Southam & Long Itchington

[david_g]

Like many others I suspect, this is a very slow burn project which has involved joining the Scalefour Society fifteen(?) years ago, lurking around on this forum, attending Scaleforum among other exhibitions, asking questions, talking to demonstrators reading S4News & MRJ, dabbling in some wagon conversions etc. The slow progress has also been dictated by spending time doing other things - family, playing with & working on canal boats and for the last eight years being a volunteer at the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway where I am a fireman(trainee driver next year) and jointly run the Hedgebash Gang as well as occasional track gang member, all of which takes up a fair bit of my time. Let's call all this the research phase...

Recent events have resulted in me spending much more time at home for the next six months so I reckon now is the time to kick this project on, progress some of the things already started but, as yet unfinished; drag some of the unstarted kits & bits off the shelf and build them and see if I can get something running on the already built baseboards. Hopefully, writing this up, if people are interested, might encourage me to keep going with it.

So after that preamble, let's introduce Southam & Long Itchington, a fairly obscure station on a long closed branch line.

southam & long itchington.jpeg

A view of the up platform. Ignore the caption, this is the up platform, there were also similar, slightly larger, buildings on the down platform.

Southam & Long Itchington is on the LNWR line between Weedon & Leamington Spa, the line was opened throughout in 1895 when the Daventry - Marton Junction section opened linking the earlier (1888) branch from Weedon to Daventry with the Leamington - Rugby line which had opened in 1851. The line passed through sparsely populated countryside,there were intermediate stations at Daventry, Braunston, Flecknoe, Napton and Stockton and Southam & Long Itchington. With the exception of Daventry none of the stations were convenient for the communities they purported to serve, were they on the GWR all would have recieved the suffix "Road":

Daventry was on the edge of the then built up area. The station site is (or was when I was there last) occupied by a Mcdonald's, postal sorting office and small trading estate.
Braunston village is on top of a hill on the opposite side of the valley and half a mile from the station which is on Telford's Holyhead Road, reached by a footpath crossing Butcher's Bridge over the Grand Junction (later Union) Canal and up Nibbit's Lane, a path I've walked up many times.
Flecknoe is a mile and a half from the station on top of a hill, which contributed to it's closing in 1952, six years before passenger services ended on the line. As an aside, my son was good friends at junior school with the grandson of a farmer who moved his entire farm - animals, machinery, household contents and themselves - by train from Wales to Flecknoe in the 1930s which would make an interesting subject for a model. The only houses in the vicinity of the station was a terrace of 5(?) red brick railway cottages, a feature replicated at Napton & Stockton and Southam & Long Itchington.
Napton & Stockton was three miles from Napton(where I now live) and a good half mile from Stockton.
Southam & Long Itchington was half a mile from Long Itchington; Southam, the local market town was a mile away up the hill on the A423 Coventry - Oxford road. When the station opened there were few houses nearby apart from the railway cottages.

Passenger services were always sparse, the 1906 Bradshaw shows four through trains in each direction with an additional short return working to Napton & Stockton from the Leamington direction. Most trains ran through to Warwick(Milverton) which was the operational centre of the line, loco sheds & carriage sidings being situated there. The LNWR operated a slip coach to Leamington for a short period, slipped off a Euston train at Weedon.
The 1950 timetable, which is around the period I'm aiming for, has four through down trains and three up with a couple of short workings Warwick-Napton & Stockton and return plus one extra on Saturdays. Some of the Weedon trains ran through to/from Blisworth or Northampton. Passenger services were generally motor trains worked by Webb 2-4-2Ts or latterly by Ivatt 2-6-2Ts.

The goods yard at Southam & Long Itchington was separated from the passenger station by the A423 Coventry Road. I spent a morning in the National Archive at Kew photgraphing the freight working timetables for around the 1950 period. This shows the traffic at the yard was handled by a daily Blisworth-Warwick pick up goods which spent an hour and three quarters at Southam & Long Itchington mid afternoon.

So, a country branch line with few train services? Well, not quite, there's more which is where it gets interesting.

Enough for now, time to do some modelling.

