Can anyone confirm this location please?

A photo has been posted to a Facebook group I follow and it has sparked a debate about whether it is of the place it is claimed to be.

I won't name the location it is supposed to be, but I am 90% confident it is correct, even though the picture predates my detailed memories of the place.

I'd be very grateful if anyone who is sure they know where it is can give me the benefit of their knowledge, showing their working out

Bonus points will be awarded for anyone who can suggest a likely date for the picture based on any clues within it

 

I am fairly sure that this is Stafford, and that the photo was taken from the platform end at a date immediately after nationalisation. The crab has LMS on the tender but appears to have a newly painted BR type number on the cabside.

Andy

 

Here is a photo I took from a similar viewpoint in 1962, which shows quite a few similarities.

 

Hi Andy,

Many thanks for your reply and for posting the picture. It was posted in an old Stafford group and was apparently originally published in the Staffordshire Advertiser. I think you are spot on with the date, I had realised it was post 1948 from the Crab's number, but didn't pick up on the LMS lettering on the tender.

Some could not reconcile the signals on the gantry with the layout at Stafford, one queried the hopper orientation and swore blind that there was no walkway to the shed from the station, but he worked at Stafford from 1957 to 1973, and although the new station was not built until 1962, I suspect (but have not been able to find out for sure) that some signalling changes must have been made between say 1948 and 1962. For example I have found a blog which states that by 1955 there was only one set of lower quadrant LNWR signals left, at the exit to the bay at the south end of platform one, which implies that the impressive gantry in the picture I posted had gone by then.

I also have a picture, below, taken before electrification but presumably later than the picture I posted, which shows different signals for the lines between the shed and the platform, hence a degree of doubt.

That said, to me the similarities of the picture to my understanding of the then layout meant it was almost certain that it had to be Stafford. My memory of the old station was formed as a five year old waiting on the main down platform for a train to take us on holiday to St Annes, and until I found a track plan of the original layout, I'd no idea how radically the layout "behind" the current platform three had been changed. Once I realised that there was only one other through platform face and a pair of freight avoiders beyond that, the signalling made some sense.

In case anyone is interested, I also attach a 1955 trackplan which I think helps explain the orientation of lines in the picture.

A final question, if I may, to signalling experts, with regard to the signals on the gantry in the picture in my original post.

I'm assuming that from left to right, there are three homes for the down freight, presumably to indicate one of three routes (Wellington, Crewe or Uttoxeter?) then there are two signals for the up freight, a home and distant for the up slow, and a home only to perhaps cross to the up yard which existed to the south of the station, then, two for the departure from the platform, but why a post with one home then another with two homes?

 

It's most definitely Stafford and the view is taken from the north end of Platform 3 looking towards Crewe. Here's a couple of images from 'Britain from Above' which show some of the features in the OP photograph.

 

Thank you, following your post and the two above from Andy Williams, my confidence level in it being Stafford has gone from 90% to just over 100%

The second aerial shot, looking south, sbows the gantry over three tracks, which was one of the things other posters on the Facebook group thought didn't exist at Stafford.