Embedded Files
BR official map of the ex-GWR Gloucester Docks Branch Sidings and Llantony+(sic) Yard amended to November 1969 and showing the various private sidings. In the top map, the connection from Over Junction comes in from the right.
The loco used for shunting at the timber yards in the docks ideally possessed a spark arrestor chimney and here is regular performer 0-6-0PT 1616 at Over Junction. Other members of the class had the spark arrestor - there only seemed to be one at any time - and certainly 1623 had it at some stage. Photo Ben Brooksbank
Docks Branch Sidings sometimes hosted withdrawn steam locos being towed to South Wales scrapyards in the late 1960s; a few were cut up at Hayes Metals, located in the docks. I paid a visit to Hayes Metals on 1 May 1960 when locos in their yard were: 0-6-0 2238/2270/2280:0-6-0PT 5705/5747/5753; 2-8-0T 4215/4221. (It may be that some of these were subsequently scrapped elsewhere.)
Although trade in the docks was declining, 0-6-0 diesel shunters took over from steam and rail traffic continued through the 1970s and 1980s, particularly from the Blue Circle cement terminal at the end of Llanthony Road. Class '08' 350hp shunters were only allowed as far as milepost 1 in Llanthony yard, so a class '03' 204hp diesel worked beyond there.
A couple of wagon labels from Gloucester Docks - sacks to Fairford and builders merchant supplies from local firm Haine & Corry to Highworth. Haine & Corry - which had its own railway wagons - could send goods from Llanthony or the Midland Railway's High Orchard line, but as this consignment was bound for Highworth, at the end of a GWR branch a few miles from Swindon, it was dispatched via Llanthony.
0-6-0PT 8701 has company in the shape of a Sentinel diesel in January 1963 at Docks Branch Sidings. The diesel was on trial, but nothing seemed to come of it. A Brush-Bagnall diesel shunter was also tried out. Photo Ben Ashworth
An out of gauge load, a power station transformer for the CEGB, is being slowly manouevred at Over.
Footnotes:
+ Most others spell it Llanthony, not Llantony - railway spellings were sometimes different - eg Hayles Abbey or Hailes Abbey.
More information is in the article 'Llanthony Railway Yard and Swing Bridge Over The Severn' by Hugh Conway-Jones http://www.gsia.org.uk/reprints/2005/gi200519.pdf
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