Closed lines you have travelled on.

[Tester]

Take it that many of the correspondents on here, who have been able to travel along quite so many now closed lines, will necessarily be of a certain vintage?!

66 in my case - I didn't do badly but still missed a lot.

It helped that I started young.

 

[Western Sunset]

Spondon Jn - Derby Jn (via Chaddesden)

 

[Magdalia]

Seven Sisters to Palace Gates (last train)

The pictures send shivers down my spine, it looked bitterly cold. It is a day that has fascinated me for a long time and I wonder if you can answer a few questions:

The timetable was strange: am I right that the last trains were the lunchtime 12.10pm and 12.40pm North Woolwich to Palace Gates?
Can you confirm that D5666 was the 12.10 pm and D5619 the 12.40 pm?
Did both trains depart ecs leaving the last day passengers to walk to Wood Green to get home?

Balloch Pier station.

Balloch Central-Balloch Pier

Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten Balloch Pier.

 

[Bertone]

Just remembered -
Yarmouth Beach to North Walsham
Watford DC line - via (Camden) Primrose Hill to North London Line
(Opps - track still there but not the station )

 

[steamybrian]

Do you include abandoned heritage/private railways ?-

North Downs Steam Railway (Dartford)
Eastbourne Tramway (moved to Seaton)

 

[LWB]

Have I missed something? Can’t see any of the Lake District ones in previous posts! So that’s
Penrith-Keswick (never did go on to Cockermouth but did nab a Keswick totem whilst they were knocking the station down).
Foxfield- Coniston
Plumbton-Haverthwaite (inc both sides of the triangle)
Arnside-WCML
Clapham Junction-Ingleton-WCML
Stainmore fromTebay and on.

 

[The exile]

Good call on the Red Bank line. Would calder valley line trains have gone that way?

Only if diverted - as I was in 1982 to get round a blazing tanker train (presumably a similar flow to the one that had fun in Summit Tunnel a few years later.

 

[John Luxton]

I suppose I can also add St Ives (Cornwall) original station before the track was relocated to free up parking space - but I guess that is really pushing the limits of this thread.

 

[urbophile]

Sawdon to Scarborough (part of the route from Pickering)
Keighley to Bradford Exchange via Queensbury
Skipton to ilkley
Leeds Central
Wennington to Morecambe via Lancaster Green Ayre
Holborn to Aldwych

 

[Cymroglan]

Gaerwen to Amlwch many times!
Bangor to Pwllheli via Afon Wen (Yes, I do know that Bangor and Pwllheli stations are both still open!)
Colwyn Bay seafront miniature railway.

 

[John Luxton]

Gaerwen to Amlwch many times!
Bangor to Pwllheli via Afon Wen (Yes, I do know that Bangor and Pwllheli stations are both still open!)
Colwyn Bay seafront miniature railway.

If Miniature lines are being counted I must include Tommy Mann's Express which operated in the grounds of the New Brighton Tower along the front at New Brighton - was a balloon loop line a mix between narrow gauge and minature. Closed when I was around 5 or 6.

Also Southport Pier Railway - though never travelled on the new and now closed tramway.

Also went on the Alton Towers line in the 1970s before it became a theme park that had a Baguely diesel.

I also have vague recollections of being taken for a ride on the Morecambe Pleasure Park railway as a youngster. I seem to recall the loco was quite a substantial diesel powered tank loco possibly 2-6-4? ran around and under the roller coaster if my mind isn't playing tricks.

Then of course there is the rather splendid set up at Dobwalls which aimed to replicate part of the Union Pacific and Rio Grande Railroads which I imagine many visited at least before it just became another theme park which stopped me going in the last 10 years or so of its existence.

Going back to standard gauge also rode the demonstration lines at Dinting and Carnforth Steam Town - though don't recall doing the Carnforth miniature railway.

 

[davyp]

Potteries Loop Line from Etruria via Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall and Goldenhill to join the Stoke - Manchester line near Kidsgrove. Circa 1960 on a diverted* Euston to Manchester train hauled by EE Type 4 - D217 if memory serves.
* Perhaps line closed for early electrification work?

 

[341o2]

Christchurch miniature railway, the one near Wick ferry with the model of the Coronation Pacific
Knebworth and Winter Green railway - this was 1'11 1/2" - and ran from 1972 to 1980

 

[AndyW33]

Stratford-on-Avon to Cheltenham Lansdown Junction. Stratford to Long Marston is lifted, Long Marston to Honeybourne freight only, Honeybourne to Broadway lifted, Broadway to Cheltenham Racecourse - GWSR heritage railway, Cheltenham Racecourse onwards - Lifted.
In Ireland - Claremorris to Collooney, Ardee branch.

 

[matchmaker]

Airdrie to Edinburgh via Bathgate - original route.
Glasgow Buchanan Street to Aberdeen via Forfar
Dunblane - Crianlarich

 

[Spamcan81]

Can add Balloch Pier, the easternmost bore of Copenhagen Tunnel, Bull Point, Tunbridge Wells to Tunbridge Wells West, Canning Town to North Woolwich, Broad Street to Dalston Jct. and Coombe Road to Sanderstead to my earlier list.

