A shed oddity . . . or normal practice?

[kudu]

Dalry Road
Were the Patriots rebuilt completely as a class by this time?
Also, did Dalry Road have a turntable, or was there one at Princes Street by the signal box for turning engines? My last visit to both was in December '64 and the cells are going now!

Seafield
Seafield was originally a Caley/LMS shed which I'm sure was used by the LNER after a pre nationalisation agreement. In its' latter years was mainly used as overspill shedding for St Margarets.

The Pariots never were completely rebuilt. Only ten were done.

Dalry Road never had a turntable, locos using the one at nearby Princes Street station, as you say. I wonder how many other sheds made use of nearby turntables? I mentioned Chester GW above, where the turntable was separated by running lines.

Seafield had an unusual history. It was built by the Caley (in 1902) but was soon abandoned as the branch - an encroachment into NB territory - was not a success. The NB leased the shed from 1912 as their own shed there had become overcrowded, but after delays while the CR fulfilled their agreement to repair the shed, it seems the shed may not have been much used (though the turntable was) except during WWI. After the Grouping both the LMS and LNER seemed to ignore it until WWII, when the LNER used it to relieve St Margaret's overcrowding - a habit that then persisted into BR days until closure in 1962.

(Source: Hawkins & Reeve, LMS Engine Sheds Vol 5)

Kudu

[JustinTime]

Thanks for that, I even took out a subscription to SCRAN, which specialises in aerial photography from the war years to settle a number of rail related loose ends which it has but not the turntable question!

Appreciate your help.

[Meg Merrilies]

Hi "Justin"

Thanks for that enhancement of my (fading) memories of my 'miss-spent' youth at these Edinburgh sheds. I never did visit Seafield shed so I don't have any memories from there.

My visits to St Margaret's were always by way of the 'official' entrance ~ probably because I wasn't aware of any other viewing possibilities.

Dalry Road: Kudu has already answered your turntable question. Dalry Road was only a small 4 road shed with hardly room for a turntable! . . . but I don't have a recollection of a turntable at Princes St station ~ probably a result of my very infrequent visits there. (or it could have something to do with my age!)

Haymarket: Were you to visit Haymarket today you may still be able to identify some of the aromas! . . . and yes, I remember all these niffs from the late 50s - early 60s.
However, my abiding memories are of all those mighty Pacifics, V2s and all the other assortment of steam goodies that inhabited the shed.
I have recently just read (and re-read) Harry Knox's "Steam Days at Haymarket" and that was a journey into my past! Superb read ~ and superb photos. I'm presently poring through Peter Coster's "Book of the A1 & A2 Pacifics" which is also chock full of superb photos . . . many of which are from Haymarket.

Now ~ if I could only figure how to turn the clock back about 52 years . . . . .

Yours wistfully,

'Meg Merrilies'
(perhaps you remember my sister --- Madge Wildfire?)

[JustinTime]

[quote="JustinTime"]

St Margarets
St Margarets and her environs were trainspotting nirvana for us, the shed itself, home to approx 200 locomotives and frequent visitors from the south. Best vantage point I think was on the embankment between St Margarets and the signal box opposite Piershill Square East.
Some of us would often stand on a narrow ledge behind what I think was a Railway Club, accessed from Jock's Lodge and looking down on the coaling stage, turntable and ash pits. Any desire I may have harboured for a career in British Railways was dashed by the sight of staff raking out the fire in the pit, ultimately having to shovel the whole lot up and over and into the wagons lying in the sunken wagonway. I understand from a conversation I had in later years with an ex Driver from St Margarets that most of this spoil was dumped somewhere off the Waverley line but where?

I'm answering my own query now!

