Victoria Station

[Avalon]

Originally posted by muddycoffee

The tunnel is still there, I took my friend to show her the other week. The tunnel was called the spital tunnel, It is very steep and procarious and was built to allow wagons to be exchanged between bridgehouses station and the original Midland station. The top end has fencing over the mouth and the bottom end is bricked up.

 

Is this the tunnel at Neepsend?

[muddycoffee]

No it's much closer to town than neepsend. It literally passes under spital hill.

[Avalon]

Oh. Well in that case there is another tunnel. There is one at Neepsend that used to come out near the wicker arches....apparently.....

 

Ive seen the neepsend side of the tunnel, but never managed to find the Wicker end....

[muddycoffee]

Avalon,

it's the same tunnel, but I think your mistaken in calling it Neepsend.

Neepsend train station was on the line level with hillfoot bridge on penistone road it is a mile north of the wicker. There is nothing left of the Neepsend station now, apart from the bridge over the line [which is a new one] and original wall where the path goes on to the bridge on Parkwood road. I read that it wasn't open for very long at all, and may have been shut a century ago?

 

In between neepsend and bridgehouses stations were lots of rails and bridges, which you can still see across Rutland Road. There was a line called the neepsend loop, which I assume was to hold slow goods trains while faster passenger trains flew past.

 

Bridgehouses station was in the triangle of land between Nursery st, Rock st and Brunswick road. It started as a passenger station but became a large goods station after Victoria was finished.

[Avalon]

The place i am thinking of is pictured here: http://www.donvalleyrailway.org/100_0117.JPG You are right - its not neepsend, it is further down the line, towards victoria. Me is getting confused!!

[Avalon]

Originally posted by muddycoffee

 

In between neepsend and bridgehouses stations were lots of rails and bridges, which you can still see across Rutland Road. There was a line called the neepsend loop, which I assume was to hold slow goods trains while faster passenger trains flew past.

 

Yes thats right! Ive been over there..saw lots of rails dissapearing into nothing....

 

also saw lots of hyperdermic needles too

[Patrick316]

Hi

 

Here's one for really sad people like me ..............

 

If you have Microsoft Train Simulator on your PC, then you can download for free - in several bits - the whole of the Woodhead line.

 

It covers Wath Yard, Tinsley Yard, Rotherwood Sidings, Penistone, Woodhead and on to Manchester Piccadilly.

 

The website is: http://www.uktrainsim.com//filelib-directory.php

 

It contains a fairly accurate copy of Sheffield Victoria - and it also shows the tunnel we're all talking about - although you can't traverse it.

 

My son and I have spent many an hour taking an early evening EM2/Class 77 Express out from Sheffield Victoria, through Wadlsey Bridge, Oughtybridge, Penistone and through the Woodhead Tunnel to Manchester Piccadilly, or an EM1/Class 76 on a Tinsley Yard to Mottram Yard coal train via Woodborne Junction

 

.........................I'm now off to get some much needed therapy and rest

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Texas]

Its a long time since I've seen Sheffield, and to read the pieces about Victoria Station and the general decline is sad indeed.

My first memories of Victoria Station go back to the 1930's. My Grandfather was a driver on the G.C. based at Bridgehouses I think, and as a family we used the station a lot. The first memory of it is being carried up the Station approach and looking over the wall to the left and seeing a Fairground in full swing! I think the place where the Fair was became a billet yard for, was it Osbornes on Blonk St? The Booking Hall in the Station impressed me, I thought it very modern, more so than the rest of the Station. Down in the Wicker, and facing the formidable steps up to the Station, just to the left, was a place where livestock was sold, pups, cagebirds, pet mice, etc,etc.

Later on, in the Fifties, I actually worked on the Railway for a few years but I was on the old Midland,(then British Railways) at Grimesthorpe. Supercol in one of the replies speaks of an LMS yard in the Wicker between Saville St and Spital Hill, I wonder if you know of the old tunnel which linked the LMS and the LNER between Bridgehouses and Wicker Goods.

[superCol]

Originally posted by Texas

Supercol in one of the replies speaks of an LMS yard in the Wicker between Saville St and Spital Hill, I wonder if you know of the old tunnel which linked the LMS and the LNER between Bridgehouses and Wicker Goods.

 

Hi Texas

 

Sure do know the tunnel. When I was a kid we called it THE FIERY JACK, told spooky stories about and dared each other to walk into it. One was that there had been a huge train fire in the tunnel and may people had died. Turns out that this was utter twaddle. Probably had more to do with the fact that it was a steep incline with the name coming from the huge firebox glow of an engine working hard.

 

There are a couple of other threads that make mention of it.

[mark4]

Hello all, im new here and have been reading this thread with interest over the last few months. I walk past the old Victoria Station every day on my way to and from work. I noticed something different this morning as i walked past. All the tree's and bushes alongside the railway have been removed on the City Centre side of the Wicker Arch and along the viaduct heading towards Manchester. Is something happening up there or is there a reason why its being done? I know a railway is still in use up there and it may just be a general cleaning up of the area.