Railway in New Farnley

Railways, trams, buses, etc.
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FarnleyBloke
Posts: 173
Joined: Wed 11 Apr, 2007 12:03 pm

Post by FarnleyBloke »

Squatch, my first year there was all boys and strangely enough i enjoyed it more than when we had girls!! (They always seemed to want to learn!!)Chris thats brilliant, i've wondered for ages about the track that goes through the little woods behind beechfield and have noticed before that Lawns Lane dips at the point where the line would have crossed, i'm gonna have to go up to the forge now at the bottom end of the school and have a good look round.Phill, i had no idea about the second set of tracks you show but they do seem to go off in the direction of upper wortley where the other fireclay works were on wortley moor road although the hill to get up there is quite steep.Also just as a further interesting point there have been 2 train crashes at Farnley Junction, one in 1874 that i haven't been able to get any details of and one from Sept' 1977 that involved a mail train and another train crashing head on when work on the points had gone wrong, killing both drivers. Does anyone remember this?

Phill_d
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Post by Phill_d »

Yep it's deffinately intriquing stuff. It's had me scratching my head for a bit.. An amendment to my map & no 26 is actually marked as Busk colliery.. Where could that have been.. It looks slap bang on top of Wortley recreation ground on the rail map? There's list of Farnley firclay works here. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... 08lin1.htm Wortley, Elland road & huddersfield are listed
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FarnleyBloke
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Post by FarnleyBloke »

Phill, on www.old-maps.co.uk the 1854 map shows a lot of pits on wortley rec, hard to make out but i counted at least 4. Interestingley there is a black line that runs from Wortley station, across whitehall road and follows the line of the main track back towards the dragon pub until it gets onto the rec where it bends left and goes right through almost to Oldfield Lane. Now i don't know if this is definately a track but if it is i would assume it's only a small line for the pits?

Chris W
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Post by Chris W »

Oldmaps.co.uk is a great website. I have just been looking at the 1909 map for New Farnley and it clearly shows the railway.It comes up from the Fireclay works, snakes through New Farnley to Moor Top, then one branch goes off to terminate at Brigg pit at the bottom of Gildersome. The second branch continues back towards Leeds and Geldard road, passing very close to the old L&NWR Heaton Lodge & Wortley Line before terminating at Farnley Wood lift pit! phew!I have taken a pic from Google Earth showing roughly where the Farnley railway must have terminated, you can see the old L&NWR railway cutting to the bottom right of the pic.
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Farnley born & bred

Phill_d
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Post by Phill_d »

So it looks like my old map was right showing the railway over Wortley rec. I'd love to get hold of a more detailed version. I'll post the map up again with the list of places as well
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Phill_d
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Post by Phill_d »

The places
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Phill_d
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Post by Phill_d »

Funnily enough i've photographed the Holbeck viaduct line bridge over Geldered rd before & only just noticed you can still see the advertising outline of Dunlop & Ranken visible.
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FarnleyBloke
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Post by FarnleyBloke »

Phill, i looked on the 1906 o/s map over the weekend. It shows that line (noted 25,26,27 on your map) but it calls it a tramway. I'm wondering if by tramway it means what we would call a light railway nowadays. It actually crossed the railway over Dragon Bridge and ran north crossing five lane ends in wortley straight through the middle, what you have down on the map and list as Bush Colliery is noted as Busk Colliery.On a side note i took a drive up rooms lane off of geldard road on staurday to take a look at the old gildersome station, nothing there at all, so weird to think that the train ran through there and there were station buildings and now it's just grass!

Phill_d
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Post by Phill_d »

Yes i've seen a quote about the line saying something similar about the rails either been 'tramway or narrow gauge... I've been looking at several pics that have got me wondering about Wortley jnct. Only 2 lines were still in place when it closed in 1985 but there was severed pointwork that looked like it curved to Wortley rec still evident & the bridge over the Leeds/Manchester line used to be much wider. It makes me wonder if the fireclay connected here at some point.. There is also a well walked pathway hafway down the cutting. I'll get round to uploading some pics during the week & we can see what went on there.
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FarnleyBloke
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Post by FarnleyBloke »

Phill - the 1909 map does show a line going from the north of Busk pit and looks like it joins the junction (curving towards Oldfield Lane) just to the south or maybe just under the footbridge. Is this where the points are? All trace of the tramlines and pits are gone by the 1921 map.Chris - Just finished looking at the lines in New farnley! Phew! seems like a fairly big operation, it's great that where each branch line finishes there is either a pit or a quarry, real industrialisation and shows that Farnley Fireclay and pottery was made with local materials which is a nice touch.

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