Crossing The Mersey
I took these pictures as the train to Liverpool crossed the Mersey yesterday.
Note.
- The green bridge is now called the Silver Jubilee Bridge, but when I lived in Liverpool and worked at ICI in Runcorn, everybody called it the Runcorn-Widnes Road Bridge.
- The train is on the Ethelfleda, Britannia or Runcorn Railway Bridge depending on your preference. I tend to use Britannia, as the guys I worked with used that name.
- The three towers of the cable stayed Mersey Gateway Bridge can be seen in several pictures.
- Fiddlers Ferry power station is now decommissioned, but was an almost 2GW coal-fired power station.
In January 2011, I took a video as I crossed the Mersey and it is shown in Train Across the Mersey.
The Future Of Fiddlers Ferry Power Station
The Wikipedia entry for the power station, says this about the future use of the site.
Demolition of the station was due to begin in 2020 and will take up to seven years. The land upon which it sits will be redeveloped, with Warrington Council stating it had designated the land as an employment site.
As it obviously has a high-capacity electricity connection and there is a lot of offshore wind power in Liverpool Bay, I would feel it could be an ideal location for a large battery of perhaps 2 GWh.
The Future Of The Britannia Railway Bridge
The bridge was opened in 1868 and is Grade II* Listed.
Did the designer of the bridge; William Baker ever envisage, that in the future his bridge would be carrying trains over 250 metres long, that were capable of 125 mph?
Probably not! But in a few years, the bridge will be carrying High Speed Two Classic Compatible trains between London and Liverpool.
The Anonymous Widower 
Peel NRE have just announced that they’ve bought the Fiddlers Ferry site and will be developing it in line with Warrington’s local plan. https://fiddlersferry.com/ The local plan notes that this is the largest brownfield site in the borough, and will be a mix of housing and employment land, along with parks and wetland habitat. “The employment land is allocated for distribution and industrial uses (B8, B2 and related ancillary uses) and for low carbon energy projects utilising the sites established power infrastructure.” So it looks like they plan to keep the existing grid substation.
Comment by Peter Robins | July 5, 2022 |
one thing not mentioned is that the NPR rail line will presumably go through the middle of it. The local plan does mention protecting disused railway lines https://www.warrington.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2021-09/warrington_updated_proposed_submission_version_local_plan_upsvlp_2021-2038_-_september_2021.pdf p89 though there’s nothing specific to FF.
Comment by Peter Robins | July 5, 2022 |
My local rag reports that power station demolition should start this year https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/21217514.fiddlers-ferry-power-station-demolition-set-start-soon/
Comment by Peter Robins | September 8, 2022 |