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Railway Ghosts

DrPaulLee said:
There was a follow up on the west Dereham Facebook page:







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There may have been some confusion between the Stoke Ferry branch line operated by British Rail as a Light freight-only railway and the Wissington Railway or tramway that served the sugar beet farms and joined the former at Abbey and Dereham station.

The Wissington lines were not built or operated under an act of parliament but were a private railway from the outset and thus would have developed its own set of operating procedures. There are photos of wagons being loaded by hand and one of a potato farm siding so overgrown you can't see the rails for the grass .

Once a train joined the branch line at Abbey junction just to the East of Abbey and Dereham station it was then shunted into reception sidings to be picked up by a BR locomotive and then hauled to the mainline at Denver. This leg of the journey would have been under the Light Railway regulations and strict rules applied to operating procedures include daytime running only..

This is because before the Stoke Ferry line could become a Light Railway in 1931 LNER had to call a public enquiry at Downham Market and then enact legislation. To remove crossing gates and keepers would create a real risk of collision with road traffic and thus the legislation required that measures were put in place to mitigate this, including daytime running only.

I will dig out links and images in due course. My understanding is that the after dark/nighttime running of any trains on the Stoke Ferry BR branch was forbidden by the Light Railway legislation full stop. However, what happened on the Wissington branch to the farms and factories was a different matter, although I will have to research further the legal status of the line in the 1950s as opposed to when it was built
 
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If the sugar tramway hired a re-railing train from BR they might have stabled it overnight on their tracks. Normally, however, re-railing a wagon or two on a private railway is done with very simple equipment, such as baulks of wood and lever-operated jacks. Sometimes a road crane might be used.

A BR breakdown crane would only be used for a severe accident, perhaps an overturned locomotive.
 
To add to the above, the section of BR branch line from Abbey Junction (Wissington line) through Abbey and West Dereham station to the mainline at Denver was by all accounts the busiest section of the line due to sugar beet traffic (as the Facebook source has stated was the case in 1951). This section of the line received new, stronger track in 1971 and there was even an automated crossing installed where the new A10 road crossed the line at Ryston.

It was the remainder of the line down to Stoke Ferry that was quiet and probably a bit overgrown and rusty as freight continued to be lost to road hauliers in the 1950s. If the witnesses lived in the old crossing keepers cottage on College road then they would have only seen trains on the quieter section east of Abbey Junction
 
Another possibility is an engineer's train, working on repairs to the line. This sort of work is often carried out at night, and since it could take place within an engineer's possession, the normal restrictions on day/night running need not apply. The engineer would be responsible for safety, and appoint a 'person in charge' to regulate running within the possessed area. Normally an engineer's train would carry bright lights to illuminate the working area, which might add to the unusual nature of the event.
 
eburacum said:
Another possibility is an engineer's train, working on repairs to the line. This sort of work is often carried out at night, and since it could take place within an engineer's possession, the normal restrictions on day/night running need not apply. The engineer would be responsible for safety, and appoint a 'person in charge' to regulate running within the possessed area. Normally an engineer's train would carry bright lights to illuminate the working area, which might add to the unusual nature of the event.
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Good shout and I have seen temporary manning of ungated level crossings during overnight engineering work (known as 'blockades'). This is certainly the practice on mainlines, however the Stoke Ferry branch line in the 1950s would almost certainly have been closed on Sundays if not the whole weekend. Weekend engineering work is a lot more common, economical and practical than overnight work.

From what I have found track improvements were made in the war years and in 1971 (but not the quieter eastern end of the branch). It would be interesting to know if any major track improvements were made in 1954/55 that would warrant the expense of an overnight blockade, especially as the line had been stripped back to the bare bones and points etc were operated by the train crew.

It is a great shame we can't establish the witnesses precise location and their distance from the line, knowing these would rule out some possibilities or perhaps even cast doubt on what they though they saw. Still, we all now know a lot more about an old sugar beet railway up there in those lonely Fens....
 
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escargot said:
A relation of mine was in charge of the recovery of coal wagons at Selby. He hired the special cranes that had to be used, at an eye-watering cost. Most impressive in action.
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Thanks Freight-only lines -especially Light ones - were operated on a shoestring budget. If a derailment had occurred that required the steam crane there would be a record of it and it would have been the talk of the Fens at the time.


