Tinsley Marshalling Yard, Sheffield, April 2013

Tinsley Marshalling Yard was a railway marshalling yard, located near Tinsley in Sheffield. It was opened in 1965 and closed in stages from 1985 with the run-down of rail freight in Britain. It also included Tinsley Traction Maintenance Depot (TMD), which was closed in 1998. Tinsley was set up in the mid 60s to serve Sheffield's heavy industries in one large marshalling yard. Freight trains would arrive and thenbe split into new trains for onward departure to other Network yards. Uniquely it featured gravity-assisted shunting and a new computerised system of wagon control. At the time of opening, the yard was handling 3,000 wagons a day. Incoming trains were split in the 11 reception sidings, propelled over the hump in the yard, from where the individual wagons rolled down a slope and were automatically sorted into new trains on the Yard's 50 main sorting sidings. The yard even had its own dedicated class of shunting locomotive (British Rail Class 13) for this purpose as BR's standard class of shunting locomotive was not powerful enough for use in the yard.

The industrial decline of the 1970s saw a decline in the yard's usage. By the 1980s British Rail was closing its remaining wagon-load freight facilities as being uneconomic and on 17th December 1984 the arrival sidings and hump were closed, the wagon-control system removed and the remaining Class 13s scrapped. In 1985 the by now under-utilised Freight Terminal was damaged by fire and relegated to being a steel-loading facility. The yard connections were relaid to allow easier handling of block-load trains which now dominated rail freight in Britain. By 1995 the decline in British heavy industry meant that this type of traffic had also declined massively, resulting in the closure of the locomotive depot on 27th March 1998. A few years later only the main sorting sidings remained and used to stable steel trains destined for the Sheffield area. The rest of the sidings were used to store surplus rolling stock. In 2007 the remaining sidings were lifted and a new, much smaller yard laid.

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114 072 22 said:

Very cool. Like you I came here as a kid (bout 84 I think) and the view from the embankment was astounding. Got some poor quality 126 cartridge shots somewhere.. The place was jammed full of loco's. shame to see it like this now. Made a half hearted attempt last month to find this but failed. Theres a cool period video on youtube showing how the shunting works and also their "computer" http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=UUguvy54HkE

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UrbanX said:

Nice one dude! Sweet photos, looks mainly natural decay too (besides the declaration of Emmas sexual preferences).
Cheers for sharing!

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theoss said:

Looked down from the bridge on Wood lane a few times recently wondering what remains down there so I'm glad someones fone the job for me. My sentance commenced there, but at the top shed of which nothing now remains. Thought it was shit at the time, but it turned out to be the most entertaining job I have ever had.

I havent seen that video before, I was taken there a few times as a kid when all that stuff worked. but all I can remember is there was a place there where chocolate bars could be obtained.

The hall under the tower with the plastic sheeted walls was known as the pack house, in there was the hydraulic pumps used to power the dowty stuff.

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Mickelmas said:

Nice share there HughieD, one place I aint familiar with. Ive now got summat to do somewhere to go Cheers

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