Buckley Exchange Sidings"

Buckley Railway

1970

The numbered notes which are not marked by a hot spot on the image are as follows:

1. Man pushing a loaded brick tram to the loading platform at 6.

2. Empty transporter waggon with sets of tram lines across the base and a swing bar to stop them falling off.

4. Long-demolished row of cottages called Railway Terrace.

6. Man taking back an empty train of "box waggons" to the brick works.

7. A Great Western goods train passing to wrexham

9. ? set of sidings

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CAPTION

THE BUCKLEY EXCHANGE SIDINGS

Until the mid-20th century, a tramway system serving brickworks in Buckley carried bricks and clayware by means of horse tramways, initially from the early 19th century. Tramways led from Buckley Mountain, and the lower regions of Northop, Aston and Ewloe to wharves and jetties alongside the River Dee. When railways were developed during the mid-19th century, many terminated at a siding alongside the railway.

At these points, small trams loaded with lump coal, fragile clayware and pottery were transferred bodily onto specially-modified railway waggons. This archaic practice still existed at certain brickworks. Such a system existed at Lane End Brickworks.

42" gauge iron plateways led from the works to the nearby railway siding. Here the track curved and finished "head-on" to a railway siding. A sub-level tram track passed along the edge of the loading bay. Along this passed a single-load flat tram waggon whose floor was level with adjacent standard-gauge railway waggons. Loaded trams were pushed onto this traverser waggon which was manually pushed to a vacant space on the railway waggon.

The square-wheeled boxes were known as shipping waggons and colloquially as shippers. The railway waggons carried three sets of tram rails across the floor of the waggon. These linked up in gauge with the movable platform waggon - known as a traverser.

These brick and coal trains carried clay goods by rail to the docks at Connah's Quay and Liverpool with minimum handling and ensured an efficient, damage-free delivery.

Author: Bentley, James

Buckley Exchange Sidings"

Buckley Railway

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