Oakleigh Sidings, Northwich

[Harry Welch]

Hi everybody,

As promised here is part of a signalling plan of the Hartford Jct area dated 1995. The lines that have been scribbled out were removed when the SB was abolished and taken over by Winsford SB in 1997. The layout here was changed yet again as part of the West Coast Route Mod in 2012.

Other than the pictures I mentioned in an earlier post and perhaps some slides I might have taken of the BR/ICI sidings connections, I think this is all I have but will keep looking.

I do have quite a few pictures taken around Hartford Jct in steam days in my collection but AFAIA they are all copyright so unable to post them on here but will check them.

Have a look in the late Alan Wilkinson's books 'Railways across mid Cheshire' (Foxline 2001) and 'Crewe North' (Ian Allan 2007) for views of both Oakleigh and Gorstage sidings in steam days. I could be wrong but I'm sure that 'Crewe North' was only a working title that Alan was using as the book was not quite finished when he passed away.

Anyway hope this is of interest.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Harry Welch

[Harry Welch]

Sorry, here they are.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Harry Welch

[AntonC]

Amazing, thank you very much for going to such effort - the pictures are great. Any more would always be a bonus but to have these is extremely welcome. 

 

I'm going to continue to mine your knowledge and ask:

 

Did the MGR coal wagons discharge into the same unloading facility as the limestone wagons (seems unlikely?) or did they have a separate under track discharge point? Also, presumably the coal traffic ended at some point as coal power was replaced with, eg oil?

 

I have noticed that if you look at the current Winnington site on google maps the sidings that curve to the left after the roadbridge split into two, on the right side there is the current unloading pit and limestone storage but on the left side there appears to be what could have been coal unloading facilities and a large heap of coal (?). Conveyors lead from both areas into what I presume is a screening plant, which itself has a conveyor to the lime kilns so my assumption is that there are separate discharge points from which raw materials (coal, limestone) pass (but are kept separate) into a common screening plant before being fed into the kilns?

 

On a related note, another area I am really struggling to get any photos or even much info on is Gorstage sidings/Wallerscote light railway in general, have you come across anything that covers those areas? Would be particularly interested in anything that shows the relationship between the sidings and any junction/connection to the WCML (I can't even find any relevant track plans). 

 

Hopefully if we put out some feelers for the archives we might get some information, or at least know to stop looking! It would be great to find them, not just from a narrow modelling perspective but because of their general importance in terms of industrial history. 

 

Thanks again for all your help. 

 

Thank you so much for posting these photos - I've recently bought (and am reading) your ICI hoppers book and these additional details of the actual operations from my proposed period of modelling are incredibly helpful

 

Anthony

[9FEd]

I recently came across a collection of c.24 photos of the Wallerscote light railway in the National Archives. The photos cover the Gorstage exchange sidings and the light railway up to the Wallerscote works and give a good overview of the railway. I've never seen any of them published in, eg: Railways Across Mid-Cheshire by Alan Wilkinson etc, and unfortunately I can't post them on here due to copyright restrictions.

 

However, if anyone is interested I would be happy to email them to you for personal use - and even happier to receive some photos, eg: Mond railtour/Northwich salt branches etc in return! 

[bennyboy]

I was recently looking at some old OS maps of the Wallerscote line and I was surprised that they didn't feature the line at all! After a bit of digging I found out that this was apparently because it was only built in the late 1940s. This was surprising as having walked the line a few years ago, I found that a lot of it was in a deep cutting, some of it was on a high embankment, it crossed over one road and went under another one, all of which is a hell of a lot of civil engineering for what was essentially a private siding! It's especially surprising as the line duplicated an existing railway connection, albeit one that wasn't quite so direct. I believe that the line closed in the early 80s, so all that work was done for a line which only lasted about thirty years!

 

There can't be many post war freight line constructions that involved so much work and yet lasted such a short period of time, I guess the Tinsley Yard is the only other one that I could think of.

Edited April 16, 2015 by bennyboy

[9FEd]

Thanks for your input Bennyboy. 

 

The light railway from Gorstage to Wallerscote was indeed a post war construction - I believe it opened on 20th July 1953 and as you say, closed in the 80s at the same time as the plant that it served at Wallerscote stopped production. 

