BRITISH RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE DEPOTS, WORKS AND STABLING POINTS.
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BIRKENHEAD MOLLINGTON STREET LOCOMOTIVE DEPOT (6C/8H/BC) - Birkenhead Mollington Street was a locomotive depot located on the Birkenhead Dock Branch railway. The depot was situated about 600 yards from Birkenhead Central railway station. Owned and operated by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and the Great Western Railway (GWR) jointly, the new joint-depot was opened in 1878. The shed consisted of two separate but conjoined 8-road straight sheds, the LNWR shed to the north and the GWR to the south. Each had separate water and coaling facilities. On Nationalisation, the entire depot came under the control of the Midland Region. In 1951, the ex-LNWR shed was reduced in scale by half its width, to allow the construction of a new 2-road straight diesel shed in its place. The LNWR coal stage was removed, meaning all coaling moved to the southern GWR coal stage. A new diesel fuelling stage was built on the entrance throat to the new diesel depot. In March 1959, the allocation was 56 engines, only 2 of which were GWR 0-6-0PT's. Of the remainder, 19 were passenger tank engines for local services, 2 were Class 47000 0-4-0ST's for dock shunting and the remainder were mixed traffic and good locos. There were also 9 diesel shunters. In 1963 as the Beeching cuts were felt, the entire ex-GWR allocation of locos was removed and sent south to Swindon Works for reallocation or scrapping. Nonetheless, up to ninety locomotives on shed could still be seen, on occasion., and the allocation in April 1965 had grown to 75 engines, 32 of which were BR Standard Class 9F 2-10-0's, which worked the heavy iron ore trains from Bidston Dock to the John Summers steelworks in Shotton. The remainder were 5 passenger tank engines, 9 Class 3F 'Jinty' 0-6-0T's for shunting duties and 29 mixed traffic 4-6-0's and 2-6-0's. The final day of steam operations at the shed was November 5th, 1967. During the final years of the depot, locomotives stabled included Classes 03, 25, 40 and 47. In 1984, during the Merseyrail changeover from Class 503 to Class 508 EMU's, those units were also stored at the depot. The depot was closed in November 1985, and demolished in July 1987. The depot is seen here in April 1976 with loco's of Classes 25, 40 and 47 on shed.