Barrow on Soar & Quorn Railway Station

Extracted from British Railways 'Past & Present' No. 47 Leics.
John Stretton (2004)

Barrow-on -Soar & Quorn:

On the platform, looking south, a small handful of expectant travellers ready themselves to board as No.44843 slows for the stop at the head of the 9.30 am Leicester (London Road) – Llandudno ‘holiday special’ on 11 June 1961. Judging by the dull weather conditions and the overcoats worn by the two passengers on the right, the day is not living up to the promise of ‘flaming June’ I note how the station name-board is attempting to vie with GCR in attracting travellers bound for Quorn, which, in truth, was much closer to the Central! The ‘and Quorn’ appendage was added in 1899 – the year the GCR opened! – the station having originally been simply ‘Barrow’ when opened by the Midland Counties Railway on 5 May 1840, the ‘Barrow -on -Soar’ from 1871, displaying a 15C (Leicester Midland) shed-plate, No. 44843 came to the city from Burton-on-Trent on January 1959. A transfer to Saltley came on 13 July 1963, after which it remained on the WCML. Until the end on 7 October 1967.

Frank Cassell

---

Barrow-on -Soar & Quorn:

Had I chosen to go to school in Loughborough after the ’11 plus ’ I would have attended Humphrey Perkins School in Barrow-upon-soar and would have alighted at this station and would cross footbridge to access the path in the middle distance. O 4 June 1962 engineering work appears to be underway at the platform end as the No. 48356 gathers speed through the station with an up-mineral train.  A low brick wall on the up platform, to the right of the train, shields the twin goods lines. Note the attractive station building at the foot of the sloping approach road. The signal box dates from 1919.

Following closure of the station, together with others on the route north out of Leicester, on 4 March 1968 all vestiges of the station were swept into oblivion, sadly in the case of the delightful architecture of the building seen above. The new ‘Ivanhoe Line’ station – Barrow-upon-Soar – opened on 28 May 1984 some half a mile south on the former goods lines. As seen here the footbridge still serves to cross the line, but elsewhere there is much change, not least to the walls on either side of the tracks, as nature takes every opportunity to colonise.

Resplendent in the latest MML. Livery, unit 43091 has no reason to stop on the early morning of 16 June 2004 as it heads south with the 1C13 0705 Sheffield – St Pancras service.

B.W.L. Brooksbank, InitialPhoto graphics collection M5

Please note: The text presented to us was somewhat difficult to read we have done our best to give a accurate description.

 

Barrow Train Crash 2008

MOUNTSORREL:

How many of us would have envied the photographer, not necessarily for this view, but for the fact that he spent many of his formative years in the house on the left, opposite the ex-MR Mountsorrel signal box. and was able to look over the garden fence and be familiar with both the speed and sound of passing expresses! 'Royal Scots' would not have been common in those earlier times, having only become residents on the Midland Division in the late 1950s, following the encroachment of diesels on the WCML, their natural home. On 10 August 1962 a creditably clean No 46115 Scots Guardsman steams past the site with the 12.IO pm Manchester (Piccadilly)-St Pancras express. This was a daily working due to WCML electrification until 9 September 1962, departing from Leicester at 2.55pm. The first rebuilt 'Scot' to receive smoke deflectors -in June 1947, when it also acquired the type. 2A boiler seen here -No 46115 was a Longslght (Manchester) locomotive at this date but was withdrawn from Carlisle (Kingmoor) on 3 January 1966. Thankfully It was to survive in preservation and, In 2004, was waiting a return to steam. The turnout in the left foreground leads to the Mountsorrel Granite Co's exchange sidings, now the preserve of Lafarge Redland.

The turnout is still in existence, and in regular daily use by Lafarge, the current operators of the Mountsorrel quarry but now much rationalised since steam days. In addition, the direct line from the quarry to this point -which is actually closer to Barrow-upon-Soar than Mountsorrel -provided by the Midland Railway In 1860 has, since 1977, been replaced by a conveyor belt, to bring the material to these loading sidings. At 1144 on 19 November 2003, in very dull weather, GBRf-llverled No 66703 Doncaster PSB 1981· 2002 waits for permission to join the main line on the right, with a train of loaded aggregate. Sadly, both house and signal box have long gone.

Frank Cassel//MJS