Mum and daughter looking for fun people to explore with

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Jadekelleyx

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I am a 20 year old girl looking for fun exciting people to come exploring with me and my mum. We love exploring and have been to hundreds of places of every kind (hospitals, police stations, courts, cinemas, bingo halls) you name it we've done it! We drive so nowhere is ever too far for us. We would just like some company someone to exchange ideas/leads with and just generally someone who's down to just have fun and maybe smoke a j or two! If this sounds like you please message us on Instagram @sophynails
 
Sounds fascinating.
Have you come across the Strategic Reserve on your travels?
 
The Strategic Reserve is a hoax. A bit like the Willys Jeep factory in Corsham.
 
I am a 20 year old girl looking for fun exciting people to come exploring with me and my mum. We love exploring and have been to hundreds of places of every kind (hospitals, police stations, courts, cinemas, bingo halls) you name it we've done it! We drive so nowhere is ever too far for us. We would just like some company someone to exchange ideas/leads with and just generally someone who's down to just have fun and maybe smoke a j or two! If this sounds like you please message us on Instagram @sophynails
Aww wish you were closer to explore with I'm in the forest of dean. Only managed a couple of explores as hard to find locations lol
 
The Strategic Reserve is a hoax. A bit like the Willys Jeep factory in Corsham.
You are forgetting the secret sidings off the through lines inside Box Tunnel, with all the old steam locomotives ready for when the oil runs out. But Net Zero has made them useless with no more coal
mines !
 
You are forgetting the secret sidings off the through lines inside Box Tunnel, with all the old steam locomotives ready for when the oil runs out. But Net Zero has made them useless with no more coal
mines !
I know you are joking but the OP and her mum are new to this and will not understand the joke. So.........

There are no secret sidings off Box tunnel. The running lines are continuous from end to end and do not have and never did have any sidings or branches within. Access to tunnel quarry is next to the East Portal of Box Tunnel.
1738417877613.png


Inside the line enters a loading platform. These are like two long sidings and were used to load and offload ammunition when the Quarry was used as ammunition depot.
1738418516758.png

Copyright: Nettleden/Higgypop

There is not,and never has been, a Strategic Reserve of locomotives. The access here is too low for even the smallest BR locomotives.
 
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I know you are joking but the OP and her mum are new to this and will not understand the joke. So.........

There are no secret sidings off Box tunnel. The running lines are continuous from end to end and do not have and never did have any sidings or branches within. Access to tunnel quarry is next to the East Portal of Box Tunnel.
View attachment 534913

Inside the line enters a loading platform. These are like two long sidings and were used to load and offload ammunition when the Quarry was used as ammunition depot. View attachment 534914
Copyright: Nettleden/Higgypop

There is not,and never has been, a Strategic Reserve of locomotives. The access here is too low for even the smallest BR locomotives.
Not true at all buddy. The SSR is still out there and waiting to be found.
2260675802_e04847cb0c_o.jpg
 
There has long been countless conspiracy theories about the strategic steam reserve being buried in various tunnels. I wish it was true but as the officer responsible for the SSR many moons ago I can confirm that they existed but were hidden in plin sight. We did contracts with lots of heritage lines to keep the reserve loco's in operational condition in exchange for a free loan and usage of them. The steam reserve was abandoned 40 years ago and the engines gifted to thew lines.
 
I know you are joking but the OP and her mum are new to this and will not understand the joke. So.........

There are no secret sidings off Box tunnel. The running lines are continuous from end to end and do not have and never did have any sidings or branches within. Access to tunnel quarry is next to the East Portal of Box Tunnel.
View attachment 534913

Inside the line enters a loading platform. These are like two long sidings and were used to load and offload ammunition when the Quarry was used as ammunition depot. View attachment 534914
Copyright: Nettleden/Higgypop

There is not,and never has been, a Strategic Reserve of locomotives. The access here is too low for even the smallest BR locomotives.
So where are the strategic locomotive reserves supposed to be? I've heard of Trecwn in Pembrokeshire and Rhydymwyn in Denbighshire but don't believe them either.
 
Not true at all buddy. The SSR is still out there and waiting to be found.
View attachment 534915


I don't mind enjoying this hoax which has been running now for about 20 years. Lets just be sure that the new people getting into this pastime don't get disappointed by thinking it's true. No one has mentioned Heapey yet, which is of course another red herring.
 
