Shields Colliery Junction

Location type

Junction

Name and dates

Shields Colliery Junction (-1983)

Opened on the Wishaw and Coltness Railway.
Opened on the Ravenscraig Steelworks (David Colville and Sons).
Opened on the Motherwell New Lines (Caledonian Railway).

Description

This was a large junction and west end of a yard which commenced at Shieldmuir Junction to the east.

The initial junction was for Shields Colliery, to the south, reached by a siding running east and then south from the Wishaw and Coltness Railway.

In 1891 a new double track line, part of the Motherwell New Lines (Caledonian Railway) opened to run north to what later became Lanarkshire Steel Works Signal Box (a line extended to serve the Dalzell Steel Works from the east and Lanarkshire Steel Works from the north. This line was approached from the east. The signal box was in the 'V' of the junction, replaced in 1891.

On the south side of the line looped sidings were laid, their east end being at Shieldmuir Junction.

Around 1918 Flemington Goods was laid out to the west, on the south side of the line (and south of Flemington station, on the north side of Windmillhill from the goods yard).

The junction was also altered in 1918 with further loops laid on either side of the main line east of the junction and alterations to the branch to the north. On the south side sidings were laid to the Central Wagon Works, approached from the west.

The fan out of sidings to the Lanarkshire Steel Works had increased and some sidings passed round the north side of Flemington station rejoining the main line around Dalzell Works Signal Box.

For all these expansions the signal box was replaced again in 1918.

From 1956 the new line to Ravenscraig No 1 Signal Box also ran north from the existing Lanarkshire Steel Works lines.

The signal box closed in 1972, replaced by the Motherwell Signalling Centre.

The connection to Ravenscraig No 1 Signal Box was taken out in 1983.

Tags

Junction
09/08/2019


Chronology Dates

  /  /1900Motherwell New Lines (Caledonian Railway)
Authorisation to expand the goods and minerals bridge at Flemington near Shields Colliery Junction.
  /  /1905Motherwell New Lines (Caledonian Railway)
Extension of time to authorisation to expand the goods and minerals bridge at Flemington near Shields Colliery Junction.

Books


A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Scotland - The Lowlands and the Borders v. 6 (Regional railway history series)

Bradshaw's Guides Scotlands Railways West Coast - Carlisle to Inverness: 5

Old Newmains and the Villages Around Wishaw

Old Wishaw

Wishaw 1896: Lanarkshire Sheet 18.03 (Old O.S. Maps of Lanarkshire)