The Hollybank railway operations
Staffordshire must surely be like a huge block of cinder toffee underground because of the coal and minerals extracted over the last couple of hundred years. Locally Hollybank colliery was sunk to extract coal for industry, and it is pointless me recounting the history here because your favourite search engine will tell you all you need to know. suffice to say Hollybank actually ceased production nearly a hundred years ago when the Hilton Main colliery opened nearby and took over the role.
Links from Hollybank were established to the national railway system near Essington, and the LNWR worked from the Walsall-Rugeley "Cannock line" up the branch to adjacent exchange sidings to Hollybank colliery. There was also a rail link to the Rosemary tilery as well as other tramroad type operations long ago defunct, but the piece of railway which absorbs me is the mineral rallway from Hollybank to Short Heath Wharf which opened in 1906. Although there was a substantial network network of canals hereabouts the movement of Hollybank coal would have been slowed by the negotiation of locks to gain access to the destination canals. Much of the output from Hollybank, and later Hilton Main was for burning in the power generating stations of Wolverhampton and Walsall (Birchills).
The mineral branch to Short Heath (also known as Coltham) ran approximately southerly for around four miles, crossing two roads, to a landsale yard, thence to the wharf for transhipment. The method of working for the power station traffic involved four-wheel wooden flat wagons each carrying three boxes. On arrival alongside the wharf a crane lifted and swung the boxes one by one over the waiting canal boat to discharge the coal. A steam crane had been acquired for the purpose and it is believed this crane was replaced by another steam crane, then by a Jones rail mounted diesel crane in the early 1950s. I understand the line remained in operation until 1968 or 1969, closing in 1969.
Unfortunately there are very few photos of the operations but I personally grateful that West Midlands photographer Peter J Shoesmith took a few photographs in 1965, which are now in the care of Geoff Dowling on Flickr. The image of the Jones crane is from the lens of PeterShoesmith and shows the crane travelling to or from the wharf, crossing Wesley Road in Willenhall.
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