The 'Introduce yourself' Thread

Welcome Aitch
We are all very concerned about the things happening at Manby, my primary concern is the wholesale removal of historic features and indeed whole buildings - particularly the recent demolition of the unique tower there.

Al: I had a round of correspondence with the Chielf Planning Officer about demolition of the original Watch Office, making the point that it was not located ON the taxiway for which planning had been granted for the removal of concrete. I also pointed out that it was my understanding that the Council must be notified in advance of any demolition and I asked if prior permission had been sought in this case. The Council asked me to send location maps and photographs because they could not identify the building concerned (presumably because it was by then a heap of rubble).

Subsequently, the Planning Officer advised that although prior notification of the demolition was not made, because the Watch Office was not a listed building the Council would not have objected even if an application had been made. The moral is - if it isn't listed then a building has no protection at all. One might also argue that even if a building IS listed, there is still no guarantee of its survival. The only guarantee comes from a sympathetic owner who has the cash needed to repair, protect and re-use a building. No cash = no hope.

Bill

very sorry to hear about the desecration of yet another airfield, in my experience stopping the planners is like stopping the tide, has anyone actually ever succeeded, i fought to save the POW camp in Bridgend but to no avail, according to the council bod, it was a monument to Nazi-sum ! the long shot is....if they want it gone then gone it be

ww2nut;139979 wrote:

very sorry to hear about the desecration of yet another airfield, in my experience stopping the planners is like stopping the tide, has anyone actually ever succeeded, i fought to save the POW camp in Bridgend but to no avail, according to the council bod, it was a monument to Nazi-sum ! the long shot is....if they want it gone then gone it be

Ridiculous isn't it. Best tell the museum at Auschwitz that they are running a "monument to Nazism" as well!

It was often the case that military stores were given misleading names. Lockine was not at Lockinge and the big ammon dump on the south side of Savernake Forest was called North Savernake sidings.

Welcome Adrian ~ I read your post about about the two signal box's installed in 1940 and guess that you may be related to in some way or are the man of a similar name from Challow Box ?

I assume that they only controlled movements on the ' UP ' slow and would form some kind of block section until they had cleared that part of line.

Is there any chance you could explain how they signaled locomotives delivering materials to RAF Westcott ? ~ I understood that this had also been a main line connection between ' Ashingdon Junction ' and the old Great Central line between Calvert & Quainton Road.

Trusting that you have the time to enlighten a novice.

David.

I am the chap in Challow signal box - as wrote the 'SIgnalman's'trilogy.

The West and East boxes at 'Lockinge' were on the Downside of the double track railway. The West box had the facing points in the Up Main into the depot reception loop. The East box had facers in the Down Main to put trains across the Up Main and so into that Loop. That was a reception line reserved strictly for military traffic bound for the Depot. It was not a railway 'goods loop' where an ordinary goods train could be paced out of the way of a passenger of faster, following, freight. There's a photo of Lockinge East, after closure in 1950, taken in 1955, windows boarded up, on page 116 of my 'Heart of the Great Western'. Those two boxes were very spartan outside and inside - I went into the West box just once, that was used as a break section box 'as required', it was switched out for weeks at a time. The Milton signal box, for the larfge RFC and then RAF depot was rebuilt for WW2 and that was an 'ARP' box, built to withstand a certain amount of bomb blast. But the Lockinge boxes were ordinary boxes and yet built because of the war.

Cheers,

Adrian

Adrian ~ when I worked in Abingdon we had visited the site about ten years ago to consider using it for long term storage and we heard from one of the local groundsman that when it first opened it had been a ' Provender ' store for the army.

The GWR had their own provender store as you will know and it was interesting that they would open another one so close to the large one at Didcot.

I remember reading in Mr MacDermot's history of the GWR that in early 1915 an extensive Ordinance Depot had been founded at Didcot and that this had been followed by an Aircraft Depot close by at Milton. ( I had also been told that it was an early RFC site as you had indicated )

I had assumed that they were referring to the single site that we would have known as Milton Park however with about 30 miles of sidings its possible that they had separate signalling arrangements at one time ?

During your time in the Challow section did any of the original GWR signal men ever mention how it had been operated ?

Hello all, My name is Al Parker. I`ve been around aircraft & airfields since i was born at RAF Driffield. Now living in germany & working for a company (RUAG) at the former Dornier Werk Oberpfaffenhofen. I hope i can be of help & share some of my knowledge.