WD Austerity Saddle tanks

hi here a strange one does any one know anything about some WD Austerity Saddle tanks at disuesd army camp at Minsterly near shrewsbury ?

 

At the moment I'm struggling to think of any disused army camps at Minsterley...
Obviously there are the camps at Nesscliffe, but they're far from disused!

 

hi just stumbled upon it on a thread on a site called Rail Forum when i was looking at ynomas muir srap locos "Aparently theres some WD Austerity Saddle tanks in some disused army depot up near minsterly (about 25miles west of shrewsbury). Still locked up and patrolled" never heard anything about this just sound intriquing ?

 

Well from the comfort of my bed here in Shrewsbury I can say if you drive 25 miles west of the town you will overshoot Minsterley by about 15 miles, and be well into Wales!
As I say, I can't recollect any old army camps around Minsterley off the top of my head. However, the army still have a very active non-abandoned training camp at Nesscliffe about 12 miles or so north west of the town. The Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Light railway was requisitioned during the war by the army to serve the camp (the line passes straight through the middle of their land), they operated WD Austerity tank locos on there until the line was closed.

I'll think you'll find the camp itself is patrolled by the army, and anyone wandering into the surrounding MOD training land is also likely to meet a military presence as well! I don't know if any locos were cut up and scrapped there after the railway closed, but I suppose it's possible. I doubt any bits are still left lying around now though. Personally it sounds like a bit of a tale of "chinese whispers" to me.

 

No point looking in Nesscliffe even if you could, there's the marks of the old railway bunkers, ballast and concrete bufferstops. There is a Humber pig, an AEC and some other old classic MVs in the recovery training area but no trains. I went there about three or four years ago with the cadet force and got to see most of the training area and the camp.

 

Oh no - this sounds like the start of yet another 'Strategic Reserve' thread, albeit of industrial locomotives.Are you sure the thread on Rail Forum was not started on April 1st? Also are you surethis information is not based on some very old photos or reports?

As stated in other posts there is an army camp at Nesscliffe which is some 12 miles north of Minsterley, which was the end of a branch from the Shrewsbury to Welshpool line .A couple of miles to the west of that location is Kinnerley which was an army storage depot that was rail connected to the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway which latterly was operated by the MoD and connected to the national system at Shrewsbury and Llanmynech on the Welshpool -Oswestry line.The line and depot closed in 1960 or thereabouts.That depot was used for locomotive storage, including War Department 'Austerities' - see Industrial Railway Society's Cheshire Shropshire and Herefordshire handbook.Latterley it was used by the Welsh Highland Railway society before they moved to Porthmadog

A comprehensive hsitory of all the WD Austerties is contained in another Industrial Railway Society handbook -'Continent, Coalfield and Conservation' -authors AP Lambert and J C Woods. As far as I can see all 'Austerities' are accounted for in this book -either scrapped or preserved.Therefore I think someone has their wires crossed on dates!

 

hi i dont know were this infomation came from i was just trying to find more infomation regarding the Thomas Muir scrap yard and the Andrew Barclays that are there , the thread was dated 2011 so i dont think its to old a thread and it definetly isnt dated 1st of april so who knows !!!!

 

I understand that a couple of the Muir locos, either one of the barclays or a grant ritchie along with an austerity were moved to a location somewhere near Shrewsbury when they were first bought and moved from Muir's but that was over ten years and I think they have both changed hands and moved since then. Perhaps the post on the other forum could be referring to these?

 

The Grant Ritchie 272, currently the subject of a major overhaul at Ribble Steam Railway in Preston, certainly ended up in the Shrewsbury area after departure from Muirs & a further sale, but this was a Road Haulage site. Andrew Barclay No 2261 also ex Muirs now at Preston was delivered to Telford Steam Railway, ex Muirs.

 

The WD 0-6-0STs that went to Woodhams came from the LMR....Longmoor Military Railway.....I have a photograph of one of them just before she was cut up.