Remains of sidings at Birky Side, between Fushiebridge and Tynehead on the Waverley Route, photographed on 5 May 2008. The sidings were used over many years by St Margarets shed as a dumping ground for the ash produced by the depot's large steam allocation. In the 1950s that allocation was over 200 locomotives - a lot of ash! Much of the land has now returned to nature and is given over to cattle grazing, but sections of track, sleepers and other reminders of the areas former use can still be found.
Text and photo reproduced with kind permission of Mark Poustie

[Meg Merrilies]

Dalry Road

Also, did Dalry Road have a turntable, or was there one at Princes Street by the signal box for turning engines? My last visit to both was in December '64 and the cells are going now!

(Kudu answered:-)
Dalry Road never had a turntable, locos using the one at nearby Princes Street station, as you say. I wonder how many other sheds made use of nearby turntables?

Kudu

My 'spotting days' at Dalry Road were in the late 50s early 60s and there wasn't a turntable there then.

However, since Kudu wrote the above I've been browsing the NLS (National Libraries of Scotland) website and found an Ordnance Survey map dated 1893-4 which clearly shows a T/T there at that date. It also shows 3 sheds on site at that time but that was a different configuration to that of the 50s/60s. I assume that the turntable was eventually removed as locos began to outgrow it over the years.

Here's a link to the map :-

http://www.nls.uk/maps/townplans/view/? ... urgh500_sw (The map is "zoomable" so there's a lot of detail available.)

[kudu]

Thanks, Meg Merilies, for putting me straight.

Your post sent me straight back to "LMS Engine Sheds" and it was I that was wrong, not Hawkins & Reeve. I should not have used that word "never". According to them, there was once indeed a turntable at Dalry Road, until 1937. It was the enlargement of the Princes Street table to 60ft that prompted its removal. It seems the triangle Dalry-Coltbridge-Slateford Junctions was often used before then, and after, especially when the shed was crowded.

There remains a puzzle, though: the plan in the book dated 1913 does not show a turntable!

The buildings on the map also interest me. They appear the same as on the plan in the book, though the bottom one is labelled Wagon Repair Shop and the middle one Repair Shop. The topmost shed looks slightly repositioned, and indeed a new shed was built there in 1911, though it looks no bigger and is still 4 roads. The wagon repair shop "had disappeared by about 1930" but the loco repair shed survived, even though it was wood (as was the coaling stage, which also survived). (It is the presence of the wagon repair shop on the plan that rules out the possibility that the 1913 date is an error and should be, say, 1943 - post-1937, at any rate. Hence the puzzle over the turntable remains. I might have raised this in the LMS forum, but some technical problem prevents me registering.)

The shed apparently closed in October 1965 and by the following July had been demolished, along with the adjacent station. I visited the shed but my lasting regret is I never travelled the Caley route from Carstairs until long after Princes Street had gone.

Kudu

[JustinTime]

Excellent stuff boys, the forensic powers of members on this forum are amazing!

To satisfy my own curiosity on rail related topics, I have downloaded several 300 dpi images from RCAHMS in Edinburgh, who host a vast amount of aerial photography taken by the RAF reconnaissance and camouflage flight during and after the war years.
On a 24" monitor I can magnify these images further up to 5X before there is a hint of pixellation but at £10 +vat they are expensive.

[JustinTime]

St.Margarets was well known for this danger and it was mentioned in the Locoshed Directory by Aidan Fuller which gave directions for reaching sheds. There was a visual stop/go signal system for crossing the ECML to the main running sheds as of course the overbridge and curvature of the track made the approach of trains from the west very dangerous. On my first visit to 64A we were stopped and waited as A2 60539 swept past on an up class C with a shriek on the whistle as an added warning.

Not once in the time I 'spotted' at St Margarets was I challenged by an official. I'd always enter via the staff entrance on Clockmill Road opposite the Speedway at Old Meadowbank, another of my haunts. The smell of sulphur and smoke from the resting steeds in Maggies on a Saturday night was always complemented by the aroma of methanol from the Speedway. A heady mix!
Indeed I got on nodding terms with one of the gaffers, a tall slim fella who always wore the de riguer wide brimmed hat. His only condition being that I report to him and to observe the signals, which I never did!