[Dave Holt]

Hi David.

Your planned layout is certainly of interest to me as I live in Southam and my interest in railways is the 1950s.
Although the through line lost its passenger service many years ago, the stretch from Weedon to Long Itchington stayed open much longer (1970s?) for coal trains to the cement works. The works (now closed) was, of course, on the opposite side of the main road to the station. Are you intending to include it in your model?
looking forward to reading of further progress, as and when.
Dave.

[Jol Wilkinson]

This area was part of my stomping ground as a yoof living in Dunchurch near Rugby. My uncle's company, for whom my father worked did a lot of work in the area post WW2, installing water and mains drainage to many of the villages.

I was quite excited when I saw the heading, more LNWR I thought. However, the reference to setting it in the 1950s left me quite deflated. Looks like an interesting project, though.

[Worzels Works]

Blimey t's a small world isn't it, sounds like a lovely project David! Really looking forward to seeing you pull together some 50's country Idyllic scenes. Having a friend in Napton and a couple in Warwick I've been to the area a few times, very pretty part of the world. I won't derail the thread too much and ask about the W&L, but hopefully see you up there at some point when I can organise a training turn (between the day job, family, my local railway and and and...)

[jim s-w]

Really looking forward to seeing you pull together some 50's country Idyllic scenes

Oh how depressing!

Seriously though sounds like a good project which I'll be following with interest

[Worzels Works]

oh how depressing!

Jim, you can borrow my rose tinted glasses too for a bit

[jim s-w]

Can i keep them?

[Worzels Works]

Can i keep them?

Be my guest, I'm about to get distracted with 70's grime, I'll shout when I need them again for Edwardian steam

[david_g]

All: thanks for the encouragement.
Dave: re. the cement works, maybe. The long term aspiration is to include at least a hint of what was there. Your later history of the line is a bit awry but I'll go into that later.
Jol: sorry to disappoint but the thought of making and painting those LNWR coaches, as found on London Road & Clarendon, magnificent though they are, gives me the heebyjeebies. Plus I grew up next to another former LNWR line, over Standedge, and can just remember the tail end of steam, double headed Liverpool-Newcastles, 8Fs and WDs on coal trains, black 5s everywhere and my favourite when I was little, the sausage train, whch came up the Colne Valley about 5pm and conveyed a Palethorpes Sausages van on its way back to Dudey Port, though I didn't know where it was going at the time. So it's BR steam I have memories of and am drawn to. The only photograph of an LNWR train in the immediate area I can think of shows an 0-6-0 and three bogie coaches, in a book of old photographs of the area. As someone with a passing interest in lineside maintenance, what is striking about the photo is the state of the lineside and PW which can only be described as perfection, which lends credence to the caption which reads "possibly the first train to run..."
James: don't think our paths have crossed but if you want to talk W&L pm me. And look forward to meeting.
Jim: Don't worry, it's about to get grittier, though not quite as gritty as Brettell Road. I first became familiar with the Black Country through exploring the nether regions of the BCN in the late 70s/early 80s and lament the passing of the urban grot, derelict factories and apparently derelict factories that were in fact still operating and making things. Now it all trees, bushes and other green stuff, it was so much more interesting back in the day, which Brettell Road captures rather well.

So what else is there to provide interest? In short coal, lime and cement.

Southam lies on top of a belt of Blue Lias limestone running roughly SW-NE. The were lots of early workings in the area, the history of which is long gone. Some may have been short lived to provide materials to be used locally. When the LNWR arrived there were four works and associated quarries operating between Southam & Long Itchington and Napton & Stockton, a distance of about two miles. All were served by the Warwick & Napton canal, either by canalside wharves or private arms off the main line of the canal, the longest of which, Kayes Arm, is about half a mile long. All had private sidings off the LNWR line and all had narrow gauge feeders from the quarries. From east to west:

