Hope Reach Pier
The Hope Reach pier on 25th May 2001 with Andrew Barclay 0-6-0 diesel hydraulic ‘871’ (W/No.510 built in 1966) shunting bolster wagons to be loaded with imported billets. In the foreground is a reminder of the ship-breaking activity once commonplace here. This Barclay survived when the mill closed and is now at the Quinton Rail Technology Centre at Long Marston near Stratford-upon-Avon. The Queenborough Rolling Mills and wharf, interconnected by a charming ramshackle branch line skirting the Hope Reach on The Swale, harked back to a bygone age, but sadly this historic Isle of Sheppey backwater closed as recently as February 2013. The rolling mill was established in the mid-1970s to re-roll used rail track into 6-20mm rebar. During the 1990s the mill was further upgraded to produce merchant bar products. After acquisition by ISTIL (UK) in 1999, the works was fully upgraded and subsequently concentrated on producing merchant bar from imported billets, for the U.K. and European markets. Following sale to Russian-based company Estar in 2008, the railway was sadly soon to close, in April 2010. The wharf area was of particular interest, with a pier on The Swale, built in 1896 for coal shipments. When the works was in the ownership of Settle Speakman Ltd, this area had been used for Shipbreaking and the scrapping of railway locomotives and rolling stock. It is noteworthy that four Bulleid ‘light Pacifics’ were disposed of here by scrap merchant Lacmots, who rented the site from Settle Speakman & Co. Ltd. This company worked the wharf at Queenborough using a fleet of four-coupled saddle tanks, three built by Peckett and one by Andrew Barclay. These locos shunted the scrapyard and undertook scrap metal transfer to the rolling mill.
A scan from a medium format Fuji 100F transparency taken with Mamiya 645 ProTL fitted with a 45mm lens
© Gordon Edgar - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission
Hope Reach Pier
The Hope Reach pier on 25th May 2001 with Andrew Barclay 0-6-0 diesel hydraulic ‘871’ (W/No.510 built in 1966) shunting bolster wagons to be loaded with imported billets. In the foreground is a reminder of the ship-breaking activity once commonplace here. This Barclay survived when the mill closed and is now at the Quinton Rail Technology Centre at Long Marston near Stratford-upon-Avon. The Queenborough Rolling Mills and wharf, interconnected by a charming ramshackle branch line skirting the Hope Reach on The Swale, harked back to a bygone age, but sadly this historic Isle of Sheppey backwater closed as recently as February 2013. The rolling mill was established in the mid-1970s to re-roll used rail track into 6-20mm rebar. During the 1990s the mill was further upgraded to produce merchant bar products. After acquisition by ISTIL (UK) in 1999, the works was fully upgraded and subsequently concentrated on producing merchant bar from imported billets, for the U.K. and European markets. Following sale to Russian-based company Estar in 2008, the railway was sadly soon to close, in April 2010. The wharf area was of particular interest, with a pier on The Swale, built in 1896 for coal shipments. When the works was in the ownership of Settle Speakman Ltd, this area had been used for Shipbreaking and the scrapping of railway locomotives and rolling stock. It is noteworthy that four Bulleid ‘light Pacifics’ were disposed of here by scrap merchant Lacmots, who rented the site from Settle Speakman & Co. Ltd. This company worked the wharf at Queenborough using a fleet of four-coupled saddle tanks, three built by Peckett and one by Andrew Barclay. These locos shunted the scrapyard and undertook scrap metal transfer to the rolling mill.
A scan from a medium format Fuji 100F transparency taken with Mamiya 645 ProTL fitted with a 45mm lens
© Gordon Edgar - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission