Canals, Docks and Harbours
See also Appendix One - Canals, rivers and coastal shipping for more information on coastal shipping, river and canal barges (includes a description of standard markings and flags used) and Appendix One - Fishing boats and ports for more on the fishing industry and port facilities. Dock side cranes are discussed separately.
Canals
Canal/rail interchanges were not common, the two systems were more often than not in competition, but in the more industrialised areas the economic advantages were such as to promote their use. Birmingham was the hub of the British canal system, it has more miles of canal than Venice (35 in Birmingham, 26 in Venice) and boasted over two hundred canal rail interchange points, many involved in the coal trade. The last railway fed canal coal wharf closed in 1969, this was at Hawne in Birmingham. The Oxford Portland Cement Company was originally established close by a canal, with the coming of the railways a wharf was built at Bletchington where the bagged cement was transferred from barges to GWR freight trains until the works closed in 1928. The railway companies bought up several canal businesses and made some limited use of them. The LMS had quite a large fleet of canal boats in its livery and the Great Western Railway used canals to supply their sleeper depot outside London with wood and creosote (carried in tanker barges), the finished sleepers being shipped out on railway wagons.
On a branch line you can add a small canal wharf, linking the branch to the waterways, and this does not require much in the way of space. The building below is based on a real canal warehouse although the prototype had no rail connection, the end wall being blank stone. Such a building has character and serves well in a corner location, perhaps served by a stub from the main canal, and would serve as a combined goods shed and canal interchange shed at a small country station.
Fig ___ Canal/Rail Goods Shed and Warehouse
Canals were cheaper than rail or road for bulk hauls of low value material such as coal and right up to the 1960's canal barges were loaded with coal hauled from the colliery by rail. Wigan Pier is in fact a wharf where wagons were tipped into coal barges, the new museum there has restored some of the tipper mechanisms. Coal handling on canal wharfs and river banks is more fully discussed in Linseide Industries - Quayside Cranes and Cargo Handling.
Canal warehouses were often served by a short cut extending under the building, enabling loads to be lifted up inside. This can save you some space and adding a railway siding alongside the warehouse gives you an excuse for some canal modeling.
Fig ___ Canal/Rail Warehouse
The sketch above is loosely based on a canal-only warehouse in Worksop on the Chesterfield Canal, I have added an hydraulic crane although the prototype had something very like a Midland Railway yard crane on the wharf itself.
The more important canal terminals, inside the larger towns and cities, often had substantial warehousing, the example below was built on a canal basin in Manchester (it has since been converted into 'micro-flats' for young trendy types).
Fig ___ Typical large canal warehouse
Most goods were man-handled on and off the barges, canal side cranes would have been mainly of the hand operated type, although powered cranes would sometimes be provided, mainly at warehouses. In the sketch above I have included a hydraulic crane, based on the original building in Worksop, note how this crane serves not only the railway but also both the upper and lower warehouse doors. The sketch below is an electric (possibly originally manual) crane traced from a photo taken inside a rail-canal warehouse. The barges enter the building via the opening on the right, the railway wagons on the left, note the water level in the canal is about the same as the level of the railway track, which could make modelling this building easier. The crane is sufficiently interesting to be worth including, visible through an open door.
Fig___ Cantilever electric crane used in a rail-canal transfer shed
For bulk discharging minerals such as coal the norm was men with wheelbarrows and even where cranes were provided grabs were rare, the coal being hand shovelled into bins for lifting out of the craft.
After the war some electricity power stations (such as the one in Trafford Park, Manchester) used a vacuum system to discharge coal from barges, but such complexity was rare and essentially Victorian methods were in regular use right up to the end of long haul narrow canal operations with the mineral cargoes being shovelled out by hand and moved by wheelbarrow to the stockpile.
Horse towing of barges on inland waterways although increasingly rare was still seen into the mid 1950's and steam powered Weaver Flats were still trading (principally in the salt and chemical trades) into the 1960's but most craft used diesel engines from the 1920's. Note that on models of canal barges a chimney does not signify an engine, from the turn of the century railway competition meant that more 'bargees' lived on their boats and the stove required a chimney of some form. Steam powered barges generally had the engine mounted forward of the cabin with its own chimney. For intensive short-haul operations 'day boats' with no living accommodation continued to be used right up to the end of canal working in the 1960's and 70's.
