IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Newton Park Drive, NEWTON-LE-WILLOWS, WA12 8DR

Parkside was a modern deep colliery. Sinking started in 1957 and production in 1959. It was closed in 1993. It had two prominent winding towers 200' high and this view was near the top of one of them where there was this multi-rope Koepe type friction winder. This was driven by electric motor and had hydraulic caliper brakes. This is one of the very few electric winders that I photographed. I was actually there to photograph the large compressed air operated rope changing winches much further down the towers.

This was one of two large rope changing capstans/winches located inside the enormous tower winder houses and servicing electric Koepe winders. Built by John Wood of Wigan in 1959 they were essentially steam engines but had always operated on compressed air. The duplex cylinders were 18" bore x 30" stroke and were geared down to an 8' plain drum. The picture well illustrates the environment in the base of one of these towers.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened in 1830, from this line branches were opened to Warrington (1831) and Wigan (1832). These two branches eventually became part of the West Coast Main Line and, in order to create a direct route between the two this short length was constructed by the London and North western Railway in 1864 between what became Winwick Junction and Golborne Junction. 85031 is seen heading north and is just about to pass beneath the original LMR.