The photo of Market Harborough locomotive depot was tweeted today by Adrian Pullen and forwarded to me by a reader.
I don't know enough about steam locomotive to date it, but the depot closed on 4 October 1965. It was sited just to the north of the station and to the west of the Midland main line. The overbridge has long gone, though you could see its eastern abutments until recently.
Adrian doesn't know who took this picture. If you do, please let me know.
5 comments:
Are we sure this is Market Harborough Jonathan?
There appears to be a large area of sidings to the right of the picture. And where would that bridge go to/from?
I wasn't aware that MH had an MPD.
Yes, it's Market Harborough. The sidings were the Midland's yard - there was still a daily goods train that picked up wagons from there in the late Seventies. That land is now the new station car park.
You could also see where the bridge was until recently. I imagine it was used for livestock - there was a lairage field off Clarence Street - and for communication between the MR and LNWR facilities on the wider station site.
Yes it is Market Harborough, the engines and the turntable are adjacent to Great Bowden Road which is to the left of the photo. It is now the site of the large warehouse that originally housed Tungstone Batteries and now Foster's Biscuits.
The Western end of the bridge came out onto to Great Bowden Road just below the junction with the Headlands. It gave access to the sidings on the Eastern Side of the Main Line.
In it's heyday Market Harborough was a very well connected station being on the East Midland Main Line to London and the North with links to Northampton, Rugby and to the Great Northern Railway. It was no doubt these links helped the growth of 19th Century Market Harborough and helped business's like Symington Soups and Corsets to thrive as well as Tungstone Batteries. Another beneficiary was Mr Stokes the horse and livestock dealer based in Great Bowden, he was able to send horses all around the country from Market Harborough.
Difficult to date because the locos to be seen there varied little between the early 50s and closure. Worth mentioning that it was a London & North Western Railway shed, not Midland Railway. And, curiously, most weekends there were a couple of Langwith Junction locos there - not sure how they got there!
This Harborough Shed, it closed in Oct 1965 when the Seaton push pull trains were replaced by DMU's for the last 8 months before the Rugby Peterborough line closed.
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