Locations help wanted please.

[60022Mallard]

I have owned the attached prints for some time, but do not know where they are taken.

I suspect one will be easy and the other more difficult.

No. 1 D6585 plus sister heading south on what I think is the ECML with the "cement". There is a crossing in the near distance and, between the left hand signal and nearby pole appears to be what could be a largish tower of a church.

No. 2 65582 on a short freight. From the shadow cast by the horizontal tender handrail it is heading south around the middle of the day. From the point etc. rodding the signal box is off to the right. The loco was at Kings Lynn for many years then Cambridge and March.

The space between the rodding runs parallel to the track and the remaining track seems very wide - perhaps some track has been lifted.

I have been unable to decipher the name on the container.

Lavenham has been suggested, but it is not.

[Mickey]

The location of the top picture looks a little bit like Foxton on the Hitchin-Cambridge branch but i wouldn't swear to it the only reason i say it looks a little bit like Foxton is mainly through looking at the track layout but if it is Foxton the signalling by 1970 (when i first went over the branch) had been altered some what because the signal facing the camera with the concrete post carrying the home & distant signals on it wasn't there that i can recall and it would seem a bit of a 'long pull' even if it was 'motor operated' for that distant signal to belong to Shepreth Branch Junction s/box?. Also there is no real sign of Foxton level crossing in the middle distance either so chances are that it isn't Foxton after all?.

Mickey

[StevieG]

Picking up on Mickey's posting regarding the first photo (which, remember, could be a complete red herring), to my mind, I wonder if it's the other way round, and that it's an Up train taken from the NE end of Shepreth station Down platform, thus looking towards Foxton. (And forget Shepreth Branch Junction Mickey, that would've been several miles away anyway, with Harston in between.)

Not much idea about the second I'm afraid - one tiny possibility (others will know far better than I, either way), but the layout at Reedham is quite strange in some ways - if it was also similar that long ago, could this possibly be location?

[R. pike]

The branch didn't get AWS at the same time as the main line. I suggest it's further north on the ECML.

[60022Mallard]

From the position of the sun reflecting on the front of the Class 33 and the shadow on the tender of the J17 I have been assuming that both the lines are basically aligned north / south.

[StevieG]

The branch didn't get AWS at the same time as the main line. I suggest it's further north on the ECML.

Hmmm. Thanks RP.

[Mickey]

The branch didn't get AWS at the same time as the main line. I suggest it's further north on the ECML.

Hmmm. Thanks RP.

Now that you mention it RP it rings a bell (no pun intended) of a vague memory I have of the time when I did a little spell as a secondman at Kings Cross (1974-75) and when I was in the 'Cambridge link' which was 4A link at Kings Cross back then and after we had left Cambridge for the return trip back up to London we usually received the AWS bell at Cambridge South's Up main colour light starting signal (on a bracket post situated near to Trumpington) then the AWS horn at Shepreth Branch Junction's Up main colour light distant signal (which would natarally be at a single yellow for the right-hand curve onto the branch to Hitchin) then I don't think the AWS would sound again either the horn or bell after we were turned onto the branch at Shepreth Branch Junction for the run across the branch to Hitchin until we were approaching both Cambridge Junction's Up branch colour light distant signal (which was usually showing a single yellow) & Hitchin Yard's Up branch semaphore distant signal which was underneath Cambridge Junction's Up branch home signal (which also was usually at caution) the AWS was silent all the way from Shepreth Branch Junction until we were approaching the outskirts of Hitchin.

Mickey

[60022Mallard]

After a bit more research of picture 1 I have arrived at the possibility of it being at Henwick Hall box, a couple of miles south of Selby.

The church tower mentioned in the far distance has Selby Abbey attributes and would be in about the right place. Looking on Bing maps there is still a turning south off the road over the crossing into an overgrown space to the west of the line, which could have been a small goods yard, although there was no station.

Selby airfield is adjacent and it could have been for that.

Anyone know the area well enough to comment further or have a track plan for the box which shows the layout in the picture.

[60022Mallard]

Having noted that the next box north would be Brayton North, only 0.5 mile away, there is a white topped structure to the east of the line in the distance, which could be a box.

[60022Mallard]

Have now found a reference to the closure of Henwick Hall sidings, so beginning to think I'm on the right track.

Any former ECML front end train crew or Selby area residents out there?

[JASd17]

It looks like the Uddingston to Cliffe cement working to me, therefore southbound on the ECML normally.

I do not have access to maps which show sidings at the location suggested.

John