Wymondham Goods - 1980s

A vanished scene from Brirtish Rail days 25 or so years ago. On an early summer day, diesel locomotive 37040 brings the mixed freight from North Elmham and Dereham into Wymondham, stopping outside the signalbox for Driver Jack Spall to return the single line token/branch train staff to the signalman. Note the Guard riding in the brakevan. The train shunts back into the down sidings and deposits the brakevan, before moving out onto the main line and setting back ready to move into the up sidings. Later, having left the Dereham wagons in the up sidings and collected some cement tanks, and then returned to the down sidings to reattach the brakevan, the loco powers out of the yard and away through the station towards Norwich, leaving a trail of exhaust fumes. The video also includes brief shots of the interior of Wymondham Signalbox, and glimpses of Met Cam and Cravens DMUs on local stopping services. The bulk Grainflow or 'Polybulk' wagons were introduced in the 1980s and carried grain from the fields of East Anglia, via the maltings of R.J Seaman & Sons Ltd. at North Elmham to whisky distlleries in northern Scotland as well as to ports for export. Each wagon could carry 60 tons of grain. The Wymondham to Dereham branch finally closed to frieght traffic in 1989 but today survives as the Mid Norfolk Railway. (The original recording is undated - many thanks to Chris Pearson from the MNR who advises that the Redland brick contract commenced in 1985 so that probably dates the recording as 1985 or 1986. Many thanks to Chris for much other additional information provided too).

[@ianjones4116]

Split box 37s, bloody beautiful machines.
Loved the vid.

[@maesfforddfilmunit]

Fabulous! Brings back a lot of memories, I used to regularly frequent Brandon station in the early 80's, Wonderful stuff!

[@darrencafferty]

Lovely Vid. It's nice too see the Wymondham station hasn't changed, it's still beautiful, especially in the Summer when all the Flowers are festooned all over the place :)

[@CW56]

Nice to see a Class 105 in action.

[@w0033944]

Fantastic clag! I love class 37s.

[@cmeonthemove]

Wonderful piece of archive footage, and very good quality given this must have been filmed in the mid-1980s as the Grainflow workings ended around 1987. Nice shots from inside Wymondham signalbox - a place I was fortunate enough to visit for what is likely to be the last ever steam tour to be served by the box.

[@Isochest]

Good thrash leaving in a screen of clag at the end. Even the sight of the DMUs is a pleasure:-))))))) Thanks!

[@488scooby]

superb video,great bit of shunting,THANKS,

[@RailPhotoAnthology]

Fantastic video - I wish I could go back to those days with real traction :-)

[@redrover2]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[@BROADTRAIN1979]

cor that 105 cravens pity, would have loved to have seen more of that in action these were superb dmus used to ride these a lot back in the 70s

[@type2thrash]

Old Pearson, he knows some stuff!!

[@redrover2]

Thanks!

[@Senna-xi1gr]

Class👍🇬🇧

[@James47298]

Thankyou excellant vintage history to b treasured!

[@MG06ZT]

Classic stuff, nice Tractor thrash. Love it.

[@DarrensVlog]

Very good and interesting video, looks like the secondman was driving!

[@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819]

The brake van was for opening andd closing all of the train crew operated level crossings.

[@Sackbladder]

Never mind bloody electric cars and wind farms - will someone invent a bleedin' time machine please? I wanna go back.

[@Snapdragon4472]

Nice video. :)

[@NODDINGCAT]

Nice!

[@Mishima505]

How many road-blocking juggernauts have replaced that one goods train?

[@Isochest]

lUCKING fOADS SADLY!

[@beeble2003]

Probably about nine: about two for each of the grain hoppers and about one for the bricks.

[@Mishima505]

@@beeble2003 mental...

[@motorheadmalc]

End credits: Filmed by Barry Ketteridge; ex-Stratford driver.

[@oddities-whatnot]

Wheres yer orange hi vis matey ? Eeh them were the days eh.

[@hmjmh7]

Is there any grain transported by rail now?

[@Isochest]

I don't think any in the UK now.

[@Mishima505]

I see lots of Transcéréales wagons passing through Mannheim still.

[@beeble2003]

@@Mishima505 Sure, and there's a huge amount of grain transported by train in the US and Canada. The OP was probably asking about the UK, though.

[@Tarkaman1]

Hmmm Red Rover -now I wonder who that can be :)

[@slendersausage]

what were the tank wagons on this

[@tulyar1043]

Those tank wagons were cement wagons. Might even have travelled all the way from Ketton near Stamford.

[@beeble2003]

@@tulyar1043 Actually, grain, as you can tell from "Grainflow" being written on the side. British cement tanks weren't nearly that big in the 1980s.
Edit, a year later: oops, I'm an idiot. The green ones at the start are grain; the white ones at the end are cement.

[@TheGodsrighthandman]

Makes you wonder if there's any Token-locked Single Line Working left in the UK, what with all the centralised Power Box gubbins all ower t' show these days . . .

[@ronaldchives2486]

Wigan Wallgate to Kirkby, token locked single line between Rainford and Kirkby 🙂

[@iwghd]

Watching both this video and this one I’ve linked really gives you a sense of what the town is like. th-cam.com/video/GA6wLMlva6w/w-d-xo.html

[@davidstickland3420]

Look at Wymondham now devoid of those lovely telegraph poles and semaphores replaced by led light signals whose very existence speaks of corporate banality

[@Trainbuff2008]

this was when Britain still had Great in front of her and before health and safety would interfear with that inocent bit of shunting there.

[@johnmasters504]

ah