Healey Mills Marshalling Yard, Ossett, West Yorkshire

[@MM-gt8cg]

Thanks for the wonderful memories. My late father used to work at Healy Mills in the 70s and 80s working shifts. I remember fondly (before health and safety) he used to take me occasionally on the Friday afternoon shift when it was very quiet and I could climb into the locos as a 10 year old in the service shed and enjoy myself. Damn I miss my dad 😢

[@mickclay-vx1sx]

Can I ask your dads name might have known him, he’s still with ya my friend

[@martinwilby8942]

both me and my dad had periods working at healey ,at was more like a holiday camp than a work place ,believe me i could write a book about the place ,great memories

[@richardcaig9836]

Great video thank you very much 👍👍👍

[@YorkshireSkyPhotography]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@jeffreyhodge5564]

Very true ,I have a strange hobby ,industrial archeology ,on my travels as a salesman I travelled a large area in uk ,many the times I would observe old factories ,colliery sites ,old shipyards ,especially as I grew up in the north east and saw many ship launches in Sunderland ,old shoe factories as that was because I was involved in footwear production,

[@neilrobinson9806]

I spent many hours as a youth on the banking trainspotting in the late 70s into the 80s

[@jeffreyhodge5564]

Why when you travel in Europe do you see vast active yards full of activity ,and an enormous range of freight ,same with the rivers and canal systems ,well utilised and being constantly updated and repaired?

[@paulnolan1352]

Because those countries didn’t sell their own people out like we did. Drive around this country and look at the decline particularly in the north, the money has been sucked out and nothing put back. We are a country of waste and decline.

[@jonathanwood2465]

We're did. All the money go.. Sad state of affairs.

[@jamesbeckwith3639]

I thought that myself when I watched videos on youtube of videos of european marshalling yards.... I personally think that it's because a lot of the european countries are bigger than the UK, and they transport a lot of their goods to and from other european countries by rail, neccesatating the use of marshalling yards to get the wagons to the right points to cross the appropriate border... Marshalling yards didn't really work in the UK because of the small size of the country and by the time that the wagons had been shunted more than once it was easier and quicker to transport it by lorry.

[@tominnis8353]

Built at a massive cost as a result of an appalling lack of foresight and crazy transport policy changes. The conventional truck freight wagon size was just about right for Britain's roads. Now we have the nightmare of these monstrous lorries which cause havoc on a megalithic scale throughout the road system. Crazy . . . .

[@johnclarke2997]

I recall the yard was full of coal MGR hoppers. But as the coal mines closed the need the coal hoppers was reduced. During the early 2000s the yard was all but closed and spent most of its life storing old BR locos being prepared for scrap.

[@cedarcam]

I remember in the 70's when it was full of freight wagons even then they said it only worked at 2 3rd capacity After the ASLEF strike in the 80's most of the wagon load freight was lost and these yards went into decline. A real shame the railways were not invested in more so we did not have so many problems on our over crowded roads today.

[@majorpygge-phartt2643]

I hope all that old disused track won't be wasted, it should be offered to preservation societies if it's not too rotten.

[@Gkofilms]

Nice video this❤

[@YorkshireSkyPhotography]

Had to put your advice to use didn't I. Thank you

[@Gkofilms]

@@YorkshireSkyPhotography you’ll just get better as you go, I’m liking what your doing, keep it up

[@nounoufriend1442]

Use to work some shifts at Healy Mills in 90's , we had small shed for basic loco maintenance ,it was worked by Immingham TMD staff would only get one loco normally , got nick named Easy Mills , had nice walks down the river whilst working there . Was normally a class 37 , we could reblock there but easier way was to contact ops to get it on gas train , because it ended up at Immingham (hated blocking them )

[@geoffmullinger3469]

Hi remember me Mugsie they were the good times.

[@nounoufriend1442]

@@geoffmullinger3469 Hi geoff nice to hear from you , remember the gas train a certain person used it to send em back to IMM (Not me or you )

[@nounoufriend1442]

@@geoffmullinger3469 Hi What you upto now ? I have just retired on health reasons

[@geoffmullinger3469]

I am retired managed to finish in 2012 so had a good time a part from a heart attack in 2015 but every fine now & now living in Caistor

[@nounoufriend1442]

@@geoffmullinger3469 I finished last year got good payoff from Db had spinal surgery then failed medical for lone working , glad to hear your recovered from heart attack Its Andy math by the way ( just a part time Easy mills )

[@Mortimer50145]

Brings back memories. My grandpa was a railway enthusiast. He lived in Ossett. Often if I went to stay with him he'd take me in the car to Healey Mills. Either we'd park on the bend on Storrs Hill looking down on the yard or else we'd park on the bridge at the bottom, and we'd watch the passenger trains go round the outside and the freight trains shunting in the yard. That was in the early 70s.

[@Geo46115]

As a BR fireman back in the mid to late 60's we had regular turns with heavy freight trains from Trafford Park Sidings often with an 8F more likely a 9F or a returning Austerity WD 2-8-0. We'd often have to join the queue to release our train to be shunted, ready to work back. Hard to accept the whole area sidings have disappeared.

[@YorkshireSkyPhotography]

Thank you for the memory

[@nigelkthomas9501]

WTF went wrong? Healey Mills was vast, now it’s a hideously overgrown mess.

[@mickclay-vx1sx]

That easy to answer, rubbish managers managing it onto the d tap heap,

[@nigelkthomas9501]

@@mickclay-vx1sx Not sure I understand that reply. D tap heap???

[@exb.r.buckeyeman845]

I think it’s all about fuel tax. Put freight on the road which brings in callosal

[@exb.r.buckeyeman845]

amounts of revenue, but at the environments detriment.

[@jamesbeckwith3639]

I thought there would have been a bit more video of the whole yard even though it has nearly all gone

[@YorkshireSkyPhotography]

The whole yard is shown on the video

[@stephensmith4480]

I went to Healy mills about seven or eight years ago. We did a rescue exercise with Yorkshire Fire and Rescue along with a Team of Paramedics. We were using old Freight wagons, I think they have probably been scrapped by now. It was certainly a Busy place in it`s day.

[@YorkshireSkyPhotography]

Are you NR?

[@stephensmith4480]

@@YorkshireSkyPhotography No mate, DBC

[@YorkshireSkyPhotography]

@@stephensmith4480 Sorry, we've got a Steve Smith in NR. I was there too 😉

[@stephensmith4480]

@@YorkshireSkyPhotography Nice one mate. They did that exercise ovever a couple of days. One of our lads volunteered to be a Body and hid himself under a Tank wagon. The search Dog found him in No time at all, amazing.

[@Meld61]

The state the rest of the country is in ,very sad

[@jamesbeckwith3639]

@jeffreyhodge5564 I thought that myself when I watched videos on youtube of videos of european marshalling yards.... I personally think that it's because a lot of the european countries are bigger than the UK, and they transport a lot of their goods to and from other european countries by rail, neccesatating the use of marshalling yards to get the wagons to the right points to cross the appropriate border... Marshalling yards didn't really work in the UK because of the small size of the country and by the time that the wagons had been shunted more than once it was easier and quicker to transport it by lorry.

[@matthewc.419]

Sad to see our once glorious rail network ripped up

[@mickclay-vx1sx]

Best it’s ever looked, over grown

[@mickclay-vx1sx]

I hated healey mills,

[@mickclay-vx1sx]

Another yard destroyed by lazy drivers