A detailed railway explore starting at Brightside station, walking along the lost line to Tinsley, tracing the remains of Tinsley West station.
A detailed authorised walk around what remains of Tinsley Marshaling Yard, identifying clues of the past as they are mixed in with the live operations of the present, we then follow the lost line through to Treeton.
Our final explore was around the GCR Sheffield Victoria, finding many lost gems including a tunnel from Bridgehouses to Wickers goods yard.
Narrated by Nick Melling.
Produced by Allan Roach.
Tinsley a brief history....
The Sheffield district rail rationalisation plan of the 1960s called for the replacement of the majority of the marshalling yards in the Sheffield area with one large yard. A location on the Sheffield District line was chosen and work started in 1963 with new connections being built at Treeton, Broughton Lane and Tinsley South. The location allowed easy access to the brand new central Sheffield Freight Terminal at Grimesthorpe, and the new Freightliner terminal on the site of the Masborough Sorting Sidings in Rotherham, one of the many yards that Tinsley replaced.
The locomotive depot opened in 1964, with diesel locomotives moving in from a temporary home in the old Grimesthorpe steam locomotive depot and Darnall diesel depot, Darnall steam locomotive depot being closed to become a wagon-repair depot. Other steam locomotive depots at Millhouses and Canklow were closed and the last steam locomotives based in the Sheffield area were scrapped, along with many redundant sidings dotted about the area. The Tinsley complex was opened by Dr Richard Beeching, former Chairman of the British Railways Board, on 29 October 1965.
From its outset, Tinsley was to be a "network yard": a major railfreight node where wagon-load freight trains would arrive, be split and sorted into new trains for onward departure to other network yards, directly to the many rail-connected businesses in the area in "trip" freights, or to the freight terminal for unloading and forwarding by road. To assist with this, it featured gravity-assisted shunting and a new computerised system of wagon control, along the lines of large US rail freight yards.
At the time of opening, the yard was handling 3,000 wagons a day. Incoming trains were split in the 11 reception sidings, propelled over the hump in the yard, from where the individual wagons rolled down a slope and were automatically sorted into new trains on the yard's 50 main sorting sidings. There was an express freight and departure yard of 10 sidings, and a 25-road secondary yard for local freight trains (with its own hump). The yard had its own dedicated class of shunting locomotive (British Rail Class 13) for this purpose as BR's standard class of shunting locomotive was not powerful enough.
The Manchester-Sheffield-Wath electrification was extended into the yard in 1965 to allow electrically hauled trains to the Manchester area to be handled. Seventeen miles of track from Woodburn Junction and Darnall Junction via Broughton Lane to the Reception Sidings at Catcliffe were electrified at 1500 V DC. Unlike similar electrified marshalling yards, to save on costs the main body of the sorting sidings was not electrified: a half of the arrival sidings was electrified for incoming electric trains; departing electric trains either had to use the southern third of the main sorting sidings or had to be drawn out of the main sorting sidings by diesel locomotives into electrified departure roads where the electric locomotives were attached.
Decline
By the 1980s British Rail was closing its remaining wagon-load freight facilities as being uneconomic. In 1981 the electrification was removed with the closure of the Manchester-Sheffield-Wath system. On 17 December 1984 the arrival sidings and hump were closed, the wagon-control system removed and the remaining Class 13s scrapped. The yard connections were relaid to allow easier handling of block-load trains which now dominated rail freight in Britain. By 1995 the decline in British heavy industry meant that this type of traffic had also declined massively, resulting in the closure of the locomotive depot on 27 March 1998. The eastern connections (both north- and south-facing chords) to the Midland 'Old Road' were closed in 1993 however the track is still in situ, and the western connection to the Midland Main Line (and goods depot at Grimesthorpe) at Brightside junction was lifted in 1999. Both chords to the ex MSLR/GCR line from Woodburn to Rotherham (via Broughton Lane junction and Tinsley South junction) remain open. The rest of the yard progressively fell into disuse over the next ten years.
In 2007 the remaining sidings were lifted and a new, much smaller yard laid, additionally a new rail-linked distribution and goods transshipment centre - Sheffield International Rail Freight Terminal (SIRFT) was constructed.