tarboat's photos

JS 6305 with heads the empty wagons towards the limestone quarries on the short branch from Yangjiazhangzi on the Huludao Limestone Railway.

Shaft limekilns and hydration at Tunstead quarry. The original six kilns to the left have now been operating for nearly 100 years.

Shop front on Commercial Street in Batley. I was pleased to see the Crittall windows in the offices above. All the rest of the block has been altered.

The Xinhua power station on the Hegang Coal Railway with regular loads of coal being brought from the mines by a fleet of SY class locomotives. On a cold spring afternoon SY 1685 hurries nineteen empty hoppers back to the pits for another load.

Ruston Hornsby 7nhp general purpose traction engine DO 2953 driving a saw bench at the Astle Park event. It is always good to see these machines doing the work they were built to undertake.

The Hesketh shaft at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery was the last to be sunk on the site (1914-1917) and the deepest at 640 yards. I remember watching this pit proudly at work back in 1975 and now the state of the whole colliery site is extremely depressing as it rots into the ground.

SY 0513 and JS 6243 at the coaling station close to the cement works at the lower end of the Huludao Limestone Railway.

The Parish Church of Saint Peter, Stockport, was built of brick in 1768 and topped with this octagonal bell tower and dome.

On a very damp and grey afternoon a class 66 heads the binliner across Stockport viaduct. A grab shot whilst investigating the remains of the Cheshire Lines Committee infrastructure in the area.

Xibolizhan was a busy spot on the Sandaoling Coal Railway as it was the point where the lines from the opencast pit divided into routes to the tips and the lines to the east which carried the coal away. After the morning shift change when there could be six or seven trains in the yard there was a rush back out to work. On this morning a heavily loaded stone train is setting out for the spoil tips with two other trains in view.

Grade II listed Barclay's Bank at junction of Derby Lane and Prescot Road, Old Swan, Liverpool. It was built c1905 for Martins Bank, architects Grayson and Ould. The building is no longer a bank and currently stands empty and forlorn.

JS 6305 arrives in a cloud of dust at Yangjiazhangzi with a heavy load of stone on the Huludao Limestone Railway. The locomotive will be turned here before taking the train onward to Huludao where there are extensive cement works.

The former Midland Bank at the junction of Terminus Road and Cornfield Road in Eastbourne opened in 1913 and is now run by HSBC. The corner location leads to a rather abrupt transition to the brick facia on Mark Lane although even here there is a little decoration around the windows. In the 1920s and 30s over forty staff were employed here.

Back in January 2020 it was great to see new industrial locomotives being built in the UK. These were two hybrid CBD90 Bo-Bo locomotives being built by Clayton Equipment Ltd at Burton-on-Trent for Tata Steel at Port Talbot. One other locomotive of this type had already been delivered to Tata. Electric drive is powered by a large bank of lead acid batteries which are charged by a Deutz diesel running in the front compartment. Further orders followed from Tata Steel and also for two Hybrid+ CBD80 locomotives for Sellafield. A further order was agreed with Beacon Rail Leasing for the supply of 15 more CBD90 locomotives along with options for a period of three years. Each electric loco weighs 90 tonnes and is capable of pulling (or pushing) loads up to 2,500 tonnes. In 2025 Clayton Equipment Ltd went into administration with the business being purchased by Clarke Chapman Ltd and reconstituted as Clayton Locomotives Ltd.

It was ten years since my previous a trip to Southpost in the pouring rain and this time the sun shone and the architectural merits of the town became more obvious. Close to the station is Viceroy Buildings on the corner of Eastbank Street and Wesley Street. This is missing from the list of buildings of architectural interest which seems to comprise the usual array of churches and former banking buildings rather than something genuinely interesting and innovative such as this. In addition to the marvellous turret there is a fine selection of stone balls, lions and an eagle decorating the structure. The turret seems to be quite a feature of a significant number of the buildings in the town

A visit to Southport found a wide selection of interesting chimneypots, especially on the buildings along Lord Street. This is a particularly motley collection on one stack.

As the sun sets a JS class locomotive is working hard as it pushes a train of spoiler wagons up onto the tips at the Sandaoling opencast coal mine.

Scenes around a cement works. This area is where spray lubrication is applied to the girth gearing on one of the two rotary kilns at Hope cement works. The large ring gear takes the drive from a smaller gear at this point. The girth gear is the largest and most expensive power transmission part on the kiln, a single forged steel ring transferring drive torque across millions of revolutions a year.