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Railway Ports & Docks |
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RAILWAY BRITAIN |
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Railways
played a major role in the great period of Victorian port
expansion. Earlier docks were hard to adapt for railways, being hemmed
in by built up areas and only reached by laying rails through the
streets. Their small size meant that wagons had to be moved around them
singly over turntables. As dock expansion gathered pace, however,
greater attention was given to rail access. New docks were designed to
take trains alongside ships. Among the first, the Victoria Dock in
London in 1855 had integrated transit warehouses instead of traditional
warehouses. Fierce competition between the London dock companies led
the East & West India Dock Company in 1886 to open a purely rail
served dock at Tilbury relying on the LTSR for land transport. Sadly it
soon went bankrupt. Tilbury's fortunes did not revive until 1908 when
the Port of London Authority was formed and took control of the docks.
Three dock groups in particular developed their own internal private dock railways. These were the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board (MDHB), the Manchester Ship Canal and the Port of London Authority (PLA). Railways soon realised that controlling the docks directly was important especially where they needed to maintain traffic or gave them a competitive advantage. As a result the Railways began to buy or build their own docks. Some were within existing ports such as the Great Western Railway's Millbay Docks in Plymouth. Or the railways might become the port authority themselves such as at Grangemouth, Barrow in Furness and Fishguard Harbour. At other ports the railways invested heavily in dock installations and warehousing such as the Great Eastern Railway at Great Yarmouth, the GWR and LNWR at Liverpool and Birkenhead and the LYR at Goole. The Midland Railway and North London Railway owned docks in London at Poplar. Poplar Dock was London's first railway dock when it opened in 1851. The site, immediately to the north of the West India Docks' Blackwall Basin, was first developed by the West India Dock Company in 1827–8 as reservoirs. They were converted into a timber pond in 1844 and in 1850–1 into a railway dock, following the transfer of the land to the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway Company (later the North London Railway Company). The dock, used for coal and export goods traffic, was extended to the west in 1875–7 to provide depots for other railway companies. In 1863, with the Great Northern, Midland, and Great Western railway companies all desiring export depots at Poplar Dock, the North London Railway Company sought Parliamentary power to build the dock extension. The Midland Railway Company withdrew in 1869 to find other waterside accommodation, but the Great Western Railway Company continued to press for space at Poplar Dock. By 1873 the North London Railway Company was set to begin the work, including the construction of goods depots for lease to the Great Western and Great Northern railway companies. The London and North Western Railway Company, having acquired the buildings and land on the north and west quays, planned to purchase the property needed to expand its depot and carry out its own works. In the meantime the Blackwall entrance to the West India Docks had, from 1870, been relieved by a new entrance to the South West India Dock. The dock company stood to gain in wharfage rates from an extension of Poplar Dock and in 1873 it abandoned its insistence on the river entrance.Poplar Dock became more than ever an export dock, the depots at the extension accommodating goods from all over the country for delivery into barges and redistribution to shipping throughout the Port. The expanding inland coal business had earlier moved to the east quay, which was retained by the North London Railway Company for that trade. Exports aside, there was an increasing demand for bunker fuel for steamers in the docks. The London and North Western Railway Company remained at the north and west quays of the old dock, with the addition of the east and north quays of the extension. The Great Northern Railway Company had the south quays of both docks, while the Great Western Railway Company took the west quay of the new dock The increasing size of steam colliers caused Poplar Dock to lose sea-coal traffic to the Royal Docks. In 1896 the North London Railway Company responded with a proposal to widen the lock to Poplar Dock. he work was eventually carried out in 1898–9 to plans by Francis Stevenson and Thomas Matthews, probably by Lucas & Aird. Poplar Dock remained in the hands of the North London Railway Company when London's other docks were brought together under the Port of London Authority in 1909, because it was regarded as a railway facility. In 1923 the North London Railway Company was wholly absorbed by its parent company, which itself became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company. The dock's main business still came from coal, ale and iron. Much of the sea-coal went to the Bow Common Gas Works and the inland coal was