IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Coleridge Avenue, SOUTH SHIELDS, NE33 3EZ

Taken from the corner of Readhead Avenue.

This is the back lane between Coleridge Avenue (left) and Roseberry Avenue (right).

Wonky old Tyneside Terracing.

View west, towards Tyne Dock. The Last(daylight passenger) Train (13.00 to Whitburn Colliery) is about to leave, headed by R. Stephenson & Hawthorn 0-6-0ST No. 7749 of 1952. (See also Image).

Horsley Hill Road, South Shields.

View NW, towards South Shields staithes by the (electrified) freight-only line just visible on the left. The SS&WCR passenger service terminated here from Whitburn Colliery; it ceased from this day (22/11/53). For details see Image The locomotive is a Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn 0-6-0ST, No. 7749 of 1952.

The view is westward, towards Tyne Dock and Whitburn Junction. In the opposite direction ran the S.S. & W.C. Railway to Whitburn Colliery, which closed five months later on 23/11/53 along with this station, also the line from Westoe Colliery which lasted until 1993. Ahead the lines were goods only, but electrified, conveying the mineral traffic to Tyne Dock staithes or onto the ex-NER lines. (See also Image]).

This is a set of cross compound geared steam turbines set up for display at the South Tyneside College. I understand this area was to be cleared and I suspect it has been scrapped. This was one of a pair of 25,000 horsepower Parsons geared turbines installed in the Battle-class fleet destroyer HMS Corunna built in 1944-47 and commissioned in 1947. She was scrapped at Blyth in 1975. The two water-tube boilers and two steam turbines driving twin screws could propel her at up to 35.75 knots. When I visited the college it had this display turbine, several workable steam turbines, a reciprocating steam engine and several diesels including a huge single cylinder Doxford, opposed piston two stroke. This latter is in bits at the Anson Museum in Cheshire. The ladder in the foreground is inside a cylinder from a modern Sulzer marine diesel of the type known colloquially as a 'cathedral diesel' and used in modern container ships.

When this site was visited in 2002 it retained this steam engine driving an alternator, some steam turbine plant and a large Doxford single cylinder, opposed piston diesel engine. The Doxford was removed for preservation shortly after and I suspect the rest of the plant may no longer survive either. This engine was built c1956 by E Reader & Sons Ltd of Nottingham as works number 28217 and drove a 60 hz alternator at 514 rpm. The engine is an inverted vertical compound (enclosed). In the left background is a BTH condensing steam turbine set.