IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Victoria Road, NOTTINGHAM, NG4 2JF

One of a set of banners http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709018 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709020 installed along Victoria Road commemorating Colwick locomotive shed which closed in 1970. The shed was one of the largest in the UK, with an allocation at its maximum of around 200 steam locomotives. It was attached to the extensive marshalling sidings where trains from collieries in the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire area were formed into larger trains for onward movement to London in particular. The banners mark the passage from the original Great Northern Railway, through the London and North Eastern Railway and finally British Railways. See http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709023 for location.

A view towards where the Great Northern Railway Derbyshire Extension (The Back Line) crossed - the white building on the right-hand side of the road was once the crossing-keeper's house. The red-brick building on the right was built as the railwaymen's institute. The huge Colwick engine shed and marshalling yards stretched north and east to the right (see Ben Brooksbank's Image] for a flavour of what was here). The site behind the grey security fence on the right was once occupied by Traffic Terrace, one of two rows of houses built by the railway company either side of the engine shed frontage.

Built by the Great Northern Railway where its busy Derbyshire Extension (The Back Line) crossed Netherfield Lane (now Victoria Road). There was also a signal box here, to the left of the house, which lasted until the 1980s, when The Back Line existed only to serve Gedling Colliery.

Until the 1960s the area to the right, now an estate of industrial and retail units, was the site of the huge Colwick Engine Shed (coded 38A and latterly 40E), which supplied engines for the coal trains from the Leen Valley and Derbyshire coalfields, passenger tank engines for local services from Nottingham Victoria, shunters for the immense Colwick Yards (see Ben Brooksbank's Image]) and engines to haul holiday specials to Skeggy and Mablethorpe. Netherfield mushroomed round the shed and yard in the last quarter of the 19th century, a self-contained railway town on the eastern edge of Nottingham. It was strange to be here for the first time since, almost fifty years ago, I last sneaked round 40E with a schoolfriend, terrified that we would be caught by the shedmaster.

One of a set of banners http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709016 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709020 installed along Victoria Road commemorating Colwick locomotive shed which closed in 1970. The shed was one of the largest in the UK, with an allocation at its maximum of around 200 steam locomotives. It was attached to the extensive marshalling sidings where trains from collieries in the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire area were formed into larger trains for onward movement to London in particular. The banners mark the passage from the original Great Northern Railway, through the London and North Eastern Railway and finally British Railways. See http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709023 for location.

The railway here is the Great Northern Railway's "back line", which turned through 180 degrees around the edge of greater Nottingham to head eventually west into Derbyshire. After closure as a through route in the early 1960s, this section survived to provide rail access to Gedling Colliery, which closed in 1991. Although the track and the level crossing infrastructure here remain substantially intact, fencing has been erected behind the crossing gates (left), apparently to prevent anyone from surprising the local residents hereabouts with a train.

Built by the Great Northern Railway where its busy Derbyshire Extension (The Back Line) crossed Netherfield Lane (now Victoria Road). There was also a signal box here (offstage right) which lasted until the 1980s, when The Back Line existed only to serve Gedling Colliery.

Looking along Victoria Road showing the banners http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709016 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709018 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6709020 commemorating Colwick locomotive shed which closed in 1970. The shed was one of the largest in the UK, with an allocation at its maximum of around 200 steam locomotives. It was attached to the extensive marshalling sidings where trains from collieries in the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire area were formed into larger trains for onward movement to London in particular. The banners mark the passage from the original Great Northern Railway, through the London and North Eastern Railway and finally British Railways. The shed itself was located on the right of the road where Great Northern Way now stands.