to the level behind the nameboard and would have passed through what is seen to be a fence at right angles to the running line at the platform end - take a look at the photo on page 52 of the Riley / Simpson SNJ book, which (I think ! ) shows a slightly lower ground level at the foot of this fence (ie: lower than the platform at that point)

e) finally - and perhaps stretching the theory a bit - there are fruit baskets on the ground alongside the 'siding' indicating the probable (and highly likely) traffic source.

All a bit hypothetical I agree - but I think that it is highly likely on that evidence that there may well have been a siding there for a limited time at least.

Kind regards Barry

Hello! I'm interested to find out more about the route of the Moreton-in-Marsh to Shipston-on-Stour line. It appears to take a very curious route: from Moreton northwards past Stretton-on-Fosse towards Ilmington; and westwards from Shipston past Darlingscot, then northwards to join the line coming up from Moreton at an acute angle. It seems the train would have had to reverse! Can this be right? Also, on the aerial photo, the line appears clearly to continue northwards Crimscote - but there's no mention of this in Jowett's railway Atlas - the bible on such matters!

More confusingly, on the 'Shipston on line' website it talks about trains from Moreton to Stratford - but there's no sign of this line in Jowett! If you can shed light on any of this, or point me to more info, I would be grateful.

Best wishes Mike Evans

You need to read The Shipston-on-Stour Branch by SC Jenkins and RS Carpenter - Wild Swan Publications ISBN 1 874103 34 8. It will explain that there were two railways, the original horse drawn Moreton to 4 foot Stratford Tramway and the later standard gauge steam line to Shipston which followed the route as far as Longdon Road and then curved away to Shipston. The original formation remained in place until the mid-20th century but not used much since the 19th century. See 'gwrlr533' for the point where the two lines diverged. I actually have many more photos of the route which one day hopefully I will get around to posting on the site.

My progress is slow because I need to research, write captions as well as create the HTML pages, scan and adjust the photos and then load on to the site. Anyone who can help by writing captions to any of the photos on the site etc helps to add new photos to the site because its one less job that I have to do.

Thought you may be able to use some of these. If they are of use, I will give you text to accompany the pics you would like and provide as much information as I can supply There are more to come if you would like them.

Tony Woodward

Tony had attached 22 B&W photos which immediately took me back to my youth when the last decade of steam was characterised by engines covered in grime. I look forward to sharing them with visitors when Tony has provided the information for the captions.

Fantastic site. Nice to see that there are dedicated people who are prepared to share the fruits of their labours.

Thank you - Joseph Powell

Thank you for some excellent photographs. I have been searching for images of Hall Green and Yardley Wood Stations as I am from this area and still use this line. I am interested in the architectural details of the stations for drawings and paintings and have been fascinated by the images from the early history of the line.

Thanks - Roger Simmons

What a wonderful site and fascinating archive. Well done to you all. Do you happen to know anything about the New Bilton siding sometimes known as New Bilton branch line, or Rugby Cement siding at Rugby? The OS map shows this as disused but now we are told it was refurbished for use in the late 1990's and has been a part of the operational rail network since that time. Any information about the refurbishment or the use of this small branch line would be much appreciated.

Thank you for a great site. Lilian

Please email Lilian if you have any information at lp@rugbyinplume.org

was a driver at Coventry from 1978 until closure, working around the many now closed freight lines in the area, mostly with class 25 diesels. I enjoyed my time there but it went too quickly. I am now at Exeter (fgw). I found your website most interesting and will visit again.

Thank you, Jon Morton

I discovered this little gem surfing for Broom Junction. Thank you for an inspirational and fascinating website, it is very obvious that a lot of time, effort and work has been dedicated to present, in my opinion, one of the best railway historical information archives on the web. This will be a constant source of research material and just plain curiosity. As a suggestion to a truly superb project, an interactive map could be useful - a pictorial representation of the routes and stations etc. may help those of us not familiar with the Warwickshire railway scene.

Iain Nunn

Mike - That is quite a site - wish I had found it earlier. I can send you a scan of this halt which you are currently missing. A contemporary postcard view.

John Rodley

What an outstanding website! I only came across it today from a reference on the LNWR Society's site. I have been working for some years on an S4 model of an imaginary LNWR terminus at Stratford on Avon (from 'Myton Junction' via Barford and Hampton Lucy). Now retired, I hope I shall have the time to finish it.

Robert H. Barlow

I have just found your site and it made great reading I was a fireman on the western at Stratford-on-Avon in the 1950s I then moved to old Oak Common and left the railway in 1965.

Best wishes, Roger

Hi - this is a great website I am using it to help me build a model railway on the current Stratford upon Avon. I was just wondering if there was any evidence of a turntable at the sheds. (I really do need one in my layout and it's the only suitable place!)

Adam

You do not make it clear as to whether you are modelling the GWR or SMJ. I believe only the SMJ had a turntable (in fact two as the original was moved when the shed was rebuilt) which was sited next to the shed.

Hi, I am one of the duty signallers based at Washwood Heath No 1 box, I can confirm that the photo 'mrwhg35a' is indeed No 1. Myself and the rest of the lads have found your photos fascinating.

Regards, Pete Kinsey

Pete contacted me a few weeks later to say that the signal box is not Washwood Heath No1 Box.

Excellent site, thanks very much. I spent summer holidays 1940's in Little Leamington adjacent to the Moreton in Marsh to Shipston. My memory of the late 1940's was that the local kids of Little Leamington and I would run through the field next to the hamlet, and watch the local goods train go by. Noting I was not yet a teenager, I do recall the engine's flailing connection rods, could it have been a Dean Goods? I didn't see that characteristic again till my trainspotting days at my home town of Derby, namely the Midland 0-6-0 No 58110.

David Pratley

I have just found your site and in particular the photographs of Kings Heath ballast sidings. My parents house was in Greenend Rd which backed onto the railway, I collected many numbers from the top of the cutting, happy day's. I am now searching for old photographs I think I still have.

Bob Clifton

Found your site from the link in the railway archive. Superb range of photographs so far (many new to me), and good sound historical detail. This site will be a very valuable research aid as it develops.

All credit to you. Mike Doubleday

Excellent site. I loved looking at the Nuneaton to Cov ones I used to catch the train every day from Foleshill to Coundon Road to school at Bablake. The Foleshill station had several staff one of whom we used to wind up asking for tickets valid for 3 months which had to be filled in by hand. Coming home we caught a later train which was always standard 75 steam hauled and we used to cadge a lift in the cab if we knew the train crew. My mum never understood why I arrived home looking so dirty !. If it was an unfriendly crew we used to leap in the 1st class non corridor compartment for a trip home in comfort . Later all the trains became dmus.

Mike

Excellent idea to set up that kind of archive. It looks a really interesting site. I wish I had more time to explore it because the very first picture I looked at made my eyes pop!

