Leeds-Wetherby Accident + an Act of Parliam. (late 19th C)

[richard]

I've been conversing with Nigel Chippindale of Ottawa, who grew up in the Aberford / Scholes area near Leeds - not a million miles from where I grew up

Nigel's ancestors appear to have had some influence in the area, including the brick works at Scholes owned by his Great Uncle. Scholes is on the old Leeds-Wetherby line, not far from the Crossgates Junction. NER before LNER.

Nigel writes:

The story told by my father was that when the Brick Works was established about 1875 the idea was that locating it on the Leeds-Wetherby railway would allow bricks to be shipped to a wide area. Soon thereafter, however, a serious railway accident caused by a switch on a mainline into a siding led to an Act of Parliament banning such sidings (do you know about any of this?). Thus the opportunity for wide marketing disappeared and most of the bricks were used in and around Scholes. The bricks were delivered by horse and cart (later by steam traction engine), which limited the range severely. I don't recall any references to dealings with the Gascoignes.

The Brick Works closed at the beginning of WW1 and never reopened, despite the efforts of my Great Uncle Isaac, who installed a Diesel engine to replace the steam engine that powered the machinery. I can remember both the steam engine and the Diesel (my uncle used to run the latter once in a while to keep it in good shape).

Does anyone know anything about this Act of Parliament? Was the accident on the Leeds-Wetherby, or elsewhere?

I wondered if the Act mandated the use of check-points, but it wouldn't have cost the brick works much to have installed check-points or similar devices.


Richard

[The KLF]

Hello all
Web search brought me here
As a boy I would go play at the old Brickworks, the railway bridge was still there, people would dump cars from it so it was filled in to stop that.
A sign warning you not to go on the line, and what fine it would be was in a bush, boy do I wish I had taken that
The quarry still had the chimneys and other bits from the brickworks, the house was rubble, when Chippy died the house and everything in it was abandoned, even a vintage car in the garage.
Scholes station just up the track was by now a pub, an old carraige outside was where you could have a meal, the track after that is built over for a while and then free all the way to thorner, some bits of railway furniture is still along that part if you look for it.
I've been on the hunt for pictures of the old quarry and that part of the line but sadly had no luck, apart from some of crossgates where it joins.
Ghost?.............could this be the accident? as a child and later as and adult there was always talk of a train accident and the ghost train running down the track past the quarry, could this be a link?

[Bryan]

Just a thought.
Do you know which way the siding branched off the line?
Was it a facing or trailing connection?
Most private sidings are on a trailing connection, could this be the reason?

[The KLF]

I don't think chippys had a side line, didn't see anything that looked as if it could have had its own line or even a stop.
Rails ran right past the brickworks.