A wonderfully grim location. Round the back of the steelworks workshops and sandwiched between the building and the coal unloading sidings were some sidings at a lower level used to store redundant railway wagons and locomotives most of which were cut up as scrap steel. Near the camera is a (if I recall correctly) slag wagon formerly used in the ironworks during the tapping of a blast furnace and beyond by the JCB was a rail mounted crane and flatbed wagons. This crane did run, but turned the air black. The JCB was used to remove liquid coal from the tracks; coal mud tended to wash down over these sidings from the higher level sidings. It could get very close to the building. I often visited at lunchtime (my office was in the other side of the building) to see what interesting redundant equipment was around. Nothing of this scene remains today due to demolition and landscaping except a portion of the floor of the building and, intriguingly, a half buried slag wagon (this one?). The site has been overgrown since closure but redevelopment has started.

Location: Ravenscraig Engineering Workshops

Original line: Ravenscraig Steelworks (David Colville and Sons)

Photographer: Ewan Crawford

Contact photographer: Ewan Crawford

Contact editor

Date: 1988

Image number: 23337

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