Heaton Track Maintenance Depot..Newcastle, January 2020

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Mikeymutt

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On the way back from Scotland after a Christmas break I visited the trains at the Tanfield yard. After I had visited there I made my way to this large maintenance shed. It's trashed but something about it is quite beautiful. Nature has taken over the platforms and remaining rail tracks with birds taking over the place. If like me you like rail related explores then this place is very interesting. It also has a few side rooms and some old boilers which are heavily graffitied.
The shed which is situated in the Heaton suburb of Newcastle opened in the mid 1800s by the North East Railway. Originally used to house steam locomotives from the main line. The Heaton yard was taken over by British rail in the mid fifties. The sidings shed closed down in the 80s and used for storage, than it was severed from the main line in the early 00's. The maintenance yard is still in active use.

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Amazing place. Beautiful set of pictures. The shed is like a huge greenhouse with glass roofs?
 
Nice, seems there's a bit more left to see than at the derelict rail works in Gateshead.
 
I wonder, what happened to the old wagons?
 
"Where have those old wagons gone?
Gone to scrapyards every one.
Yes, you can now, for them, yearn,
but will we, and others, ever learn?
Will we, and others, ever learn?"
A few steam trains are still in use in the UK. Who knows?
 
Great series of photos you took there. I find it amazing that a place like that can just get abandoned and left, why not re use it. Surly they sill maintain thing on Network rail
 
Great series of photos you took there. I find it amazing that a place like that can just get abandoned and left, why not re use it. Surly they sill maintain thing on Network rail
Thank you. I guess they just just had no use for it anymore. And consolidated the works elsewhere. Been several of these around the country.
 
A few steam trains are still in use in the UK. Who knows?
Very true. Last week I was at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway - between Derby and Matlock - and travelling behind both steam and diesel locos. And many of the heritage railways run 'goods trains' with selections of old wagons including vans, tankers and open trucks. In 1961 I went on one of the last goods trains to work the Ashburton branch before BR closed it completely.
 
Very true. Last week I was at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway - between Derby and Matlock - and travelling behind both steam and diesel locos. And many of the heritage railways run 'goods trains' with selections of old wagons including vans, tankers and open trucks. In 1961 I went on one of the last goods trains to work the Ashburton branch before BR closed it completely.
Ashburton in Devon, I went on an outward bound course there back in 1970. Years later I went to a preserved station somewhere around there. Steam trains run up and down the Lonfon to Bristol line quite offten as I hear them go through our station
 
Ashburton in Devon, I went on an outward bound course there back in 1970. Years later I went to a preserved station somewhere around there. Steam trains run up and down the Lonfon to Bristol line quite offten as I hear them go through our station
The branch line ran from Totnes to Ashburton - 8.5 miles - with intermediate stations at Staverton (3 miles from Totnes) and Buckfastleigh (6 miles from Totnes). When the line was re-opened by volunteers as the Dart Valley Railway, it was still possible to travel from near the junction with the main line to Ashburton. But when the A38 was made dual carriageway as part of the Devon Expressway, the section between Buckfastleigh and Ashburton was lost - despite the Devon County Council initially supporting its retention. The station buildings at Ashburton are still there, including the Brunelian overall roof covering where the trains came in and the loco was able to run round if not on a push-pull train. Today it would cost some £40 million to restore the line and the station to railway use.

The line from the Totnes end to Buckfsatleigh is now run by the South Devon Railway - the DVR having lost interest in it after purchasing the Paignton to Kingswear part of the branch from Newton Abbot.

Even in my days in the 1950s - living at Staverton and then Buckfastleigh - Dartmoor was seen as an ideal place for Outward Bound type activities. The Ten Tors walk is one such event. In the early 1950s I walked with my grandfather across the moor from Princetown to Holne, with nothing more than the inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey map.

Steam is not yet dead - not even on the Big Railway.
 
The branch line ran from Totnes to Ashburton - 8.5 miles - with intermediate stations at Staverton (3 miles from Totnes) and Buckfastleigh (6 miles from Totnes). When the line was re-opened by volunteers as the Dart Valley Railway, it was still possible to travel from near the junction with the main line to Ashburton. But when the A38 was made dual carriageway as part of the Devon Expressway, the section between Buckfastleigh and Ashburton was lost - despite the Devon County Council initially supporting its retention. The station buildings at Ashburton are still there, including the Brunelian overall roof covering where the trains came in and the loco was able to run round if not on a push-pull train. Today it would cost some £40 million to restore the line and the station to railway use.

The line from the Totnes end to Buckfsatleigh is now run by the South Devon Railway - the DVR having lost interest in it after purchasing the Paignton to Kingswear part of the branch from Newton Abbot.

Even in my days in the 1950s - living at Staverton and then Buckfastleigh - Dartmoor was seen as an ideal place for Outward Bound type activities. The Ten Tors walk is one such event. In the early 1950s I walked with my grandfather across the moor from Princetown to Holne, with nothing more than the inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey map.

Steam is not yet dead - not even on the Big Railway.
Inch-to-the-mile was all we had to use on our hikes, if you did not know how to read one you soon learned, lucky I already knew how to from the Scouts and school. I still use OS maps, It was the dart Valley we visited, and I'm sure I had a photo some where I took there.
 
Inch-to-the-mile was all we had to use on our hikes, if you did not know how to read one you soon learned, lucky I already knew how to from the Scouts and school. I still use OS maps, It was the dart Valley we visited, and I'm sure I had a photo some where I took there.
The canvas-backed ones were better than the paper versions when it came to using them in the open; more durable. I too was in the Scouts, before that the Cubs. I've got in front of me now the canvas-backed section that covers southern Dartmoor, from Tavistock to Ashburton and southern Devon down to the coast from Rame Head in Cornwall to Prawle point near Salcombe. The front cover is missing, so I do not know what number it was. Dated 1946, it may have been the one my grandfather had bought for our walking expeditions. On the day in question, we took the train from Staverton to Totnes, then the main line to Plymouth North Road before the branch line to Launceston via Tavistock. Changing at Yeleverton, we took the branch train to Princetown, and set off over the moor for Holne. There we caught the bus to either Ashburton or (more probably) Buckfastleigh, and the train back to Staverton - and to the supper my grandmother had made for us.
 
Totally off topic I know but when we did our long 3 day hike which I might add was the end of November / December my group was dropped off outside Lynton and I had worked out a route that took us across Exmoor to Oakhampton where we camped the night under a railway viaduct then the next day we hit Dartmoor where We started at Yes tor and zigzagged our way down hitting as many tors as possible as that was where we gained the points. We got back to Ashburton on day three and walked around 80 odd miles. Might add my group won and we got the highset number of pints attained on a winter hike. I remember the canvas baked maps because that is what we used for the hike. I was the map compass and map reader. Don't think the other we so good. I jumped off that Bridge at Holne park where we were into the Dart, only was to get the mud off from th ecaving session we had around there somewhere
 

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