Charles Nelson Stockton Lime and Cement Works. A large works and quarry which built much of Stockton village to provide housing for the workforce along with a village hall and te Nelson Club. Eventually taken over in stages by Rugby Cement who closed it around 1945 (the closure date is a bit wooly) as they decided to concentrated local production on their nearby Southam Cement Works. The narrow gauge system had three Peckett 0-6-0s plus five Simplexes to the slightly unusual gauge of 1'9". Horses were used for shunting the standard gauge sidings.There were six turnouts still in the quarry in the 80s including a three piled on top of each other, the plain track had been removed, I guess by the scrappies. It was possible to make out where the loco shed had been with its rubble filled pit. The quarry is now fenced off after a local child drowned in the pool at the bottom so access isn't as easy as it was back then and the works site has been redeveloped by a canal training company.

Griffin's Blue Lias Lime Works. A small undertaking which eventually closed in the mid 20s. The final quarry workings were the other side of the Rugby-Southam road which had a tunnel running under it. The portal on the east side leading into a cutting was still there in the 80s, the other side of the road had been landfilled by then. The narrow gauge line was horse worked. There is still an ivy covered chimney above the sixth lock of the Stockton flight on the canal marking the site of the works. Napton Brickworks, not rail connected, used Griffin's to tranship their products brought round by canal to rail for a period.

Greaves, Bull & Lakin Blue Lias LIme & Cement Works. By the bottom lock of the Stockton flight. The narrow gauge line from the quarry crossed over the LNWR, the works being approached on an embankment, which still stands, from the quarry. There was a 100 yard tunnel between two sections of the quaary. The narrow gauge system was mainly horse worked though they did have a Kerr Stuart Wren delivered in 1922 which is reported to have been little used. The works was closed by 1936. Greaves also had a large quarry & cement works at Bishop's Itchington on the other side of Southam where there was a Greaves' Sidings signalbox on the Great Western line south of Southam Road & Harbury station. There was also a family connection to Greaves Slate Quarry, now known as Llechwedd, at Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Kaye & Co. Southam Lime & Cement works. The works was just east of Southam & Long Itchington goods yard.

EPW039083.jpg

Aerial view of the works in 1932 looking west. The bridge middle right is over Kayes Arm, leading from the main line of the canal into the works. Note the unused trackbed on the north side of the bridge; the formation of the new line between Daventry and Marton Junction was built for double track throughout, the second track was never laid. Beyond the works is Southam & Long Itchington goods yard and the Coventry Road bridge can be made out top right. The station was the other side of the bridge. The original works was east of the canal arm, the barrel roofed sheds are the unloading sheds for stone brought from the quarries. At the edge of the photo centre left are the narrow gauge loco sheds with the water tower behind, a brick base with a tank on top. The tank was recovered by the Welsh Highland Railway and (if I'm remembering correctly) used at Caernarvon.

This became the largest works in the area and the longest lived, cement production finished in 2001, quarrying still takes place supplying the Rugby Cement (now Cemex) works in New Bilton, Rugby. There was an extensive 2ft gauge system worked by seven Pecketts down the years of which the well known Jurrasic, Triassic, Liassic (the second one, the name having been reused from an earlier scrapped locomotive) and Mezozoic survive. In addition there was a Bagnall and eight diesels from Simplex, Ruston, Hunslet and Orenstein & Koppel. The standard gauge sidings were worked by two Hudswell Clark diesels, Southam & Southam No 2 and latterly a 4 wheel diesel hydraulic from Thomas Hill. There were also short term borrowings from New Bilton including a Manning Wardle 0-6-0 saddle tank. The arrival of the railway offering better transport prompted the works to be expanded in 1908 when a new plant was built west of the canal arm and after the takeover by Rugby Cement in 1934 another new plant was built to the south of the 1908 plant in 1936. Cement continued to be taken out by canal and was one if the last narrowboat traffics carried by British Waterways, a pair of boats being employed carrying bagged cement to Sampson Road, Birmingham until 1969. Coal was delivered by rail and cement taken out by rail until 1984. Inward coal was the last traffic which ended with the miner's strike, imported coal brought in by road being used from then on.


