Toton-Rail.co.uk : Railway Photography by Paul Robertson

Chaddesden Sidings

The yard at Chaddesden sidings, just North-east of Derby station was always a fascination to me in my spotting days. There just always seemed to be something running in or out of there, and you could often stand on Derby station and see locos shunting back and forth (prior to the Pride Park link road obliterating the view). I can recall seeing numerous 20's, paired and single locos, 25's, 31's etc, and even a 50 managed to get to Chaddesden on a spoil train from the West Midlands.

The yards purpose was for the disposal of spent ballast and materials, reclaimed from weekend engineering possessions, which were removed from the wagons by mechanical grabbers which worked on a ridge of ballast adjacent to the southernmost siding, depositing the spoil into large heaps which were then later loaded into lorries for distributing to the crushing facility. With only this 1 siding being available for the actual removal of the content of the wagons, there was much shunting required to position rakes of wagons for the grabbers to work on. Obviously when the rake was emptied, the pilot loco would shunt these wagons out into an empty road and reposition the next loaded rake for unloading. Toton's T89 trip was the dedicated pilot loco for Chaddesden in the 90's, and would often take a rake of loaded spoil from Toton at around 0830, spend the morning shunting the yard, and return to Toton anytime between lunchtime and late afternoon. In later years, this trip became known as 6T18 ex Toton, returning as 6T19, and there being a second path each way 6T20/6T21 which was occasionally utilised in times of high demand. Motive power was usually a class 31 or 37, but in later years it could be anything that Toton had spare, 37's, 47's, 56's, 58's or 60's.

There were also two timetabled paths each way from/to Bescot engineers yard, again for the movement of spoil from the West Midlands area. These were an early path ex Bescot at approx 0530, returning around 0930, then a second trip around 1300, returning 1630ish. I recall the headcodes in latter years as 6M36/6G38/6M40/6G40. Quite often the loco that worked the morning trip also worked the afternoon trains, so if the weather didn't play ball in the morning, you had a second chance.

Chaddesden was also used as a stabling facility for weekend possession trains, with either rakes of empty spoil wagons running to possessions for loading with spoil or pre-loaded ballasts, which were usually loaded at Mountsorrel quarry, then stabled at Chaddesden in readiness for the weekend. In the early 90's, Toton T91 trip was the regular trip for taking empty wagons from Chaddesden to Mountsorrel for loading, usually leaving Chadd between 0900 & 1000, and returning back to Chadd at lunchtime or early afternoon. Toton had another 'general purpose' trip, T93 which was utilised as required, sometimes running an extra trip from Chadd to Mountsorrel and return.

Photography in the yard area was a little hit and miss, as you could often end up hanging around waiting for the pilot loco to perform a shunt. This was often the case if you managed to arrive whilst the grabbers were still unloading a rake of spoil, the pilot would retreat to the bottom of the yard, adjacent to the shunters cabin, where the shunter and traincrew would 'relax' until the grabbers had finished their task and another rake was needed to be shunted into position. I must pay tribute to the 2 or 3 regular shunters who worked at Chaddesden, without their 'permission' or rather tolerance, photography in the yard wouldn't have been possible.
The usual route into the yard was via the path that ran at the side of the cattle market, which lead under the dark and dank tunnel under the sidings which for many years was partly blocked by the burnt out shell of a mini. Whoever managed to drive it into the tunnel and get to the far end must have had some bottle as there wasn't much room each side, certainly not enough room for them to have managed to open a door to get out, so i guess they kicked the windscreen out to escape prior to torching it. There were a few different shots to do in the yard, there were a couple of embankments that could be scaled to provide some height, as well as the mountains of spoil. For a long period there was also a wheel-less OBA wagon you could clamber on top of, a remnant of one of the numerous derailments that happended in Chadd due to the poor state of the infrastructure. The building of the bridge over the North end of Derby station, linking the city with Pride Park was a welcome addition to the locations available for photographing trains departing Chaddesden, it being an ideal spot for the afternoon departures.

