Gloucester Waterways Museum
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4.2  Railways

Lines and Turntables
     There was a network of railway lines around the docks, and turntables were needed to make sharp tums around the warehouses. As the originals had been removed, some replacements were installed by Friends of the Museum in 1990 to allow rail access around the Museum quayside. Components for the turntables, probably made around 1890, were obtained from underneath the Great Northern Warehouse, just off Deansgate in Manchester. The turning part of each has a wooden platform mounted on a metal frame linked to a central pivot. The frame is supported on a set of small wheels which run on a circular track resting on a concrete base and tied into a 2ft. high ring which lines the hole in which the mechanism sits.

Fireless Locomotive No 2126
     A fireless locomotive is one which does not burn fuel to make steam, but carries around its own steam supply which is topped up at intervals. No. 2126 was built in 1942 by Andrew Barclay & Co of Kilmarnock for the Castle Meads Emergency Power Station across the River Severn. It initially shunted coal wagons from the wharf by the river near Gloucester lock where the power station fuel was unloaded from coasters using a steam crane.
     In later years coal came to the power station via the main railway system, and the locomotive was used to shunt wagons around the site. When the power supply companies were nationalised, the locomotive came under the ownership of the new British Electric Authority and was repainted green rather than regulation wartime austerity grey. The locomotive is now in the colours of the Central Electricity Generating Board who continued to use it until 1969 when Castle Meads closed down.
     The locomotive was donated to the Dowty Railway Preservation Society at Ashchurch in 1973 for preservation and later stood at Toddington on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway. The National Waterways Museum obtained it in 1988 to return it close to its former workplace. The Friends of the Museum spent many hours working on the restoration which was completed by Dorothea Restoration Engineers of Whaley Bridge.

Wagons
     The 20 ton brake van was built at Swindon in 1948 and was used to control trains of goods wagons. In 1962, it was purchased by the Manchester Ship Canal Company who added doors and windows to convert it into an engineers’ breakdown vehicle for use at Ellesmere Port. It has been restored by the Friends of the Museum.
     The two open wagons came from Sharpness Docks.
     The flatbed wagon was built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Co and was used at the Royal Naval Armanents Depot at Gosport.
     The small trollies were used for moving deals around Nicks & Co's timber yard.

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