In your LNER/Catesby Tunnel group there's a shot of an A3 heading towards the tunnel and that engine is identified as 'Windsor Lad'. Now, talk about 'prize cops' (this subject was raised on another thread about the Gresley 'Hush Hush' 4-6-4) - well, Windsor Lad on the southern part of the GC main line would deserve to be rated as one of the biggest prize cops of all time! This A3 Pacific was allocated to Scottish area sheds for the whole of its life. It hardly visited the south even on the East Coast main line, let alone the GC section. It might have come south on extremely rare occasions on a running in turn after overhaul at Doncaster, but as your picture shows the engine is certainly nowhere near in ex-works condition - in fact the very opposite.

There certainly were a few A3s on the GC section but most of those I can think of had the older GN-style tenders with coal rails. The engine in the picture has the later LNER design of tender which is correct for Windsor Lad. Flying Scotsman itself was on the GC line for a time and it had an LNER type tender.

Are there any details of the date and occasion of this picture that would confirm the identity of this A3 as Windsor Lad? I'm really intrigued because not only must it have been one of the prizest cops of all time in that location but also because someone managed to take a photo of it.

I lived at the southern end of the Kings Cross main line from the mid 1940s until regular steam workings finished in 1963. Appearances of Scottish A3s in the south were like gold dust, and during my years in the area I had only 2 definite sightings - and one of those was at Peterborough. Windsor Lad was a Scottish based A3 for its entire life. To learn of a possible 1949 visit by this engine to the GC line just about beats everything.

Martin Beckett

Martin - The photograph is also reproduced in Philip Weston's 'The Weston Collection' a slim card cover book of photographs taken by his father. The book only reproduced a fraction of the photographs in his collection and was published in 1983 by Wyvern Publications (cover price £4.50 which was a lot in those days). Phil sold several postcard sized photos to me and one or two much larger prints too. My postcard sized photo has no other information other than that seen in the book.

Very interesting and user friendly site. Great to see so many photographs. Well done!

Martin Davies

I really enjoyed looking at the old photographs. My Grandfather (George Everitt) was the Senior Railway Clerk at Snow Hill, while his brother Bill was Station Master at Knowle before moving to Tenby in South Wales. Another member of the family, Joe Gurney, was station master at Banbury.

Stephen Harper-Scott

I am playing a railway station tea shop proprietress in a Noel Coward play and wondered if you might have pictures?

Anne Byrd - agbyrd15@sbcglobal.net

Anne - I have found this photo of May Jordan who was manageress of the refreshment room at Stratford Old Town Station from 1915 to 1934. May was mother of Arthur Jordan who was author of book 'The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway'. Hope its of use.

Your images at Longdon Road, gwrl531-33 were taken by Dr. Jack Hollick on 29th April 1934. I have the negatives plus several others of the line taken that day. Jack Hollick was a good friend to me hence my having a large chunk if not all of his box camera negatives when he died. They might not be his - because he was out that day with three other men, including D.S Barrie, C.R.Clinker and a London Stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Justice Broderick.

In the view Jack took at Longdon Rd. Barrie is nearest then Clinker then Broderick. In the view at Stretton with a man, that's Clinker. They all walked along the track together so they might all have taken near identical pictures and then one of these gents negatives could have ended up with John Smith (Lens of Sutton). But anyhow, judge for yourself. Jack was always generous with prints and loans of negatives to make prints. He was close to Clinker and Barrie and they were all interested in recording and publicising railway history.

If you were to send me a list of 'Warwickshire wants' I might have the odd one or two. I have some taken by Peter Barlow on a day out on the SMJ behind 9017 (date?) including inside Fenny box, stations, odds and ends - you know how it goes. What really hurts me, even after all this time, is the way I allowed almost all of my best beloved railway to slip through my fingers - I just stood there and looked at it! Amazingly stupid.

Now that I've got out the negatives, I see that there are the 1934 set and a 1950s(?) set taken on an REC visit to the line with a 2474 views of the train at Shipston, stations from train, and one view of 1335 on the branch platform at Moreton in the Marsh. I shan't send these unless you want me to but perhaps you know the dates of these visits?

Adrian Vaughan

Adrian kindly sent some photos, as referred to in the text, which I will add shortly as part of the revamp of the branch. They will be useful additions to others from Rogers Carpenter's collection which is due to be revamped following Robert Ferris' work on Claverdon and my completing the MR route to Barnt Green.

Hello there - I have got a old water colour poster by George Beeny, it is a Navy blue red piping steam train and the number of the train is 1531, and it also has a slogan saying "to save L.S.D. travel by L.M.S". I have had this poster now for a good few number of years and I can't find nothing out about it, and I was wondering if you you could help me, it is a very nice picture and well painted it is a shame that I don't no a lot about as I think it may be dated at about 1968 going by the data I have received. And so if you can help me in any way I would be truly grateful. And yes I do think the time you have spent on improving your site was worthwhile and I think there should be more sites like it as the Railways are a very important issue in are British history and heritage.

Thanks a lot. Wade Crosweller from Brighton Aged 15

Dear Mike - I have recently come across your Warwickshire Railways website, and spent far longer than I should browsing it. Fascinating as I was born and brought up at Leamington. I have quite a few pictures which might be of interest to you - which I took in the late 60s/ early 70s of buildings etc. I know that there are some of Leamington Avenue (these have already been scanned Milverton - particularly goods shed / signal box Kenilworth Coventry ( a couple taken inside the old goods shed Lapworth (the station buildings before demolition Stratford on Avon (GWR) If these are of any interest, let me know and I will sort them out and scan them (gradually as I have the time).

Best wishes David Churchill

I have taken David up on his kind offer as whilst 1968 is our declared time line, photos taken of structures in the early 1970s are very rarely different to those taken ten years previously and therefore worth viewing.

In response to Peter's earlier email, I asked what was the story behind his interest in Hockley and his reply is below.

Dear Mike.

Thank you for your reply. It's a long story as they say which started off with us tracing our family history. Our parents married in All Saints Church Hockley (slap bang in the middle of GWR Hockley Depot) in 1937 and we had made one or two sorties to the area. We found out quite a bit (or so we thought) about Hockley but when I happened upon your site I realised we knew nothing.

The quality of the site itself is top drawer (did I read somewhere that its your son's handiwork?) and the photos and the information are staggering. There's no other word for it.

We went on another sortie recently armed with the photos and they gave us carte blanche everywhere we went, so its not just we who are impressed. People were fetching ladders to see things and offering transport and cups of tea and it all caused quite a stir.

I can't understand why so much has been demolished but whoever had the foresight to take those photographs has done us all a very great service. As I'm sure you know its all still there today in spirit and even though superficially its gone everything has left its mark and is still traceable from your photos. Sorry to bang on, I bet you wish you hadn't asked! Let me finish, if I may, by giving you an example?

