Castle Class no.5001 on the turntable at Chester, 1960
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Castle Class no.5001 on the turntable at Chester, 1960 by Alan Murray-Rust as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Castle Class no.5001 on the turntable at Chester, 1960
Image: © Alan Murray-Rust Taken: Unknown
The turntable was located in isolation in the middle of the triangle junction between the lines to Birkenhead and North Wales. The locomotive fits on the turntable with inches to spare. The majority of turntables ran in a pit with the girders below rail level, but here the design has girders above the rails and a very shallow pit. The turntable would be rotated by human effort, as can be seen from the slats to help the crew retain their footing whilst pushing the loco round. The key to making life easy was to try and position the locomotive with its centre of gravity over the central pivot, not always achievable with a full size locomotive. The former Great Western Railway Castle class locomotives were the principal motive power for the express trains between Birkenhead and London Paddington via the GWR main line. As the trains reversed at Chester, these engines did not normally travel to Birkenhead.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
53.199205
Longitude
-2.886456