Alex Coomber
Here's a story about this Steam Locomotive. This Steam Loco is a 0-4-0 Saddle Tank Asbestos. Oh if only the Crystal Ball people could have seen the problems that the product of this works would have in store. This isn't British Railways. But is well worth a mention with such an important period photograph. The ominous name of this saddle tank is simply Asbestos and it was built by Hawthorn Leslie in 1909 with the works No. 2789. It is seen shunting in the sidings of the Turner & Newall Works on Trafford Park in 1962. A massive works that met its demise in 2001 as the legal claims were mounting up. The engine however came out of it all quite well. It is preserved at the Chasewater Railway in Staffordshire. Turner & Newall Works we're formed in 1871 in Rochdale and in 1879. It became the first business in the United Kingdom to weave asbestos cloth using power driven machinery. This product was so successful that the company changed its name to Turner Brothers Asbestos Company. In the early 1900s. The business opened an asbestos cement plant at Trafford Park where this locomotive was based and manufactured many asbestos products there. These products included Trafford Tile asbestos cement sheets which became very popular in the building industry and were widely used in the construction of walls in all forms of industrial buildings. But after it was discovered how dangerous asbestos was to human health. It did not last long.
