Spennymoor to Byers Green

The Spennymoor - Bishop Auckland line closed to passengers in 1952 (although occasional miners/football specials ran until 1963), and freight in 1966. Unlike the Bishop Auckland-Durham line it was mostly single track and I imagine had a very traditional branch line flavour. Unfortunately information on this line is quite hard to come by so I've had to make some educated guesses.

This set of screenshots shows the northern end of the line (Spennymoor - Byers Green); once I've made a bit more progress on the scenery on the southern end I'll show some shots on that bit too. I've used the BR Blue era in these shots as a "might have been" but I'm sure it would look just as good with an ex-NER G5 and a short rake of push-pull coaches... ;)



A ballast train traverses the double track section west of Spennymoor (where the portal terminating this part of the line is located) bound for Bishop Auckland.



Approaching Burnhouse Junction, where the NER Todhills branch (which served the original Byers Green station) used to diverge. The line to Bishop Auckland curves to the left.



Approaching the "new" Byers Green station.



Entering the avoiding line at Byers Green. From what I can tell from old maps this section was actually single track throughout, but I've added the avoiding line for operational flexibility.







Waiting for the road at Byers Green. From here to Coundon is again single track.

...and finally, someything a bit arty:



Next up: The line south to Coundon.

BR Blue around Hunwick and Rough Lea

As promised on the Auran forums I've now done a little tuning on the trackwork (and some tweaks to the scenery while I was in there) on the area around Hunwick and Rough Lea, so here's another update.

For this one I've bent history a little and gone BR Blue (in reality the Durham-Bishop Auckland line closed in 1968) but it's certainly a very interesting "might have been".



The same location as the last shot in the previous set, but showing off a rake of the TC3 team's excellent Mk1s which just happened to be passing by...



The realigned trackwork at Hunwick looking north (I'm still not sure about that crossover, though) with shunting discs now in place. The line to the right is the one in the foreground of the first picture.

There's also now an InvisiCAB floating in front of the signal box for those "screenshot moments".



Looking south this time, a Gateshead based class 46 heads north with an ore train. I always did like the look of this style of headcode on these locos.

From memory the 46's were a little maligned in the North East around 1980 because as so many of them were based at Gateshead they appeared very regularly in the area. I did like them, though.



A very unusual visitor: the unique Tinsley based 47901 sits in one of the sidings at Hunwick with an MGR train.



A class 20 "Whistling Wardrobe" leads a short train of HTV hoppers towards Rough Lea Colliery as a Metro-Cammell DMU heads south with a local service. I saw one of these locos at the Swanage diesel gala in May; it brought back some great memories. :)

Incidentally there's an InvisiCAB in front of this signal box (Rough Lea Junction), too.



58001 heads north past the brickworks and colliery.




A couple more views of Perchpole's 46 north of Rough Lea. It's such a great looking model that it really does deserve a closer look! :)