The Line Today

Paul Everett

    The Gasworks Railway was dismantled almost 50 years ago, yet remarkably much of the route can still be seen. I'll describe here a journey from Bilton Junction to the Gasworks in modern times. This can be read in conjunction with the photographs in the "Line Today" gallery linked from the main page of the site.
    The coal drops area is mostly undeveloped, and currently a Nature Reserve. As such the area is very overgrown, but protected from development. However, a strip of land has been developed on along the long edge opposite the main line embankment, where the steep slope up to the high platform used to be. The bridge abutments are still in place, but there is little land between them and the gardens of peoples homes. Also, towards the gasworks end of the yard it is cut short by housing, there being thirteen houses on Tennyson Avenue between the remains of the yard and the open space along Willow Wood.
    Once out of the yard, the route through Willow Wood can still largely be traced, there being evidence on the ground of the ballast the track was laid upon. Nearer Batchelor Gardens there is one part where recent housing development is, if not actually on the route, very close to it. Crossing Batchelor Gardens, the route takes the form of a public footpath along the edge of the allotment gardens and then, along an embankment still visible, across the bottom edge of the estate of houses built on Knox House Farm by Kebbell. There are roads on this estate called "Old Barber", "Pecketts Holt" and "Spencers Way" in memory of the railway. For the second half of the route along the bottom of this estate, the embankment sadly been removed.
    The line then passes into a grass field, the embankments around the bend up to the Knox Lane bridge being clearly visible, including the 1921 deviation. The remains of the bridge are also visible, although the bridge itself was dismantled in 1957, soon after the railways closure. Immediately after the bridge, the railway heads into a cutting leading up to the tunnel mouth. The first part of this has been filled in, and is now part of the yard for a sawmill. The second part, including the tunnel mouth itself is in the back garden of a domestic property, and still very visible.
    The route of the tunnel itself is now almost entirely covered by housing, including the location of the air shaft. From what I can work out, this is now either under the road of Knox Avenue, or one of the houses on it. Accurate maps or GPS equipment and a trip down the tunnel could determine this.
    The southern tunnel mouth is now in the yard of an industrial unit on Ripon Road. The area by this which was the Gasworks yard is also covered with light industrial units, giving no clue as to the areas heritage.
    Anyone in the area wanting more information as to locations etc., feel free to contact me, and I'll try to help. An email link is on the front page.