The line temporarily went to Grange Lane in 1840 and was extended to Monks Ferry in 1844, it wasn't until 1878 that it went on to Woodside Ferry.
Your map sounds interesting, I don't think you will find it is unique, railways affect such large areas that many copies of maps are usually made. I guess your map was largely adopted because of the short timescale until the route was authorised which was in 1837. The national Archives show extensive records for this railway which are held at Kew.
Photograph the map with a camera and put it up, I am sure many members will appreciate it, not only for the rail content.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
OK - I took the map outside to photograph it, and at the time didn't notice the reflections - sorry about that. If anyone was really really interested I could try again on a less sunny day.
Anyway, I've taken lots of shots across the map as this shows the detail better; If you save them, you can zoom into them quite a bit - I just hope that they upload OK as I've not done this before!!
If they're OK, they'll show as follows: 1. Overall view of the map (plus tree reflections!! ) 2. The Map Title: 'Plan and Section of the Proposed Chester & Birkenhead Railway 1836' 3. Birkenhead (Plus the torn section - I've just created a crude 'replacement' (which is a guess) just so that it displays better.) 4. Tranmere and the Bebbington (sic) Parish 5. Spittle (sic) and Bromborow (sic) Townships 6. Eastham and Childer Thornton Townships 7. Little Sutton and Ledsham Townships 8. Shotwick and Capenhurst Townships 9. Great and Little Mollington Townships 10. Chester 11. Section at Birkenhead Chapelry (I'm not sure what the 'Archway' is depicting - I guess it's a tunnel?) 12. Section at Bromborow
So here goes - I hope they are of interest.
Cheers, Billy.
Last edited by diggingdeeper; 16th Jun 200910:05pm. Reason: Stamped
Thanks for posting that; very interesting. Looking at the Birkenhead end, it would seem that the line was not intended to go to the Woodside station we know, but from a point about where Town station was, it was to follow the line of Albion St., on the Hamilton St. side & ending about where Woodside Business Park (the old lairage) is. It is drawn as being on the surface, except for a short section of tunnel, or probably a cutting, between, roughly, Brandon St. & Bridge St.
I seem to remember reading, almost certainly on here, that the original plan to take the line to Woodside was contested by the Monks' & Tranmere ferries because it would favour the Woodside ferry over the others. However, it was only four years before the line went to Monks' Ferry. Can anyone enlighten me?
Okay, how come the pictures I've put up have been watermarked? I did ask that they weren't.
If you did not attach your pictures to a post, but instead used an alternative image hosting site such as photobucket, then your unstamped images will remain there.
The images you posted have been uploaded to our server to keep the integrity of the topic.
In order for these images to reside on our server, using our bandwidth, we simply place a small watermark on images we upload.
These watermarks also allow anyone who finds the images elsewhere to find the site where they originated from and join the community.
Any further questions or comments, please PM myself, Mark or any of the other Wirral History Moderators.
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As promised - an extract from some research I am doing - hopefully ot develop into a book.
Relates to the various engine sheds that used to exist in Birkenhead in the steam age...... Please let me know if I have used too much jargon or the like !
BIDSTON MANCHESTER SHEFFIELD AND LINCLONSHIRE RAILWAY 1897 – 11th Feb 1963 Located to the north of Birkenhead North station on the west side of the line was a brick built 2 track straight dead-ended shed with a north-light pattern roof. Facilities included a water tank and a coal stage. It was accompanied by a 2 road carriage shed and a large marshalling yard, on the same site. At some point prior to nationalisation, the shed was re-roofed and a brick screen installed. It was demolished following closure. The shed provided servicing facilities for the dock shunters and visiting locos.
BIRKENHEAD MOLLINGTON STREET 1878 – 06th November 1967 (Steam) – 24th November 1985 (Diesel) Birkenhead Mollington Street was a large single-ended shed opened in 1879 and backed onto the end of the street of the same name. In terms of its’ location in relation to the Birkenhead Woodside – Chester main line, it lay to the west of the line at a lower level, due to the mainline running on a raised level over the pre-existing roads and developments. When first built much attention needed to be paid to the levelling and engineering of the site, which effectively stood about a third of the way up a rising sandstone ridge.
This shed was located south of Birkenhead Town station to the west of the line. It was originally 2 identical brick built 8 track straight dead-ended sheds with a north-light pattern roof. The site was shared jointly with the GWR but the shed was built in standard L&NWR style. The LNWR was assigned the task of being responsible for buildings on the Birkenhead Joint, which is why can view this shed was a classic large LNWR straight shed. The L&NWR shed was built along the southern wall of the GWR shed and was also a brick built 8 track straight dead-ended shed with a north-light pattern roof. Effectively A large 16 road shed – it was one of the first examples on a large scale of co-operation between the GWR and LNWR who jointly ran the former Birkenhead Joint Railway. The LNWR occupied roads 1-8, whilst the GWR occupied the remaining 9-16 bays. The building itself when first built was made up of 16 single-ended roads, to the standard LNWR (Webb) north-light design, with a brick wall between roads 8 and 9 forming a boundary wall. This was replaced later by a flimsy wooden screen fence which was demolished by Luftwaffe bombing and never replaced, when an unexploded bomb, put out of action roads 7 and 8 (it fell directly onto road 8) trapping several Jinties and G2 locos on the shed side of the hole !.