distributed to a growing number of riverside industries. From 1925 the PLA permitted the handling of general continental goods at Poplar Dock, provided that they were for transfer to the provinces and not for London. All the depots at the dock were destroyed by bombing in 1940, except for those on the south quays. After the Second World War the dock continued to function as a transit facility for coal, steel and other traffic. The upper sections of the timber lining of the old dock and the quay level copings were rebuilt in concrete, probably in 1944–5 to repair bomb damage. Comparable reconstruction work seems to have been carried out at the east quay in 1966–8, when its layout and facilities were simplified. Traffic declined in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the barge dock extension went out of use. Railway lines and sidings were removed, and the remaining sheds and depots were demolished. Operations at Poplar Dock ceased in 1981, following closure of the India and Millwall Docks, and British Rail sold the site to the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1982–3. Plans for its development as a trade centre associated with the People's Republic of China were put forward, but abandoned. In 1988–9 much of the barge dock extension and the north end of the old dock were filled to make space for roads. Today it is the Poplar Dock Marina opened in 1999. http://www.bwml.co.uk/marina/13/poplar+dock+marina/ After the 1923 Grouping the GWR became the largest dock owner in the world, centred on South Wales leading it to relocate its docks headquarters to Cardiff. Coal Ports The earliest railway owned dock was at Llanelly, which the Carmarthenshire Railway purchased in 1802, although its railway line was not completed until 1806. It was also the first combined railway and dock company, followed by more in South Wales. All were built to export coal, the last being the Barry Railway in 1889. In 1897 the Bute Docks Company, which owned Cardiff Docks, changed its name to the Cardiff Railway to enable it to build short connecting lines outside the docks. These docks in South Wales eventually became part of the Great Western Railway after the 1923 Grouping. Coal gave the impetus to railway ports in the North East as well, where early waggonways ran to riverside staiths. The Stockton & Darlington Railway built new staiths downriver from Stockton in 1829, where there was deeper water in Hartlepool, and in 1849 took over the dock there; Port Clarence was built by the rival Clarence Railway in 1834. Hartlepool thus had two independent railway docks in the same port until they both became part of the North Eastern Railway. The NER also took over and developed others, and also had staiths at Dunston on the Tyne and at Blyth. In 1859 it had built the large Tyne Dock at Jarrow. Railways also brought coal down from the Fife pits to small harbours on the Firth of Forth. BUrntisland was the main one, where the North British Railway partly financed new docks in 1876 and 1901, and finally bought it in 1922. In 1887 a new dock and railway were opened at Methil, which the NBR took over as well in 1889, expanding it to become Fife's largest port. The company also owned Alloa docks, to which the rival Caledonian Railway penetrated but never reached beyond. Leaving the NBR with a monopoly of the north bank coal ports eastwards on the Firth of Forth. On the south side of the Firth of Forth, the NBR built a dock at Bo'ness, jointly with the harbour trustees, in 1878, taking over full control in 1895. But Bo'ness was overshadowed by Grangemouth, built by the Forth & Clyde Canal along with Bowling Docks on the Clyde. The Caledonian Railway bought the entire undertaking in 1887, immediately setting about developing Grangemouth in order to secure to itself the coal trade and other traffic from the Forth Clyde Valley. On the Clyde the Glasgow & South Western Railway (GSWR) owned Troon harbour, as successors to the Kilmarnock & Troon Railway, and leased the harbour at Ayr, later purchasing it in 1920. Both these ports shipped Ayrshire coal. On the Mersey the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway amalagamated with the Sankey Brook Navigation in 1845 and built a new coal dock at Garston to replace both companies inadequate facilities at Widnes. Opened in 1853, it was developed by the successor LNWR into a successful general port. The railways led in the mechanisation of coal handling equipment. In 1829 the Stockton & Darlington Railway erected steam operated hoists for discharging wagons into ship holds and through the century there was continuous development. Hydraulic hoists at Burntisland in 1876 could handle 1000 tons an hour, and in the late 1920s the GWR installed conveyor loaders at Port Talbot. General Ports Dock and railway companies were not confined to the coal trade. In 1840 the Preston & Wyre Railway opened its line to its new port at Fleetwood, but it developed slowly until the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway built docks there in 1878 and 1909, making it Britain's third fishing port as well as taking in timber and grain, for which a huge elevator was built. The Eastern Counties Railway took over the Lowestoft Railway & Harbour