- Immingham Dock
Immingham Dock was a
port facility, with linkingrailway s, opened six miles (10 km) downstream fromGrimsby by theGreat Central Railway (GCR) in 1912. It was first conceived in 1874, during the company'sManchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway days, after test borings north-west of Grimsby had been made by marine engineer Charles Liddell. Nothing ensued but the idea was revived in 1900 when the leading marine engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry confirmed Liddell's earlier recommendations. After some opposition the Humber Commercial Railway & Dock Act was passed on 22 July 1904.Design, construction and opening
The dock was designed Sir John Wolfe Barry & Partners. It was built by contractors Price, Wills & Reeve of
Edinburgh , and equipped by Rowlandson and Ball.Construction started with a sod-cutting ceremony on 12 July 1906. The wider scheme included three new lengths of railway:
* the Grimsby District Light Railway, fromImmingham to Grimsby, used for contractors traffic and later for carrying passengers (mainly dock workers).
* the Humber Commercial Railway, from near New Holland to Immingham, for coal traffic
* the Barton & Immingham Light RailwayThe formal opening of Immingham Dock was by King George V on 22 July 1912. During the ceremony
Sam Fay the General Manager of the GCR was knighted.On completion the total dock area was over 4 square kilometres (1,000 acres), 4 km (2.5 miles) in length, over 1.5 km (1 mile) inland, with a river frontage of nearly 2.5 km (1.5 miles). It had an entrance lock with three pairs of huge hydaulic gates. On the seaward side of the lock an eastern and western jetty curved outwards until they parelleled the shore;: the eastern jetty was a passenger landing stage with its own double railway tracks; the western jetty, which was partially opened in 1910, was used for coal also with its own double track accessing the mainland via two girder bridges. The total water area was a little under 20 hectares (45 acres).
References
* Dow, George (1965). Great Central, Vol. 3: Fay sets the pace 1900-1922. London: Locomotive Publishing Co
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