Excavations at Chatsworth Street Cutting

Resource Type: Image | Posted on 31st October 2011 by Liam Physick

One of the images donated to Metal by Eric Shenton. Here we see the excavations of the Chatsworth Street Cutting between 1976 and 1979. These excavations uncovered the northern engine house and the rope haulage machinery system, both of which were used by the fixed winding engines that pulled locomotives from the Wapping Dock to Edge Hill. They revealed that the walls of the engine house were demolished into the cellar, from which there were tunnels under the tracks leading to the boilers and a large hole for the main drive pulleys. From this hole to the tunnel entrance there ran a long trench which held the rope-tensioning gear. The excavators concluded that George Stephenson’s achievement in devising this system was a feat “whose importance was only overshadowed by the success of the Rocket”

Tagged under: liverpool and manchester railway, eric shenton, rocket, tunnels, tunnels, george stephenson, edge hill station buildings, fixed engines, chatsworth street cutting, wapping dock

Categorised under: Landmarks, Landscapes & Locomotives