Overview | |
---|---|
Headquarters | Selby |
Locale | North Yorkshire, England |
Dates of operation | 1898–1900 |
Predecessor | Church Fenton, Cawood and Wistow Railway (unbuilt) |
Successor | North Eastern Railway |
Technical | |
Track gauge | Standard |
Length | 4 miles 48 chains (7.4 km) [2] |
Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
The Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway (CW&SLR) was a short light railway in a rural part of Yorkshire, England. [3] [4] [5] The company was sometimes referred to as the Cawood, Wistow and Selby Railway. [6]
Church Fenton, Cawood, and Wistow Railway Act 1879 | |
---|---|
Act of Parliament | |
![]() | |
Citation | 42 & 43 Vict. c. cxxviii |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
Church Fenton, Cawood, and Wistow Railway Act 1882 | |
---|---|
Act of Parliament | |
![]() | |
Citation | 45 & 46 Vict. c. ccxxiii |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | Selby and Mid Yorkshire Union Railway (Abandonment) Act 1890 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
An act of Parliament, the Church Fenton, Cawood, and Wistow Railway Act 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. cxxviii) allowed the construction of the Church Fenton, Cawood and Wistow Railway from a junction at Church Fenton through Cawood to Wistow. [7] Further acts[ which? ] were passed authorising an extension to Selby and the Church Fenton, Cawood, and Wistow Railway Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. ccxxiii) authorising a junction line to the Hull and Barnsley Railway (HBR) at Drax. [8] In the event, the necessary capital could not be raised, [9] so neither of the extensions nor the original line were built. [10] [11]
Cawood Wistow and Selby Light Railway Act 1896 | |
---|---|
Act of Parliament | |
![]() | |
Long title | An Act for incorporating the Cawood Wistow and Selby Light Railway Company and for other purposes. |
Citation | 59 & 60 Vict. c. xlvi |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 2 July 1896 |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
In the 1890s the Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway Company (CW&SLR) was formed at the initiative of light railway entrepreneur Sebastian Meyer, acting with a group of men of influence in the region. [12] The North Eastern Railway (NER) gave "generous assistance", which appears to have amounted to moral support, advice and lack of opposition, but no cash. [11] The company applied to Parliament for permission to build a light railway along similar lines to the earlier act of Parliament, but terminating to the north at Cawood. The Cawood Wistow and Selby Light Railway Act 1896 (59 & 60 Vict. c. xlvi) was passed, unopposed. [13] Construction began on 11 July 1896, following the ceremonial cutting of the first sod at Cawood, performed by Mrs Liversidge, the chairman's wife. A rail connection near Selby was built in September of the same year to allow construction materials to be brought. The four and a half mile single track line opened on 16 February 1898 [14] [15] with the company's sole locomotive Cawood hauling their two coaches plus five from the NER from Brayton Gates to Cawood then back to Wistow where lunch was served in the schoolroom. [16] The NER did not allow through passenger running onto their metals, so the CW&SLR built a single platform halt next to Brayton Gates junction, about a mile from the main Selby station. [10] [17] This was satisfactory for people visiting Selby town centre, but inconvenienced through travellers. [18]
In 1899 the company's board of directors decided to pursue building an extension west from Cawood to Church Fenton. No clear junction with the railway there was specified, but the effect, deliberate or otherwise, was to unnerve the NER, who saw a potential threat should the Cawood line revive a venture along the lines of the 1879 scheme, which would allow the Hull and Barnsley Railway to penetrate the NER's fiefdoms of York and Harrogate. The NER responded by buying the Cawood company for £32,000. The sale was fully effective from 1 January 1900 and confirmed by the North Eastern Railway Act 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. c. clxii) of 30 July 1900. [19] The NER decided not to proceed with the extension to Church Fenton. [20] The Cawood company was formally wound up on 27 February 1900, having, unusually for such ventures, paid a dividend to shareholders throughout its short life. [21] Thereafter the NER operated the line as a branch, as did its successors, the LNER then finally the North Eastern Region of British Railways. An early passenger benefit from the NER's takeover occurred on 1 July 1904 when Cawood branch trains were diverted to run through to the main Selby station. The Brayton Gates terminus thereby became redundant. It was closed and soon demolished. [22] [23]
The passenger service was withdrawn on 1 January 1930, [17] [24] but a goods service continued. [25] A "Farewell" railtour ran on 22 April 1960 using two brake vans. [26] [27] Another party of enthusiasts was carried in the same month. [28] The line closed on 2 May 1960. [10] [29] [30] The very last train, sent out to collect a stranded van and Cawood station's office equipment, ran on 23 May 1960, hauled by a diesel shunter. As a boy, Mr John Woodall had travelled on the first train in 1898, British Railways agreed to his request to travel in the guard's van of this final trip. [31]
