tarboat's photos

Locos with fires banked for the night at the Bukinje depot of the mining adminstration in Tuzla.

Maltby Colliery commenced sinking in 1907 with production starting in 1911. The mine has had a difficult time in the past few years and in February 2007 was sold to Hargreaves Services by UK Coal plc. With a workforce of around 500 it is now producing c800,000 tonnes of coal a year of which more than 60% goes to Drax power station. The colliery also supplies coking coal to the Monckton coking plant.

Snape Farm POW camp, Weston. Further information received from others who have visited this site suggests that it was occupied by Italian prisoners of war who worked on the local farms. There is a suggestion that the camp was used to accommodate displaced Poles after the war.

A recent ebay book purchase yielded a number of photographs of commercial vehicles around the Manchester, Runcorn and Liverpool areas. This is the state of the art tipper for 1961. I shall have to leave identification of the model to those with more expertise.

Corus Scunthorpe steelworks is an enormous site and it is difficult to get a clear overview. Here can be seen the smallest of the "Four Queens" - Queen Mary, and associated cowpar stoves etc. This furnace has not been in blast for some time.

Action on the Yinghao Coal Railway with a load of empties crossing main road just outside Yinghao. A lot of steam appears not to be reaching the cylinders in this rather run down C2 class locomotive.

The warning may no longer be necessary as the rusty rails suggest disuse of the loading facilities at the Shap Blue Stone Quarry.

Mrs Leah Tolley on the butty Keppel, at Preston Brook. The motor boat on the outside is the Mountbatten. These boats were worked by Mrs Tolley and her husband Jack for several years until the demise of canal carrying on the northern Trent and Mersey Canal in 1970/71 when the Anderton Canal Carrying Company boats were laid up at Preston Brook and operations transferred to road vehicles whilst the warehousing side of the business continued. The Tolleys moved the boats to Barnton where they continued to live on them until British Waterways repossessed Keppel and Mountbatten was sold to Ivor Batchelor. This is an early photo from the Tarboat collection and was taken using a small camera that I had borrowed from a friend. I walked from Preston Brook to Anderton on a gloomy February day and all the photos were badly underexposed due to my inexperience and the limitations of the camera and film. This is the only one I have so far been able to salvage from the mess.

Another Nissen Hut seen on the recent trip to North Wales, this time one of a pair seen close to the slate tips at Nantlle.

QJ 7200 heads a loaded towards Daba at Lingwu on the Daba - Guyaozi coal railway.

R J Roberts, mechanical and agricultural engineer. Y Fron near Nantlle.

The driver of MAVAG built 126-014 discusses the day's work with the yard foreman at Resavica colliery.

West Clare Railway No.5 Slieve Callan stands at Moyasta Junction whilst railway owner Jackie Whelan stands on the platform chatting with a passenger.

The bleak and remote aspect of the higher levels at the Dinorwig slate quarry is very evident when viewed with the Snowdonian mountains behind.

Windows in one of the communal huts at Snape Farm Prisoner of War camp, Weston.

Today I visited the remains of the Snape Farm POW camp at Weston. A surprising amount remains here and I was delighted to find that this drawing was still visible in one of the huts. It is a pity that the lower part of the face has disappeared under the later cement render. I wonder whether this was the wife/sweetheart of one of the prisoners, or perhaps it was just an idealised character? What is rather odd about this location is that it is not shown on most of the lists of UK Prisoner of War camps. I can find very little information about it other than a suggestion that it was used at different times to house both German and Italian prisoners.

The MSC Ince was one of two dredgers sold from the Manchester Ship Canal in 1989. The other one (MSC Irwell) sank whilst being towed to Ireland in 1991. This vessel was used on dredging contracts around the Shannon Estuary and at Waterford but has been abandoned for some time. The ship in the background is the Matrisha, of which more anon.

Three differing types of public transport jostle for the lead on the approach to Sanjiazi. SY 1299 heads the afternoon passenger train which has become a mixed service on this day due to the addition of two flat wagons loaded with rails. This is the last steam locomotive left in regular use on the Nanpiao system since the other two that were still working there have both failed. There is no intention to repair the locomotives and replacement second-hand diesels are expected imminently.