Dalry Road and Haymarket however were different beasts. I was thrown out of Haymarket so often, I usually just climbed up to the Caley bridge over the main line by the Signal Box and had a grandstand view of all that was going on. Pity about the industrial odours which permeated this part of town though.

If I remember correctly, Dalry Road was unofficially accessed via Coffin Lane, a foothold having been fashioned in the upright sleepers which bordered the Lane on the shed side. No doubt for the convenience of railwaymen and spotters alike.

[mikedon]

My experience, as a committed 'spotter' between 1957-1961 was entirely different to yours. Haymarket was so easy it was ridiculous..I was NEVER stopped there, even after going round the entire shed. In fact, during one summer when two D11s (Malcolm Graeme and Lady Of The Lake) were stored out-of-use beside the shed, some of us used the cab of one of them as an unofficial clubhouse. Dalry Road had a keen 'gaffer' who'd throw you out pronto, but we used to access the shed via Coffin Lane..by the time we got within sight of his office we would be on our way out anyway.

Maggies was the worst. At least the main shed was. The gaffers didn't mind spotters who stayed on the Clockmill Road side where all the shunting locos hung out around their odd open-air "roundhouse", but woe betide any caught on the other side of the tracks (perfectly understandable IMO, that crossing was a potential death-trap)

[Meg Merrilies]

My experience, as a committed 'spotter' between 1957-1961 was entirely different to yours. Haymarket was so easy it was ridiculous..I was NEVER stopped there, even after going round the entire shed. In fact, during one summer when two D11s (Malcolm Graeme and Lady Of The Lake) were stored out-of-use beside the shed, some of us used the cab of one of them as an unofficial clubhouse. Dalry Road had a keen 'gaffer' who'd throw you out pronto, but we used to access the shed via Coffin Lane..by the time we got within sight of his office we would be on our way out anyway.

Maggies was the worst. At least the main shed was. The gaffers didn't mind spotters who stayed on the Clockmill Road side where all the shunting locos hung out around their odd open-air "roundhouse", but woe betide any caught on the other side of the tracks (perfectly understandable IMO, that crossing was a potential death-trap)

mikedon ~ your timescale as a "committed spotter" ('57 - '61) pretty much coincides with mine! Who knows . . . we may have bumped into each other a few times?

As for Haymarket, I think I already mentioned that on one occasion we were "instructed" that we would have to report to the shed master before entering the shed complex. That 'arrangement' never really happened and we just continued to roam at will throughout the shed without disturbance. "Cabbing" locos, both in steam and laying cold, was also fairly commonplace.

Our entry to Dalry Road was normally up Coffin Lane into Dundee Street and through the gate and down the steps ~ at least my memory "thinks" the gate was on Dundee Street . . . but it may have been close to the top of the lane? --- can you clarify this? Also, I don't recall being harrassed very much there, although, as the shed was quite small our visits there weren't very long.

Our visits to St Margaret's were a little more troublesome, although we still managed a decent rate of successful 'bunkings'. Crossing that main line was certainly "exciting" and yet we still seemed to enjoy a decent rate of successful crossings without disturbance.
Our visits to 'Maggies' were less frequent than to the other two as, coming from the east of Edinburgh it meant a break in the bus journey and it was only a ten minute walk between Dalry Rd and Haymarket.
. . . and, of course, Haymarket was home, and host, to many glamour locos! (at least more so than 'Maggies')

Of all these visits there was only one thing that gave me a few heartstopping moments ~ and these all occurred at Haymarket. While wandering through the shed there would occasionally be a mischievous cleaner possibly on disposal who would wait until us little innocents were strategically positioned just a little forward of the front of a loco still in steam . . . and then he would suddenly open the drain cocks with a terrifyingly deafening roar and envelop us in a cloud of steam. Did this ever happen to anyone else?