I became familiar with the area when I arrived with my boat for restoration work at the boatyard at the bottom of Kayes Arm in 1982, spending most weekends there until 1987 when I moved to live on the boat up the arm for the next eleven years. I would often walk through the old workings with friends and their dogs and became curious about what had been there when it was all working. Back then there was no internet, online NLS maps or google and nothing I could find in print so it was trips to local libraries and the county records office to try and put what I could together. Initially the main interest was the disused workings, Southam being still operational was off limits though we did have the occasional wander along the railway line on a Sunday afternoon when nobody was around among the 16t minerals dumped at the end of the line. Having been asked to provide some captions for some Eric Sawford photographs by the editor of Railway Bylines (the contact came via Andy Farqhuarson, a name which will be familar to long standing members as former editor of S4News) I shifted my interest to Southam works, spent a couple of afternoons going through their archives (basically a big pile of material, nothing catalogued) sourced some more material from there and the expanded article appeared in Vol 1, No6. The archive has since been sorted and catalogued by local historian John Frearson and deposited at the county records office. John has published two short histories of Nelsons and Kaye & Co.

IMG_0421.JPG

Photo of a photocopy of part of the agreement with the LNWR for the original private siding of 1896 which was a single siding extension of the goods loop/headshunt. From the Rugby Cement Archives.

If only Sidney Leleux's book "Warwickshire Lime & Cement Works Railways" had appeared thirty years earlier i would have saved a great deal of time as it is a comprehensive study of the subject.

I hope all this has shown that there was a little more to Southam & Long Itchington than a rural idyll with very little traffic potential. I had hoped to get through the background in this bite but I think enough for now, I'll close the background in the next installment and eventually we'll get on to some modelling.

[david_g]

To close off the history/background:

shovel and peckett in quarry.jpeg

Not a scene I intend to model but I like the photo showing the work of the quarry - digging the stone out and moving it to the crusher to feed the kilns. I wanted to use this full page for the title page of the Railway Bylines article but it was rejected by the editor because the Peckett was out of focus. It's one of a series of large format prints mainly showing the 1936 plant including a couple showing Haunchwood Colliery (near Nuneaton) wagons on the new wagon hoist erected as part of the new works and another of "Southam", the works shunter. Rugby Cement Archive.

After the Rugby Cement takeover in 1934 and building of the new enlarged plant in 1936 extra chalk was required to feed the kilns. This came from a Rugby Cement owned quarry at Tottenhoe, which was adjacent to the Leighton Buzzard - Dunstable line; three trains a day ran carrying this traffic, usually hauled by a Northampton Super D.

Coal came from the Warwickshire coalfield from the Leamington direction. Again the trains were Super D hauled, the locomotives coming either from Coventry, Nuneaton or Warwick. Towards the end of steam haulage 8Fs were taking over these trains though from photographs this didn't happen until after the end of passenger services.

Cement was carried out either bagged in vans or in bulk wagons, in the early 80s there would usually be a handful of Presflos on the loading siding by the cement silos. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos at the time (note for younger readers: in pre-digital/cameraphone times photographs were not taken willy-nilly) as a few cement wagons standing by some large concrete cylinders didn't seem a particularly interesting subject. Two or three years later it was gone. The cement traffic could either have been attached to the coal trains - I found a photograph last week, taken at Rugby of an empty coal train from Southam with half a dozen Presflos at the head of the train - or by the daily pick up goods.

Using the 1950 freight working timetable and the passenger timetable the attached spreadsheet was constructed showing trains serving Southam & Long Itchington. The spreadsheet shows that there was more to traffic at the station than five passenger trains each way and a pick up goods, including a number of light engine or engine & brake movements - something which has been mentioned by authors on realistic operation as being often omitted by modellers.

The passenger service was reduced through the fifties until by the final year in 1958 there were only two trains each way running Leamington - Weedon plus a morning & evening train Leamington - Napton & Stockton & return and an additional return to Napton & Stockton Saturday lunchtime. The buildings on the up platform were removed in 1957 (according to the Railway Observer), unfortunately up trains continued to use the bare platform as the signalling didn't allow use of the down platform where there was some shelter. The hooped corrugated iron cover over the steps down from the road to the platform was also removed.

