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 Somebody asked, in a comment; when the new Finshing Department buildings (green sheds) went up on Skinningrove? Colin Hart responded by telling me the date, so that I could answer the comment. He’s now sent cuttings from ”The Steel News” and ”The Evening Gazette”. This first one shows the first sods being cut by the oldest and newest employees of ‘Skinny’. Image (copyright The Steel News) courtesy of Colin Hart.  I seem to remember these weren’t well liked due to a lack of sanders and brakes like a milk float! Notice the steps for the signalman to give and receive block tokens for the single line working. Also the local semaphore set off to give him right of way. A nice gritty black and white image. Simon Chapman tell us: “No they haven’t! They are still semaphores but have been replaced with modern safety-minded equipment so that if a technician needs to climb up them for maintenance work he will find it so difficult to fall off. How did they manage climbing signal ladders for the previous 150 years?” Image courtesy of Russ Piggot and thanks to Simon Chapman for the update.  A pair of immaculately turned out Class 20s standing at Crag Hall box with a train – they were being routed into Crag Hall Yard, our editor assumed that it was a train of empties for Skinningrove Works. James Stoker suggested: “This was a rail tour of some description organised by Pathfinder tours.” Russ Pigott has now told us: ”It was a route refreshing trip in February 1998 they were light engine. Later in the day they went to Whitby and stayed there for the night. When I took the photograph I was nursing a sore finger, which I had trapped in the cab door at Doncaster on the morning this view was taken.”  Class 37; this time with a load of sections from Skinningrove, there’s novel! Full yellow ends and large logo. Never named, but renumbered!  The well-known gas holder on the right being passed by a late-liveried Class 56 – a vast improvement on the Class 47 – notice the multiple-working connections and lead on the front panel. One driver could drive all the locomotives in a multiple engine set.  This must be a fairly rare image, Guisborough Box (and line) are long gone, just surviving into the diesel era. Robert Goundry has advised: “Trains between Middlesbrough and Whitby via the coast used to propel to/from Guisborough from the junction – an unusual move.” Image courtesy of Russ Pigott and thanks to Robert Goundry for the update.  A view of a Class 101 DMU approaching Redcar in the early 1980s; a previous poster had added the comment ”I hated these smelly, noisy, uncomfortable, draughty things – it made the bus worthwhile – and a car inevitable. I notice that this is before Redcar Central Station became a business park and the railway became single track.” Tom Sayers has replied with: ”These DMU1s were very comfortable and not at all draughty. This track is not, and never has been single track.”  A late afternoon shot by the look of it, enough haze to fool the exposure meter, but definitely a pair of 37s, both in different BR liveries – the front one sporting the frog-eye head code boxes.  Taken from the back of the signal box looking towards the works, this image shows the train assembly yards for Skinningrove Works. I can’t make up my mind whether it’s a guard’s van or a small shunter on the rightmost rake of wagons. Image courtesy of Russ Pigott.  A pair of “Large Arrow” liveried Class 37s running light engine at Boulby. Image courtesy of Russ Pigott. |
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