Institution of Mining Engineers - South Midland Tour 2 - 10th December 1989

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1:50,000 map (1987) Burton is off top left and Leicester bottom right. The 'Mine' upper left is Snibston near Coalville Mantle Lane. Coalville Jn is upper right of centre and the 1½ mile Coalfields Farm Branch runs down to Ellistown. Heather Sence Valley Opencast Site is off lower left, with its two mile coal conveyor belt route marked as 'Conveyor'. Middle far right is Bardon Hill Quarry branch.	The 1m 24ch Stud Farm branch and its rounding loop (OG 1988) from Bagworth Jn. The Burton-on-Trent/Coalville to Leicester line runs north to south here, far left from top to bottom.	More bleak weather at Rawdon Colliery on 10 Dec 1989; the line used to go further here.<br>[© Ian Mortimer 1989]	A National Coal Board diesel shunter approaching a level crossing on the quite lengthy Nailstone branch with a rake of loaded coal wagons in Mar 1979. Nailstone Colliery itself (in the distance middle left) had closed in 1967 but the large coal preparation plant served several collieries linked underground. As mentioned in the report, this branch was replaced by a conveyor belt when Bagworth Bunker opened near the main line; coal from Bagworth Colliery then was then brought to the surface at Nailstone for preparation before bing taken by conveyor back to .... would you believe ... Bagworth bunker to load into MGR trains!<br>[© Ian Mortimer 1979]	In railway days the layout at Nailstone (1:10,560 scale 1964 map) was unusual with a very tight curve that wagons were propelled round from the empty wagon sidings (rightsode on map), then they ran under the loading hoppers and were drawn out after loading - thus the loop was ungriceable you had to be an empty wagon to do it! The curve was so tight the wagons even had to be separated to go round (into rakes of two or three) which was hardly an efficient method of operations particularly for MGR wagons.	The same map with all the Nailstone branch, upper middle to bottom left, Bagworth Colliery (bottom right) and Ellistown top centre were linked undergound to Nailstone as was South Leicester Colliery (off map to the northeast). Note Bagworth & Ellistown station CP 7 Sep 1964 along with the Burton (off top) to Leicester (bottom) line.	Stud Farm Quarry bunker, looking towards the end of line from the tour, this branch had only opened the year before and, of course, is still open and sending out many aggregate trains now.<br>[© Ian Mortimer 1989]
Just up the line towards Leicester the tour passed Desford Colliery Jn, where a short NCB worked branch ran to Desford Colliery which was famous for its brass band. Before the colliery closed in 1984 Chris Boyle organised a trip on the railway for the RCTS in Jun 1983, <br>[© Ian Mortimer 1983]