A feature on the branch in the June 1957 Railway Magazine describes passenger trains as "poorly patronised and it is feared that the service cannot long survive" which proved accurate as the end came on 13th September 1958. The article also says the line "has preserved many of its original features and there is still a "North Western" look about it, and to those who wish to capture for a short while the atmosphere of pre-nationalisation or even pre-grouping days, the journey can be thoroughly recommended".

Inevitably, when closure to passenger services came it attracted the interest of enthusiasts and the Railway Observer December 1958 carried a report on the final day with 41228 hauling the 6.14pm from Northampton strengthened to six coaches "well filled with enthusiats" the last passenger train to call. An earlier train from Leamington which terminated at Napton & Stockton, hauled by 41218 was also reported as "filled with...." but an mid-afternoon train to Napton & Stockton saw six people alighting at Southam, none at Napton and nobody rejoining the train for its return to Leamington, probably a more accurate view of normal patronage.

Following closure to passengers freight services continued much as before until Rugby Cement opened a pipeline from Tottenhoe to Southam via New Bilton (Rugby) to convey chalk slurry in 1963. This killed off traffic on the eastern end of the branch, goods services were withdrawn in December 1963 and the line lifted between Weedon and just east of Southam cement works. Coal and cement continued to be carried from the Leamington direction until the line between Marton Junction and Leamington closed in 1966. After this trains to & from Southam reversed at Marton Junction and travelled via Rugby, the line from Rugby eventually becoming single line worked one engine in steam. The Warwickshire Railways website has details of the signalling changes which took place.

Final closure came with the 1984 miners' strike when imported coal brought in by lorry was used. The final train was a weedkilling train on 20th June 1985, the line was closed 1st August 1985.

[Hardwicke]

To close off the history/background:

shovel and peckett in quarry.jpeg

it was rejected by the editor because the Peckett was out of focus.

Unbeleivable...

[bécasse]

Cement would have originally been shipped out in barrels, I am uncertain as to when the change to bags took place but probably between the two wars.

[david_g]

Cement would have originally been shipped out in barrels, I am uncertain as to when the change to bags took place but probably between the two wars.

From 1908 onwards Kayes were shipping their cement out in "sacks". I'm guessing we're talking hundredweight sacks here, manual handling regulations being...err....different back then. I have a photocopy of a reprint of an article from The Engineer, January 1st and 8th 1909 which is a full description of the newly built works and the processes involved in the manufacture of cement. This is a plan of the works:

southam works plan.jpeg

Rugby Cement Archive.

The sack store and bagging palnt are middle right. The article text mentions "a worm conveyor which leads the cement to an elevator, which in its turn lifts it and discharges it into shoots for filling sacks. Four sacks can be filled at one time".

Note the siding arrangements have been expanded from the intial simple arrangement, this is the plan from the agreement with the LNWR for the new layout (photo in two parts because they are A3 photocopies and too large for my scanner):

lnwr 1910 plan part 1.JPG

Rugby Cement Archive.

lnwr 1910 plan part 2.JPG

Rugby Cement Archive.

The sidings were worked by electric capstan, this and a 3" roller for the cable are on the plan either side of the canal bridge. The signatures top right of the second part of the plan are Lister Lister-Kaye, unknown and the Oldhams who were the landowners on whose land the works was situated. Their Cuttle Farm gradually disappeared as the works expanded. The Southam Lime and Cement Works shown on this plan was abandoned after the building of the 1908 works on the other side of the canal arm.

This is arrangment seen in the earlier aerial photograph.

[davebradwell]

The sacks must have been made of pretty fine material. Before assuming they're 1cwt, bear in mind that flour was in 10st sacks and some animal feed in 16st sacks at least up to 1970 and intended to be carried by 1 person. The coal-man had a cushie number!

DaveB

[david_g]

Fine material indeed Dave. "Sacks" to me conjures up hessian sacks from which cement would leak out easily.

