Trivia. Freight Avoiding Lines UK.

[Cricketer8for9]

Having spent some of lockdown looking at cab ride videos from Germany, and following them on a map, there see to be plenty of cities there with freight avoiding lines. So my question is how many exist(ed) in the UK.

My candidates are, Doncaster (south west to north east), York, Crewe, Carlisle (ex). I’m sure there are more.

My rules are that the line must primarily be, or have been, for freight services and must be a way of avoiding a station, but start and finish from a point on the passenger lines themselves. Extra non-platform lines running through a station don’t count, we need a separate formation. Curves to avoid termini do NOT count. Presence of a yard on the avoiding line a distinct bonus as is an explanation of when the line was built.

 

[SeanG]

Middlesbrough has some directly at the back of the station. However it depends how you define passenger lines as its 4 track from Tees Yard to Middlesborough however passenger services only use two of them. Make of that what you will.

Would you call the curve avoiding Barrow in Furness close enough to be an example?

The main ECML passes Darlington Station outside of the station, but no passenger trains use it, only freight, all passenger services use the station. Again mot sure if this would count.

 

[Taunton]

Taunton, of course . The freight line, known as the "avoiding line", passed south of the station, probably over a mile long from East Junction to West Junction. Built about 1900 along the line of an old canal. By the 1960s it was closed in the day but open at night, when most of the through freight passed by. Multiple yards along the line. A new road has been built along the alignment in the last few years.

 

[Mag_seven]

The main ECML passes Darlington Station outside of the station, but no passenger trains use it,

Not running at the moment due to COVID but "The Flying Scotsman" does:


Realtime Trains - 1E01 0540 Edinburgh to London Kings Cross

 

[Cricketer8for9]

We’re the Darlington lines built primarily for freight? Asked as a genuine question, not to criticise the answer. It’s a trivia thread after all. And Barrow in Furness seems a good candidate.

 

[Mag_seven]

We’re the Darlington lines built primarily for freight?

I would argue not - plenty of passenger trains have used it in the past however I would be happy to stand corrected.

 

[kermit]

I can't pretend to understand where the missing freight trains might go, but there always seemed to me to be an implausible lack of freight at Edinburgh Waverley?

 

[Cricketer8for9]

I can't pretend to understand where the missing freight trains might go, but there always seemed to me to be an implausible lack of freight at Edinburgh Waverley?

Ah yes, forgot Edinburgh. There’s a south side line, which once did have passengers but is now freight only (except in emergency). Suspect it was built for passengers though.

 

[Cowley]

Exeter st David’s used to have them (the remains of parts of them were exposed during the recent works briefly) and that meant that level crossing was a fair bit longer before they were taken out.
Crewe obviously still has freight avoiding lines and so did Carlisle until an accident in the 1980s. There’s an old thread covering that here:

Carlisle Old Railway

Did Carlisle used to have a loop around the station as i noticed something on google earth that looks like an old railway and bridges over the river to the west of the main station. Any info is appreciated many thanks.

www.railforums.co.uk

Edit - Sorry @Cricketer8for9 if I’d read your first post properly I would have noticed that you’d mentioned the last two.

 

[Mag_seven]

It doesn't disqualify them but the aforementioned Crewe "Freight" avoiding lines were used by passenger trains during the 1985 remodelling of the station.

 

[xotGD]

Before the additional platforms were built, Newcastle used to have freight lines 'round the back' of the station. The only passenger train I saw using them was the final Deltic run on 2nd January 1982. Does anyone know if the non-stop 'Elizabethan use them or run through the platforms?

Birmingham New Street is avoided by the Camp Hill line.

Would Banbury count?

 

[Western Sunset]

Derby had goods lines on the eastern side of the station, though now removed and replaced with an additional platform during the recent remodelling. The original route from the south into Derby was via Chaddesden, later used by the Midland Pullman (amongst other services), though primarily used for freight traffic. I suppose one could argue that the Sheet Stores - Stenson route is Derby's southern avoiding line too.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Sleaford?

