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Weighbridges of Sheffield - please add any you know


miked

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2015 Sandersons old gate house, Darnall. CHARLES ROSS SHEFFIELD Ross began in 1865 according to an earlier post. I would guess that this was installed around that time

 

DSC_3639.JPG

DSC_3637.JPG

 

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It's been removed many years ago but there used to be one outside the corn merchants at the very bottom of Stannington Road. It was actually located in the public roadway outside the premises which later became the Hillsborough Comet store ,then a Chinese restaurant, and eventually was converted into apartments with the old undershot water wheel still attached.

From memory the weighbridge was made by Avery and had the usual heavily profiled cast iron surface. It caused many a cyclist whizzing round the corner from the Stannington Road Bridge to part company from his steed, including me. It certainly made for a bumpy ride.

Talking about weighbridges, I well remember being awoken from my lunchtime snooze at Stocksbridge Works by a small earthquake. It turned out to be a lime tanker which had run away off the Ford Lane weighbridge, and shot over a 20 foot drop into Ford Lane where landed vertically, and virtually exploded making a little mushroom cloud.

It had to be broken up and taken away in bits.

The driver said that he didn't apply the handbrake because "everyone knew that weighbridges were always level".

Ours wasn't, it was a modern digital weighbridge with electronic load cells at each corner and was built into the slope of the hillside with a slope of about a foot over it's fifty foot length.

Whoops.

HD

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It's been removed many years ago but there used to be one outside the corn merchants at the very bottom of Stannington Road. It was actually located in the public roadway outside the premises which later became the Hillsborough Comet store ,then a Chinese restaurant, and eventually was converted into apartments with the old undershot water wheel still attached.

From memory the weighbridge was made by Avery and had the usual heavily profiled cast iron surface. It caused many a cyclist whizzing round the corner from the Stannington Road Bridge to part company from his steed, including me. It certainly made for a bumpy ride.

Talking about weighbridges, I well remember being awoken from my lunchtime snooze at Stocksbridge Works by a small earthquake. It turned out to be a lime tanker which had run away off the Ford Lane weighbridge, and shot over a 20 foot drop into Ford Lane where landed vertically, and virtually exploded making a little mushroom cloud.

It had to be broken up and taken away in bits.

The driver said that he didn't apply the handbrake because "everyone knew that weighbridges were always level".

Ours wasn't, it was a modern digital weighbridge with electronic load cells at each corner and was built into the slope of the hillside with a slope of about a foot over it's fifty foot length.

Whoops.

HD

Interesting stuff. I am told there was one at Mousehole. I am intrigued as to how they worked, especially the early ones .  Your Malin bridge one was mentioned on this site and gave - Picture Sheffield  w00720   

w00720 malin.jpg

w00720 malin.jpg

 

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Canal wharf ( thanks to Cotterill)     I think there is an old picture of the Sheaf works which I need ti find a good copy of.

wharf w-b.jpg

 

sheaf w-b 001.jpg

sheaf w-b 001.jpg

sheaf (1)w t avery.JPG

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 I am intrigued as to how they worked, especially the early ones . 

w00720 malin.jpg

Having had the pleasure of cleaning one out during my apprenticeship days, I seem to remember a tunnel type construction leading from the weighbridge pit to the weigh-house.

Within this tunnel was a heavy iron balance beam (or perhaps two) pivoted to the weighbridge girders and further pivoted underneath at a point which reduced the weight to be measured to practical values. Further pivoted beams inside the scale would act against springs and indicate on a dial.

As an aside I do wonder who calibrates these things nowadays, now that the Weights & Measures people seem to have gone. The Stocksbridge Ford Lane weigh (60 tonnes) used to involve huge trucks from the W & M with MASSIVE steel rollers and calibrated steel ingots, 60 tonnes worth. The weights had to be moved around the surface of the weighbridge to ensure that it read the same. A full days work, or even longer.

I supposed the practice has been privatised.

HD

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Thanks, HD. I was surprised that they go back a long way. The early ones for railways it seems.

I know there was a road one at Parkside road Toll Bar in 1850 because someone got fined. Photo from picture Sheffield

 

 

s16153 toll bar.jpg

Pat Tool Bar 1850 - Copy.jpg

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Some photographs of former road and rail weighbridges, at Orgreave Coking Plant, all sadly, now long since demolished.

1: Top rail weighbridge, track-lifted

2: Road weighbridge

3: Bottom rail weighbridge

567844e2aecb3_ORG102-OrgreaveCokingPlant

5678451edc61a_ORG103-OrgreaveCokingPlant

5678467b4bb55_ORG226-OrgreaveCokingPlant

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A tip of the hat to Miked for researching this neglected, yet interesting, field of industrial archeology. I notice that most of the ones in the photos look disused; are weighbridges still in use?

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Although no longer there, James Neill had one in their yard off Ecclesall road just about where Waitrose is now situated. Memory escapes me as to who made it or what weight is was designed for.

I believe there is also one at Forgemasters on Brightside lane.

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hi i found a weigh bridge you may not know about it is at the corner of carlisle st and upwell st at the traffic lights the weigh bridge office is also still standing hope this is useful to you

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On 12/21/2015 at 18:36, Unitedite Returns said:

Some photographs of former road and rail weighbridges, at Orgreave Coking Plant, all sadly, now long since demolished.

1: Top rail weighbridge, track-lifted

2: Road weighbridge

3: Bottom rail weighbridge

567844e2aecb3_ORG102-OrgreaveCokingPlant

5678451edc61a_ORG103-OrgreaveCokingPlant

5678467b4bb55_ORG226-OrgreaveCokingPlant

Heselwood scrap yard stevenson road had a weigh bridges 1st yard and then he had another in another yard

Terence Housely had a weigh bridge effingham road

thomas wards had a weigh bridges

 

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I've worked on a few weighbridges around Sheffield, here are a couple from memory...

Intermet Refractory products, Platts lane, Oughtibridge.

Kuusakoski recycling, Faraday road.

2 at the Europa link entrance  to Outokumpu, there was also another 2 at the Shepcote Lane site before it was demolished.

Hillsborough Steelstock, Wadsley bridge.

Forgemasters, Brightside lane.

Dixon Street Neepsend, In the former premises of George Clark Ltd.

 

 

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Is/was there one above the roundabout at Tankersley? Opposite side of the road and just below the Tankersley Manor Hotel, on the A61, going up to Birdwell roundabout?

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