Where EXACTLY was darlington Loco works, please?

[alcazar]

I've looked on the net, and on O/S maps, but as far as I can see , it could have been in one of three places.

 

Did it straddle any roads? I just CANNOT find my old, (1948) shed directory.

[AMJ]

There is a large Morrisons supermarket on the site now.

[Steve Taylor]

North Road (work)shops was where Darlington's older branch of Morrisons is (DL1 2PY - for streetmap etc) covering the area west of the North Road (A167), north of Whessoe Road and south of Denmark Street. Meynell Road runs across where the works yard was. Travelling west along Whessoe Road from the underbridge from Hopetown Road/Brinkburn Road you'll see a car scrapyard of the wall on the left adjoining the railway with a large old brick building (Former NER Engine shed). There is a squat brick structure on the other side of Whessoe road around there, that was a water tower, so if you draw a line across Whessoe Road roughly between the two you have the site of the level crossing that formed the start of the main works yard. Along the southern edge of the Morrisons main car park are low buildings that were stores while the brick building on the NW corner of North Rd/Whessoe Rd was the railway institute (iirc).

 

Also in the area were the NER Engineers offices at Stooperdale on Brinckburn Rd, Stooperdale Boiler Shops and Paint Shop to the north East of the offices in the curve of the Barnard Castle line west from Charity Junction with Faverdale Wagon works over on the north side of that line covering the ground from there west to West Auckland Road (A68). Just to confuse things further there were various concenrs such as Whessoe Engineering (now a housing estate) and and a rolling mill (whose name escapes me).

 

Worth a look are "Rly memories 17, Darlington &SW Durham: S. Chapman" which has a fair sketch diagram of the layout of the area, and "Steam Motive Power Centres 8, Darlington: David Dunn". Flickr and Fotopic also throw up some stuff iirc. Material fro mthe works yard and main shops open day visits is fairly common. Myself I'm looking for stuff from the paintshops, boilershops and Faverdale and these are like rocking horse teeth and will mean a visit to North Road Museum next I'm back up home.

 

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Steve

[alcazar]

Thanks so much for that. I was hoping for a local to answer, but not holding my breath.

 

I've printed off your reply so I can refer to it while looking at aeriel and bird's eye views on Multimap.

[alcazar]

Brilliant, just been over to look and the aeriel view shows it all as you said. Makes it all come to life, thanks. I SO wish I'd seen it.

 

Can you also describe where the engine sheds were, please?

 

Further up on the west side of Whessoe road is a large works with rail access?

 

And what was sited around the North Road station area, please?

 

I had looked at the aeriel shots before and came to the conclusion that the works were either around North Road Station, or in the area bounded by, or maybe crossed by Haughton Road, bounded by Hunden's lane, and entered by John Dixon Lane.

 

Is THAT the site of the shed? There is a building there that appears to have been designed to mirror a roundhouse.

[Steve Taylor]

Glad to be of service. Another useful bit of print to have is the Godfrey reprints of the old OS maps.

Darlington steam shed (51a, Bank Top, or - if you talk to my Grandad - Green Street) was as you say on the up-side of the ECML between Parkgate and Haughton Road alongside Haughton Bridge sidings, the whole lot being mostly just to the south of the redevelopment for the new technical college (showing my age, i was sorry to see the old tech levelled). The diesel depot was on the down side visible from Haughton Road bridge or through the yard of the corporation bus depot (now Bannatynes Gym for the modern narcissist) but both bus and diesel depots are long gone Also round there was the gas-works.

 

Before the steam shed was redeveloped by the LNER there were also minor outlying sheds at one time or another including a roundhouse in the shed yard. The shed building by the scrappies is mentioned by Bill Fawcett in "A History of NER Architecture, Vol2" (P168) as being designed by William Peachey and built in 1861 with a short life as a shed and subsequent use as a paint shop from approx 1877 to 1911.

 

The formerly rail connected works up Whessoe road that you mentioned was mothballed/closed last time I passed about 3 months ago but i think was Rise Carr Rolling mills.

 

Around North Road station there was the S&D carriage works now the A1 trust and NELPG's base. The works scrap lines were on the flat ground between there and the station/museum and at one point contained temporary excursion platforms. On the up accross from the station there was a goods depot sadly long gone and covered up by a branch of B&Q. To the east was Albert Hill signal box controlling access to Robert Stephenson's Loco works and then following on the original S&D alignment ot S&D crossing or curving south to Parkgate Junction. The yard on the inside of that curve used to be Henry Boot's and i remember seeing 78019 stored there before Barry Lamb and DRPS aquired it and moved it into the stone building behind North Road Station. That building by the way was at one time I'm led to believe the base for the local railway fire brigade, of which i believe my great-grandfather was a member.