Before warwickshirerailways I, like everybody else, would walk up All Saints Street from Lodge Road and see a railway bridge straddling a couple of local lines, a day care centre on the left down the hill, an old school now being used by the council on the right, next to the school a caged area where a Church probably once stood and a blue wall.

Now when I walk up all Saints Street I set out from Scribbans bakery and watch the no 32 tram picking up the kids ready to turn into All Saints Street and passing the Hydraulic public house on the corner. As I progress I look left down All Saints Road and see the round yard and Hockley Station with Frank Popplewell eating his sandwiches on the platform. There are 15 or twenty tracks and hundreds of wagons spread as far as the eye can see.

On the right of All Saints Street are a few terraced houses butted onto the old school and next to the school and obscured from the road by trees is All Saints Church. Looming over the Church sitting atop of the blue brick wall is an enormous hydraulic lift used to raise railway wagons from the tracks below up to the level of the canal basins behind the Church. This after they have made the journey from the goods yard via the tunnels that run under All Saints Street. (They are hauled past the veterinary quarters and the old water tank which serves stations for miles around and the stables on the left before being unloaded either from the first uncovered basin platform or its covered twin a short distance away.

A little further on up All Saints Street, this time on the left, is the invoice office somehow built into the side of the bridge and disappearing inside the roof of the top shed. Its light, spacious modern design a lesson in open plan. Back on the right a little further on are the workshops which tower over everything and see everything in the yard except perhaps the amenities building which is tucked into the corner next to the top shed just across the road. As I get to the end of the road I have to turn back just to see it all again.

I think your website is wonderful even though I am sorry to report that I haven't the slightest interest in trains. Goodness knows what a railway enthusiast thinks of it? Heaven I shouldn't wonder.

Very many thanks. Peter

Peter - Thanks for the story which I have put up on the guestbook page as I think it demonstrates exactly what the site was intended to do - to provoke memories for everyone not just the railway enthusiast.

My son built the 'skeleton' of the site with the navigation etc but I have pulled together the rest which means scanning the photos, writing the captions etc and then loading these on the site. Of late I have been getting some help from Robert Ferris who has worked on the Alcester to Bearley line. The photos of Hockley etc are from a variety of sources but the majority and the information behind the captions come from two Great Western Journal publications listed in the bibliography.

Wonderful site - found it through the Towcester Railway History link. The SMJ is a big favourite of mine, and although I have seen quite a few of your images, it is great to see a few more previously unknown shots. Can you clear up one mystery for me ? I have long thought that Bidford station had a siding behind the station platform - one of the shots shows what looks like a wooden stop block there behind the fence. However I cannot find confirmation of this in track plans etc - and indeed have been told some time ago that there were only ever the two sidings for the brick works etc under after the road bridge.

Barry Taylor

Hi Barry - My evidence shows there never was a siding behind the station although I agree that photo 'smjboa1' does show what appears to be a wooden stop block. I would go further and say that I can see a set of rails in front too. However these and the wooden buffer stop are at platform height so some two foot above the running line and are therefore unlikely to be evidence of a siding. Most likely they only resemble what we think they are and must have been used for some other purpose now lost in the mists of time. Can anyone offer an explanation?

Barry replied to my thoughts as follows:

Hi Mike - Thanks for your thoughts on Bidford

I have looked at this 'problem' on many occasions over several years, and I have however come to the conclusion that there was in fact a siding behind the platform. My (admittedly circumstantial !) evidence is:

a) as agreed there does appear to be a set of stop blocks, and probably rails in situ

b) apart from the handrails indicating a foot access down alongside the bridge, there seems to also be an approach road curving down from presumably overbridge road level, behind the trees, and then alongside the siding - entirely consistent with road traffic access to a siding, rather than just to the platform . This area does however seem to be grassed over in later views

c) the OPC view from the road bridge looking down along the platform does show rather a strange, and otherwise unnecessary, widening of the railway fenced area beyond the platform end - again consistent with a siding connection off the running line at this point

d) this possible siding could just have risen behind the platform to the level behind the nameboard and would have passed through what is seen to be a fence at right angles to the running line at the platform end - take a look at the photo on page 52 of the Riley / Simpson SNJ book, which (I think ! ) shows a slightly lower ground level at the foot of this fence (ie: lower than the platform at that point)

e) finally - and perhaps stretching the theory a bit - there are fruit baskets on the ground alongside the 'siding' indicating the probable (and highly likely) traffic source.

All a bit hypothetical I agree - but I think that it is highly likely on that evidence that there may well have been a siding there for a limited time at least.

Kind regards Barry

Could I please draw your attention to the caption under 'gwrhd686'? The photo was taken from All Saints Street but the fact that the invoice office is on the right, as is Pitsford Street, means that the view must be southwards towards Snow Hill. I hope you don't mind me pointing this out?

Your coverage of Hockley Goods has given me and my family many happy hours studying the photos, visiting the site and meeting some great people. Many thanks indeed.

Peter Fox

Peter - As I keep on saying, all corrections and additional information are welcome as I wish the website to be an accurate source of information for future generations to enjoy and to use.

Hi there. What an excellent site. I must have spent hours looking at it. I have to point out a small error in the caption under "Birmingham New Street - BR Period Locomotives: lnwrbns_br342". This begins "Ex-MR 0-6-0 No 58271 with a plate bearing the code W721 on the bufferbeam stands alongside ex-LMS Fowler 2-6-0 "Crab" No 42337 on the adjacent platform." No 42337 was in fact a Fowler 4-MT 2-6-4T.

Rob Gill

Rob - Many thanks for the correction, I have now updated the caption. I can only assume it was another late night working on the website and when I looked at the photograph I only saw the high running plate over the cylinders and missed the side tanks. Another reason why I welcome corrections etc.

Great site... haven't touched the surface yet. Just a question about the Sutton Coldfield picture on the Birmingham to Lichfield section. I reckon the picture 'mrsc96' of one of the station buildings is Sutton Town not Sutton Coldfield. It's still there today as an office.

Edward Dawes

Edward - On re-examining the photograph I agree with you. Its one of the many photographs I have that does not have any information on the reverse of the photograph. Not having first-hand knowledge of either station I made an incorrect guess. I have now added it to the Sutton Town web page.

I have enjoyed looking at your great photos of when steam was the only way to travel, more comfortable and enjoyable. As a former signalman I was able to enjoy the sights and sounds of many trains as they passed by my box. The photos bring back many memories of those days, especially those of the former LMS and LNER engines.

Keep up the good work. Eric

Great idea. The only fly in the ointment is getting copies of colour slides held by Kidderminster. If they were given to the nation, then we are all entitled to obtain copies for our own use at our own expense. To date, I believe almost no personal copies have been obtained.

