By Rail to Chirk

Introduction

On 26th February 2014, I travelled from Wolverhampton to Chirk by rail in order to visit the Ty Gwyn woodland. There's a report on the visit here.

Wikipedia have some information on the line from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury here and on the line beyond Shrewsbury to Chester here.

I've been familiar with the G.W.R. route from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury and beyond since childhood. Back then, manual signal boxes with Absolute Block working controlled the route from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury but over the years, one by one, they've been eliminated. I've continued to use the line to Shrewsbury and beyond intermittently for various trips.

Shrewsbury

I took an Arriva Trains Wales DMU from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury, calling at Telford and Wellington. At Shrewsbury, I had a few minutes to take photographs before my connecting train to Chirk was due.

The impressive station building on platform 3 features a tower flying the Union flag!

There were plenty of people waiting to join the 3-coach Arriva Trains Wales service from Cardiff to Holyhead but we were soon on our way.

Cardiff - Holyhead DMU arriving at Shrewsbury.

Gobowen

After traversing a number of level crossings set in a fairly flat and rather wet landscape, we stopped at Gobowen. The station sports a Great Western railway nameboard 'GOBOWEN FOR OSWESTRY' (partly hidden behind the compulsory tall pole for mounting a CCTV camera). The currently-unused and rusty single line to Oswestry about 3 miles away is still intact and enthusiasts hope to re-open it, but the bay platform at Gobowen has lost its track.

The nameboard hints at the station's former importance.

A further reminder of former better times is the rather attractive Italianate station building with a turret and stucco detailing, designed by locally-born Thomas Penson Junior and built around 1846 for the Shrewsbury and Chester railway. The building is now unused and available for sale or to rent. Wikipedia has more on the station here.

The Down side former station building at Gobowen

Both the nameboard and the building are Grade II Listed:-

Railway station. Circa 1848 by Thomas Penson Jun. on the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway with later additions and alterations. Stuccoed red brick on moulded stone plinth; low-pitched hipped slate roofs have brick and ashlar ridge stacks with moulded capping and dentilled cornices. Italianate style. 2 storeys. Entrance side has 3-storey rectangular tower projecting to right with finial to low-pitched pyramidal roof and modillioned eaves cornice. 'Belfry' has blind round-headed arches with balustrade. 2-bay centre section has round-headed sash windows to first floor, paired to right, with continuous moulded impost bands and interlacing wheel decoration to aprons. Glazing bar sashes in lugged architraves to ground floor. Projecting left range has paired round-headed sash windows to first floor. Tall double doors to centre approached by flight of 3 steps and flanked by round-arched sash windows. Single-storey exedra to left with dentilled cornice and 4-paned sashes in lugged architraves. Platform side has bracketed canopy, removed at time of resurvey (April 1986) to top end of platform but continued, supported by cast-iron columns, to south; cusped quatrefoils to spandrels of brackets. Footbridge linking down-line side with up-line side has latticed cast-iron girders to covered walk-way. Single-storey yellow brick range to up- line side with round-arched sash windows and doorways; ornamental cast-iron brackets supporting canopy. Later platform canopy to south of footbridge. Station name-boardslettered "GOBOWEN / FOR / OSWESTRY" between cast-iron columns with moulded capping at north end of up -line platform and south end of down-line platform. Extensive restoration was in progress at time of resurvey (April 1986).

See the British Listed Buildings entry here.

Chirk

The next stop was Chirk, where I alighted and continued by road. The tiny station is looked after and kept attractive by local support.

Chirk Station.

Chirk is dominated by the huge Kronospan factory. Kronospan claim to be the world’s largest manufacturer of wood panel products and laminate flooring. Worldwide, it has more than 30 manufacturing sites. There's more information here.

View of the Kronospan plant from Chirk Station car park.

Returning from Chirk

Later in the day, I was back at Chirk station for the return journey. I'd forgotten, until I saw a plaque on the station, that Chirk was the end of the Glyn Valley Tramway, opened in 1873, finally closed in 1935. There's a 'Wikipedia' article here. The New Glyn Valley Tramway & Industrial Heritage Trust are seeking to conserve, research and interpret the Industrial Heritage of the area and Glyn Valley Tramway and have experimentally laid a length of track to the tramway's odd 2ft 4½in track gauge. The Glyn Valley Tramway Trust are separately pursuing similar aims.

Glyn Valley Tramway Plaque, Chirk station.

The 3-car DMU which I took back to Shrewsbury was going through to Maesteg.

The Maesteg train arriving at Chirk.

Passing through Shrewsbury

I was quite tired by the time we arrived at Shrewsbury (after spending a few hours romping round the woodland in the rain earlier) so I was relieved to be able to get on my connecting train back to Wolverhampton. The late afternoon sun improved my picture of Severn Bridge Jn. signal box. I noticed that the 3-aspect colour light in the foreground of my shot now sports a blue GSM-R plate. The world is changing!

The monolithic bulk of Severn Bridge Junction, with a 3-aspect colour light in the foreground.

Book references

[1] 'Rail Centres: Shrewsbury' by Richard K. Morriss, published by Booklaw Publications (ISBN 1-901945-20-0).
[2] 'A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 11 North and Mid Wales by Peter E Baughan, published by David & Charles (ISBN 0-9153-7850-3).

