When I went to Stockton as BR’s Traffic Agent in 1968, I was told that, although the line had ceased to work in 1967, the S&DR Act required the quay to be served in perpetuity. So a clause was in BR’s private Act of 1968 to allow closure. Of course, nobody told me when that act became law, so, when TW Ward’s foreman asked us to put wagons down the branch for him to load the steel from the quayside cranes, which he was demolishing, I had to put him off by pointing out that Ward’s would have to pay for cleaning out the flange grooves in the roadway, and fettling the level crossing on Bridge Road! (It didn’t stop me from taking a series of colour slides of the route one fine summer day.)
View is of the Quayside line (at the bottom of Castlegate) which formed the Stockton end of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The photograph is looking south towards the exchange sidings where Bridge Road crossed on the level (St. Johns Crossing). These sidings were relaid and extended during WW2 with track base plates from all the major companies. I saw LNER, LMS, SR and GWR plates still extant in the late 1950’s. The photo looks as if it has been taken after a recent flood of the time. These were quite frequent and had nothing to do with ‘Global warming’ then! I used to play around the tracks in the early 1950’s and had a number of trips on one of the shunting engines used to transfer wagons to and from the sidings to the docks.The line closed in 1967 but the rails remained until 1970. It is a pity that Stockton still fails to recognise the historical aspect of this area. If ever there was a need to diplay a plaque then I cannot find another area so deserving!
When I went to Stockton as BR’s Traffic Agent in 1968, I was told that, although the line had ceased to work in 1967, the S&DR Act required the quay to be served in perpetuity. So a clause was in BR’s private Act of 1968 to allow closure. Of course, nobody told me when that act became law, so, when TW Ward’s foreman asked us to put wagons down the branch for him to load the steel from the quayside cranes, which he was demolishing, I had to put him off by pointing out that Ward’s would have to pay for cleaning out the flange grooves in the roadway, and fettling the level crossing on Bridge Road! (It didn’t stop me from taking a series of colour slides of the route one fine summer day.)
View is of the Quayside line (at the bottom of Castlegate) which formed the Stockton end of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The photograph is looking south towards the exchange sidings where Bridge Road crossed on the level (St. Johns Crossing). These sidings were relaid and extended during WW2 with track base plates from all the major companies. I saw LNER, LMS, SR and GWR plates still extant in the late 1950’s. The photo looks as if it has been taken after a recent flood of the time. These were quite frequent and had nothing to do with ‘Global warming’ then! I used to play around the tracks in the early 1950’s and had a number of trips on one of the shunting engines used to transfer wagons to and from the sidings to the docks.The line closed in 1967 but the rails remained until 1970. It is a pity that Stockton still fails to recognise the historical aspect of this area. If ever there was a need to diplay a plaque then I cannot find another area so deserving!