Steam power was tried on the Sankey Canal in 1793 but developments were hampered by Watt's patents and steam did not become common until small and efficient engines were developed in the late nineteenth century. Adding a steam engine cost the boat about ten tons of cargo and of course fuel had to be paid for so even then horses remained the norm. The one advantage of the steam powered narrow boats however was that they could pull two unpowered 'butty boats' behind them.
Fig ___ Steam narrow boat and unpowered butty
Note that on models of canal barges a chimney does not signify an engine, from the turn of the century railway competition meant that more 'bargees' lived on their boats and the stove required a chimney of some form. Steam powered barges generally had the engine mounted forward of the cabin with its own funnel as shown above. The cut-away shown below is from a photo taken at the Astle Park steam and vintage vehicle event, this was being sold (I believe) as a 'dolls house' (some detail has been removed to make the illustration more clear).
Fig ___ Cut-away of a steam narrow boat showing engine room
Steam tugs were used on some canals from the later nineteenth century. These vessels had a similar hull to the barges they towed although they were generally shorter. Canal steam tugs often had their bulwarks(the wall round the edge of the deck) cut down and replaced with stanchions and chains as this allowed the crew to cross to and from the barges with ease.
The Boat Museum, South Pier Road, Ellesmere Port, L65 4FW (Tel: 0151 355 5017) has a fascinating collection of material relating to inland waterways and when I visited the museum in the late 1980's the staff were exceptionally helpful.
Generally, for bulk trades, such as coal to power stations and the like, canals remained cheaper than railways right up to the end of their commercial operation. The narrow boats generally ceased trading in the early 1960's, although some regular traffic was still shipped on long hauls by narrow boat into the 1970's.
Low lying coastal areas with navigable rivers, such as are found on the East coasts, favoured sailing barges, each area having its preferred type such as the Norfolk Wherry (a model of which is about four inches long by one and a quarter inches wide), the Humber or Yorkshire Keel, the Sheffield cargo sailing barge (sixty one foot long by fifteen foot wide and fitted with a tall mast, and of course the Thames sailing barge. The example below is a model of the Humber keel, these square rigged vessels often had a second top sail above the main sail.
Fig ___ Humber Keel
Basically designed for hauling bulk loads of grain, coke, building materials, gravel, sand, cement and even horse manure, sailing barges found their way as far inland as Reading, and four Thames barges actually crossed the Atlantic.
Another 'typical' small vessel, this time from the western coasts and rivers is the Tamar Barge, an example of which in restored condition is to be seen at Cotehele Quay, in Cornwall on the Cornish bank of the Tamar (this restored quay is unfortunately not a rail connected example).
Fig ___ Tamar Barge & Norfolk Wherry with sails set
Barge Models
The Langley range of kits includes a 'waterways set' (A18) containing a motor narrow boat and 'butty' (un-powered) narrow boat with a set of lock gates. They also offer separately a set of large canal lock gates (A18c) and small single gates suitable for the trans-pennine 'narrow' canals (A18d). These narrow boats generally ceased trading in the early 1960's, although some regular traffic was still shipped on long hauls by narrow boat into the 1970's. The two Langley boats (motor A18a and butty A18b) and the Fleetline 'coal barge' (BN-1) would serve for layouts set between the First World War and the early 1970's. Both Langley and Fleetline produce models of pleasure craft for narrow canals, suitable for layouts depicting the late 1950's to the present day.
The Airfix 'Pontoon Bridge' kit is useful, it includes a number of waterline model boats, although these do need cutting down as they are rather deep for N Gauge boats. I have had some success using these as 'lighters' (barges into which ships could discharge whilst waiting for a berth to become available, discussed below). The photo below shows one of these cut in half being converted into two barges that might be seen on a river of broad canal.
Modelling lighters
These represent a 'barge' type of lighter, in larger ports lighters tended to be very big and had a distinctive cut-away to the bows and stern, discussed in more detail below (see also Appendix One - Canals, rivers and coastal shipping).
There are European barges available from some continental firms, notably from Noch (discussed below) but these are rather big for a British setting. Noch offer a dumb (unpowered) barge in their OO range, this is acceptable for a British harbour lighter in OO but this scales out very large indeed in British N. For a British harbour lighter (see also Appendix One - Canals, rivers and coastal shipping).