The line was called a "Light Railway", but it was authorised before the Light Railways Act 1896, so it received none of the benefits of that legislation. It was soundly built as a "heavy" line, but with a route availability of "two", which severely restricted the axle weight of locomotives and rolling stock which could be used. [32] Being almost dead level and single track throughout, with a terminus at the country end, the line lent itself to one engine in steam working. [29] The route had just one signal of its own – a fixed distant on the approach to the junction with the main line – and needed no signalboxes. Traffic passing to and from the NER was controlled by that railway using signals of their own on Cawood line territory. For this the NER used what was "Brayton Gates" signalbox, which was subsequently renamed "Wistow Junction" and in 2018 remained operational as "Selby West" signalbox. [33] [34] The line had seven gated level crossings and eight sets of sidings, five near level crossings, one each at Cawood and Wistow stations and exchange sidings at Brayton Gates. [35] [29] The loading banks next to sidings at Cawood and Wistow were long and had sections of different heights for loading and unloading different consignments. Four of the level crossings had gatekeeper's cottages with bay windows to observe the track in both directions, the two country stations' buildings were similar to each other, but differed from the NER's rural station style. [36] [29] By 2005 three crossing keepers' cottages survived, with the one at Broad Lane, Cawood being externally the least altered. [37] The line had no overbridges and two underbridges, one crossed the Black Fen Drain, the other was the line's only engineering work of any note – a plate girder bridge over the Selby Dam, [38] which, despite its name, is a small river. [39] The line was relaid and the stations repainted in 1953, but local hopes of an upturn in fortunes came to nothing. [40]
The line's initial passenger timetable provided five trains a day, Monday to Saturday, plying between "Selby" (i.e. Selby (Brayton Gates)) Wistow and Cawood. The journey time was 17 minutes. [22] By July 1899 the timings had been adjusted and one train had been removed on Tuesdays to Saturdays. On Monday – Selby's Market Day – an extra train was provided out and back mid-morning and an extra from Brayton Gates at teatime, which returned empty. [41] By 1910 the unbalanced teatime Market Train had been withdrawn and timings had been adjusted, but the pattern of four a day plus a Market Day extra remained, with the added benefit that the first train from Cawood in the morning ran through to York. The journey time remained 17 minutes despite the extra mile to reach Selby's main station instead of Brayton Gates.
By 1914 there were two Market Day extras and four daily trains, [42] but by 1923, whilst the Market Day extras remained, only two daily trains survived, morning and mid-evening. Passenger traffic was encouraged on occasions such as cheap tickets to visit the Wistow Show and Sports day. [43]
The CW&SLR had two coaches and one locomotive, an 0-6-0ST built by Manning Wardle, named Cawood. [44] [10] [17] All three items were hired from the Yorkshire Railway Wagon Company (YRWC) for seven years from April 1897. [45] The loco was housed in a single-track engine shed at Brayton Gates. [46] Apart from being referred to as "First and Third Class composite coaches" photographs and details of the coaches have evaded historians. The company hired "wagons, sheets and ropes as may be required" from the NER. [45]
When the NER took over they inherited the hire of Cawood and the coaches. The company arranged to return them to the YRWC in summer 1901. The coaches' fate is not known, but the loco had a varied and useful life until at least 1927. [47] [48] The next twenty nine years of passenger working appears quixotic, but it was ultimately dictated by the line's very low route availability, mainly caused by the Selby Dam bridge. The NER had no problem with providing very low axle-weight goods locomotives, but very light locos fitted with continuous brakes and reasonably capacious water tanks were rare. The first solution was to use NER class H2 (LNER class J79) 0-6-0T No. 407. [49] [50] [16] This loco, one of a class of three, was a six-coupled development of the successful NER Class H 0-4-0T, two of which have survived into preservation. At some point No. 407 was fitted with extended tanks for use on the Cawood branch, as the line's only watering facility was a hand pump at Cawood. [51] Three other tank engines were fitted with Westinghouse continuous brakes and moved to Selby engine shed – sister "H2" No. 1787 from 1905 to 1909 and NER Class E 0-6-0Ts Nos. 296 and 1197 from around 1908; these last are known to have worked the Market Day extra trains for several years. [52]
