History of the Wye Valley Railway

Quarry rail traffic

Two major quarries were served by the Wye Valley Railway:

Tintern Quarry which operated from 1931 to 1981 is located just north of the northern portal of the Tidenham tunnel approximately 2 miles from the main line junction.

Tidenham (Dayhouse Quarry) was operated by T.S.Thomas (Lydney) Ltd. Tidenham station was turned into a stone loading site for the quarry in 1968. It was situated half a mile from the main line junction. The last train ran to the quarry in September 1992.

At first open wagons were used for carrying the quarry stone as shown in the photo. Later ‘dogfish’ wagons were used which took the ballast direct to the track site, dropping it at a controlled rate.

Memories of working the quarry trains from Tony Rake

Railways in South Wales Facebook page response by Tony Rake to a post asking for memories of the railway:

‘Worked the morning and afternoon ballast dogfish stone trains as a second man from severn tunnel in the late 70s and early 80s, on a class 37 usually with 20 dogfish on. We use to leave half at Thomas quarry at Tidenham on the loop line by the old station platform which was the loading bay, we then moved on to Tintern, through the tunnel, when we got there we coupled up and pushed the loaded wagons down towards the stop block leaving the empties there for the next day. We then changed ends back towards Tidenham for the ones we left there earlier. One story which happened to me was some drivers tried to beat each other at how fast they could go through tunnel. I remember with Driver Brian Bond going 35ish mph at the end of the tunnel, I thought we were going straight into the River Wye, good old days.

And I do believe he was beat by Terry Johns, someone else might know, but it was quite
frightening. Something that the old drivers did always tell us was from Wye Valley junction on the main line to the top of the bend, this was one of the most excessive gradients in a short distance on the railway.’

Quarry train movements sequence

The following photographs show a sequence of movements of a quarry train from the Wye Valley Railway junction to Tintern Quarry for loading and then returning to the junction. They were loaned as negatives by Brian Handley who wrote ‘The Wye Valley Railway’, published in 1982. Many of these photographs have not been published before. They were taken in July 1979. The negatives were developed into jpg format by the Clevedon Camera Club.

Excursion trains

Ballast trains were not the only visitors to the Tintern Quarry. Excursion trains became popular in the latter years of the Wye Valley line. On 8 April 1978 the Tintern Thunderbolt visited the quarry for a photo stop.

Investigation into a derailment near the main line junction in the 1980's.

This investigation was carried out because there were some rather distant memories about the accident.

Cause and location of the accident

The Rail Accident Investigation Board was approached for records. They replied to say that as:

the accident occurred on the remains of the Wye Valley line in the 1980s which was freight -only and incidents on such lines would only have got a published report if a lot of people had got hurt.

There are no records in the Railway Inspectorate Annual Reports.

The accident would have been investigated internally by BR with the Railway Technical Centre at Derby carrying out an investigation into the cause. These records are subject to a closure rule on release to the public of up to 40 years.

Martin Scott, Greenways and cycle routes volunteer, has provided the best explanation of the likely cause of the accident. He saw a Dogfish ballast wagon on its side near to the junction with the main line. The wagon had a broken axle.

The location where the wagon was seen may not be the location where the wagon was derailed. The extent of track renewal referred to below suggests a derailment further up the incline. Martin Scott saw the ballast contents spilled out of the wagon at the point shown on the map. But this may have happened when the wagon was tipped in its side after being hauled down the incline to clear access to the ash drag (the escape track filled with ash to slow down and stop a runaway truck).

The likely cause of a broken axle is a hot axle box on a wagon with a plain bearing.

This link about dogfish wagons contains the following:

‘A further 5 lots were built over the next 6 years, all by Metro-Cammell and all to the same diagram number. Despite this, it is believed that the specification was changed at some point, later deliveries having roller bearings (instead of plain)’

So, there would have been plain axle-stock on the line.

One of the most common causes of hot boxes is leakage of oil due to the packing not being replaced or topped up at the correct intervals.

Another possibility for a wagon that has been overhauled recently arises from a bearing that was not machined to the correct surface finish standard. The standard set was at the limit of older the workshop wheel lathes. Kev Daniels, a Greenways and Cycleroutes volunteer, worked for the workshops of British Railways in the 1970s. He recalls being called out with a group to attend a derailment in the North East. The wagon had been recently overhauled at the Shildon works and the most likely cause of the accident was considered to be faulty axle machining at the works.

The catastrophic failure mode of a broken axle that can result following a hot box is explained in :

en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_box

Hot boxes are much less frequent today with the more widespread use of roller bearings. But they are not unknown. On 2 February 2021 a hot axlebox detector alerted a signalling centre that stopped a Pendolino passenger train. The train took over 2 days to reach the depot for repair. (Railway Magazine March 2021)

During the construction of the cycle route some of the WVR track was lifted by the Dean Forest Railway where it will continue to be of use. Adam Williams of the Dean Forest Railway spoke with the civil engineering staff that relaid the track and found it was difficult in getting a clear picture, summarising the conversation:

‘I tried to gleam as much information from them (track staff involved in the relaying) as I could before we lifted the track on the south side of the A48.

The only thing they could concur on was that it was a bastard of a job’.

Date of Accident

The accident occurred in 1989 according to Adam Williams although according to Richard Taylor, posting on the Official Dean Forest Railway Facebook Group, it was earlier. Martin Scott believes it was in the late eighties.

Train formation and track renewal

Typically, a type 37 or a diesel-hydraulic ‘Hymek’ would have been the motive power pulling 20 wagons

It is unlikely that the locomotive was also derailed according to Adam Williams as this would have caused considerable concern at a high level in BR which would have become widely known.

The track was replaced by continuous welded rail between the points from the main line up to and including the bridge. This could indicate that the wagon had failed some distance before coming derailed.

Adam Williams has responded to a Facebook query:

‘When I went through cutting the rail south of the A48, a lot of the rail was stamped 1959/1960 and already worn on the one face. So it’s use in the Wye Valley was its second life.

A loaded stone wagon derailing - even if staying upright, it would have carved up a good length. In addition, the old wooden sleepers there were probably around 30/40 years old and getting life expired.’

So the presumption is that (whatever the cause of the derailment) the track was relaid with material to hand at the time in order to get the line back open.

Events after the accident

The accident could have brought forward the final closure of the line.

The replacement rail with rail clips and concrete sleepers (Adam Williams)

The quarry went to road haulage whilst the rail connection was severed and traffic never really resumed on the line. The formal closure of the line followed.