From the (Vuescanned) archives - Vic Berry

Easter 1987. I'd lost interest in railways for a little while (for the usual reasons, girls, beer, music, not necessarily in that order though) and was travelling through Leicester by coach when I spotted this.

Vic Berry's scrapyard in Leicester, 1987

Vic Berry's scrapyard, smack bang in the centre of Leicester. I fired off a few frames with my increasingly unreliable Zenit TTL camera and this is the only one that survives.

Piles of EMU and Mk.1 coach bodies on the left, a stack of what look like Mk.1 GUV bodies on the right (in the background) and a heap of Class 25 cabs in the foreground! The wasp-striped end of the yard's shunter 03069 (the former D2069) is also just visible on the right hand side.

The yard was on the site of the former Great Central Railway Braunstone Gate goods yard and the former GCR warehouse can be seen in centre of the picture. A serious fire in 1991 led to the yard's closure and in 1996/97 the site was redeveloped as 'Bede Island' a small commercial and residential area with streets named after herbs and spices. Even the bridge the photo was taken from is no more, Upperton road has been considerably lowered and apart from the River Soar only a footpath passes beneath now.

My interest in railways returned but I regret not making the short journey back to Leicester (with the Zenit's replacement, an Olympus OM-1) for another look.

Incidentally, 03069 managed to survive the scrapyard's clutches and the fire and can now be found at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.