IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
East View, MANSFIELD, NG20 9AA

View SE, towards Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Nottingham. The Tour had started at Northampton and ran via Market Harborough, Leicester and Nottingham Midland to Netherfield & Colwick; there it was reversed and B1 4-6-0 No. 61302 (built 3/48, withdrawn 4/66 - directly after this Tour) took over to go via Nottingham (London Road High Level and Victoria), Bagthorpe and Bulwell Junctions onto the ex-GN Leen Valley line to Shirebrook North, thence via Beighton and Treeton Junctions, Rotherham Masborough and Aldwarke Junction to Wath Exchange Sidings. From there an Electric hauled the train up the Worsbrough Incline and through Penistone and the New Woodhead Tunnel to Godley Junction. There a 'Jubilee' 4-6-0 conveyed us via Stockport, Altrincham, Northwich and Sandbach round to Crewe, where we were handed over to another Electric for a fast run up the WCML back to Northampton!

A long row of traditional terraced houses catching the winter mid-day sun.

This is the site of the former Shirebrook North railway station. Before this name it was known as Langwith Junction due to the number of lines from different companies that passed through this point. The Robin Hood line running on the former Midland Railway lines is the only survivor.

Some industrial equipment next to where one of the rail lines used to run into and out of Shirebrook North station.

A headshunt serving the W.H. Davis wagon works. This was once part of the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast railway line from Chesterfield to Lincoln.

On Langwith Road.

'Music' pub in the old railway town of Langwith Junction

Formerly leading to the railway station after which the village was named. The station, latterly renamed Shirebrook North, was built by the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, and was the point at which a branch towards Sheffield left the "main line" to Chesterfield; there were also links to the Midland Railway's line from Mansfield to Worksop, which passes a little way to the east.

Langwith Loco Depot was built by the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway and the job of its locomotives was to haul coal from local pits. Class 04/6 63902 was one of the Great Central 2-8-0s built during the Great War for the Railway Operating Division of the Royal Engineers, for use in France. After the Armistice these ROD engines were sold to the LNER at bargain prices and gave nearly 50 years’ service. There were several variations and rebuildings of this class of engine, and many of them were among the 41 steam engines my notebook tells me were there that Sunday afternoon, making it a worthwhile cycle ride from Nottingham, via other engine sheds at Annesley and Kirkby-in-Ashfield (and going on to Staveley – I must have been a fit 16-year-old). Langwith Junction shed closed to steam in February 1966, staff transferring to a new diesel loco depot at Shirebrook West and no doubt taking the 350hp shunter on the right, one of Langwith's first diesels, with them. The hut behind 63902 is one of the mess huts or workshops dotted around the loco shed site. The main engine shed was behind and to the left of the camera, but a majority of the engines were stabled in the open. Langwith was almost exclusively a railway town: in the days of steam the engine shed and W H Davies's wagon repair workshops were the major employers. When the engines were lit up on a winter Sunday evening for their next day's work, Langwith was a sulphurous and foggy place. See Lawson Little’s “Langwith Junction” (Vesper Books, 1995) for more on the rise and fall of the railway here. For another view, see Image