[JustinTime]

Of all these visits there was only one thing that gave me a few heartstopping moments ~ and these all occurred at Haymarket. While wandering through the shed there would occasionally be a mischievous cleaner possibly on disposal who would wait until us little innocents were strategically positioned just a little forward of the front of a loco still in steam . . . and then he would suddenly open the drain cocks with a terrifyingly deafening roar and envelop us in a cloud of steam. Did this ever happen to anyone else?

Not quite but in the summer of 1960 I think, some of my mates and I decided to play at Casey Jones on Irish Elegance on the Sunday dead line opposite Piershill Junction..........you get the picture, shovelling coal into the still active fire and increasing pressure until a "what does this thing do moment" occurred and the combination of several hands trying all the controls resulted in Elegance lurching forward.
Fortunately there was several hundred tons of loco in front to stop further progress!

[v3man]

It's interesting to see a number of Edinburgh guys posting on this subject. I must admit the only time I visited the 3 Edinburgh sheds were with a permit but I spent an awful lot of time at Musselburgh Station or Smeaton Junction where it was always possible to get on the footplate. At Musselburgh it was only for the run round but at Smeaton you could be on an engine for quite a while down to the Dalkeith Colliery Washer or at Carberry Pit, where I once spent a morning driving a J38 shunting the pit sidings. On one memorable occasion I travelled down to the main line Monktonhall Junction on a J38 which waited for a train of empties to arrive, coupled up and banked it back up to Smeaton. It was a frosty night, the sleepers were white with frost and with the regulators of both engines wide open up the bank it was unforgettable. Later, in 1964, I drove 46462, an Ivatt Cl.2 2-6-0 from Smeaton to Saltoun a few weeks before the line closed and my signalman friend drove it back to Smeaton with one wagon containing a barrel of whiskey from Glenkinchie distillery.

I then made friends with a signalman who worked Newhailes Junction, which I learned to work, and when he transferred to Portobello West I spent many happy hours unofficially working the box on back shift or night shift, sometimes until 3am. I'm still signalling, but officially now, as a volunteer at Minehead on the West Somerset Railway.

[Meg Merrilies]

It's interesting to see a number of Edinburgh guys posting on this subject. I must admit the only time I visited the 3 Edinburgh sheds were with a permit . . .

We never had a permit for any of the 3 main Edinburgh sheds. The only time I ever visited a shed under a permit was with another 5 Musselburgh Grammar pupils on a trip to "do" the sheds at Carlisle around 1960/61. If I remember correctly, the permit was supposed to be issued to someone over the age of 16(?) and the oldest one among us was only 14 but we had no problem gaining access to the sheds.

but I spent an awful lot of time at Musselburgh . . .

Ah ~ Musselburgh station . . . since 1970 I've lived about half a mile from the site of the old station which is no longer.

Later, in 1964, I drove 46462, an Ivatt Cl.2 2-6-0 from Smeaton to Saltoun a few weeks before the line closed and my signalman friend drove it back to Smeaton with one wagon containing a barrel of whiskey from Glenkinchie distillery.

Glenkinchie distillery is still churning out whisky, but no railway line goes anywhere near it now.

[thepinmaster]

Sorry to step in on your discussions gents, your mention of St Margarets shed brought me to your discussions. I am half way through building St Margarets shed in N GAUGE. One of the main reasons for attempting this layout was that my father was a fitter in the shed . Now that I have retired and have some time on my hands I decided to go back to building a model railway, and I chose st Margarets. I would love to have as much or as many pictures or info about the shed as the era I am using is 1956 to 1965. I have collected some interesting pictures and books but I would love the view from above the coal shed and others if at all possible. I even went back to Edinburgh, to London road and put an advert in a little paper shop in the hope that someone who lived above london road, and took some pictures.The layout is in my shed (which I have expanded) and is now 12'*4'. I have decided on DCC, and I might add it is totally new to me as all I knew was 12v DC, what a shock. Anyway I look forward to hearing from any of you. I was born in Fife, and now live in an American Motor home in North Wales.

[52D]

Grandfather was an NBR driver at STM then BWK then TWD after BWK closed.