Callow Lane - the colliery tripper
One of my little 'conceits' with Callow Lane, in terms of it's putative location, is that the link to the old Coalpit Heath area collieries was re-orientated to run directly into Callow Lane, enabling a colliery tripper to run. The Coalpit Heath pits were all closed by shortly after the second world war, but in my world, one of them - Frog Lane Colliery - was modernised after new deposits of good coal were found. The NCB is now in charge, of course, and their locos are authorised to run onto BR metals as far as Callow Lane, in order to bring loaded coal wagons out of the colliery and to collect empties. Typically, a BR loco and brake van would be diagrammed to wait at Callow Lane for the colliery trip to arrive, and to then work the wagons forward to Westerleigh Yard and beyond...
Here we see a view circa 1960, with 8701 and brake van sitting in the old platform, whilst RSH 'Thunderbolt' from Frog Lane arrives with some 16 tonners:
We now fast-forward to circa 1970, and we see the same workings taking place, only now we have D7042 waiting for the colliery tripper, with the colliery's new Sentinel arriving with the wagons:
And now, in a bizarre twist of fate, we see the same scene, in the unlikely event that Sentinel locos have taken over the world...
I would point out that neither Sentinel is yet converted to P4, alas, and the red one isn't even mine, it was the result of a successful 'proxy shopping' trip on behalf of Re6/6!
- 16
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