History
A proposal for the construction of the dock on most of what remained of the tidal inlet of Wallasey Pool was outlined in the 1920s. Consisting of the main basin and four additional branches, only part of the main dock was eventually built.
Opened in 1933, the dock had a trio of large moveable cranes to unload iron ore, which were dismantled in the late 1990s. Bidston Dock was subsequently closed and was landfilled by 2003.
The dock was served by the Birkenhead Dock Branch railway line and an iron ore train ran regularly to the John Summers Steelworks in Shotton, Flintshire. Due to the nature of the train, a high degree of motive power was required. Class 40s and pairs of Class 25 locomotives are known to have operated on this track, during its latter days. In the steam era, the iron ore train was known to have been hauled by 9F locomotives. Though the dock itself was filled, the northern quayside, on which the cranes were situated, and the railway sidings are still intact, although disused.
Read more about this topic: Bidston Dock
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)