The SSR certainly isn’t a hoax - the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell wrote about it extensively in the 1980’s in New Statesman magazine and his book War Plan UK. By the time “urbex” became a thing in the 2000’s, the locomotives had been dispersed but there were definite, 100%, cast iron plans to use steam loco’s in the event of a war in the years after mainline steam was scrapped in 1968.

It’s a bit like the so-called hoax or conspiracy about BT cable tunnels and hardened phone exchanges under big cities. They exist - I’ve been in them.
 
The SSR certainly isn’t a hoax - the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell wrote about it extensively in the 1980’s in New Statesman magazine and his book War Plan UK. By the time “urbex” became a thing in the 2000’s, the locomotives had been dispersed but there were definite, 100%, cast iron plans to use steam loco’s in the event of a war in the years after mainline steam was scrapped in 1968.

It’s a bit like the so-called hoax or conspiracy about BT cable tunnels and hardened phone exchanges under big cities. They exist - I’ve been in them.
Whatever Duncan Campbell was, he was not a railwayman. By the 1980s there were no locomotive sheds capable of servicing steam engines en masse, nor many staff skilled in their maintenence. Also the water columns at platform ends and in goods yards had been removed. The last water troughs were taken up in the 1970s. Likewise the coaling facilities had gone. The idea that locomotives that had not been used for a decade or more could suddenly be used to haul heavy passenger or goods trains is nonsense.

As someone who has been involved with heritage standard gauge railways from the 1960s onwards, I have never heard of any of them having contracts to maintain and run SSR locos. Firstly, the number of
engines needed would have run into the thousands to replace the diesels; BR had 18,420 steam locos in 1954. Secondly, almost all preserved lines would be unable to take the typically mainline passenger and goods locos because of their axle loads. And where were the qualified volunteers to work to the standards required from the safety point of view? A shortage of volunteers has always been the cry. That Standard class locos were still being built in the 1950s but then scrapped a decade later indicates no intention of keeping a reserve. There was an official diesel strategic reserve of around 100 withdrawn locos in the 1970s. But that soon went.
 
Whatever Duncan Campbell was, he was not a railwayman. By the 1980s there were no locomotive sheds capable of servicing steam engines en masse, nor many staff skilled in their maintenence. Also the water columns at platform ends and in goods yards had been removed. The last water troughs were taken up in the 1970s. Likewise the coaling facilities had gone. The idea that locomotives that had not been used for a decade or more could suddenly be used to haul heavy passenger or goods trains is nonsense.

As someone who has been involved with heritage standard gauge railways from the 1960s onwards, I have never heard of any of them having contracts to maintain and run SSR locos. Firstly, the number of
engines needed would have run into the thousands to replace the diesels; BR had 18,420 steam locos in 1954. Secondly, almost all preserved lines would be unable to take the typically mainline passenger and goods locos because of their axle loads. And where were the qualified volunteers to work to the standards required from the safety point of view? A shortage of volunteers has always been the cry. That Standard class locos were still being built in the 1950s but then scrapped a decade later indicates no intention of keeping a reserve. There was an official diesel strategic reserve of around 100 withdrawn locos in the 1970s. But that soon went.
In War Plan Uk, page 273 he said " Unlike Sweden and some other countries which have created a strategic steam reserve as a wartime survival measure, it appears that no such precautions have been taken in Britain, wise as they may seem".
There may well have been plans, but I have neither seen the plans or the locomotives. Everything I have read on the SSR does not stand up to investigation. Corsham does not have the headroom, Heapey is something else entirely, and the other locations Duncan Campbell suggested are all surface and thus useless.

BT Cable tunnels is definately not a hoax.
 
Whatever Duncan Campbell was, he was not a railwayman. By the 1980s there were no locomotive sheds capable of servicing steam engines en masse, nor many staff skilled in their maintenence. Also the water columns at platform ends and in goods yards had been removed. The last water troughs were taken up in the 1970s. Likewise the coaling facilities had gone. The idea that locomotives that had not been used for a decade or more could suddenly be used to haul heavy passenger or goods trains is nonsense.