Related articles on other sites

Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line (Wikipedia).
Shrewsbury to Chester Line (Wikipedia).
Glyn Valley Tramway (Wikipedia).

My pictures

Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury line.
Wellington.
Shrewsbury area railways.

HST Charter to Peak Rail

In a couple of earlier posts (Winter Timetable at Peak Rail and Peak Rail in early 2014) I've described the winter operations between Rowsley and Matlock Riverside. In March 2014, we changed to the Summer timetable, with five round trips top-and-tailed between Rowsley and Matlock Town.

My first turn was during March was on Sunday, the 2nd. However, we were running a special timetable that day because a main line HST Charter train from St. Pancras was scheduled. Originally marketed in the 1970s as 'Inter City 125' trains, these High Speed diesel-electric trains are still in widespread use on mainline services.

Phil and I had 'Lord Phil', facing north. We came off shed nice and early so as to start warming our 7-coach train. The advantage of being at the north end was the relative ease of taking water during the day from the 4-wheel long wheelbase petrol tank wagon just off the north end of the platform, compared with the exhausting business of dragging a long canvas water hose around when watering from the tank wagon at the south end of Rowsley station.

'Penyghent' coming 'off-shed' to work the 10:20 service train to Matlock Town.

A few minutes late, 'Penyghent' came 'off-shed' and 'hooked on' at the south end of the train ready for the first of six round trips we were booked to run to Matlock Town that day. The guard gave the 'Right Away' and 'Penyghent' took the train to our first stop at Darley Dale. With D8 on the front and seven coaches, 'Lord Phil' was well short of the platform when we stopped. I made a careful note of our position by placing three small lumps of coal on the sleeper end of the Down Line opposite our cab. Then, we carried on to Matlock Town. There wasn't much chance to make up list time because the track has recently been slewed approaching Matlock Riverside and a temporary speed limit of 10 m.p.h. has been imposed.

At Matlock Town, 'Penyghent' surrendered the single line staff to us for the journey back to Darley Dale, this time with 'Lord Phil' doing the work.

At Darley Dale, the fireman surrendered the staff to the signalman and I carefully drew the train through the platform and stopped with the engine cab level with the three small lumps of coal. Obviously, I had to ensure that the whole train, including 'Penyghent', had been drawn clear of the level crossing so that the gates could be opened to road traffic. But there's another constraint. In the post Peak Rail in early 2014 I talked about stopping 'behind' a signal and said "In some cases, track circuits are provided to indicate to the signalman the position of vehicles and electric locking may prevent the changing of points unless the movement is correctly standing 'behind' the signal". The Down platform at Darley Dale is such a case. Unless the whole train was 'behind' the ground signal, we would still be occupying the track circuit and the facing points could not be changed. This doesn't matter too much if there's only one train but, later in the day, I'd need to stop our train in this position to allow the HST Charter to return to Matlock. Stopping in the wrong place for this one would have made me very unpopular! Fortunately, all was well.


View of Midland Railway 'dwarf' shunting signal on the Down Main at Darley Dale, looking towards Matlock.

I stopped 'right' at Rowsley, allowing us to take water without difficulty. Although we were only working the train in one direction, we were providing steam heating for seven coaches, so we were boiling a fair amount of water.

The second departure from Rowsley was booked to stand at Darley Dale and wait for the HST Charter to pass on its way to Rowsley. Telephone messages informed station staff that the HST Charter was 'on time' and before long we heard the horn of the approaching train.


A cluster of photographers on the Down Platform at Darley Dale to record the HST.

The HST made its stately passage through the station on the Down line and, after a few minutes, we continued to Matlock Riverside. Phil drove the return journey back to Rowsley, stopping accurately at Darley Dale and Rowsley, where we watered again. The HST had parked itself neatly on the loop at Rowsley, out of our way.

Phil takes the train back to Rowsley.

I think there were around 400 passengers on the HST Charter and many of them took a trip to Matlock Town on the service train. There were sales stands on Rowsley platform and the various preservation groups around the Rowsley site were welcoming the visitors. I was particularly taken with the project to build a full-size re-creation of Ivatt's prototype L.M.S. diesel electric '10000' - their website is here. Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated at this stage and we were all rather wet and windswept.

On our fourth round trip, we were booked to stand in the Down platform at Darley Dale, to allow the HST Charter to pass on its way back to St. Pancras. I walked across to the Up platform to take a few pictures.

The HST passes 'Lord Phil' in Darley Dale.

We completed our journey to Rowsley, plus two more round trips, by which time we were quite ready to go on shed and dispose, concluding a most interesting day.

HST Gallery

The Australian version (the 'XPT') pictured in Sydney in 2001.

East Midlands Trains HST at Leicester in 2009.

'East Coast' liveried HST viewed from King's Cross Power Signal Box in 2009.

First Great Western HST at Bath Spa in 2013.

East Midlands Trains HST at Sheffield in 2013.

Book references

'Inter City 125' by R. M. Tufnell published by Haynes Publishing Group (ISBN 0 85429 428 7).

Related articles on other sites

British Rail Class 43 (HST) (Wikipedia).
Inter City 125 (Wikipedia).
125 Group

Related posts in this blog

D8 'Penyghent'

My pictures

HST Charter to Peak Rail.
'Lord Phil'.
'Penyghent'.