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How did Vulcan/Beyer transport their products from the works to the docks?

Discussion in 'Everything Else Heritage' started by mlivingstone, Apr 15, 2016.

  1. mlivingstone

    mlivingstone New Member

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    Just wondering how did Vulcan in Newton-le-Willows or Beyer in Gorton transport their products from the works to the docks?

    British standard gauge they could just drive there (or maybe not) but what about the big Chinese and Pakistan etc. out of gauge?

    I do wish these questions didn't pop into my head :-(

    Cheers........
     
  2. jsm8b

    jsm8b Part of the furniture

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  3. Anthony Coulls

    Anthony Coulls Well-Known Member

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  4. mlivingstone

    mlivingstone New Member

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    Cool - thanks for the pics and links! I like the GT3 page
     
  5. Thompson1706

    Thompson1706 Part of the furniture

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    Where I lived in Birkenhead from the age of four (In the late 50's)I could look out of our front window & watch a variety of foreign locomotives heading for Birkenhead docks.
    These normally had a couple of heavy tractor units front & rear. The reason that they used our road was that they were diverted from the A41 because of a low railway bridge out side the Cammell Laird shipyard ,which carried the lines into the shipyard & also to Abbey Street carriage sidings. Another interesting feature on the route was the roundabout outside Victoria Park in Rock Ferry , which had a roadway through the middle of it, with a pair of low metal gates at either end. This was modified purely for these loads.
    The locos. were craned onto the ships by a large crane on the quayside at Gilbrook Basin in Birkenhead Docks.

    Bob.
     
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  6. andrewshimmin

    andrewshimmin Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the memory, Bob, it brought back my Grandpa (a Wallasey man) telling me more than twenty years ago about the locos he saw exported from Birkenhead.
    There are some good photos of locos awaiting export from the 1940s onwards in the Bowtell collection held by the Manchester Loco Soc.
    As someone Birkenhead born, I do regret having come too late to see all this (not to mention Cunard, PSN, Canadian Pacific and Elder Dempster liners!). The most exciting thing we used to look out for was the IoM packet...
     
  7. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    In the 1950's I lived on the outskirts of Liverpool and cycled to school along the A580, East Lancs Road. Low loaders were the transport from Gorton to Liverpool docks along this route. I was not really concerned about noting any details of the Garratts and other Beyer locos that I saw, but did wonder a few years back when I was on the footplate of one in Zimbabwe, if it might have been one of those I saw some 50+ years earlier.
     

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