Parkandillack branch (1)

Parkandillack Branch 1

Credits, Many thanks to all contributors - please see a list on the home page.

Members and general visitors to the CRS site will be interested in visiting http://www.railmaponline.com From the opening page a full map of the UK can be accessed which can then be enlarged to show every railway line in the UK. Not just today's network but lines from the past have been overlaid. As you zoom in sidings and even tramways become visible.

A valuable tip from Guy Vincent.

If you do not see what you want try :-

Go to the Links page and select Cornwall Centre, then on their home page select 'Cornwall Image Bank'. There is a selection of photographs by John Vaughan, Arthur Trevan, George Ellis and others.

Gradient profile - Parkandillack branch. From an old working timetable courtesy Roger Winnen

N.B Click on picture to obtain an enlargement.

Token from the David Hibberd Collection

A trip up the Parkandillack branch takes one into an almost 'lunar landscape. Views taken from the Branch Line Society Railtour.

Lanjeth Crossing

Lanjeth Crossing. 4th January 2022, Copyright Mark Howells

Near High St

Drinnick Mill / Nanpean Wharf

Courtesy The Paddy Bradley Collection.

As usual, a very quick and much appreciated response from our Rangoon Correspondent
Dear Keith,
The gent in the centre (wearing frock coat) is the stationmaster. Drinnick Mill had a stationmaster until the 1950s.
Until 1966, there was a goods office and a signal box.
Trains operated both north and south out of Drinnick until 1911, when the ' Carpella break' occurred. The GWR were in dispute with the local clay company about mineral rights beneath the railway. The high court found for the clay company, so the line was severed south of Drinnick for 12 years or so. During this time, new signal boxes were opened at Parkandillack and Kernick because the bulk of the clay was going north to St Dennis.
The engine looks like an 850 class: it will have been shedded at St Blazey. There was an engine shed at Burngullow until about 1906.
We are, of course, in the pre- clay hood era; china clay was normally transported in barrels at this time.

Roy Many thanks Roy

A note from Steve Grainger - Allen.
In the Cornwall Gallery - Parkandillick Branch, there is a sepia Photo of 6 Railwaymen alongside an 060 Engine at Drinnick, The Gent in the frock Coat - Stationmaster of a Station with no passengers - is Mornington James Rich, my Maternal Grandfather ! A Welshman taking up the post at Drinnick when returning to the Rhymney Railway after demob from the Great War. His original job was already reallocated, his employer obliged to reinstate him at equal status, so offered him Drinnick in the hope he would not want to leave Cardiff, but Grandfather was not easy to shrug off, he took it and moved to Nanpean. After defeating Lung Cancer in the early 50's - date I'm not sure of, - he was relocated to St. Ives, and featured on a Poster of the Station and Staff near the end of the picture strip. His Lung Cancer triumph was unheard of in those days and is put down to the Cancer unwisely eating into a sealed pocket of Mustard Gas remnant in his lungs from his days on the Somme. The Gas was deadly to Cancer too. The attached Picture shows him (Centre) with two close Colleagues, I'm not sure who they are, possibly one is in the photo strip, but note the folded arms of Mr Rich, as in the Drinnick Photo, this standard stance due to a shrapnel wound in his left Elbow, prevented him from straightening his Arm. As I was born in 1952, just before his Illness, I was a bit too young to fully take in the occasional Mainline Cab Ride to St. Earth, and again in the Prairie to St. Ives when my Grandmother took me with her by train to collect her Husband on a Saturday afternoon. Thanks again, Steve