Opened in 1894 the Manchester Ship Canal was one of the great engineering achievements of the Victorian age and, in addition to the 36-milelong waterway linking Manchester with the sea, the Manchester Ship Canal Company also operated its own extensive railway which had initially developed to assist in the building of the canal. By 1923 this had become the largest industrial rail system in the country, with the MSC Co. employing more than 70 steam locomotives and operating over 230 miles of track.
In addition to the yards and sidings which served Salford and Pomona Docks, the Manchester Ship Canal Co. also had its own continuous through railway line which ran alongside the north bank of the canal all the way from Salford, via Partington North, as far as Latchford, to the east of Warrington, while to serve the various industrial premises which had opened along the route of the canal the company also operated separate sections of railway at Acton Grange, Ellesmere Port, Partington South, Runcorn Docks and Stanlow, each with its own connection to one of the main line railway companies. The MSC’s Railway Department was also responsible for handling all the rail traffic generated by firms on the Trafford Park industrial estate, an arrangement that had been formalised by agreement between the Trafford Park Co., the Manchester Ship Canal Co., the Cheshire Lines Committee and the London & North Western Railway in February 1922.
The locomotive fleet
Traffic on the MSC Railway reached a peak in 1942 when 8.6 million tons was carried but would thereafter begin to slowly decline averaging 7 million tons a year for the rest of the decade and around 6 million per annum for much of the 1950s. This tonnage was sufficient to warrant the investment in 40 new diesels which were introduced between 1959 and 1966 to gradually replace the company’s existing fleet of 64 steam locomotives which then included some 42 0-6-0 side tanks built by Hudswell Clarke between 1902 and 1927 along with seven 0-6-0 side tanks which had been purchased from the Hunslet Engine Co. between 1898 and 1902.
There were also two Hunslet 0-6-0 saddle -tanks dating from 1932, as well as an older 0-6-0ST constructed by Hudswell Clarke in 1927. Somewhat larger were the company’s six surviving Kitson 0-6-0 side-tanks built during the 1920s, while the MSC’s most modern steam locomotives were six 0-6-0 saddle tanks: three ex-War Department ‘Austerity’ 0-6-0STs purchased by the MSC in 1947/48, and three ‘Special’ 0-6-0STs constructed new for the MSC by Hudswell Clarke in 1954.
By 1960 the majority of the Hunslet and Hudswell Clarke side tanks not already in store were allocated to the MSC’s main shed and workshops at Mode Wheel, Salford, from where they handled the traffic at the Manchester end of the system. The Kitson tank engines still handled much of the through line traffic, as well as paying the occasional visit to Trafford Park, while the allocation of the three ‘Austerity’ 0-6-0STs was split between the sheds at Mode Wheel, Partington and Ellesmere Port. The trio of 52ton 10cwt Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0STs, the heaviest locomotives on the MSC Railway, spent most of their brief lives at Partington and Ellesmere Port before they, together with all three ‘Austerities’ and the six Kitsons, were withdrawn during 1963/64.
The MSC’s first seventeen diesel locomotives, all purchased from Hudswell Clarke between 1959 and 1962, comprised two 430bhp 0-6-0 diesel-electrics numbered 4001 and 4002 and fourteen smaller 204bhp diesel-mechanical 0-6-0s numbered D1 to D14. The MSC Co. also purchased a single 106bhp 0-6-0DM from Hudswell Clarke for use by its Resident Engineer’s Department which was numbered E1.
The diesels 4001 and 4002, which carried the names and respectively, arrived at Mode Wheel in spring 1959 and, after sorting out several teething troubles, they were allocated to hauling trains from Salford Docks to Partington and to the yard within the Trafford Park industrial estate know as ‘B’ Junction Sidings. They also appeared on the transfer workings from ‘B’ Sidings, which at that time ran through
