Sentinel steam loco ‘Gradwell’ on Stockton quay which could be accessed from Finkle Street. Photograph taken 5th October 1963.
Photograph and details courtesy of Garth McLean.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Sentinel steam loco ‘Gradwell’ on Stockton quay which could be accessed from Finkle Street. Photograph taken 5th October 1963.
Photograph and details courtesy of Garth McLean.
Do you have any pictures of Galbraith in use? This one made it to preservation and is currently in NRM York but I was born in ’72 so didn’t get to experience the Quay as it was.
I do not remember a loco called ‘Galbraith’. I have photos of ‘Swillington’ out of use at the same time as Gradwell was working and also ‘Kilmarnock’ in steam in 1965
There were a few ways onto the Quayside, I could get the mobile crane down there from Castle Gate and the Wharf Street Brougham Street entrances that was a bank down between Quayside Engineers Blacksmiths shop and the Scrap Yard. Had a few arguments with the Loco Driver when he was blocking the way with a line of trucks or I was across the rails loading steel into the marking off shop. At the Wharf Street end the access narrowed so the train or the crane blocked it up. It would more often be the Steam loco not Bradwell which I believe, (could be wrong) was the scrap shunter for loading the boats. Our local Pub the Greyhound was still there then with its posh Captains room, a quick game of Domino’s and a pint after half a shift then the bus home.
The river was still tidal with mud banks at that time the scrap boats often sat on the mud waiting for high tide so they could move out. Walking along there now you would never know what it once was.
Frank.