A friend of mine used to tell me about working these freight lines out of Nine Elms when it was still steam powered. Just shows how old we are getting as we are talking sixty years ago. Nine Elms is where the New Covent Garden market is.
Where are all the sidings gone!!! The sidings that are still there are overgrown and decrepit. How sad that things have continued to decay since the EWS days when I used to work for them. On another note, I have always found it vexing how there can be such lovely track with limits up to 125 mph and yet so many branch / local lines are still restricted to puny 15 and 25 mph limits. Thanks for the video. It was great to recall some of my old stomping grounds and see how things have changed.
Tom O' Dowd Too bad none of the old roots blown EMDs made it to the UK. You would have loved that. I used to love being assigned the old GP9s. We now have some SD30s, which have the same innards as the class 66. They were rebuilt from SD40-2, which is what class 59 was based on.
I wondered where I recognised the start from, it appeared on one of the Paddington 24/7 episodes! The crossings just outside of the yard had a crack in them.
00:00 Leaves Acton Yard. Acton Mainline station on the Great Western Mainline is on the right 01:06 Passes under Horn Lane 01:58 Line veers left away from the Great Western Main Line 03:32 Joins North London Line/West London Line for a short distance at Acton Wells Junction 03:54 Passes Acton Wells box and takes the Dudding Hill Line 04:43 Passes over Victoria Road 05:46 Crosses over and leaves the Dudding Hill Line at Acton Canal Wharf box, taking the spur towards Wembley 07:11 What is now Willesden Logistics Hub is on the left (formerly Willesden Freight Terminal) 07:41 Passes under the Dudding Hill Line, which we just left, and which continues northwards 08:01 Passes under Acton Lane 09:31 Passes under the West Coast Main Line and the Up and Down Willesden goods and continues into Wembley Yard Loco Sidings
At @5:48 you must pass a Pikey camp judging my the caravans and mobile homes. The lineside is strewn with junk and crap lobbed over the embankment only at that point and the four foot is covered in crap.
Thanks for this but I have a general question. How is a route planned? If I want a train to go from say Bognor to Acton, who is involved, is it planned ahead and how is the progress of the train monitored? How are the points set correctly for a special train? Sorry a bit of a schoolboy question....
Nice video. It's changed a bit since i drove trains out of there! I'll have to up-load my light engine move with a pair of 37s to Cricklewood RTS, off to work the morning Forders and the joy of 23 end changes!
From which end? Ballast trains arrived from Bletchley and the bins arrived from the Bedford end with Acton drivers and the Forders shunter getting on in Bedford in order to do the run arounds.
This may be late, but the red light is only for trains going straight at those points. The position signal on the right of the red signal is showing 2 white lights in the up position, which means the train is clear to proceed turning right at the junction. Position signals are used for shunting and yard movements