In the late 90's, news spread of EWS's & Railtrack's plan to implement the virtual quarry concept, the East Midlands being served by a VQ at Toton, the West Mids at Bescot. This was what put paid to the outstabling of weekend ballasts at Chadd, and with the news that a spoil recycling facility was also to be built at Toton, the nails were really starting to be hammered into Chaddesden's coffin. The Toton and Bescot trips fizzled out in 2003, but Chaddesden wasn't quite dead yet. The yard was chosen as the virtual quarry site for the WCML upgrade in the Stafford/Stoke/Crewe area. The yard was ripped up and relaid, with new tower lighting installed. Freightliner Heavyhaul stocked the VQ with ballast brought in from Bardon Hill, and there were a few EWS operated trains too. Upon completion of the Stafford-Crewe blockade, the yard again became silent. However, in February 2006 FLHH again started running spoil trains from Basford Hall to Chaddesden, due to the spoil heap at Basford Hall being at capacity, but this only lasted a couple of weeks. There were also plans to use the site as a stabling and servicing facility for all Network Rail on track plant, but I understand that a location near Woodhouse, South Yorkshire is now in favour for this. Currently Chaddesden is being used to stable the 7 car Loram rail grinder trains and has been used for stabling wagons and coaching stock by Victa Westlink Rail who took over the running of Fragonset-Merlin Rail. Also since summer 2007 the sidings have been used overnight for stabling and servicing of up to 4 x East Mids Trains (formerly MML) HST sets, releasing much needed space at the cramped Etches Park depot.

In May 2008, Chaddesden is about to gain another new lease of life yet again with five of the sidings being leased to Fastline Freight for stabling coal sets which will be working Daw Mill-Ratcliffe coal trains. Sets will be stabled and maintained in Chaddesden with locos running to and from Derby Etches Park for fuel.

	37421 passes Wilmorton on the final approach to Derby with 6T21 1421 Toton-Chaddesden, the second trip of the day from Toton, this is bringing stone to top up the virtual quarry stockpile. The view is taken from the overbridge leading to Pride Park.
	37682 passes Spondon with 6T19 1230 Chaddesden-Toton empties on 17/02/01.
	37696 stands on the unloading siding in Chaddesden Yard on 19/03/99 waiting for the train to be empties prior to departing as 6G40 1517 to Bescot.
	37891 passes Melbourne Jn between Stenson Jn & Derby at approx 0645 on 08th April 1999. I'd been on nights and dashed out to Melbourne Jn to photograph the 6M36 0500 Bescot-Chaddesden which was conveying a newly painted ballast regulator behind the loco. Melbourne Jn is where the Sinfin branch diverges from the Derby-Birmingham main line.
	37688 performs a shunt in Chaddesden on 08/08/00, seen from the top of one of the mounds overlooking the throat of the yard.
	The shunters at Chaddesden often performed loose shunting when wagons required to be remarshalled or 'knocked out' due to defects. The shunt loco would draw the wagons out to the headshunt, be uncoupled then push the wagons back towards the yard, letting them free-wheel into the requisite siding. This ZBA came to a stand over the throat after not having enough of a shove from the pilot loco to make it into the siding. One of the regular shunters (Paul ?) attempts to get it moving again with his shunt pole..
	37698 arrives at Chaddesden with 6T18 the 0835 from Toton on 15/03/01.
	47775 stands on the headshunt at Chaddesden on the afternoon of 08/06/01, the train stood in this position for several hours as a wagon at the rear of the train became derailed during the shunt movement. Note the height of the stinging nettles which were always a pain (literally) on the top of this mound at Chaddesden.
	37695 passes Derby station with 6T19 1230 Chaddesden-Toton on 15/08/02.
	37428 sits on the unloading road in Chaddesden VQ on 14th March 2003, this had been an additional VQ train from Toton to top up the stockpile of ballast prior to the yard being used as a VQ for the Stafford-Crewe blockade.
	Corus silver 60033 passes Clay Mills near Burton with 6M36 0740 Bescot-Chaddesden spoil on 13/08/02.
	58030 is glimpsed between the spoil & sleepers in Chaddesden yard on 13/10/99 waiting to leave with 6G40 1617 to Bescot.
	During the period when EWS were still overhauling class 37's, Toton kept the locos restricted to local trips after release whilst they were run in and any teething troubles ironed out, here ex works 37109 passes Derby station with 6T91 1040 Chaddesden-Mountsorrel ballast 'empties' on 16/09/96. In effect the entire train bar a handful at the rear were still loaded, but the whole train was still taken for the trip to Mountsorrel.
	37114 in ex works condition approaches Long Eaton station on 08/11/96 with 6T91 0945 Chaddesden-Mountsorrel ballast empties.