Interesting article:

"There were two intermediate stations on the line, one at the small village of Ryston, and one called Abbey in the timetable; its full name as painted on the station signboard was Abbey and West Dereham. The village of West Dereham was just over a mile away, so this station was isolated from any housing"

https://joemasonspage.wordpress.com/2022/04/01/railways-the-line-to-stoke-ferry/

It is am intriguing tale but a difficult one to pin down as in 1954/55 Abbey and West Dereham was no ordinary branch line station that had lost its passenger service, crossing keepers and signalling infrastructure two decades earlier and just saw the occasional freight train rumble by. Rather it sat on the junction of an extensive private railway to the sugar beet factory at Poppylot (10 miles away) and the various sidings to the farms. We also don't know enough about the location, time of year, weather conditions, phase of the moon etc to know exactly how much the Dixons would have seen from their bedroom window. I also feel we shouldn't ignore the fact that they inspected the "rusty" rails the next day and spoke to other farm workers, none of whom had seen or heard anything early that morning. A steam locomotive is by nature heavy and would have left a telltale mark along those tracks, especially if inspected a few hours later.
 
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escargot said:
A relation of mine was in charge of the recovery of coal wagons at Selby. He hired the special cranes that had to be used, at an eye-watering cost. Most impressive in action.
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After the Carmont (Stonehaven) crash I asked the boss from Ainscough how much the ponderous 600 ton crawler crane used for the recovery was costing for the week. He just gave a wry smile and said “Well it doesn’t really matter if it’s hundred pounds or a million pounds. If you need it, you need it” which is probably a line he’d used many times before!
 
A haunted station?

Flying Kettle​


Location: Barrow-in-Furness (Cumbria) - Station House, Roose (aka Roosecote)
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: December 1930
Further Comments: Stationmaster J Jackson and his family moved from the property having experienced a poltergeist outbreak which included destruction of crockery, a flying kettle and a levitating tea-table. A surveyor who investigated the site claimed the poltergeist to be vibrations from passing trains.

https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/recent/index.php
 
This is a curious one:

Abandoned Plymouth railway line where people have seen a 'ghost train'​


Essentially, in 2021 a man saw "20 oil tanks" being pulled by a locomotive from the abandoned Friairy sidings in Plymouth. These used to lead to the old Plymouth Friary station from which Southern Railway trains operated prior to closure in 1968.

These sidings remained to allow freight trains to reverse and enter the branch line to Cattedown wharf. Freight traffic has declined over the years and the last regular traffic comprising of bitumen tanks, was lost in 2008 (http://www.plymothiantransit.com/2008/05/last-train-from-cattedown.html). I remember this as I was walking along the Exe estuary trail at that time when a long train of these wagons went past me on their way to scrap. To the best of my knowledge no tank wagons remained at Cattedown .

The possible culprits was the fuel tanks from fowler that supplied Plymouth Laira deport with train fuel:

http://totnestrains.weebly.com/fuel-tanks.html

But this traffic ceased in 2013. The remaining freight flows out of Cornwall and Plymouth are china clay trains, sand trains and cement trains from Cornwall that are sometimes stabled at Plymouth. None of these fit the description of "oil tanks" and really have no reason to be at the Friary sidings.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/gallery/abandoned-train-track-5566096​


The Friary sidings were closed to any potential traffic in 2021:

Further to the above - a very much appreciated up date from Paul Burkhalter.
Hi,
To add to Roy’s excellent summary, this is the latest on the Friary and Cattewater lines:wef 26 June 2021, the line beyond MP245m 18ch has been permanently closed. This location is beyond the Laira Depot servicing platform, and means the whole Friary and Cattewater lines are OOU. As EMR no longer ship by rail there's no use for the line.
Plymouth City Council want to remove the low bridge over Embankment Road, and this will facilitate this. I didn't realise but this bridge is too low for any tall HGV hence the big Royal Mail vehicles for the Sorting Office (for example) all have to go round through Manadon/Mutley/City Centre.
Cheers, Paul.

http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/millbay-friary--stonehouse-branch.html

The Plymouth Live report is also date June 2021, so it is possible this was one final disposal of tank wagons that had been stored there but I can't find any record of such a movement and train enthusiasts would defiantly have known about it
 
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If cement trains were sometimes at Plymouth, would something like the 51 tonne Presflo cement tank wagon be a possibility, especially if seen by someone not familiar with different types of tank wagon?
 
Erinaceus said:
If cement trains were sometimes at Plymouth, would something like the 51 tonne Presflo cement tank wagon be a possibility, especially if seen by someone not familiar with different types of tank wagon?
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Good shout, the only tank wagon flow I can put going through Plymouth at that time were the Tarmac Moorswater (Looe branch) cement tanks that run up to South Wales. These were operated by Colas in 2021 using mostly Class 70 locomotives.

