South Shields Sanddancers Forum

Between Sphor Terrace and Chichester Road East with the entrance in Sphor Terrace.

Did anyone travel on this service?

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stat ... ndex.shtml

I can remember the big red NCB wagons across the Westoe Bridges and the big sign telling how many road accidents there had been displayed on the bridge facing the Glebe Methodist church.

Is that the Marsden Rattler at Westoe Station Brian?

Yes.

Pub quiz trivia, the south shields to whitburn line was the very first nationalised railway in the country

That should be.The first Passenger railway to be nationlised. Next question ,WHY? It also had another claim to fame .It had the smallest railway station in England at Marsden Halt.

It was owned by a coal company which was nationlised into the NCB before the railways were |nationlised.

Marsden Halt

Not sure which way we are facing here, are those animals grazing on the top of the Leas?

I wonder how many were lost over the cliffs on a cold winters night.

It's facing the sea.

just behind the halt is the coast road with the trolleybus wires on their posts.

Another photo of Marsden Halt

Smashin' photo that - cheers Brian.
Who would get on or off at this location? It appears to be in a kind of no-place relative to the population of the time along the Leas.

Looking at the map of the railway it was built around about where the grotto is.It was a request stop and the platform could only accomodate one carriage.

eddieg wrote:Looking at the map of the railway it was built around about where the grotto is.It was a request stop and the platform could only accomodate one carriage.

I suppose the Lizard Lane and Grotto Gardens area housing came much later.
But what about The Grotto and the lift which serves it. When were they opened to the public ?

I don't think the first picture of Marsden Halt is correct, I remember well the level crossing and it was at the bottom of blackberry hills, on our way to school we often saw the farmer bring his herd over the crossing and onto the leas.

Also the trolley bus lines only went as far as the Grotto and Marsden Station was past there, I remember playing on the platform as a kid. It was name after old Marsden village which was the mainly miners houses leading down to the cliff edge near souter lighthouse.

Pilot, if you notice the brick shelter in the middle of the first shot,

it is identical to the brick shelter in the second one. There is no doubt

in my mind that they were taken quite a few years apart.

Well I know Marsden Station was way past the Grotto towards Marsden Village and the trolley lines stopped at the Grotto. I don't think it would be unusual to have a similar building at another location two miles away on the same line. I can recall the cows on the leas but opposite Blackberry hills, not further down the coast between the Grotto and Souter. The farm was on Blackberry hills and I cant recall one as far along as Marsden.

I can't argue the point Pilot because I have next to no knowledge about the Rattler
and it's stopping points. No doubt someone will come along with more photos and
maybe clarifying it all.

The fogs of time....I wish I had a digital camera in those days Do you remember hay stacks on the leas too.

Pilot wrote: Do you remember hay stacks on the leas too.

No, but I remember Marsden village very well. It was a thriving bustling place.
I used to deliver goods there when I first started working for the Co-op way
back in the very early fifties.

About 1960 I did a bit of debt collecting in the village for a firm in Newcastle,
even got bitten by an aggresive dog there as well. There was a small Co-op shop
there on the Coast Road and a couple of other shops alongside of it. The School
was in full use then as well.