This is a view of a Shunting Engine heading towards the old Stockton quay. Courtesy of Gordon Armes. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
This is a view of a Shunting Engine heading towards the old Stockton quay. Courtesy of Gordon Armes.
The engine is either Push or Shove. These Y class 0-4-0 locomotives worked for many years on the quayside. One was scrapped about 1949 and the other about 1955. I remember the latter locomotive well, even though I was only 8 years old when it was withdrawn from service. My uncle, Jimmy Carrol, had a stall on Stocton market, and I would visit him occasionally with my mother. She would take me down to the quay to see the ships if it wasn’t high tide(the river sometimes flooded at high tides, leaving the quay covered in mud) I would see this loco pushing wagons of scrap iron. A small diesel loco took over when it left.
Virtually the same view without the steam engine can be seen in photo s307. If the shunting engine is moving north onto the Quayside it must be moving away from the photographer. Note the lampposts along the Quayside were sensibly placed on the town side of the road less prone to flooding. Photo t7681 also appears to show a short train on the historic Quayside branch, but again the engine (if present) is difficult to identify.