It is odd that they would be anywhere near Laira depot and Friary sidings though. Modern rail freight operators run trainload services from point A to point B with minimal expensive hanging around in sidings. If a train did have to change crew or be stabled overnight then there is plenty of space at the Tavistock Junction freight depot adjacent to the mainline. Furthermore, I have pored over railway blogs and there is no mention of Colas using Friary sidings and we are talking about sorts of blogs that, for example, recorded every single locomotive to run on the Fawley oil trains to Plymouth and Cornwall:

https://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/oldsite/6V62_FAWLEY.htm
 
What do the railway operators (or whatever their title is) have to say about the mysterious trains?
 
IbisNibs said:
What do the railway operators (or whatever their title is) have to say about the mysterious trains?
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They said that the Laira train depot sometimes uses this short stretch of line to reverse trains as it has two connections to the main line that are in opposite directions, forming a Y shape. However Laira is a passenger train depot and the separate Tavistock Junction yard handles all freight traffic.
 
RaM said:
They would likely think you were talking of these, also known as Parliamentary trains.

https://www.therailwayhub.co.uk/615...covery-of-the-uks-forgotten-railway-networks/
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Yes, a few of these have frustrated my search for paranormal ghost trains over the years.

So a breakthrough of sorts:

"DB Schenker made changes to the Fawley Tanks this week. Tuesday 20th October saw 66158 work the 6V62 to a different destination. The block fuel train has always worked to Tavistock Jn but on the 20th October was revised permanently to the 08:48 Fawley - Plymouth Friary. DBS have now closed Tavistock Jn yard with the exception of stabling engineering trains there as required. The Fawley Tanks will now work direct to Plymouth Friary sidings where the train will be shunted as required. On what should be the last daylight photo featuring the Fawley Tanks, 66158 passes Victory Crossing on route to Plymouth Friary on the 20th October."

https://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/oldsite/NEWS-2009-OCT.htm

So there is the oil train as described by the witness being stabled at Friary sidings rather Tavistock Junction, which had closed to freight traffic (wasn't aware of that). However, these oil tank trains stopped for good in 2013, so what did the witness see in 2021...?
 
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@MorningAngel posted this on another thread:

"Staff at a level crossing where multiple people died in a single year claimed to have seen "phantom" cars and heard strange noises.

A BBC report from September 1973 featured the accounts of workers who manned the Conington North level crossing near Peterborough.

One said: "The first thing I saw was a car at the other side of the crossing and when I went to let it over, it was gone."

It was the site of two accidents in 1948 in which vehicles were hit by cars, killing a former mayor of Peterborough and six German prisoners of war."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67451874
 
Paul_Exeter said:
@MorningAngel posted this on another thread:

"Staff at a level crossing where multiple people died in a single year claimed to have seen "phantom" cars and heard strange noises.

A BBC report from September 1973 featured the accounts of workers who manned the Conington North level crossing near Peterborough.

One said: "The first thing I saw was a car at the other side of the crossing and when I went to let it over, it was gone."

It was the site of two accidents in 1948 in which vehicles were hit by cars, killing a former mayor of Peterborough and six German prisoners of war."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67451874
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Connington is one of those railway locations which has attracted multiple fatal accidents over the years. Off my head I can also think of Norton Fitzwarren (both pretty serious), and Welwyn, but the old brain is a bit slow today, I know there are several others.
 
Here is the accident report for the German POWs who were killed:

"I have the honour to report for the information of the Minister of Transport, in accordance w~ththe Order of 2nd March, 1948, the result of my Inquiry into the accident which took place at 7 0 a.m. on Monday, 1st March 1948,* at Occupation Crossing No. 85, near Conington North signal box, 68: miles from Kings Cross on the Eastern Region main line to Peterborough and the North."

https://www.jonroma.net/media/rail/accident/uk/mot/MoT_Conington1948.pdf

An Occupation Crossing is where a farm track passes over the railway, not a public road. Thus the crossing only had warning signs and no barriers to prevent the accident but rather just farm gates that the farmer had to open and close themselves.. It was not next to the signal box with gates as shown in the video but "80 yards" away:

"3. Conington North signal box is 80 yards south of the crossing"

So that is 240 feet away and therefore I'm confused as to why the crossing is shown as adjacent to the signal box in the video?
 
Hadn't realised that the second accident mentioned in the video is also in that pdf (scroll down) and happened on the same Occupation Crossing 240 feet away from the signal box. So this:

Screenshot 2024-01-27 at 19.10.05.png



... is the wrong crossing in an area of numerous level crossings due to the flat lay of the land. Seems this is case closed or did the signal box get moved?
 
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