 

As an aside, no doubt there will be many reading this thread interested in the RTR 00 gauge models recently announced by Hatton's (http://www.ehattons.com/ici?utm_source=ici&utm_medium=ganttchart&utm_campaign=projectupdates). I only just became aware of the project so thought I'd flag it up in case anyone else has missed it. 

 

Although an N gauge modeller, the availability of 00 gauge ICI hoppers makes a foray into the bigger scale very tempting, particularly if combined with DCC running and sound. I'd like to model a small part of the Winnington works but first I'd like to get a better understanding of the broad functions that each of the key buildings at Winnington fulfilled. 

 

Can anyone help in labelling up one of the various maps that have been received? Or does anyone have a labelled map?

[9FEd]

 I have some more photos of loaded wagons in the sidings at Winnington from my visits as well plus some of the lime and coke unloading shed.

 

 

 Paul - just wondering if you ever managed to dig out any photos of the loading points in the works? Or any more general pictures of the works you may have taken when visiting?

[pharrc20]

I never got that far down into Winnington works to see any of the loading areas and most I think by 1998 were long disused and only the unloading sheds for limestone and coke were still in use. Somewhere amongst my stuff is an interesting book I picked up published by ICI in the late 1950s/early 1960s on how the Northwich works came to be. I can't just remember whether it included a map of the different parts of Winnington and Wallerscote so I will try to find it for you. I did meet with a chap who worked at Winnington for a short period in the Research & Development labs and he was looking for information too.

 

Cheers Paul

[bennyboy]

I drove past the site yesterday and it is slowly being turned into a huge housing estate and the second railway bridge over Winnington Ave has been removed. I guess that within a few years, all evidence of what used to happen there will have disappeared!

[Harry Welch]

Hi Everyone,

here is a view of the Hartford Junction track diagram showing the BR connections to the sidings at Gorstage. They had been removed by then but the connections remained until final closure of the box in1997. The picture was taken c1996 when nearly all the signalling worked from the box had been disconnected but remarkably it remained open for about 2 years. This explains the wiring hanging out of the back of the block shelf!

Just out of interest the trap points No 33A could not be approached in the 'trap' position as they had to be turned before you could reverse 20 points. I wonder how unusual that was?

[9FEd]

Wondering if anyone can on this thread can fill the gaps on the shunters that were owned and operated by ICI at Winnington/Wallerscote?

 

I understand that in 1951 ICI purchase 5x English Electric 350hp 0-6-0DE shunters, named:

 

1. Davy (EE works no. 1901, renamed John Brunner from 1973);

2. Perkin (EE works no. 1904);

3. Joule (EE works no. ?);

4. Solvay (EE works no. ?);

5. Cavendish (EE works no. ?, transferred to Tunstead in 1960)  

 

I've also seen pictures of either an English Electric 0-6-0 (or a Class 08) named Ludwig Mond - this loco might be one of the above renamed or a later addition to the fleet?

 

ICI also purchased 8 (?) Ruston and Hornsby 165hp 0-4-0DE shunters in 1956/57, named: 

 

1. FA Freeth

2. Kelvin 

3. Faraday

4. Rayleigh (temporarily operated at Tunstead in 1960)

5. Ramsey (temporarily operated at Tunstead in 1960)

6. Trevithick (permanently transferred to Tunstead in 1960 and subsequently rebuilt)

7. ?

8. ?

 

Finally, ICI purchased a single GEC Stephenson 500hp 0-6-0 in 1980, named Ludwig Mond. This seems unusual given that the Wallerscote facility would cease production in the mid 1980s, the internal rail system itself would be run down towards the end of the 80s and it was an expensive loco?

[ben racey]

Very interesting thread! As a resident of Hartford it's fascinating to see what was there. As some may know much of the site is now being redeveloped as part of the winning tonight urban village development. Oakleigh sidings themselves are gradually disappearing under the inevitable trees.

 

Kind regards

 

Richard

[9FEd]

Those following this thread may be interested to know that the May 2018 edition of Rail Express contains a good article, Northwich ICI Traffic, that touches on many of the topics in this thread, including main traffic flows etc. The same edition also has a feature on the ICI hoppers and a review of the recent Hatton's model by our very own Paul Harrison.