I was working at Cammel Lairds on Monday 16th Feb, at one of the two main Incomer Substations, Behind the building is what I'm assuming is an old railway route and a tunnel entrance, now heavily overgrown and filled in, The location of the tunnel entrance is opposite the dry dock to the north of the yard, below a priory/old church. Can any of you local experts shed any light on thisApologies for my lack of local knowledge as I only work in the area, but am fascinated by its rich heritage.
I worked at Cammell Lairds in the 7o's. What you may have seen is the rails the outside crane ran along. The old railway line went from Rock Ferry to Woodside
The railway into Lairds came across New Chester Road on a bridge which was demolished in the 70's. This bridge also carried the tracks into Abbey Street carriage sidings . These sidings were above the electric sub-stations & now have industrial units built on them. The connection from B.R. ran off the bridge down a ramp into the shipyard & the remains of this ramp can still be seen, facing the general stores. In the days before lorries came into use all materials came by rail & were distributed around the yard by rail. There must still be a couple of miles of track still visible, with much more buried. In the area in front of those Sub-stations were a group of reception sidings, where the incoming wagons were sorted for distribution around the yard. These sidings ended at the wall under the priory,& some of these were sited where the extended no.5 dock now occupies & also the Ship Managers offices (former North Yard canteen).
I see from the 50's map, bert, that by then the line had been lifted. On the earlier map, the line led to a turntable. Maybe when the line was lifted, the tunnel was blocked up.
Excellent info chaps, I think the maps show what I'm asking about, just a quick question the substations sit between the dry dock and the old line, tunnel entrance. I wish I'd have taken some pics, obviously there has been huge changes since the maps. The subs I'm guessing were installed very late fifties as the 33kv transformer has a built date stamp of 1958. If I were to stand with my back to them I would be looking at the dry dock, and a part demolished church higher up to the left, are we in the same place. If so have some of the docks shown on the maps been filled in
Graving docks 1, 2 and 3 have been filled in, Graving Dock 4 is still extant.
Immediately south of Graving Dock 4 is the large Princess Dock which was an extension of a previous graving dock (5?)
Graving dock 4 (now just called The Graving Dock) points straight at St Mary's, Princess Dock runs beside St Mary's
There's a real danger that the left will drag Britain back to the 1970s, with secure well-paid jobs, ample housing, properly-funded NHS and social care, free tuition, student grants, final salary pensions, affordable rail fares and fabulous films and music. David Osland 2025
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
If you want to know what the area once looked like, the website 'Britain from Above' has a number of views of the graving docks - e.g. This One If you register, you are then allowed to zoom in - a lot of the pictures show some very good detail. Just a thought.
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.
Im onto my PC now so I can put an image of where Im speaking about, from the maps on here, it appears that the graveyard was built over for the dry dock that is there today, is that correct.
Heres a GE image, the red circle is where the tunnel entrance is, the grey obkect the circle cuts through in the lower right hand section is the transformer. and the red line perhaps where the line ran....
Take a look at the Britain from Above site This picture for it's relationship to everything around it. The tunnel is top left of the photo if it's the one in this zoomed in grab:
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come.
![[Linked Image]](http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y251/efiste2/untitled1a_zps9562049d.jpg)
