LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton
Tile Hill Station: lnwrth715
LMS 5XP 4-6-0 Patriot class No 5538 before it was named
'Giggleswick' passes north of Tile Hill station with a down express in November
1938. With at least 11 coaches behind the tender No 5538 is passing the site
where a refuge siding was built in the 1950s. The refuge siding was built to
accommodate locomotives travelling to collect oil wagons from the oil
distribution depot off Torrington Avenue a little to the south of Tile Hill
Station.
This involved the locomotive running from Coventry or Rugby
to the siding, sometimes light engine, sometimes with full tank wagons. When
with a train it would run into the siding, unhook, run forward before running
around the train via the down line. Then the engine would then take the train,
tender first, cross to the up line and run back towards Coventry into the
siding. Number 5538 was built at Crewe in July 1933 and withdrawn in September
1962 from Nuneaton Shed and scrapped at Crewe in December of the same year.
Reg Kimber writes. 'On the other side of the line opposite
the siding was a football pitch. I happened to be playing there one Saturday
afternoon and we received some vocal support from the crew of a Jubilee 4-6-0
which was in the siding. I happened to score a goal (a very rare occurrence as
I played full back) and the goal was greeted with cheers from the crew and a
number of hoots from the loco. A memorable moment. The trouble was I wasn't
wearing my glasses and never knew which locomotive it was'.
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