tarboat's photos

The headgears of Welbeck Colliery rise over the trees around the pit. This was the penultimate colliery working in Nottinghamshire and closed in 2010.

The Delprat shaft, which was commenced in 1900, is named after Broken Hill Proprietary general manager from 1899 to 1921, G D Delprat. The original wooden headframe was replaced in 1952 with the current steel structure. Winding here ceased in 1972 and the shaft has subsequently seen use as a tourist attraction until nearby mining operations caused its closure in 2007.

Running parallel to the China Rail main line, SY 0407 hurries its train towards the washery at Didao on the Jixi Coal Railway.

Coal loading point at a drift mine in the Didao area of Jixi. The left side is for rail wagons and the right side for lorries.

Valve gear operating handles on the 'D' engine at Claymills pumping station. The high pressure cylinder of this Woolf compound beam engine is behind to the right and the low pressure cylinder to the left. The pumping engines were supplied by Gimson & Co of Leicester in 1885.

The downcast shaft at Daw Mill Colliery was just over 550m deep. In later years all coal was brought out through a drift.

Shovelling coal into the feed hoppers of the automatic stokers at Claymills pumping station. The blocks on the floor are made from compressed rapeseed waste and are being trialled as an alternative to very expensive coal. Clearly these are unsuitable for the stokers and therefore have to be hand fired. They burn very hot but do not have enough surface area to volume to raise steam as well as coal. If they could be broken down to pieces the same size as the coal used, then maybe they would be a worthwhile substitute.

Whilst in Manchester I took a look at the London Road Fire Station building which has stood empty and derelict for years. Finally work is taking place with the building to be redeveloped with both leisure and hotel facilities. The window frames seem to have been renovated but there is clearly much work to do internally. The Grade II* building was completed in 1906 and closed in 1986. The terracotta faience and detailing by Burmantofts is superb and it is to be hoped that it is not damaged by whatever cleaning is applied to it.

Blast Furnace No.6 at the Arcelor Mittal steelworks in Seraing near Liège. Now demolished.

Railhead treatment train passing through the station at Hooton.

I went for a day riding the the Merseyrail trains across the entire 75 mile network. This included taking one of the new Class 777 units to the new terminus at Headbolt Lane, Kirkby. The station is the terminus of the current Merseyrail service to Kirkby, having opened on 5 October 2023. It also has a third platform that is the terminus of Northern services towrds Wigan. There is an 80 space secure cycle area, a bus interchange and a 270 space car park. The new trains operate between Fazakerley and Headbolt using battery power and elsewhere on the Merseyrail network using the third rail to supply electricity.

Baguley-Drewry & Boston Lodge built 0-6-0 diesel-hydraulic locomotive Criccieth Castle shunts a train of slate wagons into Boston Lodge on the Ffestiniog Railway.

SY 0590 leaves the headshunt after servicing at Nanchang Yard on the Chengzihe system of the Jixi Coal Railway.

The Picture House in Stafford was built as a cinema for local independent exhibitor Walter Goodall and opened on 23rd February 1914. It closed on 30th March 1995 and has since been converted to a Wetherspoon public house. In November 2012, the Picture House was equipped with a HD projection screen and began to screen films on Wednesday evenings with a different theme each month. The building is Grade II listed.

Remains of an intermittent limekiln on the hillside below High Edge Raceway at Buxton. This formed part of a large and productive limeworks across this area. To the right is the mound of waste from the kiln and in the right background can be seen another kiln and waste mound. These kilns would have burned coal from the mines at nearby Axe Edge and operated in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Glazed fireclay bath by Trotter, Haines & Corbett, Stourbridge. There can't be many of these left. The works was started in 1850 at Brettell Lane, Brierley Hill adjacent to the later Harrison & Pearson works. Around the turn of the twentieth century the Harrison & Pearson acquired a controlling interest in Trotter, Haines & Corbett Ltd. In the early 1930s Trotter Haines & Corbett, Harris & Pearson, Samuel Evers & Sons, Canal Works and Amblecote Works were all absorbed into the E. J, J, Pearson Company, creating at that time the largest refractories group in the Country.

Pipeworks at Cheslyn Hay. At the time the site was being used as a depot for Hepworth West Midlands & Stoneware Ltd. In 1961 it is listed as Stella Tileries Ltd, (The Hepworth Group), Essington, near Wolverhampton. Vitrified Salt-glazed Pipes and Fittings, Glazed Conduits and Land Drain Pipes. Hepworths had bought the business in 1959. The works seems to have been established in 1935.

Water tower and cooling units at Scunthorpe steelworks.