Traffic Movements at Sedgeley Junction 1962-1963 (Part 1)

There are earlier posts about Sedgeley Junction:-
14-Feb-2008
19-Jun-2009

We're attempting to reconstruct events over 47 years ago, so personal memory is a rather unreliable guide.

Working Time Tables of the period are a valuable starting point and there's some information linked to a post on Railway Working Time Tables.

Completed signal box Train Register books can give a mass of information but I have none. What I did have back then was my own Train Register book in which I copied the details from the official Train Register each time I was unofficially working the box. The 'Remarks' column would have explanatory notes to clarify what was going on. Tragically, this book is missing.

I also had a series of notebooks in which I would write more detailed explanations of the movements. Spurred by the interest of my friend Phil, I've recently located one of these notebooks (written with a fountain pen), covering my visits to Sedgeley Junction between December 1962 and June 1963. The notes frequently refer to times in the Train Register (which we don't have) so interpreting these notes is not straightforward but, putting together the Working Time Table pages and these notes, we'll get a better picture of events.

A major contribution has been made by Mike Hollick, who had already produced a 'Sedgeley Junction WTT Simplifier' for the period of interest. He has kindly given permission for this to be incorporated in the work.

So, all I have to do now is transcribe the notebook and write an intelligible description of the movements. Watch this space.

You can find all my posts describing Traffic Movements on the South Stafford Line and the Stour Valley Line in the steam era here.

[Link to all 'Traffic Movements' posts added 10-Nov-2015]

Railway Working Time Tables

A typical timetable page: Weekday passenger workings from Dudley to Rugeley and Burton-on-Trent

Sooner or later, most railway enthusiasts gain an interest in Working Time Tables (WTT). These are the non-public time tables that regulate the movement of both passenger and freight trains. I've collected a few different timetables from the late '50s or more recent periods, mainly covering the West Midlands.

It's a major task to copy these timetables and make them available for general study, but I've made a small start and will extend this as possible. I was finally spurred into action by the Slideshow at Brewood Hall. A number of my friends have an interest in the South Stafford Line, so I decided to start with the timetable pages covering this section. I also located one of my lost notebooks describing movements at Sedgeley Junction in late 1962 and 1963, so this determined the required date of the timetables. The link below will take you to the freight timings for the preceding period (I don't have a copy of the timetable for exactly the right period) and the passenger timings for the correct period.

Alternately, you can view these two Abstracts on the 'Scribd' document site, where you can view, print, or download in 'PDF' format. The links are below:-

The passenger timings are here.

The freight timings are here.

My own other area of interest is the Stour Valley Line, in particular the section from Dudley Port to Wolverhampton and I've now made the 1962/1963 Passenger Working Time Table available as two documents, one for Down trains, one for Up trains. These are also on 'Scribd':-

Down trains here.

Up trains here.

[Stour Valley Timetable Pages added 3-Mar-2010]

Slideshow at Brewood Hall

L to R: John, Phil, Keith, Ian, Mike, Natalie

I have made a number of friends through people getting in touch after reading posts about my recollections of the steam railway era. Recently, my friend Phil arranged for Keith to give a slideshow on 12th February 2010 to a small group of interested people. Keith presented a collection of 35mm slides he has recently acquired depicting steam/diesel/electric traction dating mainly from the 1960s onwards taken in the West Midlands. Present were Natalie, Keith, Phil, Mike, Ian, John and Jan.

All the slides were of great interest but I can't resist showing below a personal favourite (re-photographed from the screen). The original was taken from Tipton Owen Street signal box on a murky day and shows a 'Jubilee' on a down express passing the goods shed.

Later in the evening, Ian used his laptop computer to show some of his photographs of Norton Junction and the South Stafford Line. Jan had provided a computer projector which worked perfectly earlier in the evening but (of course) decided to fail when re-connected to Ian's computer, so everybody congregated around the laptop.

Ian showing some of his collection

The evening was a good opportunity to discuss arcane matters of mutual interest including signalling, working timetables and our lost railway infrastructure.

There's a small collection of pictures here.