Docks
Docks offer considerable scope for unusual loads, the possibilities for traffic in such an area are virtually unlimited. Larger docks were all rail connected and many had their own internal user rolling stock and engines. Docks are often discounted on the basis that they require rather a lot of empty space for the docks themselves but this is not really true.
The curves in dock railway tracks are among the tightest found anywhere which means one can squeeze quite a lot into a small space. As the track is inset we can use the Peco `Crazy track' points intended for narrow gauge layouts. These have a nominal radius of 12 inches and come with live frogs, offering better running than the 9 inch radius Set-track points. I believe the new short radius 'finescale' points also offer a twelve inch radius curve but the advantage of the fine appearance is off-set by the fact that in-setting the track is more difficult.
Railway lines laid into proper dock areas would be inset, that is the top of the rail would be level with the surrounding ground. This was commonly achieved by laying a 'check rail' (a second rail laid inside the running rail, as seen on 'points' or 'turnouts') and filling the space between these with cobbles, stone blocks, or later concrete, although the concrete method made track maintenance difficult. In model form this can be represented by building up the surrounding ground level close to the top of the rails and by filling the space between the rails with plaster of Paris and scribing to represent the blocks, you could cut up embossed card to fit but this would be more difficult. In general the points are not in-filled in model form, the amount of swing in the wing rails (the sections of track which move) being rather greater in N gauge than on the real thing.
Dock railway lines were not a constant hive of activity, for safety reasons shunting usually only took place at set times. In Manchester for example the quays were shunted twice a day, between 12.30 and 1.30 in the afternoon and between 5.30 and 6.30 in the evening. However if a rake of wagons was filled a special run would be made to clear them and bring in some empties.
Privately owned dock loco's operating outside the dock company property would often be 'tram' type loco's, which had condensing gear so they did not pump out much steam and side skirts to hide the pistons, coupling rods etc. (which it was thought would frighten the horses). Where locomotives ran along public roads the rules required a man with a red flag to walk ahead of the locomotive. Often the man stood on the foot rest at the foot of the locomotive, only dismounting when the line actually crossed a road.
The dock companies often owned quite a number of wagons and vans, usually painted dull grey with the dock owning company initials on the side in white typically eighteen inches high. In Manchester the railway was operated by the Manchester Ship Canal company (and hence marked MSC) whilst in London, after 1908, it was under the Port of London Authority (marked PLA). The trade at the docks determined the type of wagons used, standard five plank opens were generally useful, coal wagons were used for distributing fuel within the docks area and ports handling a lot of timber or steel would have single bolster wagons and six wheeled or bogie bolster wagons. London had quite a lot of meat traffic and boasted a fleet of refrigerated meat vans and (by the late 1940's) refrigerated meat containers on flat wagons. On larger dock railways such as those in London and Manchester brake vans were required, usually these were bought in from main-line companies, the Manchester Ship Canal used a number of GWR toad brake vans (the GWR had a line which reached up to Birkenhead).
Manchester Ship Canal open wagon
Early docks were simply reinforced sections of river bank and riverside berths have remained in use ever since. Older docks serving small riverside towns were often not walled-in but formed a street along the river bank. The quay area, often cobbled, was backed by a row of warehouses and offices. An example of this can be see in Lancaster, the old warehouses have now been converted into accommodation but quite a lot of the old fittings are still present on the quay. Those who find their way to Pendon should take a good look at Madderport on J. H. Ahern's 'Madder Valley' layout which represents a smaller coastal town.
The enclosed dock, with a wall all the way round the dock area, had the advantage of reducing pilferage but is a more recent innovation, dating from the end of the eighteenth century.
Wharfs and quays are basically the same thing, a reinforced section of river bank where ships can be secured, wharfs are usually wooden, quays are faced with stone, both usually lean back against the bank to resist the pressure of the earth. If the landing place juts out from the bank it is called a pier or jetty. Isolated platforms used for tying ships up safely are called 'dolphins'.
There are a few points to note about the quay walls and general dock fittings. The quays themselves would have a solid surface, often cobbles (which offered a better 'grip' for horses), for which N gauge cobble sheet is available from Faller. Alternatively OO gauge embossed brick plasticard can be used, it is a little over-scale but looks reasonable. There is a picture of Southampton docks taken in 1900 in Southern Wagons Volume Two (see Bibliography), which shows what appears to be a tarred macadam surface on the quay and with the rail track set into the surface.
