The LNER Encyclopedia

My colleague has just turned up two glass plate photos supposedly around 1927, of what appears to be the last day of an old level crossing on reputedly the Selby-Leeds line, two miles south of Selby. There appears to be a new road bridge just finished and I suspect that as one of the photos has a coach going to Hull, and the caption suggest that it was on the old Selby Road, that it may be what is now Doncaster Road just south of Selby. The second photo confirms what I believe is the approximate date of 1929-30, and has No. 4665 on a Down? Goods [loco is heading easterly]. Is it a K2 please?

Sounds like some interesting investigation.

Although I've added a page to this site about the Leeds-Selby line, I don't have that much information on it! However I do have a reproduction of the 1829 survey.
This shows it being almost due east-west from Garforth to Selby.
Although it is marked as passing south of central Selby and curving to the north-east, this is *much* closer than two miles - more like a quarter of a mile from the very centre of Selby.

Of course that's a very old survey and the line was changed, but I suspect it was an adjoining line?

Have you tried looking on an old Ordnance Survey map?

re. Locomotive type: I think you are probably right about a K2. Can you read the locomotive number on the bufferbeam on the original? It looks like it might be "4661" which was a K2.


Richard

Can't help directly with a location, but there's an old OS map here (around 1940):

http://www.npemap.org.uk/tiles/map.html#461,430,1

There are loads more of these glass-plate negs found, with more steam locos. One I know is of relevance to this forum!

It's No. 4665...so a K2? And location: THORPE WILLOUGHBY, A63 Doncaster Road, which was a LC and presumably was by-passed with a new overbridge. I am indebted!

I'm not sure you're right about Thorpe Willoughby, the level crossing (I assume you mean the one at the extreme left of the map I liked to above?) is still there today....(or have I misunderstood you?)

Two miles south of Selby would be the line that goes to the south towards Doncaster. The one to Leeds is the one that goes off to the west.

Yes 4665 was a K2 as well.

Built June 1918 as a K2 (rather than a rebuilt K1) by the North British Locomotive Co.

Westinghouse pump fitted in October 1927; removed June 1953.
Withdrawn December 1959.

Renumbered as No. 1752 in March 1946; and BR Mo. 61752 in September 1950.

Richard

The caption says:

Circa 1927
Probably a last day picture of the level crossing in use before the ???? Guide was opened. One of the first in Yorkshire. I think it is where the Selby rail road crosses the Selby - York main line about 2 miles south of Selby

What the heck "Guide" means I have no idea unless it is "bridge"? The coach in the other shot with the gat open to traffic was owned by a London company and was headed for Hull, so it's going north, towards Selby, so A63 or A19 I thought. Also the LC is at an acutish angle which could make it Thorpe Willoughby...it's a Level Crossing now but was there a bridge beforehand at some stage that was removed as being inadequate? The new structure looks very narrow at the top and would in modern times have been a constriction on an A road. Otherwise I am stumped!

The two alternative crossings of the line may be an economy measure by the LNER, always tight for cash.

When the railways carried most of the long distance goods traffic, there were not so many heavy lorries on the road. Could it be that an overbridge was provided for light traffic, but if something heavy came along, it had to use the level crossing? In this way, the level crossing would not have to opened to the road after every train. If a heavy vehicle arrived, the crossing keeper would be called out to open the gate, with the permission of the signal man. The LNER saved the greater cost of upgrading the bridge.

In a similar vein, in that area, I can recall a pair of underbridges in Selby, side by side on the dockside below the old ECML swing bridge. They may still be there. One was deeper than the other and a single lane, but more subject to flooding. Normal traffic used the shallow two way underbridge, but those requiring increased headroom had to use the deeper narrower single lane one, but could not if the river flooded it. There was probably a cost saving there too.

Colombo

A bit of a long shot - could the bridge be carrying the RAILWAY over the line, i.e. is it the bridge carrying the line that runs approximately SE-NW in the map I posted a link to (sorry I don't know the official name for this line off the top of my head). That would also account for it being narrow.

The level crossing could be a minor road/lane (there is one visible on modern large scale OS maps), and not actually be closing on the day of the photograph....??