UK Rail Hotspots, an occasional series, part 1- Chesterfield

[kevsmiththai]

Chesterfield.

U.K rail hot spot

For many years now one of the best places to watch trains in England has been a stretch of line running from Tapton Junction just to the north of Chesterfield station in Derbyshire down to Clay Cross Junction. At the southern end the Erewash valley line joins the Midland main line from London to Sheffield for a distance of about 8 miles before the Midland ‘Old Road’ splits off taking most of the freight traffic to the north whilst the passenger trains head north west to Sheffield.

 

I have been photographing and videoing this stretch of line since 1978 and it can be one of the busiest spots at times. The combination of North-South expresses and cross country Liverpool-Norwich workings make passenger traffic busy and the Coal, Steel and Mineral traffic has always provided plenty of freight action.

 

 

It may seem odd to start a feature like this with a picture of the top of a wall but this spot, at the south end of Platform one at Chesterfield station, was thronged with train spotters back in the sixties and seventies. Over the years steam gave way to diesel, the class 45 Peaks gave way to the HSTs and they in turn were bumped off the top links by the class 220s,221s DMUs etc. These also eliminated one of the last strongholds of class 47/8 loco hauled passenger workings in the U.K. On the freight side first generation diesels like class 20s and 37s were superceded by classes 56,58 and class 60s on mineral traffic and these were all but extinct with the mass arrival of EMD class 66s

 

A lone railfan sits on the wall in the summer of 1978 as a Peak class 1-co-co-1 heads north with a London St Pancras-Sheffield working

 

 

A typical day was last Saturday, Angie and I were back in Derbyshire visiting relatives for the weekend and I nipped down to Tapton bridge, a favourite with railfans in the area to see what was going through and soon became aware that something special was turning up as more and more train spotters arrived with cameras and camcorders. I had seen the ‘High Peak’ excursion (Tyseley to Buxton) listed but hadn’t twigged it was coming through Chesterfield. Hauled by LMS Black 5 4-6-0 45305 it arrived on the down main line before swinging over Tapton Junction and taking the ‘Old Road’ which would bring it into Sheffield station from the north. However not only was that in the area but also the Network Rail test train (a converted HST Intercity 125), two coal trains, one ‘DB Shenke’ and one ‘Freightliner’ and a Freightliner hauled train of empty cement wagons heading back to the huge cement plant in the Hope valley. All this in the space of one hour and all the time punctuated by frequent passenger workings!

The Network Rail Test Train (ex HST 125 Intercity)

[kevsmiththai]

A link to the video taken that day can be found at

 

A Freightliner 66 on a northbound coal working

 

 

The Black 5 4-6-0 swings across from the Down main onto the 'Old Road'

 

 

A DB Shenke (Ex EWS) class 66 on another northbound coal

 

[kevsmiththai]

Chesterfield is a small market town in North East Derbyshire but was once served by three railway companies all of whom had their own station in the town. Now just the Midland railway station survives, the Great Central station was swept away by the construction of the bypass road through the town and the old Market Place station of the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway was obliterated by the construction boom of the 1960s. The town is most famous for its ‘Crooked Spire’ the steeple of St Mary’s church has been twisted almost from the beginning and whilst local legend has it that the devil flew over it before the church was consecrated whilst the more scientific minded blame either unseasoned wood or the excessive weight of the roof lead on it, take your pick!

 

This map shows the warren of lines around the area at the height of the Railway domination of the movement of Coal and Steel

 

 

just after the second world war the rail and coal industries were nationalised. The hundreds of thousands of wooden bodied private owner coal wagons were replaced by a new all steel 16 ton mineral wagon and a train of them are seen here at Tapton Junction by LMS 8f 2-8-0 48352 in 1964

 

 

shortly after 9F 2-10-0 92016 passes the signalbox with another train of 16 Tonners

 

In this video we see the area covered in snow at the end of the New year holidays

as a fine selection of now superceded liveried stock passes in 1997

 

 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

I only managed to visit Chesterfield the once...a friend of mine lived there. I managed to grab five minutes at Clay Cross junction, seeing a railfreight coal liveried 58001 passing with an MGR train. I really ought to get back there some time, if for no other reason to visit Barrow Hill which, for those that are unaware, is a preserved former depot (marked BH on one of the maps posted earlier) boasting a roundhouse. It also has one of the finest collections of preserved diesel and electric traction in the UK. 

 

http://www.barrowhill.org/

[Mudkip Orange]

Deltics or GTFO

[grumbeast]

Great spot!,

 

I'm back in the UK in December, and I'm always allowed a day away trainspotting so maybe I'll go to Chesterfield instead of my usual haunts between Newport and Cardiff.  One question, can you walk from the station to that footbridge?  I thought I might take the train

 

Cheers

 

Graham

[westfalen]

Looks like a good spot. I didn't get to the western side of the country much when I was there in May, I've got to get back again some day.