Chris Youett

Hi Mike

In response to your request for proofing the captions, might I suggest that the crossovers referred to in image 'lnwra 1494' are not to access the Windsor Street Wharf & Gas Works, but relate to the access to and from Aston shed. The access to Windsor Street Wharf & Gas Works is to the left of the buffers, the head shunt of which can be seen behind the signal, and the 'toe' of the pointwork for the access, can be seen in the bottom left-hand corner of the photograph.

Hope this helps Gordon Snelgrove

Gordon - Many thanks for the correction, it all helps to build up a more accurate understanding of the railways scene in Warwickshire. Not only are most of the photographs taken more than fifty years ago, but I have never visited all the locations on the site. My observations are based on using maps, reference books etc and consequently I could be repeating incorrect information or just misinterpreting the photograph.

So much information, many thanks. I stayed for a short time with my relatives at Lifford station (1953-1954) Uncle was a guard working night trains. His name was Harry Silvester. I have fond memories of the old station.

Again many thanks. Michael Hunt

Hi Mike! Its been a long time since we used to chat at the Leamington Model Railway show. Great site - I have a few questions regarding obtaining photos from your site for reference' purposes. Incidently 'lnwrbns_br342' was taken on 30-5-1959 - I have an almost identical shot in my collection! I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best - Philip Hawkins

Phil thanks for the information - it all helps to build a more accurate picture. When the Midland line to Barnt Green is complete I will be starting at Rugby and working my way to New Street. All the images will be increased in size and have the quality improved to the current standard. Phil was also kind enough to provide a number of his paintings to be included in our new feature 'Warwickshire Railways - Rail Art'

One little tale about the triangular junction at Hatton from my father and mother. Shortly after WW2 the railway was transporting a load of bananas - probably one of the first into the country after, as my father puts it, "the recent hostilities". Unfortunately the refrigeration equipment on the ship had been faulty, and the whole trainload spoiled in the railway wagons. Somebody, somewhere, in the railway officialdom decided that the best way of getting rid of them was to tip them in the middle of the triangular junction at Hatton and cover them with earth.....for more on Kevin's story click hatton

Kevin Jones

Splendid site. My uncle, who still lives in Wood Street, Rugby, was a signalman in Rugby for over 40 years. He is coming up to his 96th birthday and I want to give him some photos of No 1 and 4 boxes, the sidings leading into Wood street and the postcard showing the No 4 box and the BTH bridge where I used to wave to him as a lad in the 1960s. They are on the website and I would like to get hold of copies. They may well stimulate him to tell me more stories re life in the boxes around the area. Thank you

Paul Jackson

What a fantastic site. As a native of Evesham I really enjoyed the many photographs of the old Midland station. Incidentally the second shot in the Evesham section is of the GWR station not the Midland as indicated in the caption. Excellent stuff!

Martin Street

Thanks for letting me know of my mistake. The offending photograph has been removed. In answer to the question 'why have you only featured the Midland station'? The answer is the Midland station at Evesham was only included to provide a natural and logical termination of our interest in a route which ran through Warwickshire. Had the GWR route running through Evesham entered Warwickshire then it too would have been included.

Very interesting site. Good pictures. I lived in Rugby in the 60s and all this stuff brings back memories of all the trains when I was a teenager. Good job!! I live in Vancouver. Canada. I still like trains so your site is very interesting.

Thanks!! Dave Chesterton

Congratulations to all concerned on a marvellous site for those interested in railways of this particular area. I came across it by accident but spent a happy hour marvelling at the depth of coverage of some locations and the wonderful pictures are so evocative, it must be great for anyone doing drawings, paintings or modelling of these locations - just wish someone did something similar for Yorkshire!! Good luck and best wishes for the sites continued growth and success.

Stuart Hawkesworth

I worked at Bedlam Lane for about a year in the late 70’s, during this time I took a few photos of Bedlam and surrounding area, but these are 47’s 44’s etc etc, and are on pictures rather that slides is this era any good to you? If so I can post them (when I find them!) so that you can copy them. Let us know, and by the way a great site!

Steve Williams

Thanks for the offer Steve! However we must decline your very kind gesture because we have given ourselves the time line of 1968 to enable us to have an end date (as well as recognising the end of steam). The site is much much bigger than we ever thought it would be and if we extended the date by twenty years then frankly I can never see us ever be able to finish. Perhaps someone else would like to create a post-1968 site on Warwickshire's Railways? With regard to the format of an image, most of the images are scanned from photos rather than slides which are in fact more fiddley.

In looking on your wonderful site just now, I noticed that in the LNER section of Rugby, gcrcs13 & gcrcs13a, describe the engine as an unidentified B1. The engine is in fact a B16/1. You can tell this from the NER cab and tender. As I understand it, they were regulars on trips down from York via Woodford, to Banbury. Sorry that`s all the information I have. Keep up the good work.

Best Regards. Ian Jones

Thanks Ian! We have ammended the caption. We have also improved the mid-tones of the images too but the upgrade we have started with larger images - see the GWR Banbury to Wolverhampton route - we will have to leave to later.

I am presently researching Rugby Midland station for a large painting for a client in Rugby. Your site has produced a number of very valuable details of the south end of the station which will make putting together the painting so much easier. I note your interest in paintings. I have two of Rugby already which you might like to have a look at . One of the north end and No 4 signal box and another from the wooden bridge. Perhaps you could include these in your website, which incidentally I found absolutely fascinating.

Many thanks! Barry Freeman - Guild of Railway Artists

Many thanks for a delightfully nostalgic hour. Oh to be able to climb into a Tardis with a digital camera!!!!!

Ken Harris

Congratulations on a fine collection of photos relating to Claverdon where I currently live. Thank you. I really enjoyed viewing them.

Regards, Clive Hanley

My father took me to the scene of the derailment near Barby sidings in 1955. Although I was not yet 3 years old, it left a strong impression. I had searched the web for ages to find some reference to this event without any joy. It was not until I found your website that at last I found some mention.

I spent a day last July 06 trying to find the location of the accident but I think my bearings were off. I am going to try again this year.

The photographs you have are credited to the Coventry Evening Telegraph but I contacted them and they say they do not have any records and referred me to the Coventry Library. The microfilm at the library is not in very god condition and does not contain all the images you have. Is it possible you may have some original photographs that I could copy?

Many of the photographs that I have were acquired over twenty-five years ago. I have been told by other correspondents that the organisations that I have credited have no recollection of the images which is worrying. In this instance I copied someone else's photographs but I will contact you off-line to advise where you can get a copy.

Tom Niland

I enjoy visits to your comprehensive Warwickshire Railways site. For reference, the web site steamcentral.tripod.com features my GC book wherein is black & white imagery of the Great Central, 1960-1964, Rugby to Woodford Halse (120 pages of them) - and more pics taken further south on the line - the book comprising 288 pages in toto.

