Meadow Lane revisited: A shelf for a Sentinel…

Rails inlaid in the road, rusting, weeds and debris fill the flangeways. All around the signs of a post industrial age, functional brick built buildings decay, shrubs and bushes spring from previously pristinely maintained forecourt’s and verges, discovering a railway in an industrial setting is something that sets your imagination racing, desperately grasping at signs or evidence of a working life now past…

That is how I discovered the Manchester Ship Canal railway. No, not that one, not the mainline that stretched for miles along the canal from Trafford Park and Salford, grasping and reaching towards Runcorn but never quite making it. No this is Ellesmere Port, an industrial railway that has never quite died, rather a lingering death with the indecency of seeing mainline engines creeping along the remains of its tentacles, a fading memory of a working system.

Back in 2010 I explored what little was publicly accessible of the system, conscious that it may very well be gone for good in my lifetime. Some of the track in the road, the old gatehouse and a long section of track towards Eastham have been lifted or demolished since that visit. Traffic flows come and go, keeping the dock lines intact, for now, but how much longer remains to be seen.

In it’s heyday, from the mid 1960s, the railway stretched extensively both east and west of Ellesmere Port station, with a batch of 5 Sentinel 0-6-0 diesel hydraulic locomotives arriving new in the period. 

The steam era engine shed was located just west of the road bridge adjacent to Ellesmere Port Station. Locomotives served the sidings along the canal and at the Shropshire Union Canal basis, where more traditional industries dominated, with two flour mills and a wood preservatives business. Records (Thorpe, 1984) show 66, 70 and 71, all Hudswell Clarke ‘long tanks’, worked the area in the 1920s. By the the 1940s 7 locomotives were required, the majority were the Hudswell Clarke type. Pairs of locomotives were required to shift trains of up to 30 wagons up Stanlow Bank, a 1 in 76 incline between the refinery sidings and the mainline. The steam shed, a two road brick built structure was demolished in 1972 after the ‘new’ diesel workshop had been built at the docks in 1970. The modern steel fabricated two road structure only had one rail line into the building, the second road being for the MSC owned road vehicle’s maintenance. Space within the shed compound was limited so often the locomotives were stabled outside, or at a small compound at the Stanlow sidings. Later, a second compound was established at the docks, roughly where the tall conifers are today, and in later years the Sentinels would be stabled here.

The Transport Treasury: JMT33057 - MSC 3005 and 3003 at Ellesmere Port - 07-07-1979. Photo: John Tolson

The majority of traffic in the area was oil and chemical related. Associated Octel, Shell, Esso, Gulf, Burmah and others required many wagonload and trainload services a day, keeping the MSC locomotives busy. The network saw expansion in 1967 with a new line to chemical storage facilities at Eastham. Shell rostered a fleet of a Thomas Hill locomotives to keep it’s busy terminal served, Associated Octel had a Ruston (see below) and Bowaters, to the east of the network, bought a pair of ex MSC 0-4-0 chain driven Sentinels in 1970 for its plant towards Eastham, lasting until the plant was closed in 1980 (bought later, but without rail traffic continuing, closed altogether in 2010).

The Transport Treasury: JMT33149 - Stanlow - 07-07-1979 - Associated Octel Co. site, including a Ruston locomotive. Photo: John Tolson

In 1979 the changing nature of wagon ownership, combined with the sheer quantity of traffic led to a company setting up in the former MSC steam era locomotive shed yard. Jake Ltd. offered a tank cleaning and repair service, and records (Thorpe, 1984) say that in the early 1980s they were handling over 20 45t bitumen tanks a week. Cleaning was required before wagon was returned to the owner for repair, or before disposal. Basic repairs could also be made ‘on site’. They operated a Ruston 88DS for shunting around their rather restricted site. With the abandonment of bitumen rail traffic in 1990 and all traffic from Stanlow in 1998, the business dried up. Today the area is a self storage company.

