This is my hopefully final rendition on the Hartshead power station thread
this will be very long, so sit tight
history:
Hartshead power station’s construction began in 1919, and was semi completed in 1926. The goods yard itself existed long before the power station was constructed. There are not many records on it besides a few maps and pictures.
Such as:
The goods shed from Grove road, over the older bridge with a locomotive going over
An older map of the Goods yard, and Staley&Millbrook station at the bottom. Thank you to National libraries of Scotland for this Ordinance Survey map of this area.
the power station after its initial construction only has the single conveyor, and the power station itself was much smaller. The goods yard compared to now is much smaller, and the overhead conveyor wasn’t constructed yet. Here is the map:https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.486723832579816&lat=53.49819&lon=-2.03612&layers=10&b=1
about a decade or two after it’s construction, the power station had several issues contributing to the first underground conveyor. Due to it being underground, it constantly flooded and had issues with people getting ill due to coal dust from the enclosed space, so a secondary conveyor was required. The power station was being used by more and more areas around Tameside and Ashton-Under-Line, and some parts next to Manchester like Mossley, this also meant that the goods yard and power station had to be expanded if they were to meet the needs of all these areas.After its final construction, this is how it looked:
Thank you @FreshFingers and @Alley (forgot which one had it) for this incredible map of the area
about 1950, an engine shed was created further up so that the custom Steam locomotives that served the power station were constantly in goods shape and has a good supply of steam.
sadly as the power station reached older age, around 1970, the Micklehurst loop was mostly closed down, which means the stations coal supply was closed, so they had to convert to Oil and gas, until 1979, until its inevitable abandonment, and 1980 its destruction. The goods yard itself wasn’t touched strangely, besides the conveyor as they are part of the power station, until about 200-2010 when Caseys and Urban Green began pulling down and scrapping most of the buildings, which is why lots of reports before 2010 seem to have lots more interesting parts.
that’s all I know on the history currently, so it’s time for the actual Report.
130 Coal Wagons:
Somewhere between 1850-1870, the construction of a small goods yard began to supply the nearby mills and town of Millbrook. The area itself used to be pretty empty, hence the previous map, and there are a few pictures. Such as:
View attachment 882979
You can see in the first picture the goods shed in the centre of the picture.
when the power station was made, the goods yard was expanded massively to hold up to 130 coal wagons. There are many old pictures of this area, thank you to people on Flickr and Timepix.Uk for these pictures
Thank you to random user on reddit for this amazing picture
nowadays, the Goods shed itself is in amazing condition externally, internally however it is very empty.
Externals
You can see here on the inside the very large empty area below the floor. My assumptions is that there was a trapdoor over it, and it was used to stood coaldue to the fact it has several girders in it and large chunks of wood. But then again, it may just be from other parts of the shed.
outside at the front, there is a small building connected to the outside next to the entrance. I don’t have pictures of it now, but it is in a very broken state. I believe it may of been a boiler of some sort? As inside of it there is a small furnace, and this next picture shows a little chimney on top:
at the goods yard, there is a small reservoir outside, and after the railways were expanded, a concrete embankment was made:
Not much remains of the actually goods yard itself sadly, as there are almost no rails, and all the rail supports were recently pulled up by Urban Green and removed, so there isn’t much besides the conveyors and engine shed which I will discuss later.
High And Low, And One More For Good Luck
when the power station was created, the river Tame and Huddersfield Narrow Canal sat between the two, so movement by hand or truck wasn’t an option. A very simple idea was created when the station was made. A conveyor. The original conveyor was underground, and used to stretch low over the canal and river. A simple mechanism was made, a few hoppers based under the railway for trains to drop coal off, and it worked well. For a while.
the hopper room itself nowadays isn’t as fascinating as it used to be. The green hopper is rusted to hell, and where machinery used to be only shows a dark outline on the concrete. In 2010, Caseys and Urban Green decided to clean and scrap it for any objects. At this time they weren’t going to sell though. This is when they were planning to create a new housing estate and ‘valley park’, and all metal they pulled out was dumped into the watery pits in the hopper room. This is what the area used to look like:
You can see here the mangled mess and old gate covering the service entrance to the hopper
This was taken off the internet, not mine. You can still see here the old conveyor machinery , and the old hallway.Fir those that braved the mangled entrance nowadays, you know that all that remains is a muddy hallway.
I don’t have many more pictures of it previously, but I have a few of nowadays:
You can see in these two pictures the green, rusty hopper, and the old discharge port at the bottom
You can see in these next two pictures the entrance to thehopper and conveyor, something interesting is on the wall you can see the old cable supports, where electrical wiring would of run down.