Many views of Rugby Central station and environs, Catesby tunnel (N. portal), and Woodford Halse station and environs and Woodford Halse MPD . . . it was probably high time I shared these irreplaceable images of a long-gone railway before they became forever lost.

Tony Newman

I have looked at many of the photo's on your Warwickshire's Railways site and may I suggest that you have another look at photo gwrsf540 of Stretton-on-Fosse and you will see that the rails nearest the camera do belong to the siding (points may be seen near the crossing gates), much easier to see in the large, 500x310 pixel picture. The running rail nearest the platform is in shadow but the other running rail can just be seen.

Also in the Edge Hill Light Railway section, the first photo', ehlr7, on going to the large picture, the image for ehlr1 is shewn. Love the collection - even the non-GWR ones.

Keep up the good work. You have several thousand pictures to examine and caption - and I get picky, sorry.

Ian md

Very interesting to see the photos of the railways that I was familiar with when I lived in Birmingham. Well organised site easy to find information.

J.Hunter

Just had a look at the website again and read the caption under that superb painting of old New Street (if that makes sense?).
Sir, that MR 2F is nothing of the kind!!!!!!!!!!!
It is an ex-LNWR ‘Cauliflower’ 0-6-0 – also 2F but F.W.Webb is probably rotating in his grave at such an insult....... Whoops!!! Its now sorted.

David Walker.

Looks like an excellent start - keep up the good work. I will be in touch shortly.

David Walker.

Very interesting photographs and information. I will make use of it now I have found the web site. Keep up the good work as it must be very interesting to many people, they have just not bothered to thank you.

Best wishes, Bob Marshall

I worked at Nuneaton shed in the late fifties and early sixties and have many fond memories. You have some brilliant photos of the shed on this site, a very good website.

Well done. Peter Walduck

I have created a site specifically about memories of Rugby Motive Power Depot during the steam age. I was firing there between the years of 59–64, and I want to give those who are still left the chance to share memories and photos. It isn't a site like yours which has an extremely vast amount of excellent photos; it is more for dialogue between old mates.

I have added a link to my site for your site and in an effort to get the ‘news’ out to more former footplate men, I would like to ask you if you will put a link on your site back to mine. Its a pleasure - The site is both very interesting and entertaining. Thoroughly recommended.

Best regards John Pemberton

Rod Liddiard replied to our appeal for corrections and the list was mightily long - so thanks Rod for helping to make the site even better.

Rod also wrote "As you can tell from my employment as a fireman at Tyseley and Old Oak I'm getting a bit long in the tooth. (Born Sept 1943 in Small Heath) Until I left the Railway for the Royal Navy (Fleet Air Arm) I lived in a district called Greet (next to Tyseley) The 2 Stations of Small Heath and Tyseley were roughly equidistant. From our back bedroom (a 2 up 2 down mansion) I could see Tyseley Loco box across open ground and therefore all coming and goings off the shed. Unfortunately too far away to see the numbers."

"So I'll look through your excellent site and let you know of any pertinent details. It may take some time as we are moving next week to Italy as I stated previously. I'll look at Western lines first the others I only knew as a spotter except the line to Washwood Heath past Blues football ground and Saltley shed from where we used to work freights to Banbury and Gloucester."

"I notice on your main listing of the 'Banbury to Wolverhampton' line 'Acocks Green - WORCESTERSHIRE'. Why? The then Yardley Rural District Council which included Tyseley and Acocks Green was incorporated into Birmingham from Worcestershire in 1911 boundary changes. (Also Aston which makes the Blues the oldest Birmingham team, In fact Birmingham wanted Erdington but Aston was in the way so they reluctantly took it as well). Acocks Green station name used to be Acocks Green and South Yardley but I see now the S. Yardley suffix has been dropped. If you're in Brum your in Warwickshire just like Coventry."

Rod Liddiard

Thank you for this fine collection of photos.

You may like to note that lnwrcov673 is not a 4-4-2T ("Precursor Tank") as per the caption, but a 4-6-2T ("5' 6" Superheater Tank"). Also, lnwrcov645 and lnwrcov650, worth noting that the engine at platform 1 is a Southern Division Large Bloomer as rebuilt in the style of Crewe. Thanks for letting us know, we have now updated the caption.

Keith Collett

Great site. Congratulations to all concerned. I'm an ex-Tyseley Fireman. So it is a real memory lane trip. Only noticed a couple of errors but won't be 'picky' about a such a work as this. Must have took ages to do. We have asked to Rod to be picky and so we can correct any errors.

Rod Liddiard, Excideuil, Dordogne France. Soon to move to Italy

Hi, I am the webmaster (volunteer) for Vintage Trains. I have recently set up a specific web page for the Bloomer Replica project, and I've put links into your website as it has some pix of original Bloomers. Please support the Bloomer project through recycling your empty inkjet cartridges. To see our website click here.

Best Regards Brian Wilson

I stumbled across your site while looking for somewhere to buy a photograph of loco 6145 "Condor". What a great website! I wish something similar existed for my former home "patch" of Edinburgh / Lothians!

A pity that you aren't able to sell copies of your images, though. There are some crackers in your collection!

Laurie Thompson

Good day to you all, can I ask a question please, referring to Milverton Station and sheds? I can see from your site the sheds closed in 1958 but were used for storage somewhile after 1958. The station itself, as far as I can gather closed in 1965? If this date is correct did it close for passengers and goods in the same year? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

PS. Can you send someone round to mow my lawn, I'm spending too much time on your brilliant website !!??

Terry Molloy

A great site with lots of old photographs taking me back many years. I used to live near Erdington on the Birmingham New Street to Lichfield line and traveled into Birmingham often (I prefer the original station to the current one). Now I commute from Sutton Coldfield through to Kings Norton every day - it's nice to see how the all the stations I pass through used to be.

The photograph you have of Erdington (Erdington: lnwre48) is of Chester Road - the next station along, as Erdington is as you say in the notes, has a straight platform. Keep it up.

Robin Rose

You ask do we think your site is worthwhile?! Absolutely well worthwhile. It is totally fascinating and absorbing. Having lived only a few hundred yards away from what was Milverton station for 20 years I have learnt more about this subject in 20 minutes than in all those years. Keep up your splendid work, you are keeping history alive and without people such as yourselves it would be fragmented and lost forever. All the best to you.

Regards Terry Molloy

Having worked at Monument Lane Loco in 1958 as a cleaner and then Fireman I have been looking for some old photos and finding your site has brought back many memories for me, thank you and keep up the good work.

John Williams

Firstly I must say I think this is an excellent site - Robert then provided some corrections and additional information. Subsequently Robert has kindly taken on the task of writing the captions to additional photographs focusing on the Bearley to Alcester line (click here to view) - Robert finishes his guest entry by writing, "Keep up the good work."

