Millhouses Shed RIP

[Guest bus man]

Millhouses shed as been demolished it is a pile of red brick. How ironic that the building as lasted longer than Timsley. MPD

 

This thread is dedicated to all former engine men from Millhouses especially Trevor Lomas - still missing you mate  

 

[SteveHB]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/clydehouse/8758495189/in/photostream/

 

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/industrial-sites-millhouses-railway-sheds-sheffield-april-2013

[Old rider]

Oh the time spent on the steps off Archer Road watching trains as boy. Then sneaking up the path into the sheds hoping not to get caught before finding out what engines were in the sheds. Mr Betts one of the London express drivers lived opposite my Grandparents. We always knew when he was coming off shift by the whistle he blew on the way to Midland Station to tell his wife he was on the way home. Later on I used to go to Jacobs Chucks to repair machinery when the engine sheds were Jacobs machine shop. I even spent a night there with a problem because they worked a "Just In Time" system with Black & Decker. The chucks made one day went on drills the next day, so if a machine was faulty it closed Black & Decker down the next day. It all went wrong after Black & Decker went to Suzhou near Shanghai China. Jacobs Chucks had to go to Suzhou as well. Jacobs was an American Company. I got to go the main plant in South Carolina and nearly got to Suzhou.

[Athy]

Thanks, Steve, for that link to the morbidly fascinating Derelict Places web site, which I have seen before but had forgotten about.

As a boy I went round several engine sheds, usually after my Dad had crossed the foremen's palm with silver. I remember that Darnall was one of them (lots of rugged O4 freight engines), not sure if we went round Millhouses. Would I be right in thinking that Millhouses-shedded engines would often be seen at the Midland station?

[Old rider]

On ‎03‎/‎01‎/‎2016 at 4:10 PM, Athy said:

Thanks, Steve, for that link to the morbidly fascinating Derelict Places web site, which I have seen before but had forgotten about.

As a boy I went round several engine sheds, usually after my Dad had crossed the foremen's palm with silver. I remember that Darnall was one of them (lots of rugged O4 freight engines), not sure if we went round Millhouses. Would I be right in thinking that Millhouses-shedded engines would often be seen at the Midland station?

Yes Millhouses shed's engines mostly would be seen at Midland station. I particularly remember an ex LMS 4-4-0 that worked the hope valley line. Most of the London trains were worked by Jubilee class locos. There were also a few 4F 0-6-0 goods engines.

[Athy]

I still remember a brace of 2-6-2 tanks which I used to see at the Midland station as I went past on the 'bus on the way to Pond Street: 41209 and 41245. I guess they were what would be called "station pilots", ,shunting coaches around the station area to make up trains. I suppose that these would have been stabled at Millhouses. I saw them in the 1960-62 period.

[lysander]

Back in the late 1950s locos of that type were used on the "push and pull" service to Barnsley.

[Keith_exS10]

In the late 1940s I too cycled from Banner Cross to see what was on shed at Millhouses.  Later, in the summer vacation St. George's required us to obtain suitable engineering experience. No student loans then, we all needed the money and sixteen weeks was just possible. In 1951 I got in to Laycock Engineering on Archer Road, now buried under Sainsburys.

You didn't  ask, you took what they decided for you. This time I was allocated to "Salvage" in the main Machine Shop, full of automatics turning out thousands of parts on two shifts, so I did get chance to see something new. My job was simply to clear the swarf out of a bank six autos, taking them to a big spinner to recover the cutting oil and  then tip the dry swarf into an open wagon parked on a little private siding by the main line straight opposite the crossover into Millhouses Shed. The work wasn't excessive and the regulars had got it down to four bursts in the seven hours. Hence there was time look across the tracks doing paid engine spotting. 

The salvage ganger was a tall thin chap only known as  who seemed to know a lot about the railway goings on. He told me he had a small but regular income of  halfcrowns betting with anyone who would  on whether  an engine going offshed would come back or not.  He never lost and I wondered how. Easy!

If it went out chimney first it was going north and would not return. Tender first meant southbound and it would be back within half an hour or so and  bet accordingly.The one daily working of an ex LNER B1 or Hunt from and back to York was a dead cert.  I asked how he knew that and got the improbable answer that he was Chairman of the local Working Men's Club mostly made up of drivers and firemen. "They told me and you can keep quiet about it" I should have known. Probably Laycocks best kept secret.

We did earn our money. Cutting oil is expensive and well worth recovering. Dry small steel scrap free of from oil commands higher prices from people like Tommy Wards. Just an afterthought.

 

 

[Unitedite Returns]

The BR database website, which is an excellent source of information by the way, gives the following known locomotive allocations for Millhouses Shed, (19B / 41C):-

http://www.brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=depots&subpage=locos&id=471

[Unitedite Returns]

On ‎11‎/‎01‎/‎2016 at 09:04, Athy said:

I still remember a brace of 2-6-2 tanks which I used to see at the Midland station as I went past on the 'bus on the way to Pond Street: 41209 and 41245. I guess they were what would be called "station pilots", ,shunting coaches around the station area to make up trains. I suppose that these would have been stabled at Millhouses. I saw them in the 1960-62 period.

It would seem that at the time that you saw them, both locomotives had been allocated to Canklow Shed, although both had previously spent time at Millhouses Shed:-

http://www.brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=depots&subpage=locos&id=113

[Athy]

U.R. most informative, U.R., thanks. I remember the name of Canklow from my Ian Allen Shed Book but I have never known where it is.

[Unitedite Returns]

On ‎23‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 12:11, Athy said:

U.R. most informative, U.R., thanks. I remember the name of Canklow from my Ian Allen Shed Book but I have never known where it is.

Canklow Shed used to be sandwiched between Whitehill Lane, Canklow, and the North Midland Railway Line, and was more or less opposite Duncan Street, and Ellis Street, (both extant), and which I suspect were originally built as railway cottages, to service that shed. The site of the locomotive shed however, is now completely obliterated by newish housing developments, and stood roughly where Gresham Avenue, and Lichfield Way now stand. It is particularly memorable, as it became used, during and following the end of steam traction, as a storage site for redundant steam locomotives, long lines of which could clearly be seen from Whitehill Lane. It is this reason, why I remember it so well. For some years following closure, the shed itself became home to an engineering closure, and the turntable pit, and coaling stage remained intact for a long time, until all was swept away for housing development.

The attached photograph, taken by me, in January 1975, shows the shed post-closure.

[Athy]

Thanks, U.R., for the explanation and the picture.