Little(st) and Large(st)
40 years ago there was a gap between some houses in Motherwell which provided a good vantagepoint overlooking the loco shed at Ravenscraig Steelworks. Here’s the scene on 2nd April 1981 showing a range of motive power.
The original Ruston & Hornsby 165DE locos were phased out in the early 1970s to be replaced by some of the Hunslet and Barclay diesel hydraulics as we can see in the centre of this picture. These were numbered DH4xx for the smaller 0-4-0 machines and DH6xx for the larger 0-6-0 designs. Here we see DH410 (Barclay 595 of 1975) and DH610 (Barclay 597 of 1975) in the foreground, with another 0-4-0DH in the second row.
At the rear we see two of the powerful Thomas Hill “Titan” class, moved up here from BSC Cleveland works when their GEC locos arrived. These were welcomed by Ravenscraig to give more power for the heaviest duties around the site. A total of 9 of these monsters were delivered to Cleveland between 1972 and 1975, they are centre cab locos with an engine under each bonnet totalling 700hp and weighing a massive 75 tons. At Ravenscraig they retained their original Cleveland fleet numbers, here we see 242 (TH 242v) and 243 (TH 243v) of the first 1972 production batch.
At the other end of the scale we can see one of their two Wickham trolleys passing in the foreground, with some collision damage to the front cab. It is running towards the headshunt which gave access to the loco shed. I think this is Wkm 8856 of 1961 as Alistair’s photo of it in May 1983 shows a couple of angled braces added at the same end, presumably to support a weakened end structure.
All now history of course, the entire site flattened and a forest replacing the vantagepoint this was photographed from.
Little(st) and Large(st)
40 years ago there was a gap between some houses in Motherwell which provided a good vantagepoint overlooking the loco shed at Ravenscraig Steelworks. Here’s the scene on 2nd April 1981 showing a range of motive power.
The original Ruston & Hornsby 165DE locos were phased out in the early 1970s to be replaced by some of the Hunslet and Barclay diesel hydraulics as we can see in the centre of this picture. These were numbered DH4xx for the smaller 0-4-0 machines and DH6xx for the larger 0-6-0 designs. Here we see DH410 (Barclay 595 of 1975) and DH610 (Barclay 597 of 1975) in the foreground, with another 0-4-0DH in the second row.
At the rear we see two of the powerful Thomas Hill “Titan” class, moved up here from BSC Cleveland works when their GEC locos arrived. These were welcomed by Ravenscraig to give more power for the heaviest duties around the site. A total of 9 of these monsters were delivered to Cleveland between 1972 and 1975, they are centre cab locos with an engine under each bonnet totalling 700hp and weighing a massive 75 tons. At Ravenscraig they retained their original Cleveland fleet numbers, here we see 242 (TH 242v) and 243 (TH 243v) of the first 1972 production batch.
At the other end of the scale we can see one of their two Wickham trolleys passing in the foreground, with some collision damage to the front cab. It is running towards the headshunt which gave access to the loco shed. I think this is Wkm 8856 of 1961 as Alistair’s photo of it in May 1983 shows a couple of angled braces added at the same end, presumably to support a weakened end structure.
All now history of course, the entire site flattened and a forest replacing the vantagepoint this was photographed from.