Cumberland Ore and Shore

The pictures below were taken in just a few hours on 7 September 1967.

Millom Haematite Ore and Iron Co Ltd owned an ironworks at Millom and ore mines at nearby Hodbarrow, with steam operated railways at both. By the date of my visit, the whole enterprise was nearing the end of its working life.

To get permission to visit Hodbarrow, I called at the office, which was, to say the least, very old-fashioned, with clerks sitting at high desks. There were two locos working, one being Hudswell, Clarke 0-4-0ST 1742 of 1946, seen above, with some tipper wagons. Note the loco's wooden dumb buffers and the steam crane alongside, used to load the wagons with sand which was used to backfill old mine workings.

The other working loco was much more interesting, called 'SNIPEY' a four-coupled crane tank of good vintage, constructed by Neilson & Co in 1890, works no. 4004, dating back to the start of mining operations here. I spent 45 minutes on the footplate of 'SNIPEY'going about its duties, which it did five days a week. The driver said there was also narrow gauge at one time. Before the War,12,000 tons of ore was produced every week, now it was just 600 tons.

Apparently on a clear day, you could see Blackpool Tower from here according to the driver of 'SNIPEY'.

Another ancient loco in the shed was Hunslet 0-4-0ST, 299 of 1882, also an Avonside 0-4-0ST, 1563 of 1908, the latter still used.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to visit the Ironworks which had quite a fleet of steam locos, with up to six at work daily.

Andrew Neale has written an article about these two railways, published  in the June 2019 issue of 'Old Glory' magazine.

Along the coast was Whitehaven Harbour, where a couple of NCB locos were at work, shunting coal wagons at

William Pit, also those brought down a rope-worked incline from Ladysmith Colliery and Haig Pit.

Down at Whitehaven Docks in steam was 'CARR' an 0-4-0ST by Hudswell, Clarke, 1812 of 1948, with a signal box on the BR line in the background. Below is the other working loco, another 0-4-0ST, Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 7049 of 1942.

Further along the coast was the Moss Bay works of Workington Iron & Steel Co, where about half a dozen stored steam locos were visible from a passing train - the works railway had been dieselised. I also caught a glimpse of two working steam at one of the collieries here.