in 1848, investing substantial amounts in the port over the following years and offering concessionary rates for cattle and coal. The ailing Carlisle & Silloth Bay Railway was acquired by the North British Railway in order to gain use of the Silloth Dock opened in 1859 for traffic from Southern Scotland to Irreland and Liverpool. Sadly the Irish routes failed but the Liverpool route prospered. The Hull & Barnsley Railway was the largest of these combinations. Intended to break the NER monopoly in rail access to Hull, it opened its line and Alexandra Dock in 1885. Then in 1914 it was combined with the NER, which in the meantime had also acquired the Hull Dock Company to open a much larger new King George Dock. With the need for quick turn around facilities and the growth of the Fruit and Vegetable trade, led in 1907 to the North Eastern Railway Company building the 2,500 feet long Riverside Quay to the south of Albert Dock. The berths were used for quick handling of vessels on overnight runs to and from the continent, mainly carrying perishable goods inwards and taking passengers both ways. Railway facilities were built alongside the quay and this enabled it to become part of the journey for many immigrants, who disembarked at Hull, then went by train to Liverpool to finally join the Ocean Liners for the journey to America across the Atlantic. Lastly the Felixstowe Railway & Dock Company built a small dock in 1884 which lay unused for many years until the 1960s when having escaped nationalisation was expanded enormously in the 1960s and has become a major container port. Earlier the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR) had tried to wrest port traffic away from Hull by purchasing the rundown Grimsby Dock Company. In 1852 it opened the first truly modern dock in the UK, operated entirely by hydraulic power from a central source. When shipowners refused to move to the new dock, the railway started its own services to the Continent, built a fish dock, and 10 years later Grimsby had become the country's fifth port in value of trade. By 1912 all the avialable land was used up, so the Great Central Railway opened a new dock at Immingham, but althoguh it was capable of taking the largest cargo vessels and was ready two years ahead of the NER and HBRs King George V Dock in Hull, its full capacity was rarely used. Again in 1914 it was the North Eastern Railway Company who began construction on the No.1 Oil Jetty at Salt End, 1 mile east of King George V Dock. It was used for the tankers to import bulk Oil and Spirits, this was required due to the growth of transport and needs of other industrial processes. The expansion of the this trade led to the construction of a second Jetty in 1928 to the west of No. 1 jetty providing a further deep water berth. Each of the Jetties projects into the River Humber where a minimum depth of 40 feet is available at all states of the tide. In 1958 work started on No.3 jetty in reinforced concrete, and provision was made for the rebuilding of No.1 jetty to the west of it and work was completed in 1959 after the jetty built in 1914 had been demolished. The next Jetty demolished was No.2 which was started early in 1977 and finished by the end of that year. The King George V Dock opened on the 26th June 1914 by H.M. King George V and H.M. Queen Mary, 16 years after it was proposed and discussed. This was due to the successful opposition from the Humber Conservancy Board to the original plans and construction, stating it would divert the stream of the River Humber. It was built by the North Eastern and the Hull & Barnsley Railway Companies and was known at first as the Joint Dock. This dock was the first fully electrically operated dock in the UK. It is 53 acres insize and has a lock entrance that is 85 feet wide and provides berths for the largest vessels using the Port Of Hull. The main use of the port at first was the export of coal. This was partly due to the close proximity of the coalfields of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire and at the height of the coal exports Hull had connections to over 380 coalmines. In 1919 an import grain silo was built at the north west arm of the dock where it had two berths for discharging the grain. It was used to redeliver the grain by sacks or bulk using Water Transport, Road and Rail. When the export of coal declined the quays at the north of the dock were switched to other cargoes, mainly wool, meat fruit, vegetables and other perishable goods, while the south side of the docks was used for the traffic of Pitwood, Sawnwood, Ores, Pig iron, Rough copper and scrap metal and the shipping of Iron & Steel, machinery and other products. At the eastern end of the dock two large graving docks were built to service and maintain the largest vessels able to use the dock. Inter railway competition also was seen in Plymouth, where the LSWR in 1847 contributed to improvements to Sutton Harbour. The GWR then responded by putting money into building Millbay Docks. In 1874 the GWR purchased Millbay Docks outright. Both companies then competed for the ocean liner passengers brough ashore by tender. The LSWR built an ocean liner terminal at Stonehouse Pool in 1904 but then withdrew its Plymouth