 

[steamybrian]

Holborn to Aldwych

This line and the Jubilee line Green Park to Charing Cross are both closed for passengers but the track is still in situ and occasionally used for filming.

 

[zwk500]

Take it that many of the correspondents on here, who have been able to travel along quite so many now closed lines, will necessarily be of a certain vintage?!

As somebody born in '95 and raised in Sussex, I feel at a distinct disadvantage in this discussion. The only lines I was likely to have travelled on that have closed are Newhaven Marine and possibly the Thameslink Moorgate branch, I think. Neither of those I did, as we always went by car on the ferry and I never had any reason to go to Moorgate from south of the river (and I'd probably have used the tube to do so if I had).

Nationally, which lines have closed and had tracked lifted since privatisation?

 

[EbbwJunction1]

I haven't seen it mentioned, but I did travel between Penarth and Lavernock when very young!

Another young memory is being in a caravan at Blue Anchor with my family. As neither of my parents drove, we must have gone by train from Taunton to there on what was then the Western Region but is now the West Somerset Railway - does that count?

 

[martinsh]

Don't think these have been mentioned

Derby Friargate - Egginton Junction (diversion after closure of Friargate)
Uttoxeter - Alton Towers
Harecastle tunnel

Quite a few others, but pride of place going to

Mangotsfield - Stalbridge

 

[Calthrop]

Just remembered -
Yarmouth Beach to North Walsham

You jammy person ! I have very warm feelings for the M&GN "Joint"; having known parts of it in childhood -- but mostly missed out on its more easterly reaches. Would your covering Yarmouth Beach -- North Walsham have involved by any chance, the working which ran in the M&GN's last years -- originating / terminating Liverpool Street: taking ex-GER trackage to Norwich and North Walsham; M&GN thence to Yarmouth Beach -- primary objective, serving the various coastal holiday camps north of Great Yarmouth?

 

[PeterY]

Sadly, I haven't done that many. 

Watford High Street to Croxley Green
Ryde pier tramway.
Weymouth tramway.
Holburn to Aldwych.
Quainton Road to Claydon Jct
Oxford to Fenny Stratford (before east-west rail)

 

[30907]

Thinking back to 1970 or earlier trips:
Westerham
Bexhill West
Ramsgate Harbour (electric tramway)
Maidstone Zoo (n.g railway)
N Woolwich to Palace Gates
Ilfracombe
Rugby C to Nottingham AS
(Okehampton - reopened!)
Margate Pier (miniature)
Edit: how did I forget Ryde PH to Shanklin?

 

[Greybeard33]

Already mentioned by others but my earliest rail journeys were on the Great Central from Nottingham Victoria to Marylebone, in the Master Cutler express. Many later trips included Nottingham Midland to Edwalton (from where the line on to Melton Mowbray is still extant as the Old Dalby test track).

 

[JGurney]

Bridport - Maiden Newton
Dover Western Docks
Folkstone Harbour
Stratford - North Woolwich
Holborn - Aldwych
Hamworthy Junction - Hamworthy
Bristol - Portishead
Totton - Hythe
St Denys - Southampton Western Dock

(On BR/Underground trains before the lines closed and later reopened as heritage lines)
Wareham - Swanage
Epping - Ongar

(Never were BR or predecessors)
Brockham Quarry Railway
Original Saltburn Minature Railway line.

 

[Lemmy282]

Can't compete with the numbers others have listed, but here's some of mine
Sheffield-Hadfield (Woodhead)
Market Harbrough-Northampton
Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway (when at Cleethorpes)

Nigel L

 

[Bertone]

You jammy person ! I have very warm feelings for the M&GN "Joint"; having known parts of it in childhood -- but mostly missed out on its more easterly reaches. Would your covering Yarmouth Beach -- North Walsham have involved by any chance, the working which ran in the M&GN's last years -- originating / terminating Liverpool Street: taking ex-GER trackage to Norwich and North Walsham; M&GN thence to Yarmouth Beach -- primary objective, serving the various coastal holiday camps north of Great Yarmouth?

It must have in the early 1950’s when we stayed in a caravan alongside the railway at Caister-on-Sea from where we used the train to visit the Broads and also to back into Yarmouth.
My family did not own a car so as far as I can recall, we boarded a train at London Liverpool Street to Yarmouth South Town via Lowestoft where the train had to reverse!
Why do I remember that?
I can only assume that we caught a bus from Yarmouth to our Caister caravan.

 

[Barnsley]

Only Oldham loop, Red Bank loop and Barkston East to Barkston South for me!

 

[MP33]

Liverpool Street to Ilford platform 5 which has been removed due to it being too short for the Elizabeth Line. It was only a limited peak hours service and I noticed that it later years the platform appeared to be used for visiting Electric Locomotives there for engineering work or testing.

 

[Magdalia]

Liverpool Street to Ilford platform 5

If we are going to that level of detail (and my view is no!) then I claim the old platform 10 at Kings Cross and the old platform 1 at Peterborough. I could even claim the old platform 10 at Liverpool Street, which wasn't where platform 10 is now. I expect there are other such examples.

Barkston East to Barkston South

Another I'd forgotten.