Pudsey Lowtown Station, St. Joseph's, and Stanningley

Uno Hoo · Post by **Uno Hoo** » Fri 02 Mar, 2012 11:53 pm

jim wrote: Lots of 1 in 50 along this line, Cardiarms. By railway standards that is hefty hill-climbing. In the past there have been several spectacular runaways down to Shipley. Not just at the Shipley end. After joining the main line at Laisterdyke there is a steep descent into Bradford. There were at least two serious crashes at Adolphus Street goods depot, one being fatal, and the second time in 1963/64 a loco smashed through both the buffers and the external retaining wall, coming to rest suspended over the street. It remained so for several weeks, and I think it was dismantled on site. I worked at Rycrofts on Bolling Road at the time, and walked past Adolphus Street to and from work.I remember freight trains running on the line from Shipley to Laisterdyke. Many of them were transfers from Valley Road good yard to Adolphus St/Bradford Exchange goods, a distance of less than a quarter of a mile as the crow flies, but a good six or seven miles via Shipley along steep gradients, simply because the two Bradford stations were never connected. Despite this history, the opportunity to bring through-train running to Bradford hasn't been taken, despite the space between the two having been flattened for years awaiting the Promised Land of the Westfield Shopping Centre. What an opportunity to build a new station beneath the shopping complex, but no, that's too expensive. Yet the council has just squandered millions on a mirror pool that most Bradfordians said they didn't want.

Uno Hoo · Post by **Uno Hoo** » Sat 03 Mar, 2012 12:12 am

[quotenick="socistep"] Uno Hoo wrote: Interesting to hear that Case had a factory there, was it a big factory? I'm a rural Cumbrian lad (lived in Leeds for the last 10 years) so obviously know a lot about tractors!Thanks once again,Ian Hi Ian,I'm so pleased you enjoyed my earlier post.I really don't know the answer to your question about the Case tractor works. The building is still there, and from the train (passing its rear) it still looks occupied. ISTR that Case Tractors (I think it's American) make bulldozer type tractors rather than agricultural, altho' I could be wrong. No doubt the company has a website.Speaking of tractors, should one have walked from Stanningley to Farsley via the no through road starting opposite the bottom of Richardshaw Lane, it led to a ginnel alongside Westroyd Park. On the opposite side was the David Brown tractor works, behind a railway-sleeper type fence with narrow gaps between the uprights. By walking quickly it was possible to see the tractors all lined up - these were the agricultural type - and I was once so busy doing this that I crashed into a lamp-post, breaking my glasses (my new and first non-NHS schoolboy issue and therefore expensive ones) and got a bad black eye into the bargain. Oh, I also broke the glass surrounding the gas mantle in the lamp, such was the force of the collision!

BIG N · Post by **BIG N** » Sat 03 Mar, 2012 9:54 pm

Uno Hoo wrote: ISTR that Case Tractors (I think it's American) make bulldozer type tractors rather than agricultural, altho' I could be wrong. No doubt the company has a website. Uno Hoo - just to clear a point up for you, Case are indeed an American company and did specialise in Industrial type machinery until around 35 years ago ( the exact date is lost in the mists of time in my mind ) they bought David Browns out and proceeded to produce agricultural machines for sale in Europe.

Uno Hoo · Post by **Uno Hoo** » Sun 04 Mar, 2012 12:30 am

Thanks, Big N.Just had a look at the Case website. Case took over International Harvester as well as David Brown. Plenty of agricultural tractors on view.IH used to have a big factory in Eccleshill/Idle area, Bradford - it was in fact the late lamented Jowett Cars factory. In 1966 I drove an articulated lorry loaded with 45 gallon paint drums into the site for delivery. Usually the drums were unloaded by forklift fitted with a special grip, but on this day it was on another job, and the paint shop foreman decided he wouldn't wait until it was available, and instructed me to unload them by pushing them off the semi-trailer - a drop of about five feet! I refused both on the grounds of weight and the sheer folly, but he was insistent and ordered four or five men up to manhandle them. I then realised that the drums were to be pushed directly on to the concrete floor. In vain I implored him at least to provide some cushioning and got him to sign the delivery note. The first drum was pushed off.45 gallons of red lead goes a long, long way. One foreman and his gang were well and truly rustproofed. Fortunately for me it landed on a slope away from my vehicle, and all that landed was one tiny drop on one of the trailer tyres. Needless to say, there was a wait for the fork truck after that!

