THE DILLY LINE

The steam train was known as the Dilly, it would haul trucks with shale etc from Throckley to Lemington on a single track to where the pit heap was, the trucks would go into a shed one at a time and a huge barrel type thing would lock on to it turning the truck 360 degrees until the contents were tipped out. This is where the two tubs would be filled and hauled up the pit heap as I mentioned earlier. When the train and empty tubs went back to Throckley we would jump on a coupling chain or sit on the buffers on the last truck for a free ride up to the Dene. Half way along the line were two brick ventilation shafts from the old mine workings, these were approx 12 feet high and 12 feet in diameter, we would manage to scale the wall and drop inside where there was a timber floor about six feet below. There were holes in the floor and we could here water running from a long way down, we would drop bricks down and wait for a splash which seemed to be an eternity. Fear wasn't our strongest point, as I recall some of the timbers were rotten.

There was a tub line from Blucher to the same pit heap at Lemington, this ran on a steel rope with no haulage cost as the full tubs pulled the empty tubs back up. The line crossed under Piggies Lonnen where again it was a free ride whichever way we wanted to go. I don't recall anyone ever being hurt but I do remember the time a body was found in the corn field next to the tub lines. It was a women and she had been murdered (things like that didn't happen where we lived). I heard her head was cut off and the body was placed on the tub line to make it look like suicide, alas this happened on a Saturday night and the tubs didn't run on a weekend, so it couldn't have been a suicide. From what I recall, no one was ever prosecuted for the murder. We all had our suspicions as to who done it as did the police. I remember one dark winter's night in Lemington I was visiting a couple of friends when we saw the bloke who was suspected, and we called out "Murderer". He gave chase after us, shouting "Wait till I get my hands on you, you little ********, you will be the next ones". Luck was on our side though as we had young fresh legs from all the walking, bike riding, swimming etc. If that incident had happened today he probably would have caught us as our strength would have been sapped by the TV screen and game stations.