Elsecar-Cortonwood level crossing underway

Doncha just love seeing a piece of railway going back where it should be. Nice bit of kit for load testing too! I was at Cortonwood for a couple of days in 1984, also Silverwood, Rossington and Markham Main. Oh yes, and an exciting few days at Orgreave...I have to say, I found the legendary Northern hospitality a little lacking at times though.

 

I guess that you must have been working for Her Majesty's constabulary! You would have received a better reception in North Yorkshire. Much more gentlemanly!! We even took the police down the pit to show them the coal face. Happy days.....

 

Indeed, Steve, I spent 26 weeks of the 52 between March 1984 and March 1985 in various coalfields. I wasn't there on the first day, by the time I got the call, I was on the far side of a large bottle of Sicilian Red with my girlfriend and about to commence Round Two of a very amiable horizontal aerobics session. On the second night, (March 16th?) I was part of a cordon outside Rawdon (Moira) Colliery where things became a little fraught when the buses taking some non-strikers came in to work.

I was also there when they marched back to work, exactly 12 months later. We were staying in an ex - lunatic asylum near Sheffield, just the last in a large and diverse number of places I slept over that year. Most of it was in aircraft hangars or military barracks, in sleeping bags, on camp beds, or. occasionally on floors.

Of that time, I would say about 8% involved aggravation or confrontation, some of it extremely violent, some of it just handbagging and grandstanding. The rest of the time we got on really well with the pickets, sharing food, tea, bonfires, etc. We understood their problems, they understood we were just there because we had to be. We were massively over-catered for and a lot of food - sarnies, Scotch Eggs, Crisps, apples, chocolate and MaxPak teas and coffees made their way to pickets and their families.

Ignore the bo88ox promulgated by media and the left with axes to grind. This was reality from someone who was there. I served in South Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Staffordshire coalfields and I have photographs and witnesses to prove it. I was also taken down a pit and got to drive a Rolls-Royce shunter at Snibston Mine in Coalville, once I chatted up the staff and told them I was a Severn Valley man.

I had, and have, immense respect for the miners, who were led into the dispute by a man with his own agenda, to bring down a democratically - elected government.

It is still wonderful to see this track back in. I believe Snibston is now a Discovery Park! Marvellous!!

 

Whatever the politics, in 1984 we had coal and 250000 mining jobs, now we have neither. Elsecar (The Coalfield Line) is a nationally important railway, in that some of the 3 acres at Cortonwood Colliery Station are earmarked for a memorial garden to those who died during 250 years and 12 generations of coal mining in Yorkshire . Industrial archaeology along the line is fascinating.

 

Tingle Bridge Lane re opens 23/4/2013.

I hope you have enjoyed this thread, and will perhaps visit or even join the railway, or make a donation via our website. Every pound gets us an inch closer to Cortonwood.

 

Will there be any form of gates/barriers or will it be an open crossing with lights or flagmen/women?

 

Barriers & lights according to a post earlier in this thread. I've never visited Elsecar but I hope to before long.

 

Thanks - I did have a skim through but missed that.

 

From the BBC.

 

Brilliant stuff Del! Obviously your training at the IOWSR has worked well. It is good that you are developing a special Identity for the railway.