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28-801: Oaks Viaduct spanned the Dearne Valley , in South Yorkshire , England. The viaduct was 1,087 feet (331 m) long and crossed Pontefract Road at Hoyle Mill , and spanned the Dearne Valley including the Dearne and Dove Canal and the Barnsley Coal Railway. It carried the Midland Railway's Cudworth-Barnsley branch. It opened to goods traffic in 1869 and to passenger traffic in 1870. On the Barnsley side

56-535: A lake which forms the Old Moor Wetland Centre RSPB reserve . When visiting today it is very difficult to detect that the area was once a large and busy railway marshalling yard. The yard was set to the south of the main line from Doncaster and Barnsley. It was built on the 'hump' principle, where trains were uncoupled and then propelled over a hump, allowing the wagons to run by gravity into sidings to await collection. However unlike later hump yards it

84-468: A trip from Tinsley until closure. After closure of the depot and yard, the locomotive shed was for a few years the home of a toxic waste processing company, which resulted in a local protest movement being formed. In a lane off Moor Road to the south of the yard was the 'power house', along with the Yard Master's and Inspectors Offices and the Yard Master's House. At the time of opening the points within

112-476: Is an area of South Yorkshire , England, along the River Dearne . It encompasses the towns of Wombwell , Wath-upon-Dearne , Swinton , Conisbrough and Mexborough , the large villages of Ardsley , Bolton on Dearne , Goldthorpe , Thurnscoe , Darfield , Stairfoot and Brampton Bierlow , and many other smaller villages and hamlets. In 1995, the area became a regeneration area, as it had suffered much from

140-575: The Trans Pennine Trail between Southport and Hornsea . The Dearne Valley is at the centre of the trail with the main West/East and North/South routes crossing over in the area. The historic region has a wide range of buildings and areas which are of major archeological interest and include 14 conservation areas, 15 scheduled ancient monuments, more than 249 listed buildings and above 50 landscapes which are considered to have special value. Some of

168-402: The 45 collieries that were working within a ten-mile radius of Wath. The purpose of the yard was to make this traffic more efficient by concentrating the marshalling of the wagons of coal from the local collieries in a central position. Coal wagons were "tripped" in local trains from each colliery to the yard, then sorted into longer distance trains which would deliver to a marshalling yard near

196-712: The North-West. Another major destination for the coal traffic was the steam trawler bunkering sidings at New Clee , near Grimsby, and after 1912 export coal was sent via the new dock facilities at Immingham . The temporary nationalisation of the coal industry during the hostilities of the Second World War , leading to full nationalisation in 1947, led to an end to the system of individual collieries selling direct to individual end customers, however different collieries produced different grades of coal, and domestic and industrial customers were still dotted at many locations throughout

224-622: The United States. It was built by Logan and Hemingway , a contractor regularly used by the Great Central Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway before them, and opened in August 1907. At this time a significant amount of rail-borne coal traffic was wagon-load . Customers would order coal direct from individual collieries, which would utilise the railways to deliver

252-589: The Wath Central signal box, which controlled the main lines through the yard and was situated by the station. The yard could handle as many as 5,000 wagons per day. Initially the yard did not have major locomotive stabling facilities: locomotives were provided by Mexborough shed. With the coming of the electrification a two-road engine shed was built to the North of the yard adjacent to the Moor Lane Bridge to stable

280-418: The area are becoming more dormitory in nature, as those who remained have found the need to commute further afield to the larger towns and cities in the region to work. Outside the settlements, primary land use is agricultural: a byproduct of the end of the mining industry is that the area looks more rural and green than it once did. Business parks in the area have been created on brown-field land once used by

308-429: The closure of Court House Goods station. In 1965, the bridge was deemed unsafe, leading to the withdrawal of all train services and its eventual demolition. 53°33′18″N 1°26′53″W  /  53.555°N 1.448°W  / 53.555; -1.448 This England rail transport related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dearne Valley The Dearne Valley ( DURN )

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336-413: The coal in the colliery's own four-wheel wagons that usually carried between 12 and 16 tons of coal. These customers could be anything from a domestic coal merchant ordering a single wagon of coal to be delivered to a station goods yard for local delivery, up to rail-connected industry that would consume many thousands of tons of coal a month. All this generated a very complex pattern of rail traffic from

364-597: The concentration of coal traffic. It was set at the heart of the South Yorkshire Coalfield , at Wath-upon-Dearne , approximately halfway between Barnsley and Doncaster , in the United Kingdom . It opened in 1907 and closed in 1988. The idea of a yard for the concentration of coal traffic developed following a visit by the Great Central Railway 's General Manager, Sam Fay (later Sir Sam Fay) to

392-569: The country, and so Wath Yard was still needed to efficiently manage the coal traffic flows from the area. This was so much so, that in the early 1950s, the yard became one of the eastern ends of the Manchester-Sheffield-Wath electric railway , over the Woodhead route. A prime justification of this scheme was the heavy coal flows from Wath up the steep grades over the Pennines . By the 1970s,