 

Other places worth a looksee if you find anything of them - to the south of Bank top on the down was Black Banks yard/Croft Sidings which after the installation of colour light signalling pre-ww2 had its signal box downgraded to a ground-frame - but at over a 100 levers it would be some ground frame. On the up side from there in the triangle formed by Darlington South Jct, Geneva Jct and Croft Jct was Geneva P-way yard home of the central reclamation yard until a modern p-way facility opened at Dinsdale in the mid-'60s (even that is now gone being marked only by ballaast spoil visible from the Middleton St George by-pass).

 

Moving north on the up accross from Bank top was Cleveland Bridge's works, now housing, and Bank Top goods, now a car park.

 

I followed your hint and had a look at google earth. Blinking flip, the estate around Darroby Drive roughly covers the are of the former Whessoe Engineering, Stooperdale Boiler and paint shops, but much as I wouldn't want to eat vegies grown round there, that ground will still be cleaner than that round George Stephenson Drive - that was Darchem Chemical Works and as a nipper I remember sneaking in there and seeing piles of flaky white waste all over.

 

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Steve

[alcazar]

Thanks a lot, I'll print that off too, and add it to the other so as to have it to hand while looking at the aeriel photos again.

 

Must have been a heck of a place to live if you liked railways.

[Fat Controller]

The rolling mills was Darlington and Simpsons. When I googled this, I found a link to a joint Durham/Northumberland council site on local history. This has a feature where you click on a particular site, and you are given a brief historical summary and, more interestingly, maps of the relevant area going back at about ten yearly intervals from the present.

Here's the link for Darlington:-

http://www.durham-pa.gov.uk/DURHAMCC/K2P.nsf/K2PDetail?readform&PRN=D6778

I've clicked back over about four decades- the maps are a bit hazy on maximum enlargement, but I'm sure they'll be of interest.

[Steve Taylor]

aah, I was scratching my head trying to remember the name, DSRM, now there's a blast from the past. I wonder if that makes the bit further north Rise Carr RM? I've even phoned the folks to check that one.

 

Aye there was a lot there. Even the remains when I was little were impressive, but the clean ups from Morrisons and then electrification onwards have wiped away so much. Now can anyone tell me why there is a set of steps set into the brick retaining wall east of the Hopetown bridge on Whessoe Road? Its the little details going that seem to change the place, for example not the fact that they build a silly acces road along the S&D trackbed but that they leveled the coal drops, the abutment and the boarded up public toilets to do it. Not that I would ever have used them but there was something comforting knowing that the town was once public minded enough to provide publc. Btw somewhere I've a set of pics from the demolition of Whessoe taken on a blag when at college (pre urb-ex days too).

 

Does anyone have a good clear set of pics of Darlington South and North signal boxes - i keep looking at gravy trains threads and thinking hhmmmmmmm!

 

Just looked at the council link and the 50's OS puts the more northern of the two mill sites as DSRM (i remember that having British Steel and then Corus branding) so since there was a Rise Carr pub by the other site (with the rail network on Google Earth) I wonder if they were separate concerns or different names for the same thing?

[alcazar]

The rolling mills was Darlington and Simpsons. When I googled this, I found a link to a joint Durham/Northumberland council site on local history. This has a feature where you click on a particular site, and you are given a brief historical summary and, more interestingly, maps of the relevant area going back at about ten yearly intervals from the present.

Here's the link for Darlington:-

http://www.durham-pa...dform&PRN=D6778

I've clicked back over about four decades- the maps are a bit hazy on maximum enlargement, but I'm sure they'll be of interest.

 

 

I can't get that site to run anything, it just hangs my computer. Quad core processor too.

[alcazar]

Got the computer prog sorted, it was me trying to look at it in too much detail, too soon.

 

Friday, I was up in Darlington to have my car sorted, so spent the day looking around. The car place was just up the Whessoe Road, about a mile from the old level crossing. Using Twa dogs' instructions I was able to walk the site and find the remaining bits, including the old Works clock on the frontage of the new Morrisons. I then walked on and found the old scrap lines, or the field where they stood, and toured the new North Road museum, "Head of Steam".

 

I walked a little further to the the Crown Street library, where a very kind lady had got out a huge pile of stuff relating to the works, including photos, maps, books and newspaper clippings, from the early 1900's to the day it closed.

 

I came away with an A3 site plan, drawn and stamped clearly: "Drawn at Doncaster works, 1955". Cost me all of 30p. A tube to keep it safe from the Post Office cost £1.70, LOL

 

An entertaining, if a little sad, day. I wonder if today's young'uns will do the same for Doncaster Works 45 years hence?