In 1903 the NER introduced Petrol-electric Autocars on some lightly-used routes. After considerable development work two of them – Nos. 3170 and 3171 – moved to Selby in summer 1908 to work passenger trains on the Cawood branch, among other services. In 1909/10 four seats were taken out of both cars to enable the luggage compartments to be enlarged. The cars were driven by "Motormen" and housed from 1912 in a specially-built lean-to shed attached to the locomotive coaling stage at Selby engine shed. Remarkably, this structure survived until the shed as a whole was demolished in 1964. Use of Autocar No. 3171 appears to have faded from the early 1920s, with long periods in store. In 1923 No. 3170 was re-engined, renumbered as 3170Y and sent to work in the Harrogate area, but this lasted only for the 1923 summer season, after which there is no published evidence of it being used until it was withdrawn in 1931. [53] Remarkably, No. 3170 was discovered in the early 21st century, having been used as a holiday home near Kirbymoorside for 70 years. It was bought in 2003 with a view to restoration [54] and ran under its own power on the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway in 2018. [55]
When the autocars ceased working the line reverted to steam haulage, with trains composed of a single "Bogie Brake third" coach worked by a NER Class E 0-6-0T or, occasionally, BTP 0-4-4T No. 189. [56]
On 9 July 1923 a quite different form of internal combustion-powered provision was deployed on some services in the form of the unique "Leyland" petrol railbus, a converted 26-seater NER road bus of conventional appearance for the period. [57] This ran a wide-ranging diagram including the Cawood branch [58] [59] which came to a sudden end on 11 November 1926 when the railbus was destroyed by fire while refuelling at Selby. [60]
The immediate hiatus was filled by a combination of BTP tank locos and a "steam autocar". Research continues as to what form this took. [61]
On 1 May 1928 Selby received its first Sentinel steam railcars. [17] [62] No. 220 "Water Witch" may have been the first to work to Cawood, but it was destroyed in a collision near Doncaster on 9 June 1929. Better remembered were two similar cars, No. 225 "True Blue" and No. 273 "Trafalgar" which worked the branch until the last passenger service on Saturday 30 December 1929. [63]
The arrival of the Sentinels followed by closure to passenger traffic reduced then removed the need for small locomotives with continuous brakes to act as backup, so they were moved away from Selby between 1929 and 1932. Occasional special passenger trains, such as excursions to pantomimes in Leeds, used the line until 1946. By 1945 declining traffic, except in the "Campaign", i.e. harvesting time for key crops of potatoes and beet, meant a handful of 0-6-0Ts were regularly in charge, notably J71s 68285 and 68286 and veteran "Ironclad" J77 68406, [64] [65] being replaced by a J72 towards the closure of Selby shed on 13 September 1959. [66] [67] [68] From then to closure in May 1960 the line's "flyweight" trains were in the hands of Class 03 diesel shunters, particularly No. D2063. [69] Before the Second World War trains of 40 wagons of root crops were commonplace in the Campaign, with trains of 20 wagons still to be seen in the early 1950s, but by 1955 trains ran "as required", which was rarely daily. Despite the land's rich and rising productivity the decline in traffic came about almost entirely due to road competition [70] on price, convenience and quality. A lorry could be ordered at short notice, be loaded on the farm or even on the field then deliver immediately. By rail the produce had to be double-handled at farm then siding, incurring extra cost, time, loss and damage.
The track was lifted and the Selby Dam bridge was demolished by contractors in 1961, using road vehicles. [71] Cawood station has been demolished, [72] Wistow station remains as a private residence. [73] The engine shed was used by railwaymen's mutual improvement classes for many years, but was demolished in 1963. [74] By 2010 less than half the trackbed remained visible as field boundaries.
The Tanfield Railway is a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge heritage railway in Gateshead and County Durham, England. Running on part of a former horse-drawn colliery wooden waggonway, later rope & horse, lastly rope & loco railway. It operates preserved industrial steam locomotives. The railway operates a passenger service every Sunday, plus other days, as well as occasional demonstration coal, goods and mixed trains. The line runs 3 miles (4.8 km) between a southern terminus at East Tanfield, Durham, to a northern terminus at Sunniside, Gateshead. Another station, Andrews House, is situated near the Marley Hill engine shed. A halt also serves the historic site of the Causey Arch. The railway claims it is "the world's oldest railway" because it runs on a section dating from 1725, other parts being in use since 1621.
The North Eastern Railway (NER) was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854 by the combination of several existing railway companies. Later, it was amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923. Its main line survives to the present day as part of the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh.
The North Eastern Railway (NER) Class P3, classified J27 by the LNER, is a class of 0-6-0 steam locomotive. The P3 Class was designed by Wilson Worsdell and was a relatively minor modification of the existing North Eastern Railway Class P2. The most significant change was a deeper firebox with shallower sloping fire grate. This was achieved by raising the boiler slightly, and by reducing the clearance between the firebox and the rear axle. The P3 Class were a freight engine by nature and used for hauling long trains of freight.
