Plawsworth, County Durham

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52A Modeller
GNR J52 0-6-0T
Posts: 24
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 5:39 pm
Location: Durham

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by 52A Modeller »

Am I correct in thinking you would have to reverse the train into Plawsworth goods?

For Kimblesworth, would you have to reverse the train across the down into the sidings? "Old Maps" doesn't show any direct access to either from the north.

Bob
52H
NBR J36 0-6-0
Posts: 115
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:53 am
Location: chester-le-street

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by 52H »

Hi
At Plawsworth you backed into the yard and kicked the van onto a road end then did your shunting then picked up the van. At Kibblesworth you backed main to main then went into the sidings, The line next to the main was a passing loop and a peculiarity of this loop was when in clear the guard showed the tail lamp to the signalman to show the train was clear. This caused an accident with a passing train, caused by a misunderstanding between the guard and the signalman,causing partial demolition of the van.

52H
52A Modeller
GNR J52 0-6-0T
Posts: 24
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 5:39 pm
Location: Durham

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by 52A Modeller »

Hello,

All this is perfect for my operations. As I've already said, I'd like to try and recreate specific routines.

I have a passenger timetable from 1962 but freight operations are the most interesting.

So, thanks to 52H and if anyone has any information, please let me know.

Thanks,

Bob
Dorothy1
NER Y7 0-4-0T
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 6:57 pm

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by Dorothy1 »

Hi Bob,


I believe I may be able to help you out with your Plawsworth dilemma.

My mam lived in the Station House and her mam was the Station Mistress, Mrs Peacock.

You would have to speak to my mam personally as I don't have much information myself.

They lived on the station for many years, I only remember the early 60's until it closed.


Dorothy.
PinzaC55
LNER A3 4-6-2
Posts: 1375
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 2:36 pm

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by PinzaC55 »

Maybe a bit late but I have been sorting some of my stuff out and I have a list of plans held at the NRM dating from 1990.
Number 23877 is "Plawsworth Station & S.M's House" (BR Number 108/95).This is in the section "North Eastern Railway Architectual Drawings". I would imagine they still have these plans.
ChesterLeStreet
NER Y7 0-4-0T
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2016 2:53 pm

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by ChesterLeStreet »

I'm not sure whether these recollections are of much help, but in the late 40s/early 50s, of the very few passenger trains on the ECML between Newcastle and Durham which stopped at intermediate stations like Chester-le-Street and Plawsworth, I can remember early morning (about 8.00am) and evening (about 7.00 pm) workings, with 3 or 4 coaches, in the Durham direction which stopped at Plawsworth, and they were usually headed by G5 0-4-4s, possibly terminating at Durham though I can't be sure. Most of Plawsworth, a small village, was half a mile or so from the station but directly on the well-served Durham - Newcastle bus route, and perhaps for this reason among others only handfuls of evening commuters (probably before the term was coined) could be seen disembarking to make their way over the hill and home.

The branch to Kimblesworth Colliery (not Kibblesworth, that's a different village) was used, as you'd expect, almost if not exclusively for hauling coal, and motive power consisted of Q6s which traversed the old A1 at right angles on what I thought at the time was quite a high viaduct and having joined the ECML (possibly after crossing another bridge over a minor road) headed north through Chester-Le-Street.
Neil Hodgson
NER Y7 0-4-0T
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2022 6:16 pm

Re: Plawsworth, County Durham

Post by Neil Hodgson »

I'm probably much too late in contributing to this subject but I have several memories of Plawsworth Station in the 50s and 60s and may have some pictures too.
In the late 50s the pickup goods which serviced the station was usually headed by a J25. 65627 comes to mind as one of the regulars.
In 1960/61 one of the vans which stood in the yard for several weeks had castings on the axleboxes showing GNoSR. There was also a guards van left in the yard here for some time.
An interesting working, picking up at Plawsworth, was the annual "Rechabite Trip". The Rechabites were a society of teetotallers who organised weekly contributions of a few pennies which paid for the contributor's annual trip to the seaside - usually Whitley Bay or South Shields. This was a big event in local villages trippers from which were ferried to and from Plawsworth station by over a dozen Northern buses. I travelled on one of these trips and the train was hauled by a large engine with no name - probably a V2.
I remember the Peacocks in the station house, who carried on living there long after the station was closed, and there was a ganger called Arthur Griffiths from the Station Cottages, whose daughter I later married, who would wheel his bicycle carrying a sack full of coal he had picked off the tip at Chester Moor colliery along the trackside in winter.
The big events for the trainspotters in the evenings were the up "Talisman" around 6:30pm, The up Kings Cross and Bristol Mails, the up fish train composed of roller bearing "Blue Spot" vans and home time being signalled by the passing of the down "Tees-Tyne Pullman" around 9:20pm.
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