Railways around Coventry

As a youngster growing up in Canley I would often see monobloc four wheel oil tank wagons going into a siding near a railway cottage at Yarmouth Green north of Tile Hill Station. I assume this siding was an oil storage depot with vehicular access via Torrington Avenue? Does anyone have any further info on this please?

Hi PP Growing up in Canley during the 50's & 60's, I used the path that went under the railway line opposite Yarmouth Green to get to Woodlands. Dont ever remember an Oil Depot or a loop in the lines though. There is still a building next to the railway line that is now a nursery. I now live in Duggins Lane and there is a loop at the end of my garden, it is used to hold the goods trains while the express and local trains pass. It was used more recently to store around 5000 sleepers for the HS2 build.

I can see something called Park Wood Cottages in that area (more where Bradney Green is today) on a 1930's map but no specific siding? You can possibly see what remained of them when the then 'new' estate went up here from BFA - from 1949 - though again no siding. There are some great Tile Hill Station Pics though here on the brilliant Warwickshire Railways Website.

Tile Hill station goods yard was to the south east of the level crossing/bridge and is now occupied by the car park. According to An Historic Survey of LMS Stations (Vol 2) there was a 250 foot long siding along the south side of the line towards Canley. An aerial photo from the second world war from Historic England shows the path under the railway, but doesn't show the additional siding at the time it is most likely to have existed. Unfortunately there is no photo of the station itself. The "nursery cottage" is absent from the National Library of Scotland1840-1880 OS map, but is present on the 1885-1900 map so probably dates from the mid-late 19th Century. This is some distance from the goods yard and the surrounding area was fields so I presume the house was for a track worker. The loop on the Birmingham side of the station was added in the 1960's as part of the electrification works. It was signalled for passenger and goods trains and was used to loop a local while a late running InterCity overtook it. It fell out of use as freight trains became too long and regulating policy changed to further delay late trains more rather than make an on-time train late.

Hi Mick, at that time I lived in Templar ave, the oil depot was, I think Esso (my brother will know), this area is now Binns close

The 1968 6 inch OS map clearly shows the depot, with the sidings and storage tanks.