John

The railway at the bottom of Craddock Street went to Barnard Castle (and onwards over the Pennines) via West Auckland. The last passenger trains were in 1962 but the line hung on for a bit after that - mainly used as storage sidings for disused wagons and coaches I think as I remember seeing lines of them up by Tindale Crescent marked "COND" (short for condemned) in big white letters.

thanks for all the info..but as any body walked along the line lately, cos the last time i took my grand bairns brambling along there,it was in amess.i can not see how its been made useable.mind i was only on the bit behind the old council yard near the pollards.

Accoding to the Weardale Railway site, the railways inspector visited the line last week prior to introduction of services from Bishop Auckland to Wolsingham in the spring. Hopefully this will finally get the railway on its feet,

Interesting to see that there is the possibility of a contract for the railway to transport coal from a proposed opencast site - almost like stepping back nearly 200 years.

wittonparker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thanks for all the info..but as any body walked
> along the line lately, cos the last time i took my
> grand bairns brambling along there,it was in
> amess.i can not see how its been made useable.mind
> i was only on the bit behind the old council yard
> near the pollards.

I used to live two doors down from the Pollards. That seems an age ago now.

Anyways, I wouldn't recommend walking along the line now as there's a special from London due past there on 19th Feb (which I'll be on. Gotta wave at my old house LOL), and another from Crewe a week later.

Better than leaving it as a shrubbery, I reckon.

Hi, If anyone is interested I am recreating the station as it was in the 40's/50's
All the images of progress are on my blog.

[dereksiddle.blogspot.com]

regards

Derek Siddle

Hi Derek,

Strangely enough I was going to put a link to your site myself. It's an intriguing project you are working on. Not old enough to remember the railways in the 40s/50s but we used to watch them shunting coal wagons from just by the North signal box you've been working on - there really were "Wheeltappers and Shunters" in those days armed with hammers for tapping wheels and long shunting poles for uncoupling the wagons.

I also remember seeing a bright light one day from my classroom at Etherley lane school which turned out to be the oxy-acetylene cutters demolishing the old covered footbridge at the station.





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 03/13/10 09:56AM by Mark.

Another thing I'd completely forgotten about was pigeons - not the boring ones that live in stations but the racing pigeons which used to arrive by train and then get released to fly back to wherever they'd come from.

A couple of other memories are seeing the Flying Scotsman (already preserved by that time) pass through on the line from Durham one Sunday morning around 1966/67 by which time steam trains had pretty much disappeared, and a couple of years earlier, a school trip to York which involved a chartered train filled with hundreds of kids from schools from all over the county which I am sure was hauled by D9017 "Durham Light Infantry"

more images on my blog.
[dereksiddle.blogspot.com]
regards

Derek

Fantastic stuff Derek! Its very close to how I remember it as a child. For some reason I think the footbridge between Platforms 2 and 3 should be green. Sometimes we used to take a "short-cut" (which wasn't shorter at all but more fun) from Etherley Lane school, through the rec, over the long footbridge, into the station, through the covered footbridge and then up the steps to Cockton Hill Road before heading back down towards Newgate Street.

Hi Dereck. Your images of Bishop Station brought back many memories of train rides to Darlington swimming baths every sunday in the fifties with my brother, we also used to play on the luggage trollies when there was no one around, they were green with grey sort of woodwork, if you would like to put one in......Rick