Railway Wharf, North Lincolnshire (J. Wharton Shipping)

[Target2001uk]

I am in the process of finding information about this one.

 

[Cruachan]

I am in the process of finding information about this one.

At one time this small building was the offices of J Wharton (Shipping), a big player in the coastal shipping industry. The old Railway Wharf was an important and busy wharf that was particularly involved in the transhipment of cargoes from coasters to inland waterway craft that then carried their cargoes on the Stainforth and Keady canal. The decline in canal traffic led to Whartons closing Railway Wharf in the 1950s and moving their operation upriver and to the opposite bank where they build Grove Wharf on a greenfield site. Later, they also bought out the adjacent Neap House Wharf. All those wharves are still operational and, with a total of 10 berths between them, they still get a lot of traffic.

In the background to one of your photographs you can see the crane on the AWS Wharf at Keadby. This is the newest of the current Lower Trent Wharves and was established in 1986 by a firm called Associated Waterway Services that was a joint venture by the then British Waterways and a private firm (a kind of early Public Private Finance Initiative!). Despite the name, this wharf, unlike Railway Wharf, has never handled inland waterway craft and all its trade comes from seagoing vessels. Nowadays it handles mostly paper and forest products and also has a dedicated steel storage terminal on the opposite side of the road. For those interested in coastal shipping, it gets quite a few Russian vessels.

This photograph shows RMS Libava at the Keadby AWS Wharf - behind the yellow crane you can just see the old Wharton's building.

More photographs of Keady and the other Lower Trent Wharves on my shipping site here

J