On the weight of sacks: There is a descrption in "Working Life on Severrn & Canal" by Hugh Conway of how boys, I think we are talking early teens here, were not allowed to go as mate on the Severn & Canal Carrying Company boats, which principally carried bagged wheat from Sharpness & Gloucester Docks to the millers of the West Midlands, until they could prove their ability to carry a 10st sack.

[Noel]

On the weight of sacks: There is a descrption in "Working Life on Severrn & Canal" by Hugh Conway of how boys, I think we are talking early teens here, were not allowed to go as mate on the Severn & Canal Carrying Company boats, which principally carried bagged wheat from Sharpness & Gloucester Docks to the millers of the West Midlands, until they could prove their ability to carry a 10st sack.

The age of majority was 21 then, so you were still a boy until your 21st birthday. I would think that they would have had to be 15+ to have developed the muscles to carry that sort of load. In industry it wasn't uncommon to take boys on at 13 or 14 to do the lighter jobs and move them on to harder work as they got older and more capable.

animal feed in 16st sacks at least up to 1970 and intended to be carried by 1 person. The coal-man had a cushie number!

Don't forget that manual handling would include the use of sack trucks and hoists with a suitable block for the load. I doubt that one person could be expected to carry 2cwt on a regular basis.

[Noel]

Fine material indeed Dave. "Sacks" to me conjures up hessian sacks from which cement would leak out easily.

There was a technical paper on the relative merits of cotton and jute cement bags https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Relative_Merits_of_Cotton_and_Jute_Cemen.html?id=pI3FwwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y written for the US government in the mid-1920s, and jute is still in use today, elsewhere in the world. Cement does seem to require a higher grade of sack than those commonly used.

[davebradwell]

I can assure you, Noel, that 1 person was expected to carry 16cwt. I remember reading that it was a blight on the bodies of agricultural workers for centuries.

In a couple of university holidays I worked in the warehouse at J R Ranks mill on the Tyne - now the art centre. Students would gather at a table in the canteen at dinner time and someone's younger brother, who had just started an apprenticeship at the mill, reported on having to carry the huge bags there. I never saw it but heard about it first hand. As my efforts with the 10 stoners were causing great amusement to the rest of the workforce I felt very relieved. You weren't expected to pick any size bag up from the ground, just move them. Yes, trucks were used where possible and would take 3 10st sacks.

DaveB

[Alan Turner]

I can assure you, Noel, that 1 person was expected to carry 16cwt.

DaveB

you have a decimal place gone astray there - that's 3/4 of a Ton!

When I worked for my cousin as a coal merchant I could carry 1 sack which was 1cwt. He could carry 2 sacks but he was the only one I knew that could.

regards

Alan

[grovenor-2685]

Not the decimal point, wrong unit, using cwt when he meant stones.

[davebradwell]

Yes, a small slip - 16st. I think I had it right somewhere.

DaveB

[Alan Turner]

Yes, a small slip - 16st. I think I had it right somewhere.

DaveB

OK 2cwt - perhaps my cousin was not alone then!

regards

Alan

[barrowroad]

As a retired Trading Standards Officer/Weights and Measures Inspector who has check weighed more sacks of coal than I care to remember they were all supposed to be 1cwt - some were occasionally under weight!

Robin

[Alan Turner]

As a retired Trading Standards Officer/Weights and Measures Inspector who has check weighed more sacks of coal than I care to remember they were all supposed to be 1cwt - some were occasionally under weight!

Robin

Correct, and I could carry one. My cousin could carry two stacked on each other.

regards

Alan

[DougN]

Interesting to see the discussion on the size of the bags of cement. When I was extending my house (2004) the cement I purchased for the bricky was 40kg.. which was a standard size back then. Now we have changed to standard 20kg bags.. I could easily carry one 40kg bag back then. ok this isn't the 50kg of the 1cwt. More strangely is the cement at that time was about $10aud a bag where for half that now is the same price.

As a total aside I was with my concrete supplier yesterday discussing the mix for the concrete pour we were placing on the project. The mix had 360kg of cement per m3.. our pour was 240m3... so every thing is relative... in these volumes the cement is a lot less in value than the bagged!