The quay wall in older docks would be made from stone blocks, or earth faced with timber with heavy wooden piles to hold it back. These can be represented in N using embossed or printed stone (the latter being preferable, dock walls were smooth to avoid catching the ships side as the water level rose and fell) or for the wooden type a facing of scribed card with match sticks set at intervals along it.
Fig ___ Section of stone quay wall on a river (the tide is out)
Note there should be NO horizontal balks of timber as are sometimes seen modelled, this would be dangerous as the ships side might catch on these as it rose and fell with the tide. Having said which you occasionally see what appear to be horizontal baulks on old photographs, in actual fact the verticals extend some way in front of the horizontal timber, preventing the ships side from being snagged.
Fig ___ Stone quay wall with timber baulks at a wood yard (the tide is out)
The sketch also shows how to avoid cutting a ship model down to waterline, simply have it on a river berth when the tide is out. This was standard practice for coastal craft and for larger barges on tidal rivers or in tidal docks. It must have been hard work to get the cargo ashore through the mud.
Fig ___ Unloading a barge in a tidal basin
On some quays they had a heavy iron or timber grid, timbers about a foot square with a length or two running parallel to the quay wall and several extending outward at right angles from the quay and resting on these longitudinal's. Where these were available the flat bottomed river craft could settle as the tide went out, keeping them level for loading and preventing them bedding down into the mud.
In docks on river banks the quay was often a wooden structure built on piles extending out over the bank. Poured concrete was used for dock walls from the 1880's but this would only have been used in more affluent docks and harbours.
The scene below is based on a photo of the Runcorn canal, taken in about 1900. The sailing barge is moored to a small jetty but the horse drawn barge is alongside the bank with only a plank for access. Note that the plank extends right across the hold, so it is supported at the barge end, otherwise it would bend down or possibly even tip up when the man with the wheelbarrow reached the end.
Fig ___ Typical scene on a canal
Bricks have also been used for facing quay walls, however I suspect this was mainly confined to enclosed docks rather than river berths or open harbours. The example below was photographed in the old Ontario Dock in Manchester.
Fig ___ Section of brick faced quay wall
In enclosed docks or on river side docks where the quay was long it was common practice to have a ladder or flight of steps set in to a bay on the dock side. This allowed access to small boats at low tide but more importantly it allowed people who fell in to climb ashore. Where horses were regularly used the dock sometimes had a sloping ramp down to the water for the same purpose but these were less common.
On the quay itself you need somewhere to tie up your ships, on older quays they used iron rings anything from six inches to a foot or more in diameter mounted on the dock side. These are technically a kind of 'cleat' and they could hold a small sailing craft or barge safely but they would be too light to take the loads of a steam coaster.
To hold larger vessels you need a bollard, which is some form of post, usually with a flared top to hold the rope securely in place. In some places heavy timber beams were set into the quay with perhaps two feet showing above ground level and in the eighteenth century several docks had old cannon barrels buried muzzle downwards into the dock with about three foot sticking up.
By the eighteenth century cast iron bollards had appeared, often these were hollow castings but in later years the centre was filled with concrete. For N gauge layouts a simple expedient is to use dress maker pins cut down so that about three millimeters will be left showing above the surface. The head of the pin serves to represent the flared top of the bollard, if the head is a little on the large side add a little strip of cigarette paper wound round the pin itself to thicken the shaft.
Since the war ports handling larger ships have used a system of quick release hooks in place of the bollards, this is basically a labour saving device.
Fig ___ Quays & Wharfs Fixtures & Fittings
Set into the stone topping of the quays at Manchester are large iron bollards used for tying ships. This design dates back to the early 1930s but became common in the 1940s onwards.
Fig ___ Iron bollard set into quay wall
You may see large square logs lying alongside the quay floating in the water, these were to protect the quay from damage by the ship, and visa versa. These timbers were free to float up and down, often running on lengths of chain inset into the dock wall (these chains are still to be seen at the Albert Dock complex in Liverpool).
Fig ___ Liverpool dock quay wall with inset chains
A lot of cargo was unloaded from ships anchored in the river onto large barges or 'lighters' which were then towed into smaller basins for unloading. These lighters, which remained a feature of some docks (notably in London) into the 1960's, are not too difficult to model. There are some continental models available of the modern large river barges which can be pressed into service as discussed below, but these are really too large.