Robert Ferris

I thought you'd be interested in the attached picture. My great grandfather was the station master there in 1912 and is seen on the left. This and a pencil written letter of the confirmation of his appointment is all that I have which was passed on to me when my father died some years ago. I'm certain of the date of the picture as he was one there only for 6 months as he died suddenly from a brain tumour.

I recently discovered your site and what a fantastic one it is too. It has re-awakened my interest in the railways and in particular that of Kenilworth Station and the junction. Both my parents were born and raised in Kenilworth (I too lived there for a few years) and many years ago my father and I started to make a 00 gauge model of the station and surrounds but never got very far – the incomplete base board was in my bed room and we were just guessing at the track layout, my teenage years came along and I found other interests!

I'm now keen to learn some more about the station and the pictures on your site are very good but I just can't find any station plans on the Internet. I have recently bought Robin Leach's book 'Kenilworth's Railway Age' but no luck there. I was wondering if you had access to his ‘Rails to Kenilworth and Milverton' to see if such plans are in there. I could get the book from Amazon but it would take 6 weeks and I'm a little impetuous.

should also say that railways are very much in the blood as my Great Grand Uncle was a locomotive inspector and my Great Great grand father and mother were both recorded in the Census as Station Masters at I think Leighton Buzzard.

Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing from you.

Paul Rivitt

A great site with lots of old photographs taking me back many years. I used to live near Erdington on the Birmingham New Street to Lichfield line and traveled into Birmingham often (I prefer the original station to the current one). Now I commute from Sutton Coldfield through to Kings Norton every day - it's nice to see how the all the stations I pass through used to be.

The photograph you have of Erdington (Erdington: lnwre48) is of Chester Road - the next station along, as Erdington is as you say in the notes, has a straight platform. Keep it up.

Robin Rose

You ask do we think your site is worthwhile?! Absolutely well worthwhile. It is totally fascinating and absorbing. Having lived only a few hundred yards away from what was Milverton station for 20 years I have learnt more about this subject in 20 minutes than in all those years. Keep up your splendid work, you are keeping history alive and without people such as yourselves it would be fragmented and lost forever. All the best to you.

Regards Terry Molloy

Having worked at Monument Lane Loco in 1958 as a cleaner and then Fireman I have been looking for some old photos and finding your site has brought back many memories for me, thank you and keep up the good work.

John Williams

Firstly I must say I think this is an excellent site - Robert then provided some corrections and additional information. Subsequently Robert has kindly taken on the task of writing the captions to additional photographs focusing on the Bearley to Alcester line (click here to view) - Robert finishes his guest entry by writing, "Keep up the good work."

Robert Ferris

I thought you'd be interested in the attached picture. My great grandfather was the station master there in 1912 and is seen on the left. This and a pencil written letter of the confirmation of his appointment is all that I have which was passed on to me when my father died some years ago. I'm certain of the date of the picture as he was one there only for 6 months as he died suddenly from a brain tumour.

I recently discovered your site and what a fantastic one it is too. It has re-awakened my interest in the railways and in particular that of Kenilworth Station and the junction. Both my parents were born and raised in Kenilworth (I too lived there for a few years) and many years ago my father and I started to make a 00 gauge model of the station and surrounds but never got very far – the incomplete base board was in my bed room and we were just guessing at the track layout, my teenage years came along and I found other interests!

I'm now keen to learn some more about the station and the pictures on your site are very good but I just can't find any station plans on the Internet. I have recently bought Robin Leach's book 'Kenilworth's Railway Age' but no luck there. I was wondering if you had access to his ‘Rails to Kenilworth and Milverton' to see if such plans are in there. I could get the book from Amazon but it would take 6 weeks and I'm a little impetuous.

should also say that railways are very much in the blood as my Great Grand Uncle was a locomotive inspector and my Great Great grand father and mother were both recorded in the Census as Station Masters at I think Leighton Buzzard.

Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing from you.

Paul Rivitt

Wonderful nostalgic trip back to Handsworth and Smethwick Station.... a pound for each hour spent there during the glorious 1950s ah ....thanks for the memories.

Incidentally I recall a small loading/unloading bay off the North side of the station adjacent to the down main line, I can't see it on the photos although I know it was there as I sat on that damned uncomfortable railway line fence that ran from this station building up towards Wattville Road bridge. The bay often contained a couple of wagons. What wonderful memories of long SUNNY afternoons during school holidays.

Shut up you nostalgic old fool

Terence Perks

For some time, I have been trying to find out more about the history of the GWR line from Birmingham to Leamington including the old Rowington Junction - Henley in Arden branch. Your project has been been a mine of information, especially the photographs of the original stations at Acocks Green and Olton. Thank you very much for your efforts in what seems to be a vast subject

Kevin Dudley

Thank you for a very interesting site, I have been looking for photos on Coundon Road and Foleshill Stations for ages. As a young lad in the fifties I spent many an hour at Coundon Road as I lived a few roads away.

In 1962 I joined the railway at Coventry Station and I spent a few months on loan to Foleshill Station and I even spent a morning at Coundon Road opening up the booking office as Mr Palmer was the station master for both Foleshill and Coundon Road.

Later in the mid sixties I was the Rail Freight delivery driver for Kenilworth for three years. By this time the station had closed and all parcels were delivered from Coventry Station. Keep up the good work.

David Stephenson

I am becoming increasingly interested in railway history, and have been delighted to find your website. I guess that you may be familiar with the book Our Iron Roads which was published in the 1870's and includes illustrations and anecdotes from Rugby dating from when the railway was built in the 1830's.

I also have a newspaper cutting dated 1954 which notes the retirement of a Marton man who worked at Marton station form 1913 until his retirement in 1954! He worked Martons signal box for all but 12 months of that time on a two shift basis alone. I trust that this may be of some sort of interest to you.

Is there any sort of Historical Railway Society in Rugby area do you know? I live in Marton. Thank you again for this site, and best wishes.

George Compton

Marvellous! This is the site I have been looking for!

Positive Searcher

As I grew up beside the North Warwickshire Line (and travelled to school in Stratford by train for some 10 years in the 50s and 60s, first from Wilmcote and then from Milcote) I've really enjoyed persusing your site.

Keep up the good work! Kevin Flynn
(Kevin was also kind enough to provide detailed information and corrections to a number of the photographs in the area).

Enjoyed your web site, especially the Leamington pre-group photos. Mouth watering.

Good luck. Alan Woodard

A very informative site - I've been trying to piece together the logic behind some of the disused bridges and lines around Leamington and it's helped a lot (though I'm still a little confused by it all).

Richard Tysoe

Great site.

Cheers, Iain Jack

I find your work of creating this historical archive fascinating. Please keep up the good work and I look forward to spending more time looking around your site in due course.

As far as the Alcester branch is concerned I’ve taken a couple of shots recently…They were taken just down the road from the Edstone aqueduct while I was searching for location shots for the Shakespeare Express on the Shakespeare Line.

