Location type

Name and dates

Description

This was a boundary box on the west side of the Ravenscraig Steel Works. It was alongside the south end of the strip mill. This was a location where British Rail worked into the works yards to hand traffic over to the steel works, and vice versa.

A new line was built in 1956 between close to Shields Colliery Junction to Cleekhimin for the Ravenscraig Steel Works.

This box was located where the new line split four ways. The box was on the west side of the junction.

To the south there was the double track approach from Shields Colliery Junction. To the south east lines ran into Ravenscraig No 1 Yard (scrap handling, limestone in, various other uses).

To the north west a line turned west as a double track railway to reach the marshalling yards east of the Dalzell Steel Works. To the north lines ran north through Ravenscraig No 3 Yard (strip coil yard), down the west side of Ravenscraig Strip Mill, and left the works crossing Merry Street to reach Cleekhimin, continuing on to Jerviston Junction.

Close to the box, at the Ravenscraig No 1 Yard, there were offices and shunters' bothies at the west end of the yard. There was a short 'cripples' siding too. Within the yard there was a weigh bridge.

The box closed in 1983 and was demolished. The line south to Shields Colliery Junction closed to through traffic but was retained as far as the Craigneuk Street bridge as a headshunt. Some redundant wagons were stored here.

Even after closure of the box this remained an official exchange point, the limestone trains being worked into Ravenscraig No 1 Yard to be taken on by the works locomotives.

The double track line to Dalzell Steel Works also remained, used for some of the trips between the two sites.

The remaining lines continued in use until the closure of the Ravenscraig Steel Works. Approach to No 1 and No 3 yards was from Jerviston Junction, to the north, which was convenient for the Mossend Marshalling Yard. The route was tortuous and some trains paused in the yard to have an extra locomotive added.

The works closed in 1992.

This location has been landscaped and is close to a roundabout. The disused no 1 yard is nearby, the alignment of the tracks and imprint of sleepers still obvious (in 2019).