As someone who has been involved with heritage standard gauge railways from the 1960s onwards, I have never heard of any of them having contracts to maintain and run SSR locos. Firstly, the number of
engines needed would have run into the thousands to replace the diesels; BR had 18,420 steam locos in 1954. Secondly, almost all preserved lines would be unable to take the typically mainline passenger and goods locos because of their axle loads. And where were the qualified volunteers to work to the standards required from the safety point of view? A shortage of volunteers has always been the cry. That Standard class locos were still being built in the 1950s but then scrapped a decade later indicates no intention of keeping a reserve. There was an official diesel strategic reserve of around 100 withdrawn locos in the 1970s. But that soon went.
Yep, those are fair points, but Campbell was writing about political policies rather than the practicalities of implementing them. My understanding, purely from what I read, is that the idea was floated in the 1960’s at the height of the Cold War - similar to the Green Goddess fire engines - but once coaling towers and water towers were dismantled, I guess it was quietly forgotten. Who knows how far it went beyond a policy idea?

Anyhow, my point is that there’s almost always a kernel of truth behind every myth or conspiracy theory - and trying to discover more about them is harmless fun, compared to (say) trespassing on the four foot in order to see the Camden Rathole.
 
There may well have been plans, but I have neither seen the plans or the locomotives. Everything I have read on the SSR does not stand up to investigation. Corsham does not have the headroom, Heapey is something else entirely, and the other locations Duncan Campbell suggested are all surface and thus useless.
Safe to say none of us have seen the plans, otherwise they’d be published somewhere on the web!

Just to add - have a search for Silogen's photos of the Swedish Reservkraftstations if you're interested in strategic plans for railway tunnels during the Cold War. There's plenty out there to find if you put in the hours and the miles.
 
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Yep, those are fair points, but Campbell was writing about political policies rather than the practicalities of implementing them. My understanding, purely from what I read, is that the idea was floated in the 1960’s at the height of the Cold War - similar to the Green Goddess fire engines - but once coaling towers and water towers were dismantled, I guess it was quietly forgotten. Who knows how far it went beyond a policy idea?

Anyhow, my point is that there’s almost always a kernel of truth behind every myth or conspiracy theory - and trying to discover more about them is harmless fun, compared to (say) trespassing on the four foot in order to see the Camden Rathole.
What I cannot relate to realiy is Natters5 comment: "I wish it was true but as the officer responsible for the SSR many moons ago I can confirm that they existed but were hidden in plain sight. We did contracts with lots of heritage lines to keep the reserve loco's in operational condition in exchange for a free loan and usage of them. The steam reserve was abandoned 40 years ago and the engines gifted to those lines". The biggest single source of preserved steam locos was Bill Woodham's scrapyard at Barry, in south Wales. I'm pretty sure each of those was bought, not gifted.
 
The SSR certainly isn’t a hoax - the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell wrote about it extensively in the 1980’s in New Statesman magazine and his book War Plan UK. By the time “urbex” became a thing in the 2000’s, the locomotives had been dispersed but there were definite, 100%, cast iron plans to use steam loco’s in the event of a war in the years after mainline steam was scrapped in 1968.

It’s a bit like the so-called hoax or conspiracy about BT cable tunnels and hardened phone exchanges under big cities. They exist - I’ve been in them.
I know nothing of the plan to support and requisition Heritage Locomotives, and this is new information to me.

The usual description of the Strategic Reserve was lines of locomotives stored away in tunnels or secret locations waiting to be brought out and fired up. I think we can all agree that is a hoax and that was the type of story I was referring to. Someone tried to start a rumour about the Underground Willys jeep factory at Corsham, which did not get as much traction as the Strategic Reserve.

Does anyone remember the rumour about the Nuclear reactor underground at Burlington, Corsham? That is a hoax too, (I know the guy who started the rumour !! ). However there is a radiation warning sign
1738576716165.png
underground in the vicinity of the red door, which is all about the mast on the surface and the cable feeds to it.
 
So where are the strategic locomotive reserves supposed to be? I've heard of Trecwn in Pembrokeshire and Rhydymwyn in Denbighshire but don't believe them either.
Trecwn and Dean Hill are very similar; a network of underground magazines linked by narrow gauge rail. There are standard gauge exchange siding on both sites though these are surface only.

The RNMD Milford Haven also had a network of underground magazines linked by narrow gauge rail. There was standard gauge rail on site. I suspect there is standard gauge access to underground storage but have no solid evidence for this. Security on this site is quite active.

The Rhydymwyn site had standard gauge rail access to the site and through it. However the tunnels at Rhydymwyn are extensive but never had rail access. Today they are empty.
 


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