Boat Trains in 1910 leaving the GWR to rule unopposed. After nationalisation an ocean liner terminal was built at Millbay Docks in 1952 and the boat trains ran until 1963. The GWR's Plymouth Millbay railway station closed in 1941 and Plymouth Friary closed in 1958 with all passenger traffic being focused on North Road. The LSWR however owned the greatest of the railway ports, Southampton, which it purchased in 1892. The railway spent £5 million on creating a dock system capable of handling the largest liners, rivalling and eventually exceeding Liverpool in passengers and latterly cargo business. They also ran packet services from Southampton to the Channel Islands and Le Havre. Its successor, the Southern Railway, continued the policy and after nationalisation an new ocean terminal was built in 1953, when 650,000 passengers a year passed thorough the port, half of them for the Channel Packets and 12.25 million tons of cargo. Packet Ports Railway investment in ports for Continental and Irish passengers began with the South Eastern Railway's purchase of Folkestone in 1844, for ferry services to Boulogne. To improve the tidal service from Newhaven to Dieppe, the LBSCR financed the contruction of deep water quays by the harbour company in 1878 and by 1909 the annual passenger figures had increased from 75,000 to 211,000, although Newhaven never reached the heights of Folkestone's success. Neither of them reached the success of Dover where the Admiralty harbour was heavily invested in by the South Eastern Railway. The Admiralty also owned the harbour at Holyhead, where the LNWR built the inner harbour in 1873 and provided all the services and at Harwich were the Great Eastern Railway operated ferry services to the Low Countries. But in 1882, it became too small, and the GER built large new berths, a rail station and a hotel two miles away at Harwich Parkeston Quay. The little Portpatrick Railway struggled to provide an Irish short sea crossing from Stranraer to Donaghadee and later Larne, but it needed the joint resources of the Caledonian, GSWR, LNWR and Midland Railway to develop it and the railway into a popular route in 1885. The Midland Railway also competed with Fleetwood for Belfast traffic from its new port of Heysham, openeed in 1904 to replace the iadequate tidal pier at Morecambe. At this time the GWR created the new port of Fishguard in conjunction with the Great Southern & Western Railway of Ireland, which did the at Rosslare Harbour. The new joint venture service began in 1906, replacing the previous service from Neyland to Waterford. IN 1908-14 the GWR also attempted to attract transatlantic liners to Fishguard in the same manner as Plymouth but this resulted in little success. In 1928-30 it tried again at Cardiff but with even less success. Railways also conducted numerous smaller marine operations. They included little ports like Aberdovey and Tayport (which derived from the ferry that preceded the Tay Bridge), steamer and ferry piers at Largs and Fairlie on the Clyde. New Holland on the Humber and Gravesend. A small dock at Brentford on the Thames and wharves at Saltneyon the River Dee, Deptford in South London and Cowes on the Isle of Wight. After nationalisation in 1948, the railway coal and general ports transferred with the canals to the Docks & Inland Waterways Executive of the British Transport Commission. The packet ports remained under the direct control of the railway, even though most also had cargo traffic. Shortly afterwards several small and uneconomic ports were closed and investment was concentrated in the larger operations. In 1948 the British
Transport Commission formed on the
nationalisation of the railways. It had the following divisions: - Hotels Executive - Docks & Inland Waterways Executive - Road Passenger Executive - Road Haulage Executive - In 1962 the British Transport Commission is abolished and its activities separated off into various public corporations. - Railway Executive > British Railways Board - Hotels Executive > British Transport Hotels - Docks & Inland Waterways Executive is split - Docks > British Transport Docks Board - Inland Waterways > British Waterways Board - Road Passenger Executive > Transport Holding Company - Road Haulage Executive > - When the British Transport Commission was disbanded in 1963 the docks were separated from inland waterways and the British Transport Docks Board was formed. In 1963 the Government also set up a National Ports Council on the recommendation of the Rochdale Committee, appointed to advise on the future of British ports. The committee recommended that where practicable the ports should be amalgamated into groups on an estuarial basis, and by 1970 port authorities for the Tyne, Tees, Forth and Clyde including the former British Transport docks in these areas. The British Transport Docks Board itself became the port authority for the Humber and at Southampton. In the late 1980s the Thatcher Government drive for privatisation of state assets led to the progressive sale of these and other British Transport and railway ports. The British
Transport Docks Board, which had been profitable and self-financing for
many
years, had invested heavily in order to modernise its port facilities.