 

[Western Sunset]

Other Midland stations with goods lines were/are Leicester (on the east side) and Nottingham (on the south). Then there is Bristol, with the loop south of Temple Meads through St Philips Marsh.

 

[SteveM70]

Nuneaton used to have an avoiding line on the Birmingham to Leicester line but the new alignment takes them through the new platforms

 

[paddy1]

Coventry used to have one, running from Three Spires Junction on the Coventry-Nuneaton line through to Humber Road Junction on the Coventry-Rugby line, enabling freight trains to avoid Coventry Station. There was Bell Green goods depot and Gosford Green goods depot along the route, the latter being located very close to what was the Humber/Rootes/Chrysler car factory and was used to transport vehicles between there and the Linwood car factory in Scotland. The Humber Road junction end was severed from the main line back in the 1950s or 1960s. A siding off of the line also served the former Coventry Wholesale Market close to Burlington Road. The A444 outer ring/link road was subsequently constructed over most of the rest of the line back in the 1980s or 1990s.

 

[SteveM70]

Does Stechford - Aston - Bescot - Wolverhampton count as a Birmingham avoiding line?

 

[xotGD]

Loughborough, until they built a platform face onto the avoider.

 

[gg1]

Does Stechford - Aston - Bescot - Wolverhampton count as a Birmingham avoiding line?

I'd say the Stechford to Aston and Bescot to Wolverhampton elements meet the OP's criteria, as does the Wolverhampton avoiding line, Aston to Bescot definitely doesn't. Historically the Soho line was largely freight only for a number of decades too, with passenger use re-starting in either the 90s or 00s.

 

[68001]

doncaster bentley junction to hexthorpe junction

 

[randyrippley]

Temple Meads, Westbury, Frome
though the latter two were also used by passenger services

 

[Iskra]

Your criteria is quite tight, and this is a cheeky one, but Lockerbie

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Taunton, of course . The freight line, known as the "avoiding line", passed south of the station, probably over a mile long from East Junction to West Junction. Built about 1900 along the line of an old canal. By the 1960s it was closed in the day but open at night, when most of the through freight passed by. Multiple yards along the line. A new road has been built along the alignment in the last few years.

It always amused me that in typical Great Western fashion the avoiding lines were closer to the town centre than the station was!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Shrewsbury and Chester both have avoiding lines on a triangle (allowing through Hereford-Wolverhampton and North Wales-Birkenhead workings).
There must be many like that (eg Didcot, Reading, Newport).
Stechford-Bushbury is the classic West Midlands freight bypass, though most of it was the original Grand Junction Railway route.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

We’re the Darlington lines built primarily for freight? Asked as a genuine question, not to criticise the answer. It’s a trivia thread after all. And Barrow in Furness seems a good candidate.

The Darlington lines are the straight alignment, i.e. the main line, with the platform lines on the divergence.
Over the years there have been many passenger trains which did not call at Darlington (although of course the majority of trains did), including the non-stop Elizabethan, the Flying Scotsman in it's traditional 10.00 departure slot calling Newcastle only both ways, most of the overnight Anglo Scottish trains. In recent times some TPE trains have not called at Darlington en route to Newcastle.

 

[TheSel]

Chesterfield - Tapton Jct - Beighton Jct - Treeton Jct - Masborough Jct - Swinton to avoid Sheffield.

 

[stj]

Severn Tunnel Jn has a down avoider but I think its a legacy from the former yards

 

[30907]

Temple Meads, Westbury, Frome
though the latter two were also used by passenger services

...and were constructed primarily for them, surely?

I have just been beaten to the "old road" avoiding Sheffield, but again it was built as an all-purpose railway.

Germany had far fewer competing railways and (from 1870) a largely unified administration, which perhaps explains the explains the number of dedicated freight routes.

 

[randyrippley]

Does anyone know if the Midland boat trains reversed at Morecambe Promenade, or ran direct via the curve between East and South Torrisholme Junctions? If they reversed then that curve counted as the local services normally ran via Promenade, reversing to get to Heysham.
Obviously long since ripped up...

 

[Mag_seven]

There used to be a Troon avoider but I'm not sure if it was freight only or not.