From the guard's van

Back on the CLC again, this time with some local trains on the Manchester Oxford Road to Chester service in the Ashley area. A Metro Cammell DMU class 101 at Ashley station on a Chester service . Ashley station. 

The CLC, or the Cheshire Lines Committee, was a joint railway owned originally by the Midland Railway, the Great Central Railway and the Great Northern Railways. Its aim was to break the LNWR monopoly around Manchester and give access to Liverpool.  These pictures were taken on the Chester line out of Manchester around Ashley station.  A class 47 in Railfreight grey passes under the M56 with a southbound train of cement tanks. Another class 47, numbered 47445, this time in large logo blue livery passes with a train of empty containers forming the Manchester refuse train returning to Northendon refuse depot.  Once more we meet the Tunstead - Northwich stone train. Again class 47 hauled. A very short freight train heads south headed by class 37 number 37 355.

Class 142 heads west past Manchester Oxford Road. A Norwich bound train stands ready to depart from Oxford Road made up of a class 156 DMU. A class 304 approaches the west end of Oxford Road heading for Alderley Edge or Crewe. A class 304 EMU heads for Piccadilly. This four car set has been reduced to 3 cars.

.A mixture of electrics at the buffer stops.

 Bescot Junction in the West Midlands was near to my school and was the usual place to watch the trains when I was a teenager. It was also my father's place of work. The pictures I have included here are in pairs each of the pair taken from approximately the same place. The first of each pair was taken in the early/ mid 1960s and the later on in the late 1980s. A Stanier class 8F takes an up train across Bescot Junction and through the station (then called Bescot Junction). The track work had been changed in preparation for the new yard opening after electrification and the lighting towers are obvious. The station is still to be demolished and simplified. The coaling tower is seen on the right. The same viewpoint after electrification with 37 274 heading onto the Dudley line.  A Stanier class 5MT stands in the station waiting to go onto the shed. The station was a standard LNWR building and the picture was taken in the severe winter of 1962.