Regards Clive Hanley of clive-hanley.fotopic.net

Just found your great website, the white hut on "The Lakes" station was a ticket office and was only in use for about 2 years.

Keep up the good work. Jim Hadley

Good day to you all, can I ask a question please, referring to Milverton Station and sheds? I can see from your site the sheds closed in 1958 but were used for storage somewhile after 1958. The station itself, as far as I can gather closed in 1965? If this date is correct did it close for passengers and goods in the same year? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

PS. Can you send someone round to mow my lawn, I'm spending too much time on your brilliant website !!??

Terry Molloy

Great information about various collections, hopefully will lead to success at getting photo's of the Selsey tramway near Chichester in West Sussex. Thanks for a great site and keep up the good work!

Neil Holmes

Many thanks for the memories brought back when I lived in Rugby as a kid. I lived next to the GC girder bridge, to the west side of it. As a kid we used to go through a hole in the fence to sit under the bridge to watch the trains go by and get covered with rust when a train went over the top !!! What fun days.........

Take care all. Richard from Roswell, Georgia, USA

I spent many happy hours in the 50's at the trackside opposite the Water Orton Junction signalbox. Visiting your well informed site brought back many memories. Thank You!

Graham Mannall

Many thanks for the opportunity for me to view again the ex-LMS and BR scene - as I now live in Australia and have only a child's memories of the late 50s and early 60s. My maternal grandfather, Thomas Dyke of Spondon in Derbyshire, worked for the LMS and lastly BR. A most enjoyable visit.

Paul Cannon

A very interesting website which I have been visiting for some months. I have found an error in your spelling of 'Wooton Wawen', you have it as 'Wooten Wawen'. Keep up the good work.

John Fancote

An accidental discovery. Great memories from my youth. My father was a signalman in No 1 box at Rugby (retiring in 1965) and I spent many a happy Sunday with him after taking him his lunch. My fascination for the LMS and steam in particular has been rekindled. Many thanks

Roger Garratt

I was so thrilled to find your site and indulge myself in memories of Brinklow Railway station. I come from Brinklow and was born in 1951. In those early years of my life I was often walked from the village up to the station. I loved going inside and remember the wooden floor and window at the rear. I would press my nose up against it, waiting with eager anticipation of seeing a train.

It was so exciting when one came into view and I remember so clearly, the sound and the vibration, as it passed underneath us, followed of course - by the steam!! We were satisfied with such simple pleasures back then. Do you happen to know when Brinklow Station was demolished? Looking at you site which is excellent, has been a joy for me - a trip down memory lane and I wish to express my thanks to you.

Jean Mills

Wonderful site. Takes me back to my childhood seeing engines in and out of 2B Shed, and the surrounding areas.

Colin Bishop

Thanks for an excellent site.

Bernard Dodd

I live in Poleswoth not far from the station which is now closed and can see the trains from my bedroom window. It is nice to see it as it was when I was a youngster.

John Holland

Great historic pictures. I drive trains on the West Coast Main Line and its great to see how the railway use to look compared to what is left to see today. Thank you for all the hard work.

Gary Nuthall

Keep up the good work – a very interesting site

Mel Quick

I have spent many hours looking through this site which I am sure I have read from start to finish many times. As a young boy I spent many hours trainspotting at Rugby Midland Station and saving my pocket money in the late fifties and early sixties to get a platform ticket and getting a name tag printed on metal strip on platform two.

Now that I have retired and with a hobby background in model railway construction and computer generated 3D imaging I wish to embark upon the task of recreating Rugby Midland Station as it was whilst the signal gantry was still in place by the LNER girder or Birdcage bridge.

I wonder if you could help me. I am in dire need of a track plan. Absolutely anything will do. Ideally I should like to recreate the tracks 3 miles either side of the station. If someone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. A great site, absolutely invaluable not least as a reference source.

Best wishes, John Pointon

Glad to have found this website. Wonderful photos of that bygone age. My own period of observation and photography of the GC around Rugby (and beyond) spanned the years 1957-1965.

Tony Newman

Just the sort of website we have been looking for, with reference to books on branch lines around rugby I didnt know existed. Thanks.

Andrew and Alex Lection

Congratulations on a great nostalgic rail site. Wonderful collection of photos & video clips. Long may you reign.

Brian Craggs

What a great site. Now I know what the strange blue brick paved terraces in The Dog car park at Water Orton were for! Keep up the good work.

Mike Newport

Great site good luck in expanding it

Chris Griffin

An excellent website

David Tindale

About 60 years ago I emerged from a Euston train in order to go across to Snow Hill to make the final stage of my journey back to my unit in Salop. The arched canopy glass of the station had been badly damaged by a fall of incendiaries and had not yet been repaired.... more

R.C. Bovill

I have placed the Warwickshire Railways amongst my favourites so that I can find it for future viewing.

Best regards Alan Sainty

What a splendid site. I am about to start modelling Four Oaks station in the early '60s and your photos have provided excellent material. I'll return again to view and read the entries.

Alan Sheasby

A most enjoyable site. I live in Rugby and particularly enjoyed the pictures of Rugby station albeit they depict a period before I moved here. However, I have to claim the prize for the deliberate mistake. The loco in photo lnwrrm723 is actually 71000 "Duke of Gloucester"; Britannia is number 70000.

All the best. Eric Seddon

Have just discovered your brilliant web sight and I am so happy to see stuff that I was associated with many years ago. I worked at Monument Lane Loco from 1953 to 1961 starting as a cleaner and finished up as a top link fireman.

Thanks for a great web site - Brian Swancott

What a fabulous site! I live in Wrexham, North Wales & I'm an LNER & GCR fan!

Michael Cawood

Great site...

Bob Elleray

Great work! This website resource gets better every time I visit and I still keep stumbling across new and interesting sections to while away the hours.

Andy Doherty

Great site with some wonderful photographs. A useful addition would be some maps showing the locations of closed lines and stations, as I enjoy visiting these sites.

Matthew Jones

What a fantastic archive, good to see so many familiar places and names so accessible to a Leamingtonian exiled in County Durham. Long may you grow & continue.

Anthony Coulls

What a fabulous website I think you have all created. Well designed, informative, easy to use, packed with top class pictures.

Brian Begg-Robertson

It's a real pleasure to visit the site.

Andy Kirkham

It really is a well designed website containing a wealth of historical information.

David Morgan

Great website keep up the good work.

Roger

Great website - especially if you live in the area as I do. Never knew it existed!

Sheff of http://www.national-preservation.com

What a great website, Mike! Well done!

Sam Farrow

An excellent website which brings back memories of my time living in Coventry and formerly working for British Rail in the West Midlands. I look forward to spending more time browsing through it in the future.

David Ager - Signalman, West Somerset Railway

What a superb site! I look forward to seeing it grow. Have you considered a mailing list (a Yahoo Group, to which only you can post, for instance) to announce updates?

