The station building can be seen in the distance behind the 'Down Main' signals (set to 'off') and the telephone poles. The station and goods yard were closed as part of the Beeching Plan.
Train-spotting days at Irchester (c 1958)
| Return to Rushden Historical Transport Society Page | Return to Home Page |
| For really excellent pictures from the Wellingborough area visit the Peter Brooksby collection on the PhantasRail Gold link | |
|
|
A rural idyll - the local pick-up freight on a weekday morning just after leaving Irchester goods yard where shunting operations were carried out, and trucks were dropped off and picked up. The main freight traffic seemed to be sugar beet. This pick-up freight generally appeared at round about 10.30 a.m. on weekdays. The picture on the left is an LMS Class 4F No. 43929. I can't think why, but we called them 'Coffee Pots'. |
| Same place, just to the south of
Irchester Station, an 'Up Main' fast freight hauled by BR Class 9F No.
92015 slows down for the cross over to the freight lines to proceed
through the Wymington tunnel instead of climbing the Sharnbrook
Bank. Today there is only one freight line and the crossover
junction just south of here has long since been removed, as is the signal
box that controlled it.
The station building can be seen in the distance behind the 'Down Main' signals (set to 'off') and the telephone poles. The station and goods yard were closed as part of the Beeching Plan. |
|
|
|
One of my favourite class of engines - an LMS Jubilee, this one is No 45663 Jervis. These engines, together with Stainier's 'Black 5's' were the mainstay of the express passenger trains from St Pancras to the north of England prior to arrival of Britannia's and Royal Scot's displaced from other area's by modernisation / dieselisation programmes. The engines were based at Kentish Town, Nottingham Derby and Leeds and consequently could be seen as frequently as twice a day on 'Up' and 'Down Mains' from St Pancras to Derby or Nottingham and back. |
| Same location slightly further down the trackside - a Stainier Black 5 No. 44810 on and 'Up' express to London. These photos are obviously of a fairly poor quality but they are originals - taken by a 13 or 14 year old with a Kodak Brownie 127 camera! So I'm not going to apologise for them! |
|
|
|
This picture was taken round about 1958 and shows me in the middle of the top row sitting on the fence. Always a good position to be in! The fifth member of the train-spotting fraternity at Irchester took the picture and only last year kindly printed me off a copy and passed it on when I was revisiting Rushden, my home town. I've left out the names as I'm not sure if my pals want identifying! I also note you can just see Knuston Hall in the background behind my shoulder to the left. I think it was still a family home at that time, before it suffered various reincarnations in the hands of Northamptonshire County Council. |
| Another Black 5, this time No 45274, heading a northbound fitted freight train of box vans. It looks even grubbier than the usual for British Railway engines of that particular era. |
|
|
|
Last, but not least, Britannia Class 7 No 70021 Morning Star, at the head of a 'down' northbound express. Obviously finding work, on what is now known as the Midland Main Line, fairly easy, judging by the lifting of the safety valves, as it coasts down the Sharnbrook Bank approaching Irchester Station. If my memory serves me well, and it usually doesn't, this was a Britannia released from express passenger work out of Liverpool Street by the introduction of diesels on the services there. |
| Return to Rushden Historical Transport Society Page | Return to Home Page |