The LNER Encyclopedia

The first shot purports to show B1 class Geoffrey Kitson at Morpeth, but i think it could be at Widdrington comments please.
The second pic is included for the two young lads spotting i wonder if they are on this forum now, the pic shows Gatesheads A1 class 60155 Borderer passing Smaefield crossing circa 1960.

I think the narrative needs to be swapped about. I tried PM'ing I can't get it to play ball.

421

Job done. I loaded them in the correct order but i think they must display by filename.

Images tend to appear reversed from the order you think they are going to appear, but the individual captions should match the images. Therefore I write specific image text as captions (file descriptions). Murphy's Law says that if you write the text at the top, then the "top" image will appear at the bottom, etc.

Richard

The first pic is definitely not Widdrington, if it was then the photographer would have been standing on the station platform with the footbridge behind him, also the road crossing would have beeen immediately beyond the signal box. It could be Morpeth, but I am not sure when the old box was replaced by the present one or exactly where it was.
Nice pic of Smeafield, I have not seen many photos taken there.

Looking again at shot 2, it does look very like Morpeth. If the old box stood in the same place as the new one (or very close to it) then there is a footbridge in the right place, about 100 yards north of the box at Coopies Lane. If it is there, then the Blyth and Tyne line must come in immediately behind the photographer.

It just didnt seem right to me for Morpeth more of a gut feeling than anything else. Mind you i didnt get the chance to spend much time spotting at Morpeth the station staff were very anti spotting in the 60s.

52D wrote:It just didnt seem right to me for Morpeth more of a gut feeling than anything else. Mind you i didnt get the chance to spend much time spotting at Morpeth the station staff were very anti spotting in the 60s.

i am sure its not widdrington the name board on the box is not long enough to get all those letters on

Well spotted third rail, thought about length of name never crossed my mind. Do you know what the Morpeth area boxes were called?

The issue of the nameboard length had also occurred to me. In addition, the 1968 OS 1 inch map shows a footbridge over the line just over a quarter of a mile to the east of Morpeth station, which fits with the photograph.

Bill

52D wrote:Well spotted third rail, thought about length of name never crossed my mind. Do you know what the Morpeth area boxes were called?

Morpeth! Next boxes, north Pegswood, East Hepscott, south Clifton Crossing and west Wansbeck.

One for today.

Terrible picture but where and when?

52A : Hazard a half guess. Probably wrong but here goes! Is it somewhere in the Newcastle area in early 1959 when DP1 arrived for clearance tests -unsuccessful at Darlington and Morpeth - between York and Marshall Meadows? These problems meant some re-design of the production series and DP1 was mainly confined to King's Cross -Doncaster for its remaining years in traffic.

stembok wrote:52A : Hazard a half guess. Probably wrong but here goes! Is it somewhere in the Newcastle area in early 1959 when DP1 arrived for clearance tests -unsuccessful at Darlington and Morpeth - between York and Marshall Meadows? These problems meant some re-design of the production series and DP1 was mainly confined to King's Cross -Doncaster for its remaining years in traffic.

not newcastle/gateshead, no buildings like the two in the background

Is 52A throwing us a trick here could DP1 be standing at Morpeth? although those two structures in the background gasometers water towers or silos are not familiar to me what about south of Newcastle say Ferryhill where there was extensive quarrying.

Clue...there is a castle behind the photographer (I did say the photo was awful!).