With the
Government determined to pass its assets to the private sector, it was
renamed However some port and
docks were retained in British Rail as part of its Railway Shipping
Services. BR's
Shipping and International Services Division was established in 1968
and became
fully operational in August the following year. Its assets embraced the
considerable fleet of BR vessels and harbours. Shortly afterwards the
Shipping
Division joined a consortium of shipping companies owned by the French
Railways, the Belgian Marine and the Dutch Zeeland Steamship Company,
to be
marketed as Sealink. In 1979 it became a separate but wholly-owned
subsidiary
of the BRB, and one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, as
Sealink UK Ltd. In 1984 Sealink was privatised and sold to British Ferries, a subsidiary of Sea Containers Ltd, an international seafreight company whose owner and President, James Sherwood, had recently purchased five of the former British Transport Hotels. This sale took place at a time when one large cross-channel ferry was valued at approximately £20 million. It was a bargain for Sea Containers who took over 37 ships of various sizes, 10 harbours and 9,390 staff of whom 2,529 were salaried. In 1991 Sea
Containers Ltd decided to sell most of their Sealink
British Ferries operations to Stena Line. Thus
Stena Line also acquired the ports of Fishguard Harbour, Holyhead and
Stranraer Harbour. In 1991 Stena Line disposed of the Tilbury to
Gravesend ferry and thus the associated port facilities transferred to
the Port of London Authority. Meanwhile Sea Containers Ltd retained the
Railway Ports GWR Area: Cardiff Swansea Briton Ferry Newport Barry Port Talbot Penarth Burry Point Llanelly Fishguard Harbour Gloucester & Sharpness Docks Plymouth Millbay Docks Weymouth (Passenger Ferry Terminal and Ro-Ro Berth) - Lease or user agreement with the Port of Weymouth SR Area: Southampton Docks Newhaven Harbour Folkestone Harbour Dover (Admiralty Pier and Train Ferry Dock) - Lease or user agreement with the Port of Dover Portsmouth Harbour (Passenger Ferry Terminal and Ro-Ro Berth) - Lease or user agreement with the Port of Portsmouth Portsmouth Harbour Railway Jetty Lymington Pier & Slipway Ryde Pier, IoW Fishbourne Slipway, IoW LMS Area: Poplar Dock, London Holyhead Garston Wyre Dock, Preston Heysham Port Fleetwood Barrow in Furness Stranraer Harbour Ayr Troon Grangemouth Goole Larne - lease or user agreement with the Port of Larne Belfast Container Terminal - lease or user agreement with the Port of Belfast Dublin Container Terminal - lease or user agreement with the Port of Dublin Tilbury Riverside Landing Stage Gravesend West Pier & Floating Landing Stage Lakeside Pier (Lake Windermere) Bowling Harbour, River Clyde Gourock Pier, River Clyde Wemyss Bay Pier, River Clyde Largs Pier, River Clyde Fairlie Pier, River Clyde LNER Area: Blyth Dunston Staiths Hartlepool Port Clarence, Hartlepool Tyne Dock, Jarrow Burntisland Methil Silloth Aberdovey Tayport Alexandra Dock, Hull King George V Dock, Hull Riverside Quay, Hull Grimsby Immingham Kings Lynn Lowestoft Harwich Parkeston Quay Harwich Train Ferry Terminal
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