With this bleak outlook for business at least things are improving at home, the best news of all is that Chris is fit and well after her operation the other week and thank you for your good wishes. Our home is also on the mend, for those of you that don’t know the tale of misery, we were burgled last year and this winter we had a burst pipe which destroyed 2 rooms and damaged much of the house but finally our trusty builder is nearly finished and as of last night we are back in the sitting room, its lovely to just flop in my armchair sometimes, we have also had a ruthless de-clutter and I’am a convert to the idea that a cluttered house makes a cluttered mind, also this means that I’am slowly mounting a take over bid for my “den” which is our spare room this contains one of my hobbies – my model railway which is to be a 148th scale model representing a fictitious part of South Shields in the North East of England near where we grew up. This masterpiece represents the legendary (to anoraks like me!) Harton electric railway which was years ahead of its time, it was actually electrified in 1904 and worked for over 80 years before coal production ceased at Westoe Colliery. The railways main function was to take both coal and stone waste (a by product of coal mining) to the River Tyne where it was loaded on ships. The coal ships were known as colliers and they would carry coal all round the UK coast but mainly toLondon and the South. The stone waste (mainly shale) was loaded onto a curious little ship known as the David Marley which took the stone about 5 miles out into the North Sea where it was dumped.
Now, as you might gather I absolutely love industrial history and one of the greatest joys of modeling for me is research, fortunately there is one good book to help me and my own jaded memory, also last winter I took the trouble to visit South Shields and spent a great afternoon uncovering clues to the whereabouts of parts of the railway and although the colliery itself is now completely covered by new housing there are still plenty of clues and relics particularly down by the River Tyne near the Tyne Ferry landing where the area known as The Low Staithes once stood, this is where the wagons of stone were teemed into ships. Teeming is the term given to the rapid unloading which believe it or not was done while the wagons were moving by gravity through the teeming shed and an unlucky fella called a teemer had to run alongside open and closing the trap doors under the railway wagons now, believe it or not, although this sounds Victorian it went on until 1987, I often wonder what health and safety would make of it now!
I’am lucky enough to remember watching this from the ferry landing when I visited with my father (the ten minute trip on the ferry to North Shields was a treat!) It was an example of the great industry and ingenuity of North East engineers how this all worked but it did, quietly and efficiently for years. Mention of the ferry reminds me that I couldn’t resist a trip last winter for old times sake and it was still great, in fact this winter I’am going to treat the old man to another trip as he gets on free with his OAP travel pass!
I hope you will forgive this weeks indulgence but it has done me good to go to a happier place away from the day to day fight that our business has become, if you have enjoyed this taste of Northern England Industrial history get back to me and I might give you another progress report!
One of the locos I will be modelling taken mid 80 s
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