This is the end of this part. It will continue in the comments
this will be very long, so sit tight
history:
Hartshead power station’s construction began in 1919, and was semi completed in 1926. The goods yard itself existed long before the power station was constructed. There are not many records on it besides a few maps and pictures.
Such as:
The goods shed from Grove road, over the older bridge with a locomotive going over
An older map of the Goods yard, and Staley&Millbrook station at the bottom. Thank you to National libraries of Scotland for this Ordinance Survey map of this area.
the power station after its initial construction only has the single conveyor, and the power station itself was much smaller. The goods yard compared to now is much smaller, and the overhead conveyor wasn’t constructed yet. Here is the map:https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.486723832579816&lat=53.49819&lon=-2.03612&layers=10&b=1
about a decade or two after it’s construction, the power station had several issues contributing to the first underground conveyor. Due to it being underground, it constantly flooded and had issues with people getting ill due to coal dust from the enclosed space, so a secondary conveyor was required. The power station was being used by more and more areas around Tameside and Ashton-Under-Line, and some parts next to Manchester like Mossley, this also meant that the goods yard and power station had to be expanded if they were to meet the needs of all these areas.After its final construction, this is how it looked:
Thank you @FreshFingers and @Alley (forgot which one had it) for this incredible map of the area
about 1950, an engine shed was created further up so that the custom Steam locomotives that served the power station were constantly in goods shape and has a good supply of steam.
sadly as the power station reached older age, around 1970, the Micklehurst loop was mostly closed down, which means the stations coal supply was closed, so they had to convert to Oil and gas, until 1979, until its inevitable abandonment, and 1980 its destruction. The goods yard itself wasn’t touched strangely, besides the conveyor as they are part of the power station, until about 200-2010 when Caseys and Urban Green began pulling down and scrapping most of the buildings, which is why lots of reports before 2010 seem to have lots more interesting parts.
that’s all I know on the history currently, so it’s time for the actual Report.
130 Coal Wagons:
Somewhere between 1850-1870, the construction of a small goods yard began to supply the nearby mills and town of Millbrook. The area itself used to be pretty empty, hence the previous map, and there are a few pictures. Such as:
View attachment 882979
You can see in the first picture the goods shed in the centre of the picture.
when the power station was made, the goods yard was expanded massively to hold up to 130 coal wagons. There are many old pictures of this area, thank you to people on Flickr and Timepix.Uk for these pictures
Thank you to random user on reddit for this amazing picture
nowadays, the Goods shed itself is in amazing condition externally, internally however it is very empty.
Externals
You can see here on the inside the very large empty area below the floor. My assumptions is that there was a trapdoor over it, and it was used to stood coaldue to the fact it has several girders in it and large chunks of wood. But then again, it may just be from other parts of the shed.
outside at the front, there is a small building connected to the outside next to the entrance. I don’t have pictures of it now, but it is in a very broken state. I believe it may of been a boiler of some sort? As inside of it there is a small furnace, and this next picture shows a little chimney on top:
at the goods yard, there is a small reservoir outside, and after the railways were expanded, a concrete embankment was made:
Not much remains of the actually goods yard itself sadly, as there are almost no rails, and all the rail supports were recently pulled up by Urban Green and removed, so there isn’t much besides the conveyors and engine shed which I will discuss later.
High And Low, And One More For Good Luck
when the power station was created, the river Tame and Huddersfield Narrow Canal sat between the two, so movement by hand or truck wasn’t an option. A very simple idea was created when the station was made. A conveyor. The original conveyor was underground, and used to stretch low over the canal and river. A simple mechanism was made, a few hoppers based under the railway for trains to drop coal off, and it worked well. For a while.
the hopper room itself nowadays isn’t as fascinating as it used to be. The green hopper is rusted to hell, and where machinery used to be only shows a dark outline on the concrete. In 2010, Caseys and Urban Green decided to clean and scrap it for any objects. At this time they weren’t going to sell though. This is when they were planning to create a new housing estate and ‘valley park’, and all metal they pulled out was dumped into the watery pits in the hopper room. This is what the area used to look like:
You can see here the mangled mess and old gate covering the service entrance to the hopper
This was taken off the internet, not mine. You can still see here the old conveyor machinery , and the old hallway.Fir those that braved the mangled entrance nowadays, you know that all that remains is a muddy hallway.
I don’t have many more pictures of it previously, but I have a few of nowadays:
You can see in these two pictures the green, rusty hopper, and the old discharge port at the bottom
You can see in these next two pictures the entrance to thehopper and conveyor, something interesting is on the wall you can see the old cable supports, where electrical wiring would of run down.
This is the end of this part. It will continue in the comments
