Ravenscraig

[MacotheIsles]

Scotty!

I've PMd you a link where you can download all my full-size pics of the demolition. Anybody else wants them too please let me know and they're yours too. I'm sorry to see the bridge away too - there were mixed emotions amongst the spectators when it was coming down. Some folk saw it as an eyesore and some saw it as a reassuring landmark. Many's the time it gave me a few seconds respite from the rain, legging up and down Merry Street. As far as I know the only people who got advance notification (a day or two) were those living right nest to the bridge. I live just around the corner and received nothing, I heard about first by chance through the BBC website, and later in Railway Magazine/

Marko!

Yes - a class 08. Latterly that was about the only motive power, but back in the day there were umpteen classes of steam loco, then 17s, 20s, 24/25s, 26/27s, 29s, 37s, 40s, 47s, and 50s. Even the odd passenger working (enthusiast specials and inspection runs).

[Marko]

Scotty: If you want full size versions of any of the pics I took the entire set is here! Same goes for anyone else!

(the set does focus quite a bit on the nearby Globe cemetery though, as that was what I was out for that day)

[Marko]

Mac: This is a long shot, but you don't happen to have the link to the item on the BBC website perchance?

[MacotheIsles]

Marko...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/hig ... 312494.stm

[Marko]

Many thanks Mac

[MacotheIsles]

Came across these last night while looking through old slides. Next door to Ravenscraig and Dalzell,these are the Lanarkshire Works during demolition. I took a quick look in one day while walking past. Both pics April 1984.


Works interior during dismantling




This is the old line that led into the works from a junction with the WCML at Motherwell Power Box and passed back under the main line through the tunnel in the foreground of this pic.

[MacotheIsles]

The final quarter mile of the railway line; from the Colville Park bridge (on the golf course) to the former Merry Street bridge; is about to be lifted. I wouldn't be surprised if it's gone by tomorrow. Was up the line this evening and there was a JCB sitting in the cutting. Looks like they've worked down from Jerviston Junction, burning and lifting, and are poised to resume tomorrow. Will try and get some last ever pics in the morning; it's always striking how different an old route looks when the rails - no matter how derelict - are gone. RIP Mossend - Ravenscraig Line.

[youngsodn]

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

I grew up on Meadowhead Road, the street the main entrance to the Ravenscraig was on. I spent my childhood looking out of my bedroom window at the gas tanks during the day and watching the sky light up orange on an overcast night. Now I escaped Motherwell a long time ago and have ended up in Cambridge which is about as far from a Lanarkshire steel town as you could possibly get, but I still miss that Steelworks. The odd thing was that last year when I went to see Motherwell play in Llanelli we drove past Port Talbot steelworks on the M4 and it just seemed comfortingly familiar.

Anyway enough of my dribblings. I was back in town last week (Motherwell v Odense - don't ask) and I thought I'd pop into Ravenscraig too see what it looked like from the site of the gas towers. It was something I'd never done before ( I was a swotty child, that's why I ended up in Cambridge) so it was quite thrilling, yet at the same time rather sad. Nature is reclaiming the site slowly but surely, despite the undoubtedly high level of contaminants that must lie not too far under the surface. My brother was an electrician in Ravenscraig, and he told me of areas around the blast furnaces where nothing ever grew. Lovely.



This is not the main road bridge from the entrance, it's the one further to the west that leads to the still functioning electrical sub-station


The same bridge taken from the main entrance road



The electrical substation which I gather still powers the Dalzell plate mill.


Now this picture made me smile a wee bit. Scottish Power are working on site at the moment, hence the substation building was opened up and in use. There was something quite cheering about seeing the lights on inside.






Coming in from the main gate, turn left across a bridge and round to what looks like it was once offices. I really have to take my brother with me next time to tell me what was what.


Now here's a pavement that probably hasn't seen much use in the last 19 years


The site of the first cooling tower


Where the large gas tower stood


And finally the site of the smaller gas tower.

I do really need to go round there with my bother and take some photos that I can label properly. I was only ever in the plant a few times when it was up and running, though towards the end I did have a car pass for the site. At the time I had a girlfriend in Mossend and it was a handy shortcut. That was towards the end of it's life and frankly no one cared who was going through. In fact I remember the signs up in the plant saying that the Merry Street gate was soon to close.

I've droned on enough. I hope some of this is of interest to you all.

[Vinegar Tom]

Keep droning my friend!

I'm sure loads of folk on here would love to read more and also hear about your brother's memories of the place .

Great first post and welcome to HG!

[scotty]

Good post Youngsodn, nice pictures too, welcome to HG.

Here's a good wee video on the BBC web site that talks about the closure and also the politics (or should that be bollotics? ) that surrounded the governments decisions at that time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/modern_scotland/

Some of the other videos on the site are good too; Poll Tax and Miners’ Strike are well worth a watch.

