Q17.05 – Welham Sidings
A17.05. Welham Sidings.
Welham Sidings opened on July 1st 1904 on the up side of the railway at Welham Jcn.
Welham Jcn is where the GN-LNW Joint line met the Rugby – Market Harborough – Peterborough line.
The Opening Notice states:
“Trains will enter the Loops at the Junction and leave at the new box” (This was at the west end).
The Notice continues:
“All shunting in connection with Coal Traffic hitherto done at Colwick will be done at Welham Sidings, and the waggons will be marshalled as shown. When worked by Compound Coal Engines the Trains will consist of 42 loads of coal and a 20-ton Break, Colwick to Welham Sidings, and from Welham Sidings to Willesden 59 loads of Coal and 20-ton break; an assistant engine will be attached in front , and an extra 20-ton break in rear, to Lamport. The loading of Trains, Colwick to Northampton and Leamington, will not be altered for the present”.
The Notice gives details of each of the 16 sidings and the traffic to be placed in each one.
From various conversations with locomen who worked at Welham Sidings it was a 24-hour shunt job, in latter years a 4F engine was used. One of the sidings held a train of locomotive coal which could be dispatched to Camden Loco quickly in an emergency. (Robin Callup: 17916)
The sidings at Welham were very much a change over and sorting entity for wagon trains from Peterborough and March in the east; Rugby and Nuneaton and places in the west; Northampton in the south and Colwick etc in the north. I was a fireman at Northampton in the 40/50’s and we had ‘double trip’ workings to Colwick, which invariably involved exchange of some wagons at Welham on both legs of the trip. (Derek Mutton)