GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Hockley Station: gwrhd1658a

Behind Prairie No 4146 is the Round yard with its 25 ton Goliath travelling gantry crane in British Railways days. According to the Railway Clearing House (RCH) Handbook of Stations (1954), this gantry crane at Hockley was still the largest railway crane facility in Birmingham. The original cabin on the gantry which housed the vertical steam boiler has been replaced with a lower profile cabin housing the traversing and hoist electric motors. Previously a complex series of fixed and flexible hoses provided the water supply to the boiler, while coal had to be hoisted to the cabin in buckets.

Robert Ferris

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