 

The ex Muirs Andrew Barclay Austerity went to Telford Steam Railway initiallys

 

A bit off-topic, but here is a one which was put into service this weeekend in the Netherlands:

Het forum over de Nederlandse spoormusea :: Bekijk onderwerp - Presentatie NS8811 13-14 april 2012

Het forum over de Nederlandse spoormusea :: Bekijk onderwerp - Mini-opendag i.v.m ingebruikname 8811

and sorry it's only in Dutch

 

What an interesting way to set up a mechanical lubricator drive.
At least with the lubricator mounted by the firebox its not impeding access to oil the motion from the running plate.

 

On the subject of Muirs scrapyard there were in 1976 ten locos there according to the IRS 'Industrial Locomotoives' handbook. They must have been a new concern for steam locos as they do not appear in the 1969 edition. Of these two came from the Wemyss Private Railway AB2017, an 0-6-0 side tank, and AB2183 [Austerity]. The rest came from local NCB sites in Fife.HE3809[Austerity] came from Wellesely Colliery as did AB946,AB1245 and AB2262, all 0-4-0ST. I had seen AB1245 working only a couple of years before -it was an 0-6-0T[oc]. The rest were GR272,AB1069,AB1807and AB2261. Don't know where the rest went to but it would be possible to check as I think most will have gone to preservation.

As to the Shropshire locos this is one of those tales that could be 'Chinese Whispers' grown from some part-truth. It would be unlikely for the WD to hold on to steam locos at a site that was not rail connected as they have plenty that are. A total of 21 Austeritys worked at, or were based at, Kinnerley on the S&M but not all at the same time. They tended to circulate round the main WD sites with railways such as Shoeburyness which I think was the last place that had any great number in store, those numbered in the WD190 to 200 series and most were sold off into preservation,for example HE3800 'William Austen' on the KESR, or scrapped. The one scrapped at Woodhams in 1965 was HE 3803.Of course Shoeburyness is used today for stock storage.

I think about 40 locos were still in WD hands in 1952, a lot more having been sold to the NCB and other industrial concerns.The last Kinnerley locos were WD125[RSH7099] and WD193[HE3793] which moved on the Bicester Military Railway in 1960.THe latter is of course now named 'Shropshire' in preservation but I'm not sure where it is now. WD 125 was sold to the NCB and ended up in South Wales being scrapped in 1971.

I have seen preserved tanks at Nesscliffe but only the kind with gun turrets - the local pub used to have a collection in the car park!

Just to start another rumour - if you use Google Earth to look at the Bicester Military Railway or maybe it Kineton in Warwickshire, you will see what looks like some mainline diesels outside the loco depot. Difficult to tell from above.Now I think some locos were stored there before they used Long Marston but i thought they moved on. Don't know how old the Google Earth shots are?

 

There was also the "Shropshire Collection", which was a huge assortment of miscellaneous locos at a site near Shrewsbury, and which were sold off some years ago. I forget most of the details, but I went out to look at the place and it was basically a huge garden centre/architectural salvage depot and a certain amount of railway track covered in locomotives, mostly ex NCB diesel shunters. However, there were some steamers, including the ex- Worth Valley austerity "Fred". Has this become part of this particular legend? Why were these engines were collected there?

Tim

 

Nick-named "The Shropshire Collection" it was a private collection based at Cross Houses a couple of miles south of Shrewsbury. Owned and stored by a firm called "Dealers", at various times they've collected and stored various things before selling them on again. At that time it was railway locos, I think in the past there's been ex-military stuff they've had there. I see they have a website these days, which suggests they're now into supplying antique/bric-a-brac and anything else they fancy type things to the trade. <Dealers Cross Houses>.

As you drive south through Cross Houses you'll pass a small garden centre along the main road, this is nothing to do with 'Dealers', but after passing it you could look across the fields to the left and catch a brief glimpse of 'things' stored amoungst the trees in the distance before the road dips and passes across the line of the disused SVR embankment. There are no public footpaths in the area, and certainly at that time no public access (quite clear private signs at the end of their long access track). Aerial photos on google seem to suggest the yard these days just stores architectural salvage.

 

Current Google Maps/Street View photo shows 4 still there - images are copyrighted in 2012 but not sure when they were actually taken.
thomas muir thornton fife - Google Maps

Richard

 

Just had another look and the images are dated 2009, so not very recent after all.

Richard