You list Perry Barr as: Perry Barr (Warwickshire?) Though once in Staffordshire, it became part of Birmingham (and thus Warwickshire) in 1928, as did Hamstead (also known as Great Barr) on the Grand Junction line to Walsall, via Bescot.

For other boundary changes, see: http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/warks/index.htm/boundaries

The stations from Longbridge to Kings Heath, which you list as Worcestershire, came into Birmingham, and thus Warwickshire, in 1911: http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/worcs/index.htm/boundaries

There were extensive industrial railways at Cadbury, Bournville and Saltley Gas Works, and at the M&B Brewery at Cape Hill (In Staffs, but may have crossed into Warks). There was a narrow-gauge railway at the Minworth sewage works.

Andy Mabbett

Like the site - been photographing at Leamington recently and wanted to see the old Avenue station

Cheers, Dave Skipsey

Thanks for an excellent web site!

Regards Stephen Weston (LNWR Society Newsletter Editor)

Very interesting site; I have referred to it extensively for research into the prototypical background my O Gauge garden railway based on the (fictional) assumption that the LMS developed the Stonebridge Railway - Whitacre - Hampton - after grouping with the Berkswell - Kenilworth line as a cut to send coal from North Warwickshire.

Michael Byng

An amazing collection! The geographical organisation makes this site especially interesting; thank you for letting us look.

Robin Leigh

Hi Mike. Fascinating site. As someone born and bred in Warwickshire it was great to see some of the local history. Is that all the photos you have (especially of Rugby and area inc Wolston and Marton)?

Si

Great Site!

crispycritter - www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk

Great site. Thanks very much.

John H-T of www.railwayforum.net

An excellent site. Just spent a happy half hour browsing round. A great idea to link your photos to a route map of the lines in the area.

Shed Cat of www.railwayforum.net

Great site - I could spend hours trawling through the site. Having grown up in the West Midlands in the late 1950's, the website brings back many memories and an insight into those areas that I didn't see. I shall be a regular visitor to the site.

Regards John Crompton

Hello. Nice looking site. Excellent information which is nicely structured. Good job.. keep it up. Congratulations to the entire team!

Best wishes from New York. Saidich

Wow! What a site. Excellent! I have spent some time researching my local station and looking for photo's of Rugby. I was unable to source any from local archives reference Rugby Shed; until now.

Ian Dunn

Hey Mike...Very nice site. I have forwarded the address to a few friends that have an interest in UK railroads. There was always something I liked about the British system of railroads but could never quite identify. Perhaps browsing your web pages will help me to figure it out. There is one thing I do know and that is the respect I have for the preservation efforts made to save your railroad history. Sadly, in general, such is not the case in the USA…

Tom

What an amazing site - well done! This site is full of information that I've been wanting to know for ages.

James
(Ex-Warwickshire lad but still has strong feelings for my old town where I first lived!)

I discovered this site by following a link from www.dukedog.co.uk and am glad I did. A native of West Bromwich when it was in Staffordshire, I now live in Devon and am an avid collector of photo's of and information about West Midlands railways, particularly from the sixties when I was often to be found on the platforms of Snow Hill or New Street stations. I've been a keen photographer of railways for many years but am ever grateful to Michael Mensing et al for recording those scenes I witnessed but didn't record for myself. This site is a very welcome addition to what is available.

Chris Brown

What an excellent website. I liked the old photos my local station, Coventry. Keep up the excellent work

Cheers Matt

What a superb website, living in the Shirley/Hall Green area all my life it's amazing how the stations have changed so little over the years. I spent a bit of time between Christmas and New Year walking along bits of the old Rowington jc. to Henley in Arden line that closed in 1908 when the North Warwickshire line opened, little of it remains although we did mange to find a boundary marker which dates from 1880 in it's original position. Using the aerial photo view on multimap.co the path of the line is reasonably clear. Having been in use for only 14 years before closure precious little information is available about that line. Do you know much about it?

Regards, Mike

I took special interest in your site as we moved to Stratford on Avon in the 70's and indeed my Mum still lives there and I recognise a lot of the stations. I would like you to know that your hard work and future plans are appreciated. There are not many photo web sites dedicated to Railways, and certainly nothing as ambitious as yours. I wish you luck for the future .

Cheers! Terry

Superb site - very well presented.

Richard Morton

Terrific site, link still not working! I especially like the pictures of the Foleshill railway, are there any more? I was a student at the "Lanchester" and lived for a while next to what had been the armaments factory off Stoney Stanton Road by Websters Sidings.

Simon of http://titfield.co.uk/

Excellent resource for railway historians and modellers alike. Logically organised and well presented. Your hard work is to be commended in publishing these images and information.

Well done! Andy York of http://www.rmweb.co.uk/

I have been keeping a watching brief on the Warwickshire Railways web site after Andy at 'Rail Around Birmingham' recommended it. Its been great to see the site develop and I can see a great resource starting to emerge. Even though I'm not that familiar with Warwickshire, some of the photographs have proved fascinating. I'll have to start exploring Warwickshire and developing a gallery for the area to go alongside my Staffordshire and Worcestershire ones.

Best wishes, Paul walker of http://wme.fotopic.net/

I thought your excellent site was really fascinating and as it progresses it will provide a really useful insight into the region for both modelers and enthusiasts.

John Downing of dukedog.plus.com

Dear Mike

I have now had a chance to look at the photo lnwrcov1282 on your web site, which came from the H W Taunt Collection. It certainly bears a striking resemblance to our photo (lnwrcov645), which was taken from the same viewpoint and shows the station at the same stage of development. However, our photo was taken by Joseph Wingrave, a retail chemist who had a shop in High Street, Coventry. I know this is true because we possess the original glass plate negative.

Andrew Mealey, Coventry Local Studies Library

Link added - great site - found it hard to drag myself away and get back to work!

Roger of steamtraingalleries.co.uk

Mike

Yours is an excellent looking site, and I would be happy to link swap. I am especially interested in your photos of Rugby; my day job is working as part of the design team planning for major changes at Rugby, starting next year (think new platforms, major track remodel, 4th track to Brinklow being put back, etc). Believe it or not, we *wont* be removing the old GCR bridge!

Garry of railwaysarchive.co.uk

Have spent over an hour looking at the site and have gone quickly through the LMS content I must congratulate you on the informative captions. Excellent. It is superb. You can be really proud of it.

RJK.

I've had a look at your new site - looks really good: I like the navigation system. I had considered theming my site by railway company but it got a little overcomplicated as to what point to draw the line: pre-grouping, grouped etc . . . virtually every method I could think of had its drawbacks so I plumped for a large interactive map in the end. I know from experience what a mammoth task you have ahead of you. I look forward to seeing the site develop and anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask.

Andy Doherty of railaroundbirmingham

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