The LNER Encyclopedia

Hello everybody, after a 7 year absence I am using the Trainz Railway Simulator and I am updating an old ECML route to a theoretical 1958 appearance. At the moment I am doing the Croft Branch, Croft South Yard and the Darlington Central Reclamation Depot which was situated in the centre of the Geneva Triangle. I have the track layout from the 1947 OS map https://maps.nls.uk/view/120939216 but apart from this one photo https://flic.kr/p/24EuMy5 I am completely unable to find any photos or signalling diagrams. I found a copy of the BR signalling notice for the 1972 resignalling which showed a connection to the Reclamation Depot but apart from that , nothing.
Does anyone have a signalbox diagram for Darlington South pre 1972 or know of any photos of the reclamation depot ?
Thanks in advance.

The NER Association has eight "official" photos of the depot in its online image archive, dating from around 1939. If you're a member you'll have access - if not then try contacting their archivist. The collection references are CE057 to CE064. There are also a couple of later photos from 1958 and 1962, references JFM1675 and JFM3965.

Hope that helps...

If you have access to a file of the NERA's quarterly 'Express', the photos mentioned by Danby Wiske appeared with an article on the Depot in No 216 (November 2014).

Many thanks gents, I will follow that up tomorrow !

Have you tried the Britain from the Air site?

Yes that was my first thought but it doesn't have that area sadly.
This film has a very brief run past the depot (left) at 11.17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBvd-dr_o88

If think the site "Britain from Above" may have been what was intended; there are quite a few shots around Darlington but many are from the 20's & 30's and I don't see anything of the Croft area. Even so, Britain from Above is a great site anyway: I can spend hours sidetracked looking at things and comparing them to how they are now.

WTTReprinter wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2020 7:37 pm If think the site "Britain from Above" may have been what was intended; there are quite a few shots around Darlington but many are from the 20's & 30's and I don't see anything of the Croft area. Even so, Britain from Above is a great site anyway: I can spend hours sidetracked looking at things and comparing them to how they are now.

One of the good things about Darlington from the modelling perspective is that when they resignalled the place they pretty much kept the previous track layout and replaced the existing semaphores with colour lights and point motors. I'm not sure whether the NER Darlington South signal box was was demolished when the LNER one opened as it appears to be still intact from a distance on a 1950s photo.
The Britain From Above photos are excellent but in the case of Darlington they seem to have a lot of photos of the Paton & Baldwin works, maybe because it was new.

This is what I done so far.
1) Reclamation Depot looking south.

Desktop Screenshot 2020.06.28 - 00.57.08.18 by , on Flickr
2) Croft Junction Yard looking north

Desktop Screenshot 2020.06.28 - 00.56.02.98 by , on Flickr
3) Geneva Junction looking west.

Desktop Screenshot 2020.06.28 - 00.54.54.83 by , on Flickr