Funny thing is it was actually this thread that brought me to HG in the first place, where I’ve been mostly lurking and occasionally posting ever since! I grew up near Ravenscraig and remember the Clydesdale and Fullwood works as well, all of course gone.

[scotty]

Stuff it, have decided these pictures are too good not to share!

Rare shot showing the gas towers with the old Colvilles name

Colvilles by Ravenscraig, on Flickr

Taken from one of the gas holders, that double lamp post and an outline of the flowerbeds are still visible on the site today.

View from Gas holder 1960-70's? by Ravenscraig, on Flickr

These two are taken from Merry St just at the bottom of Jervy road, 2nd one was taken just after closure, you can't actually see this view now as they have built an embankment and planted trees.

Merry St working by Ravenscraig, on Flickr


Merry St Demolish by Ravenscraig, on Flickr

And The Big R of course...

Ravenscraig The Big R by Ravenscraig, on Flickr

And this was taken on the day the last shift clocked off..
I took this just before the old security building got knocked down

Main road looking towards gasholders by Ravenscraig, on Flickr


Last Shift 2 by Ravenscraig, on Flickr

Finally a link to my set on Flikr where you can see more pictures of the site as it was about a year ago http://www.flickr.com/photos/sco77y/set ... 492197698/

[nuttytigger]

Great pics from everyone! My uncle used to work in "The Craig" and he told me when they were told they were all being made redundant it was a sombre place to work, then on the last working day they had a cake in the shape of a coffin with "ravenscraig RIP" etc on it and released black balloons, of course I'm just going by what he said, maybe someone else can confirm?

I remember when they demolished the chimneys and blue tower, it was very strange seeing the skyline without them, and I am only 25! (nearly 26)

[youngsodn]

Ah Scotty, I don't think I can thank you enough for those photographs, the first one shows the nursery I went to. When did the name change from Colvilles to Ravenscraig? I just wonder if there is the slightest possibility I'm in that playground...

I love the photo from the top of the gasholder, a perfect example of a familiar location taken from an unfamiliar viewpoint opening up a whole new world almost. That's what I've been grasping recently, it was a place I knew so well, but I really didn't. Somewhere that was all of 200 metres from where I grew up that I'd never set foot in. It also helps me make sense of what I was walking through last week. To the right of the junction was what I thought must have been an old office building, turns out it was a lovely wee bit of landscaped garden. I mean what else would you expect in a steelworks?

Now I grew up on Meadowhead Road, just across the road from the smaller of the two gas tanks and it's only now that I realise just how close we were. I do remember my mother always liked being so near, she says on the rare days the winds blew towards us we were so close that anything just blew over the top of us. Actually that reminds me of when the cooling tower caught fire. It was after the plant had been closed down, and somehow the bigger of the cooling towers had somehow been set alight. I was out the front door getting the cat in at night and confess to doing the classic double take looking up to see an orange glow and smoke pouring out of what should have been a quiescent cooling tower. The cat by this point had legged it inside; he was always a smart cookie. The next morning the street was cleaned about five times due to worries about asbestos contamination, but only about 300 metres down the road. We were so close to the tower that the wind had stopped it getting as far as us.

I'm coming back up for a visit at the end of September and fancy a poke about again, time to drag the dog into his favourite industrial wasteland. I think I'll start at the ore facility and follow the Calder to where it disappears into the culvert. Mind you if I can drag my brother out I might try to go photograph specific places and put identities to them. There's the floor of an office building left near the substation, covered in plastic floor tiles where you can make out the individual rooms.

Plus I've got a mate who worked for BSC Teesside in the insurance side of things and pump him for the story he once told me of 20 tons of mercury going missing.

Thanks for this chaps, as I said I'm stuck down here in Cambridge and by god do I miss Glasgow. I hate not being familiar with it; I got one hell of a shock coming down Cathcart Road to see the M74 extension before me!

Douglas

[BrigitDoon]

Plus I've got a mate who worked for BSC Teesside in the insurance side of things and pump him for the story he once told me of 20 tons of mercury going missing.

Something tells me this isn't going to be an accounting error.

(I used to borrow the stuff out of DaddyDoon's antique barometer years ago...)

[cell]

I had forgotten there was a Ravenscraig thread, I posted this a while back on the graffiti thread but I guess someone might also find it of interest on this thread, and yes the site one was printed back to front!


I’m told this was from one of the site shunters (DH411 0-4-0 DH) I acquired it some time ago I’d love to see a photo of the engine if anyone can track one down. Anyone else with Ravenscraig memorabilia?

I had a summer placement at Ravenscraig many moons ago and have a fond memory of a torpedo ladle being welded to the rails due to an overfill/spill, the highly technical solution to free it was to get a JCB with a jack hammer to lever it free, can't see them being allowed to do that with today’s health and safety rules!