Selby railway station is a Grade II listed station which serves the market town of Selby in North Yorkshire, England. The original terminus station was opened in 1834 for the Leeds and Selby Railway. The Hull and Selby Railway extended the line in 1840 and a new station was built, with the old station becoming a goods shed. The station was rebuilt in 1873 and 1891; the 1891 rebuilding was required due to the replacement of the swing bridge over the River Ouse at the same time.
Malton railway station is a Grade II listed station which serves the towns of Malton and Norton-on-Derwent in North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the York-Scarborough Line, it is operated by TransPennine Express, who provide all passenger train services. Once an interchange between four lines, Malton station is now only served by trains operating between York and Scarborough. The station itself is south of the River Derwent, and is actually in the town of Norton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which for many years was in a different county to Malton.
Pickering railway station is the southern terminus of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and serves the town of Pickering in North Yorkshire, England. The first railway arrived in Pickering from the north in 1836, however, it wasn't until the railway was connected from the south in 1845, that the current station was built. The station was closed by British Railways in March 1965, but since 1975, the station has served as the southern terminus of the North York Moors Railway.
The North Eastern Railway (NER) Class H, classified as Class Y7 by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a class of 0-4-0T steam locomotives designed for shunting.
The GER Class T26 was a class of one hundred 2-4-0 steam tender locomotives designed by James Holden for the Great Eastern Railway. At the 1923 grouping they all passed to the London and North Eastern Railway, who classified them E4. Eighteen survived into British Railways ownership in 1948, and the last was withdrawn in 1959, making them the last 2-4-0 tender locomotives at work in Britain. Their BR numbers were 62780–62797.
Ingrow (West) railway station is a single-platform station serving the suburb of Ingrow in Keighley, West Yorkshire, England. It is served by the preserved Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. The station is 1.25 miles (2 km) west of Keighley station and 2.25 miles (3.62 km) west of Haworth railway station.
The Leeds and Selby Railway was an early British railway company and first mainline railway within Yorkshire. It was opened in 1834.
The York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was an English railway company that opened in 1839 connecting York with the Leeds and Selby Railway, and in 1840 extended this line to meet the North Midland Railway at Normanton near Leeds. Its first chairman was the railway financier George Hudson, who had been called the railway king.
The NER 901 Class was a class of 2-4-0 steam locomotive of the North Eastern Railway, designed by Edward Fletcher. Between 1872 and 1882 55 of the class were built for the NER.
The 1903 Petrol Electric Autocars were built by the North Eastern Railway in 1903 at their carriage works in York. These were powered by petrol engines which generated electricity for two traction motors which were mounted on the bogie underneath. This means of powering a railway vehicle was pioneering and would eventually be developed into the diesel-electric technology that powered and powers many locomotives worldwide. The railcars were numbered 3170 and 3171 and were 53.5 feet (16.3 m) long and weighed around 35 long tons (36 t). The engine was mounted in an engine compartment 13.25 feet (4.04 m) long. The rest of the vehicles' length was taken up by a vestibule, driving compartment and a 52-seat passenger compartment. Two were built and ran until 1930; one has been restored and preserved in working order.
The Selby–Goole line was a standard gauge branch line connecting Selby and Goole, built in 1910 by the North Eastern Railway. The line closed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts.
West Auckland railway station served the villages of St Helen Auckland and West Auckland in County Durham, England, between 1833 and 1962. It was on the railway line between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle. There was a locomotive depot, which was the only one to be both closed completely and later reopened by the London and North Eastern Railway.
Cawood was the northern terminus of the short Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway (CW&SLR), in rural North Yorkshire, England. The line was connected to the North Eastern Railway (NER) at its southern end.
Wistow was the sole intermediate station of the short Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway (CW&SLR), in rural North Yorkshire, England. The line was connected to the North Eastern Railway (NER) at its southern end.
Selby (Brayton Gates) was the initial, temporary southern terminus of the short Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway (CW&SLR) in North Yorkshire, England. The line was connected to the North Eastern Railway (NER) nearby. The station is sometimes referred to as "Brayton Gates" or plain "Selby", though it was around a mile from the much larger Selby station.
Pateley Bridge railway station (NVLR) was a railway station serving the southern terminus of the Nidd Valley Light Railway, in Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, England. The railway was built to enable the construction of reservoirs in the Upper Nidd Valley by the Bradford Corporation. The station opened to passengers in September 1907, and closed in January 1930, however, the adjacent line remained open for the transfer of goods traffic until 1937.
Monk Fryston railway station was a railway station serving the village of Monk Fryston in North Yorkshire, England. Previously, Milford Junction and Old Junction served as an interchange between the Leeds and Selby and the York and North Midland Lines, however when they closed in the early 1900s, Monk Fryston was opened to cover for this loss of interchange. Though the station had four tracks through it, it only ever had two platforms. The station closed to passengers in 1959, and then completely in 1964.