Dissapearing tunnel

Chris W · Post by **Chris W** » Fri 04 May, 2007 3:51 pm

Excellent post Phill,I have walked across the bridge on Carlisle Road many times on my way home from the pub!It is a shame that they are going to fill the cutting in. The line should never have been closed with hindsight. I often wonder if the powers that be will re-open old routes in the future. No small feat though removing property that sits in the way.A great big factory sits on the Bradford end of the Pudsey loop where it joins back onto the main line!There is a link to a pic of Lowtown station in 1964 here;www.pcs-online.org.uk/pics/lowtown/l08c.jpgYou might have to copy and paste the address as this site won't allow the link to be posted.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Fri 04 May, 2007 3:56 pm

www.pcs-online.org.uk/pics/lowtown/l08c.jpg Why do certain html codes not work on here? somebody has trouble adding there flickr link too????? Great pic Chris. I've seen that before.. Someone has posted some Pudsey stuff here http://flickr.com/photos/thanoz/4755005 ... srailways/

Chris W · Post by **Chris W** » Fri 04 May, 2007 4:00 pm

Mmmm strange, as soon as you put the http/ in the link dissapears.

jf · Post by jf » Fri 04 May, 2007 5:51 pm

You're right about people being ignorant of a lot of lines, I'm probably half a mile from the Upper Wortley end of the fireclay line and never knew a line ran up to there. It must have been quite a climb, perhaps even rope-worked in places. There's no sign of any remains given this was probably developed over more than 50 years ago, and all the new housing has settled in. With lines that have been obliterated in recent years you can usually spot the brighter roofs of new developments following the corridor of the former line (with the obligatory supermarket or warehouse on station sites).I've looked at a lot of lines in the past but it's surprising how many aren't well documented and are overlooked - I've tended to work from aerial photographs and my 1981 Ian Allan sectional atlas, which between them miss out a lot of lines (in particular mineral lines, sewage works railways etc. which weren't so well established or operated by any of the big companies). I think I'm going to try and produce a comprehensive historical rail map of Leeds (and possibly West Yorkshire). I have quite a lot of historical maps of Leeds at work which I can trace on AutoCAD (technical drawing package) to pick out routes with some accuracy - including many at 1:2500 scale which show a lot of detail. I'll aim to produce an image which can be ovelayed in Google Earth, matching up with remaining features. Ideally I'd like to get it down to every siding, but that's quite a task.I'd like to try and track the route of the Waterloo Colliery railway amongst others. I've only recently spotted the line which crossed the still existing goods line to Knowthorpe (heading to a colliery depot on Cavalier hill) - this must have traversed the other line on a fairly substantial bridge, I wonder what remains of this or if pictures exist of it in use? Some of the trackbed remnants are set to disappear under the East leads radial road so I'll try to grab some shots before it all goes.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Fri 04 May, 2007 6:11 pm

Great stuff j.f Any help i can give please just ask.... Your right about the Waterloo colliery been extensive... I'm going for a photo shoot where it ran under the Hunslet goods yard on the other side of the river at Knowsthorpe again. You can see the trackbed under the bridge. There's some old coal staithes bang opposite Hunslet mills. The trackbed is in pretty good nick still. Plenty of level ballast. The line stayed open untill 1968 quite suprisingly. It's pretty hard to see where it connected at Neville hill-But one thing suprises me how it ran to a coal depot near Easy road/ Glencoe view area. It must have crossed one of the overbridges still there

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Fri 04 May, 2007 6:13 pm

No 1 coal staithes.... No 2 bridge where the line ran under. No 3 coal depot.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Fri 04 May, 2007 6:18 pm

the map

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Fri 04 May, 2007 6:25 pm

This is looking towards the Waterloo bridge on the disused headshunt

jf · Post by jf » Fri 04 May, 2007 9:40 pm

I had a look on Google earth earlier for the line to the coal depot (3) and traced out the route - it appears there used to be a bridge over the deep cutting of the Knowsthorpe line, and the abutments might still be there. Have a look at the attached picture and it looks like there are some features on the side of the bank. If I go to the cross green car boot on Sunday I might have a closer look if I remember.I have the route of this line on several historic maps (we did a study at work recently centered on Knowsthorpe and the maps cover quite a wide area), it was only in the late 70's/80's that much of the route was built on. There's a clear stretch of it just south of where it crosses the other line, but north of that it is obliterated apart from a couple of plot boundaries which match the alignment. There's a couple of marks here and there which might be worth some investigation.Further east there's traces of the line as it heads away from the road just past the industrial estate (now a farmers track), and also the line which headed up to Temple Newsam park is still visible on Google earth. The alignment of the colliery line up to Osmondthorpe is also fairly intact, it almost reached York Road.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Sun 06 May, 2007 6:30 pm

If thats the line you've found there jf i hadn't realished it ran that far up... I was wondering if it ran over one of the overbridges along the streets... although i couldn't see how... There does appear to be something on the embankment were you say. I've looked down that line a few times but it really is overgrown. i think there are only 4 bridges where you can see anything of the line at all now.