A.E. Piggott Scrap Yard

After the disastrous fire in the stacks of coaches the Vic Berry Company ceased trading and the scrapyard was cleared.  The great attraction of the procession of British Rail rolling stock heading into the scrapyard was gone, but for a time there was still some railway activity here before the site was transformed as part of the Bede Island redevelopment.

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The view from Upperton Road bridge of Vic Berry’s scrapyard in 1992 after it was cleared of the railway vehicles for scrap.
Of interest are:

• The new scrapyard buildings with traverser which had been under construction in the distance on the far left.
• The two buildings in the centre of the scrapyard which had been used for removing asbestos from vehicles and refurbishing them.
• The red brick ex-GCR goods shed towards left of centre in the distance.
• The red brick ex-GCR power house towards right of centre in the distance, which still exists as a Tesco supermarket.
• The fence from left to right in the distance which is alongside the footpath which cut along the side the scrapyard and ran from Western Road to Western Boulevard.
• The open wagon in the exchange sidings at bottom right ready for loading with scrap, probably in the A.E. Piggott & Sons scrapyard.

There was now railway interest in trains of scrap which were apparently leaving the scrapyard of A.E. Piggott & Sons situated next to the Frank Berry scrapyard with its overhead crane in the corner of the site between Western Boulevard and Upperton Road.  Here in 1992 a pair of Class 37 locomotives, nos. 37904 and 37901, shunt the wagons to be loaded with scrap destined for recycling at steel works, probably in south Wales.
An interesting question is whether scrap had been despatched by rail from here while VIc Berry’s yard had been in operation since rail vehicles arriving for scrap at Vic Berry’s had often blocked the exchange sidings and the chord down from the ex-Midland Railway Leicester to Burton line.

Here Class 37 no. 37711 ‘Tremorfa Steelworks’ is in the exchange sidings shunting empty box wagons for loading with scrap in May 1991.  The last of the trains of scrap departed in December 1995.

The remaining scrapyards of  A.E. Piggott & Sons and of Frank Berry were eventually also closed and the whole site of of the former goods yard was cleared for the Bede Island North redevelopment, seen here in August 1996.  Comparing this photograph with the one at the top of the page shows that the ex-GCR goods warehouse has also been demolished.

Dwellings were built on the south of the site next to Upperton Road bridge.  This view shows the end of the exchange sidings and the bridge across the Old River Soar which led to one of the rail entrances to Vic Berry’s scrapyard, March 2007.

The view of the dwellings built on the scrapyard from Upperton Road bridge in August 2007, shortly before the bridge itself was demolished.  The east railway bridge over the Old River Soar which latterly led to to the A.E. Piggott & Sons scrapyard has been removed and one of the girders lies on the bank in the left foreground.