A rail carriage made at Head Wrightsons Teesdale, Thornaby. Photograph courtesy of Ken Rhodes 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A rail carriage made at Head Wrightsons Teesdale, Thornaby. Photograph courtesy of Ken Rhodes
When you saw a product like this & when the nameplate went on the product(ie.Head Wrightson or Ashmores etc.)you knew it had come from the drawing office to completion(ie.final assembly & commissioned),using all your skills & disciplines(ie.foundry,bridgeyard,machine-shop, maintenance & dispatch personnel). These companies closed in the eighties & their skilled workers are now slowly being lost to the industry through retirement. This is something the personnel of jobbing shop or modern day industrial estate units do not acquire this experience.
We built these carriages which were called Torpedo Cars in the Fitting Shop,also Scale Cars & Ladle Wagons.A Torpedo Car full of molten metal exploded at B.S.C.Workington with a number of fatalities.These cars can still be seen from the Trunk Road at Redcar(Corus)after numerous years of service.
This carriage was made to transport molten iron from the cupola furnace to the steel making furnace at British Steel in Redcar.
I have seen with regret of the death of a well known person from HW’s who has regularly been mentioned on the PS site. It is that of Frank Halliday 87 yrs old that has been mentioned in the Deaths column of the Evening Gazette today.
Frank was a Gentleman who was a Bridgeyard Foreman, also a keen outdoor man hiking etc.