Starting Point - Fitzwilliam Station. Round Trip. Distance 7 Miles
I first heard about this line from the book "The Light Railway King of the North" (look for this book on the Railway and Canal Historical Society website). One of several light railway schemes developed across the north by Sebastian Meyer. The main purpose of this scheme was to move stone quarried near Ackworth, the line ran from Hemsworth Colliery to Brackenhill Junction near Ackworth on the Swinton & Knottingley Joint Line. Though Hemsworth Colliery was on the Great Northern Railway close to the present Fitzwilliam station there wasn't a direct connection to the GNR, if goods were to be forwarded to the GNR system it would have had to be through the sidings of Hemsworth Colliery which were connected to both lines. Originally it had been planned for the line to have a south facing connection to the GNR near Hemsworth station and to just run from there to Ackworth with a branch to Brackenhill which was not built. Earl Fitzwilliam who owned Hemsworth Colliery and much of the land in the area on which the railway was to be built objected to the initial scheme though, preferring a line to connect with the S&K which would provide another route and company by which his coal traffic could be moved.
Opened in 1914, the line was operated by the North Eastern Railway and subsequently by the LNER and BR until the line closed in 1961. The North Eastern were partners with the Midland in the S&KJL, as a result any through traffic worked through from the S&K end and it was operated as a branch of the S&K.
As mentioned Hemsworth Colliery was close to the current location of Fitzwilliam station, this is on the line from Leeds to Doncaster. The site of the colliery is now the Fitzwilliam Counrty Park and is accessible from just across the road from the station entrance.
Below - Former colliery winding wheel at the site of Hemsworth Colliery.
Below - The Miners Club on Wentworth Terrace adjacent to the site of Hemsworth Colliery
The path that followed the Brackenhill Light Railway runs along the eastern edge of the country park.
Below - Former trackbed passing the former site of Hemsworth Colliery, now a tree lined path around the eastern edge of Fitzwilliam Coutry Park.
The railway would have gone in to a cutting and crossed under Rose Lane, however this cutting has been filled and the footpath now crosses Rose Lane on the level.
Between Rose Lane and Wakefield Road, the side of a yard alongside the former line is still in the construction industry, being Tarmac's Ackworth Asphalt Plant. Some of the associated buildings such as huts and weighbridges may have been around when the railway was in use.
The line passed through Ackworth Moor Top and the village has obviously seen a lot of housing development since the railway closed. The course of the railway has been retained, but sections of steep stone lined cuttings have been filled in so it now gives the impression of being a strip of green on which the residents of the modern housing can walk their dogs rather than that of an old railway. The path now has the name Tom Dando Way.
Where the line passed under Barnsley Road the path is at original track level, demonstrating the steep stone sided cuttings excavated for the line.
Beyond here the modern housing of Millgate now occupies the trackbed, as does the meeting point of the back gardens of Doncaster Road Estate and Beverley Garth. I continued via Doncaster Road and Tan House Lane to where the connection to the S&K line can be seen on the Google satelite images. The railway would have crossed over Tan House Lane on a bridge and the embankment has since been removed completely level with the field.
The final stretch of embankment up to the former Brackenhill Junction is in situ but is clearly signposted as a private road, this is used for railway maintenence vehicles to access the S&K Route. Across the fields the 6 arches viaduct that takes the S&K over the River Went can be seen.
The Brackenhill Light Railway was never intended as a connection with the Great Northern Railway, rather it was to draw coal out of Hemsworth Colliery. However, if you follow the trackwork through, you can see the BLR connected with the colliery lines to the north, while the GNR connected to the south. Yes, the colliery line allowed for through passage of traffic, but it was never used like that. Further reading can be found in "Swinton and Knottingley Railway" by D.L. Franks.
ReplyDeleteI refer you to the maps of the BHL in this publication by the North Eastern Railway Association. It shows all the bridges along the line and the limit of the BLR and the start of the internal Hemsworth Colliery Company lines. https://ner.org.uk/product/york-and-north-midland-main-line/
Thanks for the comment. I've updated the text, I thought I'd changed it before but I must have either forgotten or not saved the changes. I gather from the Light Railway King of the North book that an earlier version of the scheme was to have a south facing connection with the GNR at Hemsworth station and not even connect to the S&K but Earl Fitzwilliam owned a lot of the land the line was to be built on and wanted another route for his coal traffic rather than a branch off the GNR that would only benefit the quarries around Ackworth.
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