In 1936, the former L&NWR shed was reduced in length and the roof replaced with one of a multi-pitched design. The roof was refurbished in 1961, at the same time as the roof of the former GWR shed was replaced by one of a multi-pitched design. The 2 sets of servicing facilities provided on site (one set for each company), were replaced by one set of mechanical ash plant and one coaling plant in 1954-5. Following closure, the shed was used a diesel depot until 24th November 1985 and finally demolished in July 1987. The site remains unused (2009), although the adjacent coal yard has been redeveloped to form the Appin Way industrial estate.
Originally, the 2 sides of the shed were run as separate entities, each with their own coaling, turntables and ash disposal areas, being duplicated and run as completely separate sets of facilities. The LNWR operated a standard LNWR ‘coal hole’ whilst the far more substantial GWR coaling facility rivalled those of other large sheds on the GWR system. The GWR turntable was xxft. Whilst the LMS was xxft., with a 70ft turntable being installed in 1940 to relieve servicing delays at the very busy wartime shed.
BIRKENHEAD SHORE ROAD CHESHIRE LINES COMMITTEE (CLC) 1888 – 05th June 1961 Located to the west of Shore Road Goods station on the south side of the line was a timber built 1 track straight dead-ended shed with a gable style roof. After closure, it was used to service and store the private shunting engines of Joseph Perrin. (see below)
Once a sub-shed of Trafford Park, (Manchester), this unusual state of affairs was due to the fact that Trafford Park was the premier CLC shed – with at the time all other sheds being classed as subsidiary sheds. This changed after nationalisation, when geographical shed codes were allocated, placing Shore Road, as a sub-shed under the ex-LNER/GCR/MSLR shed at Bidston.
Located at the end of a large marshalling yard, outside the Cheshire Lines warehouse, it featured its’ own small single-road engine shed, which was long enough to house a number of shunting engines and had rudimentary servicing facilities (a coal ramp and water crane) for resident shunting engines and visiting tender engines that then did not need to travel to the main Eastern Region shed at Bidston, over the MDHB main line, for which a charge was incurred, levied for any train movement over these private lines.
Running powers for the CLC trains were available over the LMS/GWR Birkenhead Joint line and goods trains travelled over the Helsby and Mickle Trafford lines to gain the Birkenhead line. This brought ex-LNER locos to Birkenhead. Believed to have survived until 1971 – although it had been unused for some period before that..
BIRKENHEAD CENTRAL MERSEY RAILWAY 03rd Jan.1886 – 03rd May 1903 – (Steam) Located at the south end of Birkenhead Central station on the east side of the line was a 3 track straight dead-ended shed, opposite the Electric Carriage sheds, which were alongside the Rock Ferry platform, 3 roads of which still survive today (2009). Facilities included a turntable, located on the far side of the running lines and through the overbridge which carried Mollington Street over the Mersey Railway lines. Following closure the old steam shed continued to be used as a carriage shed and survived until at least 1967 but has now been demolished..
BIRKENHEAD NORTH WIRRAL RAILWAY 02nd Jan 1888 – 13th March 1938 This shed was located in the Goods station to the north of Birkenhead North station and on the east side of the line. It was a rudimentary, corrugated iron 2 track straight shed with one through road and with a pitched corrugated iron roof. Facilities included a water tank and a coaling shed. In 1934, the roof was replaced with one in a Dutch barn style again of corrugated iron. The building was demolished following closure, which occurred after the electrification of the line through to West Kirby.
BIRKENHEAD TOWN BIRKENHEAD & CHESTER RAILWAY 23rd Sept 1840 – 1878 Located to the west side of Birkenhead Town station, this was an LNWR brick built 2 track dead-ended shed with a hipped roof. Sharing its eastern wall was the GWR 3 road straight shed, which unusually for a GWR straight shed had a north-light pattern slate roof. At some date prior to 1878, (some evidence points to 1856-8) both depots were extended, to address the shortage of accommodation for locos. A curiosity of this shed was that the LNWR building had gable-ended roofing, familiar on GWR sheds, whilst the GWR had the familiar north-light roofing extensively used on the LNWR for straight sheds !.
On the opening of the large joint GWR/LNWR depot at Mollington Street, Birkenhead Town depot (LNWR) became a large goods warehouse for non-docks related traffic for the local area, being handily situated near to the rear of the main Post Office building for Birkenhead, on Argyle Street.
The adjacent GWR shed became a wagon and carriage repair depot.
The former LNWR building survived until at least 1971.
PRIVATE SHUNTING COMPANIES Joseph Perrin & Sons Ltd. Started 1891 shunting with the Birkenhead, a 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive. The engine shed was close to the Egerton Bridge and was in fact the former CLC Shore Road establishment, which was taken over in July 1961.
William J. Lee. Around 1885 began shunting with the Wallasey, a 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive. Other locomotives used include Homepride, formerly of Paul Bros. Homepride flour mills (Seacombe). Lee’s engine shed lay parallel to Birkenhead Road, Seacombe, on the river-side of the road, just north of the Alfred Dock, and was of stout brick construction, though as traffic expanded, with further accommodation being required, it was extended rearwards, by means of a rather less-solid timber extension. The shed was demolished in the mid 1980’s, after having stood empty and unused for a number of years.
Thanks for that, bigpete. It would help if we could have an illustration of the roof designs, as I don't suppose many of us would understand "north-light.
Thanks for that, bigpete. It would help if we could have an illustration of the roof designs, as I don't suppose many of us would understand "north-light.
Cheers, Chris. p.s you have a PM.
PM taken on board and responded to....
Yes, roofing jargon !.
A Northlight Roof faces north to maximise light and from the side looks not unlike an upturned wood saw blade - I will try and post a picture - if I can find an un-copyrighted image !.
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