please empty your brain below
This won't have helped my female:male ratio.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.03.16 - 7:01 a.m. | #

Or your age profile.

Gordon | 04.03.16 - 7:20 a.m. | #

Lovely post - a line I've always meant to investigate. Is this likely to be part of a series (or would that be suicide to your user demographics)?

How accessible does the trackbed look? Is it the sort of thing that looks a bit dodgy on the legality side of things?

Southern Electric | 04.03.16 - 7:27 a.m. | #

To clarify - I ask as it often seems lines like this get used as a shortcut by locals. I wondered whether this one way too. t seems to be an unusual phenomenon where residents "reclaim" so of the derelict land for other uses - many people used to extend their garden across disused lines.

Southern ELectric | 04.03.16 - 7:32 a.m. | #

Well, I'm female and I love this post. Buses I'm not really a fan of but trains & tracks I can get pretty excited about so thanks for this! I walked nearby some of these areas last year as bits of the LOOP cross by. Fascinating.

ALiE17 | 04.03.16 - 7:50 a.m. | #

Takes me back to the days of my youth, taking the dog for walks across the Spencer Road bridge - he hated the gaps between the planks! My dad taught me to ride a bike along the passage to Birdhurst Rise.

Another abiding memory is the very loud noise the trains made when crossing the Croham Rd bridge.

A feature of interest then was several concrete tank trap cubes on the eastern side of the line between the Spencer Rd and Croham Rd bridges - I wonder if they're still there?

And sorry - I ticked all the wrong demographic boxes...

Mike | 04.03.16 - 7:56 a.m. | #

A lovely well-researched piece - especially considering it is by someone not from the area with a particular local interest.

Has a soft spot in my life but I can't think I ever used it for a genuinely useful journey and I strongly suspect it should never have been built as it never really made sense.

To answer Southern Electric, there are no signs, that I know of, of encroachment. The line is, as I understand it, still owned and maintained by Network Rail. This can be evidenced by the new looking bridge number plates at Spencer Road footbridge - incredibly still there. This is probably partly due to the line rarely being on the level but generally on an embankment.

I am amazed the line survived as long as it did.

Pedantic of Purley | 04.03.16 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Okay - thanks very much for the answer. Maybe this sort of this is associated more with longer closed lines then.

Southern Electric | 04.03.16 - 8:09 a.m. | #

Bingham Road was the station used for the switching trains sequence in the Tony Hancock film The Rebel.

| 04.03.16 - 8:26 a.m. | #

DG may not wish me to reveal this but we walked this together. If you follow the link to the Londonist video you'll find a video series there of other lost railways. I've done 6 now, and wil do 5 more!

Thanks for the plug DG. And thanks for not deleting this comment. :-)

Geofftech | 04.03.16 - 9:44 a.m. | #

Re DG comment about female readers. I like anything about trains ... Or trams. I took part in the pre opening accident scenario for the tram. - around about the time there was a real accident when a tram hit a car in Croydon town centre.!

Cornish monkey | 04.03.16 - 10:07 a.m. | #

I have actually travelled the line from Elmers End to Sanderstead - [probably around 1978). It looks like Pedantic of Purley did as well. Anyone else?

My only recollection of it is of a group of schoolboys in the adjacent compartment, who appeared to be the only other passengers on the train, and who hung a briefcase belonging to one of their number on the exterior doorhandle as a prank. I suppose it made a change from chucking them on the top of bus shelters

timbo | 04.03.16 - 10:58 a.m. | #

A splendid piece of writing about a nicely diverse bit of dead railway. The mixture of use-by-trams, reversion to nature, and other outcomes makes it very interesting.

I like your measured reference to the BML2 plans, which are so diplomatically phrased as to (hopefully) offend neither enthusiasts nor extreme sceptics (both categories can be a bit touchy).

Malcolm | 04.03.16 - 12:22 p.m. | #

This article makes me both regret and rejoice on not visiting Croydon last year... a must-go next time!

Patrickov | 04.03.16 - 12:31 p.m. | #

This piece has really brought back memories. I went to school up the road from Addiscombe.
We used to white the road letters out of the Lower Addiscombe Road name plates to change it to Owe Disco Road.
Funny how these things stick in the mind when one is a classic demography of a diamond geezer reader!!

Chris | 04.03.16 - 3:28 p.m. | #

here is some 8mm footage of the said line:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmx2eqIDm2M
and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvT_gtFId0

Andy Barnes | 04.03.16 - 7:28 p.m. | #

but that is one of the links that DG has already provided. Click on the "1983" in the first paragraph. The previous "somehow" provides another.

Pedantic of Purley | 04.03.16 - 10:43 p.m. | #

In response to Timbeau's question, I travelled the line quite a few times. The last train in the morning was after the 0930 Cheap Day Return deadline, and it made a change from South Croydon (and gave the Coombe Rd booking clerk something to do, the devil making work for idle hands).

And apart from dog walking, going to and from primary school I used to walk over the line's other footbridge, just north of Selsdon, giving views of the Oxted and Brighton lines and Selsdon's goods yard and northern entrance, which always looked rather forbidding.

Mike | 04.03.16 - 11:22 p.m. | #

Yet another comment - the piece says that the bridge over Lower Addiscombe Rd was an impediment to double-deck buses, but route 12 under the bridge was operated by RTs: it was a bit scary sat at the front of the top deck, and I think the posted height was 14'6", the same as the bus.

The Coombe Rd bridge, though not on a bus route, was definitely an impediment on one occasion. In 1960 Croydon celebrated its millenium, with a pageant in Lloyd Park served by a special bus route from the town centre. I can't remember the planned route, but a double decker using Coombe Rd hit the bridge.

Mike | 05.03.16 - 3:49 a.m. | #

Very enjoyable post,DG. Although I didn't get to ride the train I still have memories of the announcements on the Hayes line- for Woodside,Addiscombe,Bingham Road etc change at Elmers End. I use the trams often but haven't followed the rest of the line by walking.That's now on the to do list. This lady loves your posts about trains,buses,walks, but Please! No Kittens!

Jo W | 05.03.16 - 7:31 a.m. | #











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