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  Industrial
systems always had a certain charm - especially the narrow gauge lines,
with their invariably wonky trackwork, and locomotives that are aptly
described by our cousins across the Atlantic as "critters". Here are three
such systems in Yorkshire, long disappeared... On both occasions I was
staying near York, and both trips were "shorties" (the Alne trip was
combined with a spell beside the main line too). Neither is perhaps worth
a full "Rail Diaries" entry - but together they make a reasonable set of
snaps
 8
December 1979: Hemingbrough Brickworks was a few miles east of
Selby, not far from the Selby - Hull line. The attraction here was no less
than six 2' gauge locomotives - the most recent arrivals being a pair of
Motor Rails, ex-preservation, from the late Crockway Light Railway in
Dorset. One of these, MR 8644 of 1941 "Druid", was clearly in regular use,
though this being a Saturday, it was resting at the head of a rake of
v-skips. The other five locomotives lay scattered around, off the rails,
in varying states of disrepair... Druid is now a little better known (and
quite different in appearance) at the Abbey
Light Railway, Leeds
  Hemingbrough
was definitely a working railway; our call on the way back was an
ex-railway. Henry Oakland and Sons' Escrick Tile Works was still very much
a going concern, but the railway was clearly no longer in use, and its two
Motor Rails stood forlorn, one on a partly lifted length of track. I
couldn't see their dismantled Ruston - I must admit I didn't try very
hard.
  11
August 1983: A few years later, I paid a visit to another mud-'ole
a few miles north of York, at the Alne Brick Company. There was only one
locomotive here - yet another Motor Rail, no. 8694 of 1943, which is now
preserved at Bursledon Brickworks in Hampshire. I'd looked in here in May
1981, but nothing was doing. In August 1983, the railway was in operation,
and I was able to make a fair record of this little railway.
  My
last attempt to photograph a "mud-'ole" railway was at William Blyth's Far
Ings Tileries, in the shadow of the Humber bridge, back in 1998. Sadly,
the locomotive had failed. I'm not sure whether it ever worked again -
today, it's classed as "out of use", and is unlikely to work there again.
Far Ings was the last claypit railway in Britain. No more critters in the
mud-'oles...
Links:
See also Rail Diaries entry "Abbey
Light Railway"
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