Latest Midford report from Tom Seale.
We were down at Midford again this Sunday. We cleared a lot of the rubble behind the parcels office and exposed the tarmac and drain, looks to be in good condition.
In the afternoon we burnt about half of the brash cut down earlier in the year. We had a visit from one Dave Hillary from Romsey, he had a good forage in the rubble pile down the embankment and turned up many interesting artifacts. Chief among them appears to be some sort of railway lantern, either from a train or signal I guess, perhaps people could help identify some of the others? (see above)
4 comments:
sea the werd stevencson lever frame bits sham broken but gesing thas bits of the midford box
With this being the third effort at Midford since demolition works, quite a lot of interested people ("enthusiasts" sounds patronising) have trawled through the rubble finding all sorts of cast aside broken curiosities. Now the trees have been allowed to grow up much of it is obscured by moss which must make gleaning more mucky and difficult. Gerald kindly buried some relics when he tipped stuff "over the edge" when putting in fresh ballast, we may never know the total losses there!
Do you notice by now how everything, absolutely everything you find, is broken? It really does look as if the demolition contractor was under orders to destroy everything, not just to recover scrap metal to extent was economic. Its as if "they" wanted to make quite sure nobody would have a change of mind about the S&D closure. Rail posts that held up signs or perhaps lamps along the S&D were gas-axed right down to ground level. Was that really worth the effort for such few paltry short bits of old iron, when taking up the huge amounts of running track ?
The station building seems to have been bashed down complete with interior fittings. I have had a nice brass lamp wick holder weathering out in my garden since the second effort at Midford, recently brought in and "kitchen sink scrub through" reveals it could actually work again if a suitable wick rope was found. The long stem for wick advance suggests to me it had a big glass bowl on top, perhaps it hung up on chains to comfort waiting passengers taking shelter on winter evenings?
Some good stuff there I'm sure. Perhaps others better qualified than I could identify the finds but, being S&D they will be of value and will appeal to nostalgia (my goodness, I said the N word!) but are of historic interest. Perhaps a small museum at Midford once the Station is built?
the item on the left in the 6th and 7th photo's appears to me to be one of the support brackets from a signalling rodding run
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