Toton Yard Hump-shunting 1950
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- Опубликовано: 5 дек 2020
- A public information film highlighting the hump operations on the eastern side of the UK. Mixed with some recent memories from previous employees. This footage was given to me by an ex Toton employee on a VHS tape. Vintage railway footage.
The history of the development of Toton is highly associated with the history, development and decline of the coal industry in England. The Midland Railway had developed the Midland Main Line from the 1860s, and had a developing revenue from coal traffic from both the Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire coalfields to the power stations of the industrialised West Midlands. This traffic was added to by the fact that most towns also had their own gasworks, with coal delivered by rail to their own private sidings, and the rapidly developing domestic use of coal for heating and cooking.
With need to marshall coal traffic, a location close to the strategically located Trent Junction became obvious, and hence the development of Toton as a railway yard from the late 19th century.[3] The yards eventually spanned: the Old/New Banks; North Yard and Meadow; East & West Yard; Sandiacre Ballast Sidings. Coal traffic reached its peak through the yards post World War II in the 1950s, with over 1million wagons per year passing through what was then the largest marshalling yard in Europe, and the third largest in the world. Local traffic included coal and iron ore and steel from the nearby Stanton Ironworks. With the coming of the Beeching Axe, British Railways shelved all proposed development of any other marshalling yards, thereby increasing traffic through the yards further. This was the peak of Toton traffic. However, by the 1970s the yard was in decline. With the introduction of Merry-go-round trains direct from colliery to power station, and the decline in the use of domestic coal in favour of North Sea gas, rail traffic through the yards was diminishing quickly. The Down Side ceased hump shunting in 1978, followed by the Up Side in 1984. Many of the yards were lifted during the 1970s and 1980s, and in the late 1980s the yards were rationalised to the basic shape seen today.
The changes in traffic flows have meant changes in the way freight is handled by the yards at Toton, primarily because the great majority of the trains now originate from south of the yards and therefore have to be propelled into the North Yard. Following the remodelling of the 1970s and 1980s there is no connection directly into Toton Yards from the south.
From 2009 both the North Yard and the New Bank sidings became accessible from the south after the whole of the Toton area was re-signalled with a certain amount of remodelling also taking place. It is now also possible to depart south from the North Yard which, as its name would suggest, was designed for trains heading North.
Toton lost the last of its domestic coal traffic in the mid-2000s, when GB Railfreight took over transport originating from Daw Mill Colliery from EWS. Now the main traffic is:
Domestic coal from Scotland via Milford
Coal imports from Immingham, Avonmouth and Liverpool docks for onward transit to Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station
Rail infrastructure services for Network Rail, and weekend ballast and engineering trains
At 23:59 on 26 April 2009 the New Bank yard on the up side of the main lines (below the bank) was closed due to the economic situation and the associated decline in freight traffic. The mothballed yard will be used for storage of assets not currently in use, including locomotives (Class 60s) and wagons.
Nice video and good to hear John Peel's voice...sadly missed.
Glad John Peel brought me some Punk Rock . Cheers Uncle John 😀👍
Classic bit of the transcript; "...when the wagons run down from the hump into the sardines...."
0:36 to 0:56 - If that 'Hump Control' operator from the 1950's had still been around in 1996/7, he'd probably be shocked at all that dust on the control panel, not to mention the state of the tower's interior at that point! :D
A great finale to a delightful Channel 4 series, topped off wonderfully by the late, great John Peel's narration.
Wow used to play in those derelict signal buildings as kids in the late 80s early 90s
Thanks for this upload
I was half expecting John Peel to say "Now let me play you the soothing sounds of Napalm Deaths new single".
Great to see this clip from Classic Trains! I remember when this was on TV.
That was really interesting, I'm a shunter at Toton in 2023 I think we have it easy now.
Excellent video. So much for progress , get thousands of lorries on the roads.
yes now they are blocking the roads, mmmmm makes sence,
Fascinating video thanks for posting.
With John Peel narrating
Fantastic look back at how it was 👍🏻 I can just about remember Toton yard and Tinsley yard with class 76s 😃 You could just Imagine the likes of Amazon doing something like that with hundreds of blue vans radiating out into big sidings instead of all the lorries you see on our motorways 😩 Wishful thinking 🤔
I'll try and find the whole program,any idea what it's called? I remember Toton in the late 70's, it was still very busy but today it's a shadow of it's former self, decimated like our heavy industry by short sighted planning and policy.
Nice vid. Totally different to that now. Had a look last year they are building something else there now.. Any chance I can download this vid ? I have a liitle collection.. Thanks
I don’t mind if u copy. Plenty of RUclips capture programmes out there
What!,....no nylons,....Mr Peel?
Aaaagh what a burden on the taxpayer! Get rid of it said Beeching.
You've not read his report have you? The average wagon spent 11.9 days between one loading and the next, it would spend about 1.5 to 2 days from loading to unloading and travel only 67 miles at 25mph. Now for the bad news. The staging of wagons at marshalling yards was along with trip working was were the costs were the highest. By the time Speedlink the cost of operating the system was roughly 30% for the trunk services and 70% on marshalling, remarshalling enroute and the local grip services. Coal traffic was the only freight flow to make money but only made £2.8million over the cost of providing those services in 1961. And now for the worse news the NCB was using BR wagons as pothead storage for free. As for station coal yards there were 5,031 stations with attached coal yards in 1960, but 1,172 never received a single wagon that year, 1,790 received between 1 and 5 wagons per week accounting for only 1.7 million tons of coal, coke or other solid fuel, whilst at the other end of the scale 64 stations received 50,000 tons or more of coal per year. All other freight flows lost money due to the delays in transit caused by having to remarshal trains enroute. What Beeching wanted was more long distance block trains like the MGR and container trains. The latter would make best use of the railways advantages for long distance block trains.
and closed by the labour party