Another Civil Engineers day out on the Midland line with a return to Blackburn Meadows - 6514/515
* Blackburn Meadows
It was too good an opportunity to miss taking a selection of shots from one of my 'favourite industrial operations'; a sewage works. I'm fascinated by all the various watery 'goings on', though not, necessarily!, by the selection of available smells! With the Colas two-tone orange and yellow class 70 available to include, this wide panorama is only spoiled by the oppressive greenery, especially the tall tree and large bush at lower right; these two features spoil a great opportunity to include an good industrial scene with some rail-borne engineering. The Blackburn Meadows Sewage Works has been in existence for many, many years and has evolved through various stages to now have become part of the large area also occupied by the EoN Templeborough Biomass plant over on the right. It appears a very great shame that neither of these operations, green in themselves, couldn't have utilised the facilities of the local Railways, this are is set between the North Midland here and, at the other side of the site off to the right, the old GCR's Lower Don Valley line from Woodburn Junction, through Rotherham and on to Mexborough; a wasted opportunity? The scale of all this contemporary industry dwarfs what was once a very prominent RAilway infrastructure, now denuded here, to just the two main lines, albeit with a very healthy 'cutting space' atop the bank which runs alongside the Blackburn Meadows Nature Reserve, once the a large expanse of farm land and a quarry. Across this space there was once a railway line running off the Lower Don Valley line at Templeborough and, curving around in this direction, crossed the S&SYN on a skew bridge, just behind the back of 70813's wagons, The line went into the area occupied by the Holmes Potteries and in later times, the line was used for storing wagons, I have researched this extensively as I am sure I may well have walked under the bridge in around 1955/56, but can not remember it, what I do remember is the old version of the Sewage WOrks with its forever rotating arms of the large circular filter beds.. As far as I can tell, the line over the canal was out of use from the late 1950s, with the bridge still in-situ, it was still there in 1967, but had been removed during the period 1968-1970. I have never seen pictures of either the bridge or any locos or wagons either on the bridge or in the surrounding area; one of those over-looked aspects of the nooks and crannies of the industrial railway scene which once existed where the Colas class 70 Ballast train now stands.
Another Civil Engineers day out on the Midland line with a return to Blackburn Meadows - 6514/515
* Blackburn Meadows
It was too good an opportunity to miss taking a selection of shots from one of my 'favourite industrial operations'; a sewage works. I'm fascinated by all the various watery 'goings on', though not, necessarily!, by the selection of available smells! With the Colas two-tone orange and yellow class 70 available to include, this wide panorama is only spoiled by the oppressive greenery, especially the tall tree and large bush at lower right; these two features spoil a great opportunity to include an good industrial scene with some rail-borne engineering. The Blackburn Meadows Sewage Works has been in existence for many, many years and has evolved through various stages to now have become part of the large area also occupied by the EoN Templeborough Biomass plant over on the right. It appears a very great shame that neither of these operations, green in themselves, couldn't have utilised the facilities of the local Railways, this are is set between the North Midland here and, at the other side of the site off to the right, the old GCR's Lower Don Valley line from Woodburn Junction, through Rotherham and on to Mexborough; a wasted opportunity? The scale of all this contemporary industry dwarfs what was once a very prominent RAilway infrastructure, now denuded here, to just the two main lines, albeit with a very healthy 'cutting space' atop the bank which runs alongside the Blackburn Meadows Nature Reserve, once the a large expanse of farm land and a quarry. Across this space there was once a railway line running off the Lower Don Valley line at Templeborough and, curving around in this direction, crossed the S&SYN on a skew bridge, just behind the back of 70813's wagons, The line went into the area occupied by the Holmes Potteries and in later times, the line was used for storing wagons, I have researched this extensively as I am sure I may well have walked under the bridge in around 1955/56, but can not remember it, what I do remember is the old version of the Sewage WOrks with its forever rotating arms of the large circular filter beds.. As far as I can tell, the line over the canal was out of use from the late 1950s, with the bridge still in-situ, it was still there in 1967, but had been removed during the period 1968-1970. I have never seen pictures of either the bridge or any locos or wagons either on the bridge or in the surrounding area; one of those over-looked aspects of the nooks and crannies of the industrial railway scene which once existed where the Colas class 70 Ballast train now stands.