the manc ship canal up by moore has some railway remains from back in the day.

in this video i go in search of some of that as im told theres a bit that still remains to this day.

this is part one with some other interesting finds along the way..

As you cross the ship canal on Moore Lane, just before the Lapwing Lane crossroads, the route of the old Manchester Ship Canal Company (MSCC) railway passes overhead on the concrete bridge. This is the remains of an isolated section of the MSCC railway that ran from Walton Lock to Wigg Island in Runcorn, serving both the I.C.I. (C&M) and Wigg Works. Remains of a different part of the MSCC line can be seen as part of the Transpennine Trail as it passes down the side of Morrisons’ supermarket in Stockton Heath heading towards Knutsford Road. There is still a small section of rail visible in the road at the far end of Acton Grange warehouses just before the road turns left, drops down and becomes unmade. This is a ‘new’ section when the railway was diverted away from the canal side when the warehouse buildings were erected. For the more adventurous, another similar section is visible on the old Ship Canal Company road leading to the site of Randles sluices west of Bob’s Bridge.

On the northern side of the canal at Acton Grange, between Moore Lane swing bridge and Bob’s Bridge, a small sand quarry was connected by a tramway to the MSCC railway who put in an empty wagon and moved one loaded wagon out each day. At one time there were wharves where the Acton Grange warehousing complex now stands marked on some maps from around 1900 as a timber yard with a traveling crane to help loading/unloading. A coastal vessel is shown in an old photograph unloading a shipment of pit props here presumably destined for the local collieries. After the Acton Grange wharf closed in 1963 and the movement of freight ceased, the MSCC closed the Acton Grange connection to the main line at Walton sidings.

Du Pont moved the MSCC line when they took over the wharf site in 1960’s as it originally ran through the middle of their warehouses; at this time one or two trains, mainly of tank wagons, still ran to/from Runcorn along this section of line. A map in ‘The Railways of the Manchester Ship Canal’ clearly labels these as National Coal Board wharves with a connection from the main railway on the east down the side of Walton sidings, turning under the deviation bridge and joining the MSCC line here just east of the wharves. This book also states that one of the earliest companies to use the wharf was Richard Evans of Haydock Colliery, perhaps to move out coal and definitely to import pit props. I hope to include more about Richard Evans and Sons and their collieries in the Haydock area in the future. A serious accident happened on the MSC railway in 1952 with the fatalies being two village men, Ted Bodell and Jim Brennan.

There is another station that is not at all well known. This is Walton Junction station that existed for about 12 months! You can see from the map that it was in a very isolated position and could not have had many passengers. It appears to have been situated on Bellhouse Lane. Colonel Cobb’s Railway Atlas of Great Britain shows the opening and closing to be in the same year, 1857. Perhaps, it was active while access to to Warrington Bank Quay station was being arranged? Please read the update in the separate article on Walton Junction Station.

At the time of writing the old MSC link to the mainline at Walton sidings is at the heart of Peel holdings plans for ‘Port Warrington’.

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