Stanlow Bank was a fearsome 1 in 76 that certainly tested the adhesion and grunt of the Rolls Royce powered Sentinels. Photo: Dave Marks, from Flickr.

Considering a model of the system runs into the same problems that we, as modellers, always face! It’s physical size would need to be humoungous. Even shortening trains the size of the facilities that were served would render this a life time work! Though that history however, I introduced two elements that might work in a more compact setting, the diesel workshop and the wagon cleaning and repair facility. If a scheme could be composed that restyles their proximity, and takes influence from the general post industrial nature of much of the railway side scenery a workable ‘shelf layout’ is possible.

MSC 3001 in the BR exchange sidings to the east of the M53, the top of Stanlow Bank rising behind the locomotive and building.  In the background the western extremity of Associated Octel’s plant, May 1989. Photo: G-IBTZ, from Flickr.

So, I present a re-working of one of my very early layout schemes ‘Meadow Lane’. Originally conceived as an adventure in P4, only the projects motive power was completed. The plan featured just one turnout, a workshop and off scene, cassettes and a sector plate. Doodling ideas based upon these two new elements, the workshop and the wagon cleaning / repair facility, and imagining a mixture of urban and natural elements, I considered the balance of space and interest a double ended plan may provide…

I decided it might be worth using RailModeller on the Mac to translate these ideas into workable space. The rectangle baseboard shown above is my favoured 4 to 1 ratio,  the bottom one being 95 x 22. In fact the use of a three way point, effectively overlapping the pair that serve the repair facility, apes the prototype. Shelf layouts can suffer from too much track, or track too parallel to the edge of the board, detracting from the artistic balance of the composition. Considering this, it may be necessary to re-cast this scheme with just a single spur into the wagon cleaning / repair works.

That said, this scheme is just one of many arrangements that would allow the artistic combination of workshop and repair/tank cleaning yard, I guess what I am suggesting here is that you need to consider the space you have available when you consider your prototype. It is not always possible to take our inspiration and actually compose a functional scene, one that is perhaps caricature or reimagined but with enough to feel plausible. I suggest this is the result if the modeller doing their research, understanding their prototype and using this to inform decisions on composition, framing and even presentation.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo heavy, informative focused look at a colourful and important system. Through this story and narrative, even if this prototype doesn’t appeal, I hope you can see how you can apply the same concept, of reviewing our chosen inspiration for modellable function and then composing a scene that works in our chosen available layout footprint. Over the past 12 months, Chris and myself have written about various aspects of layout design. If you’re considering your own small layout, then I recommend you dig into these and apply their lens to focus your own scheme. I do offer a custom layout design and or build service, specifically focused on small layouts, so if you’d like some help and guidance through the process then get in touch for a personal proposal. Until next time, more soon…

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Photo Archive:

Jake’s Tank Services: https://flic.kr/p/2m2NcAZ

Site of original MSC shed, later Jake’s Tank Services: https://flic.kr/p/dzQSv7

Ellesmere Port docks: http://www.penmorfa.com/Mersey%20trains/page%209.htm

Shed and compound: https://flic.kr/p/J18voM

Sentinels lined up outside shed area: https://flic.kr/p/2jtCWHJ

Sentinels at Stanlow sidings: https://flic.kr/p/9VFFDu

Sentinel in Stanlow compound: https://flic.kr/p/9MvTCS

Sentinel in Stanlow Compund after cessation of MSC Rail Traffic https://flic.kr/p/9MvTBq

Sentinel on Associated Octel on the Stanlow Bank: https://flic.kr/p/UXzMLx

Sentinel in BR exchange sidings at Stanlow: https://flic.kr/p/aStFHR

Useful Links:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/3197-sunday-supplement/

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/18504-wagon-repair-depots-or-works/&do=findComment&comment=184450

References:

Fidczuk, P. (2007). Gas by Rail Part 4: Associated Octel and Tank Rentals. Railway Archive, (16), pp.57–82.

Thorpe, D. (1984). The railways of the Manchester Ship Canal. Poole, Dorset: Oxford Pub. Co.

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