A LONDON ‘BUS SEEN IN DEEPEST DERBYSHIRE
Members of the North East area took a trip to Tunstead in Derbyshire on 14th July. This popular visit, which had been fully subscribed for many weeks, started outside Doncaster station at 7.30am, when a vintage London Routemaster bus picked up the members and set off for Derbyshire.
The weather was fine throughout the day and once the conurbation of South Yorkshire had been left behind we were treated to panoramic vistas of beautiful Derbyshire from the unusual vantage point of the top deck of a big red bus!
On arrival at Tunstead we were met by our guide, Frank Emmerson, who was to also be our chauffer for the day.
The visit started with a short presentation about the history of the railway operation, illustrated by pictures from the firm’s archive of 28,000 images. Tunstead quarry has been in production since 1929, and the product has been transported by rail throughout its entire existence. It is one of the largest limestone quarries outside of the United States. The original workings are close to exhaustion, but a new quarry at Old Moor to the east was opened in 1980 and is estimated to have at least a further life of 35 years from now.
After the presentation and the issue of compulsory PPE, we boarded the mini-bus and travelled through the ‘moon-scape’ of the quarry down to the rail sidings. The sidings are extensive and contain a variety of loading facilities to load limestone in rock form, lime as a powder, and cement. The trains within the sidings are worked by Tarmac-owned diesel hydraulic locomotives. There are 20 persons employed in rail operations, and also there is a private wagon repairer on site. Wagons are leased from VTG, and include two different high capacity bogie hopper wagons and bogie cement tankers.
We walked into the south sidings and were able to see the last five of the now redundant 1930s vacuum braked hopper wagons originally supplied to ICI (a predecessor of Tarmac) to take limestone to Oakleigh Sidings at Northwich. This traffic still passes but is carried in modern air braked vehicles. These old vehicles have not worked for many years, but may still find a new lease of life elsewhere.
Tarmac then arranged for us to take a trip on one of their locomotives north to the Great Rocks end of the site. We all climbed on board, it was a bit of a squeeze! The footplate of the locomotive was a remarkable vantage point for viewing the entire rail system.
A very satisfying lunch followed, and then a return to the limestone loading plant in the sidings to watch first-hand a train being loaded. We were very grateful for the ear defenders provided protecting us from the noise of the stone cascading into the wagons. We had to admire the skill and dexterity of the hopper operator team who each manipulated three pneumatic doors under the hopper to control the flow of stone, and yet ensured that a full load was discharged into each wagon, with no spillage.
As a bonus we were accompanied by Anthony MacIntyre the Local Operations Manager for Network Rail, who then took the group, a few at a time into Great Rocks signal box. Great Rocks controls the entrance to the limestone works, and during our visit a train of empty wagons arrived and was shunted into the works.
We are very grateful to Frank Emmerson and the railway operations team of Tarmac, Anthony MacIntyre and the signallers of Network Rail (with special mention to Alex Fisher who initially arranged the visit to Great Rocks), and to Peter Jordan our bus driver for a splendid day out, and to committee member David Court for arranging a really informative and entertaining visit.