BIG N · Post by **BIG N** » Sun 04 Mar, 2012 2:24 am

Uno Hoo - strange sometimes how fate twists and turns and often takes you along its path - I didn't realise Case also bought I.H. out but hows this for a quirky twist.I am a born and bred Huddersfield man and when I left School I applied for an engineering apprenticeship at David Browns in Meltham near Huddersfield. It was a job I managed to stick at for all of nine months before realising I wasn't so much an apprentice but more a general dogs body and quitting for pastures new.Move on several years and a relationship see's me moving to Bradford and living with my lady of the time in her house on Farm Hill Rd at Eccleshill, our bedroom window over looked the wall of I.H. Silly little coincidence really but just shows how small a world we live in really.

w41tzer · Post by **w41tzer** » Sun 04 Mar, 2012 4:23 am

the picture on leodis link doesnt show any of the line in question as far as i can see, i worked at thomas bros till it closed oct 2009 and when we moved to what was then ex tap & toothills i wanted to see if there was any trace of this line, the line of embankment next to TB is a smooth curve but approx 1/2 way between swinnow road bridge and bramley station there is a large rough looking bulge, i figure this must be where it turned off, ive poked about down there in dinner times but theres no sign trackside ,old bricks or whatever, anyway since we all know tracks are smooth curves not sharp i reckon it must have come accross swinnow poad near airbath because if you go up the bypass UNDER swinnow lane and look left there is a concrete wall to your left, above this is houses, sheds back yards so i dont think it was a footbridge, i reckon it was to prevent backfill in what must at this point have been cutting washing onto the then new road, its embankment shape!if you go to lowtown pudsey near the petrol station ,is/were the old bridge sides, turn around go over the bridge and on the left before the terrace starts is a patch of waste ground, go in here and peer through the thicket and there is a lovely 3 arch stone viaduct, well there was some years ago when i got taken short up there!, amazing to think the railway passed under the road and then had to go over something so deep so soon as to require a viaduct itself, hope this is of help

w41tzer · Post by **w41tzer** » Sun 04 Mar, 2012 4:48 am

just been on google earth, right, well the bump on the embankment cant have been 1/2 way to bramley, just seemed it on the ground !,lol its at the end of our property line ( well TB's as was) get your setting up so you can see lowtown and the bramley line, follow the line of trees near the petrol staion lowtown onto the edge of what looks like playing fields accross the bypass, ( sure thats near that concrete thing) and down intercity way and down to thomas bros back yard and thats it, funny how ive looked at intercity way out of the window for about 18years whilst on a lathe and thought it went parralel to the main line, one thing always bothered/intrigued me though, im not sure if it is britvics or the place the other side of intercity way but next to the road was a really old stone wall, way too old for that estate, i always wondered if it was a retaining wall for the old railway bridge, maybe it is, hmmmm, right off back on now to find the other part of the fork that someone else kindly mentioned,

socistep · Post by **socistep** » Wed 07 Mar, 2012 11:23 am

w41tzer wrote: just been on google earth, right, well the bump on the embankment cant have been 1/2 way to bramley, just seemed it on the ground !,lol its at the end of our property line ( well TB's as was) get your setting up so you can see lowtown and the bramley line, follow the line of trees near the petrol staion lowtown onto the edge of what looks like playing fields accross the bypass, ( sure thats near that concrete thing) and down intercity way and down to thomas bros back yard and thats it, funny how ive looked at intercity way out of the window for about 18years whilst on a lathe and thought it went parralel to the main line, one thing always bothered/intrigued me though, im not sure if it is britvics or the place the other side of intercity way but next to the road was a really old stone wall, way too old for that estate, i always wondered if it was a retaining wall for the old railway bridge, maybe it is, hmmmm, right off back on now to find the other part of the fork that someone else kindly mentioned, Double post - see below

socistep · Post by **socistep** » Wed 07 Mar, 2012 12:20 pm

w41tzer wrote: just been on google earth, right, well the bump on the embankment cant have been 1/2 way to bramley, just seemed it on the ground !,lol its at the end of our property line ( well TB's as was) get your setting up so you can see lowtown and the bramley line, follow the line of trees near the petrol staion lowtown onto the edge of what looks like playing fields accross the bypass, ( sure thats near that concrete thing) and down intercity way and down to thomas bros back yard and thats it, funny how ive looked at intercity way out of the window for about 18years whilst on a lathe and thought it went parralel to the main line, one thing always bothered/intrigued me though, im not sure if it is britvics or the place the other side of intercity way but next to the road was a really old stone wall, way too old for that estate, i always wondered if it was a retaining wall for the old railway bridge, maybe it is, hmmmm, right off back on now to find the other part of the fork that someone else kindly mentioned, Hi w41tzer,I drive home from work via swinnow lane so had a look yesterday and noticed the old wall you mentioned, good spot!If you look further up the thread then a couple of us looked at old maps and think that the old line didn't run on intercity way but north of that, I think looking again at the old maps that the wall is the south railway embankment boundary and that the line ran through Thomas Bros office and Britvic offices. Take a look at 'Tracks in time' website and let me know what you think. I've uploaded a screenshot here which hopefully you can see what I meanhttp://www.flickr.com/x/t/0099009/photos/23886 ... /thanksIan

w41tzer · Post by **w41tzer** » Thu 08 Mar, 2012 3:28 am

its hard to be certain but i did have a good look on the map with timetable link at 400%,lol, and its pretty much as i imagined it on google earth, id have to have them open together i reckon to be sure, ive looked at that wall out of the window for over 10 years,lol, it just had a railway feel to it and was so incogruous there, the map shows the other curve too, ill have a better chance to find it on google now, let me know what you think of the concrete wall if you go up the bypass, non of the links for lost railways of west yorks seem to work , on any site, any ideas?