420-470: The customer, from where the wagons would again be re-sorted into new local "trip" trains that delivered the wagons to their individual destinations. Throughout its lifetime, the yard handled loaded and empty coal and coke wagons almost to the exclusion of other traffic. Many trains were sent over the Woodhead Line to a yard at Mottram , near Manchester, where they were divided for distribution throughout

448-525: The energy requirements of Britain's households and industry had changed. The Clean Air Act and North Sea gas meant that the number of domestic users of coal was dwindling, industry was now powered by electricity, and the centralisation of the power industry under the Central Electricity Generating Board meant that power was generated in a new fleet of large power stations rather small municipal generators. The remaining coal traffic

476-529: The line gave access to Barnsley Main Colliery. The line also served Monk Bretton Colliery and a stub at the Cudworth end is still used to deliver sand to Redfearn's Glass Works at Monk Bretton. The "Cudworth Flyer" local train from Barnsley , connecting with Midland line trains at Cudworth, passed over the viaduct. The service was withdrawn on 6 June 1958, although a goods train from Carlton Yard continued to run until

504-404: The mining industry, the most notable and largest is at Manvers . Much of the infrastructure related to the mining industry was demolished in the 1980s and early 1990s and the land changed to other uses and today few remnants of the coal mining heritage remain: the large spoil heaps have been levelled and grassed, and no coal mining remains at all in the area. Wath marshalling yard which served

532-409: The new electric locomotives. In 1963 the replacement of steam with diesel locomotives on the non-electrified lines in the area resulted in the closure of Mexborough shed : a small diesel depot was built on the site of the old turntable in the centre of Wath yard, although diesel locomotives were also stabled at the electric locomotive shed. This shed closed in 1983, after then a shunter was provided as

560-423: The prominent buildings include Conisbrough Castle, Church of St. John and St. Mary Magdalene, Hickleton Hall, Glassby Arch, etc. 53°30′N 1°13′W  /  53.500°N 1.217°W  / 53.500; -1.217 Wath marshalling yard Wath marshalling yard , also known as Wath concentration yard ( grid reference SE428017 ), was a large railway marshalling yard specifically designed for

588-445: The railway coal traffic closed in 1988 is now the site of Old Moor Wetland Centre RSPB reserve . Other nature reserves in the valley include Gypsy Marsh, Wombwell Ings and Adwick Washlands. The road and rail links to the villages of the area also were implemented mostly to ferry coal out of collieries and although the rails have been removed, the embankments, cuttings and bridges remain. Several of these former railways are now part of

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616-417: The remaining local collieries after the 1984-85 miners' strike resulted in a sudden decline. The western exit to Wombwell and Barnsley was lifted in 1986. The yard finally closed and was lifted in 1988 with the closure of the last of the local collieries. The whole site of the yard was cleared in stages in the mid-1990s and is now an area of office, light industry and residential developments set around

644-505: The sudden decline of the deep coal mining industry in the 1980s. In the 2011 census , the ONS-identified Barnsley/Dearne Valley built-up area had a population of 223,281; however, this region includes Barnsley and certain other smaller towns and villages that might not historically have considered themselves a part of the Dearne Valley. Many high-grade coal seams, including the prolific Barnsley seam, lie close to

672-546: The surface in this area. This meant that by far the most prevalent industry in the area was deep coal mining , indeed much of the economic activity of the region was either directly related to, or reliant on this industry. It was home to the Oaks Viaduct , the largest man-made rail bridge in Britain until its demolition in 1965. In the latter half of the 20th century, the industry was declining and becoming deeply unprofitable, but

700-417: Was block-train rather than wagon-load and consequently did not require much marshalling: the coming of Merry-go-round trains for coal that travelled from colliery or dock to power station in a continuous cycle further reduced this need. In 1981, the Woodhead route and the associated electrification system closed. Wath Yard was busy with coal trains for a few more years, but the impending closure of many of

728-405: Was built without automatic retarders to slow the rolling wagons down. Instead the yard employed human runners who chased the rolling wagons to pin down their hand brakes and control their movement through the sidings. This was a particularly hazardous occupation. With a total length of over 1¼ miles, between Wath Central railway station and Elsecar Junction, and with over 36 miles of track this

756-465: Was kept alive by government subsidy. As early as the 1960s, local politicians voiced concerns about the high level of reliance of the economy of the area on one single industry. In the 1980s, there was a marked change of government economic policy: unprofitable heavy industry was to no longer be subsidised. This caused the collapse of the mining industry, with a knock-on effect in many other local industries, leading to much local hardship. Settlements in

784-449: Was two yards in one: Eastbound traffic was received in eight reception sidings feeding 31 departure sidings and controlled by "B" Box, whilst for westbound traffic there was a fan of nine reception sidings, again feeding 31 departure sidings and controlled by "A" Box. The western entry/exit to the yard was under the control of Elsecar Junction signal box whilst the eastern end was controlled by Moor Road signal box, with additional control from

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