Ships and barges are NOT secured to the quay with chains they are secured with ropes which have a loop spliced into the end. Older ropes made of Manila or hemp fibres were brown in colour, modern ropes are often made of man-made fibre and will be light grey or even orange in colour. Steel wire ropes are sometimes used as well as the fibre types but wire ropes are heavy and difficult to haul ashore so some ports do not accept them.
A minimum number of lines for a small coaster would be four ropes, two from each end, one leading away from the ship and up the quay (head and stern lines) and one leading right ashore (breast lines). Anything larger would also have 'springs', which lead back towards the middle of the ship, often crossing each other. Springs are essential for all craft in a tidal or river berth.
Fig ___ Tying up a ship safely
Conventional ferries offered the only means of accessing the continent prior to the development of air travel and railway companies built extensions to feed the docks at which the steam powered high speed 'packet boats' called. In 1930 the Southern Railway converted an ex Royal Navy mine-sweeper to carry motor cars, these had to be lifted on and off by crane at Dover but could be driven over a stern ramp at Calais. Most international sea trade was carried in conventional multi-purpose or 'break-bulk' cargo ships which berthed at docks on the coasts and on the larger rivers.
In the mid eighteenth century someone came up with the idea of the 'tidal dock', an enclosed area of water connected to the river via a lock gate. The ships would enter the dock at high tide and the gates would be closed, this kept the water level in the dock as deep as possible. St Katherine's Dock in London and the Liverpool Albert Docks Museum are good examples of enclosed tidal docks.
Dock side warehouses on small riverside berths tended to be simple, often wooden, shed type buildings. The enclosed docks in river estuaries used similar buildings but these were commonly built of iron (metal frames with corrugated iron cladding). The new docks near the mouth of the Thames at Tilbury, built on a swamp and so unsuitable for extensive warehousing, featured relatively low structures of necessity.
Some enclosed docks were however built in cities (London & Manchester for example) and here providing storage space was an attractive proposition. Hence in the inner-city docks the dock-side warehouses were often multi-story brick buildings. The ground floor would be used for simple transfer to and from ships and road or rail vehicles whilst the upper levels provided warehousing space. The upper levels would be equipped with doorways allowing the cranes to pass the goods directly to the required floor of the building.
In ports where there were regular imports there would be a customs and excise 'bonded' warehouse in which dutiable goods were held until the tax was paid. Examples of dutiable cargo include wine and spirits, perfumes, tobacco, tea and silk.
Modelling Wharfs Quays and Docks
An example of a small river-side docks incorporating most of the above features is shown below. Note that most rivers run along the bottom of valleys which they have cut through the ages, the back drop to this dock scene would therefore be rising ground, either hills (in areas where the rocks are soft) of cliffs (where the rocks are hard).
The raised platform with three small steam cranes is based on Weymouth Quay which was regularly used for imported fruit and vegetable traffic from the channel islands. Modelling these cranes is illustrated in Fig ___. The raised platform is slightly unusual and was provided because most traffic was shipped in vans. Where open wagons were the norm (such as berths handling coal) the cranes could deliver direct to the wagons and no platform would be provided. The wooden jetty is based on one at XXX which was used for handling small coastal sailing craft. On the prototype the small steam crane was fixed on a reinforced section of the jetty but adding a set of rails makes it easier to model. For details on modelling the crane see Fig ___. All the track to the left of the dock engine shed should be in-set, this includes four sets of points and as noted elsewhere the area between the wing rails will probably need to be left open.
Fig ___ River-side docks (1800-1970)
By the 1960's the steam crane on the pier would have gone and the jetty would probably never see a ship although it might still serve as temporary storage for wagons.
The grain warehouse with its raised conveyor system for loading ships is based (loosely) on a building at Wells on Sea in the South East. The sketch below is from memory and probably different from the prototype in many ways, but it shows the basic idea and if modelling your own port you get to design the thing yourself.
Fig ___ Gantry feeding a mill building in a dock area
Note the oil terminal is intended to represent a ships fuel oil storage facility, the associated jetty is small and would be used to handle barges taking fuel out to ships at anchor. If you have room to enlarge this jetty you could make this a berth for oil tankers and liquid petroleum gas ships (you would then need to model the loading arms and etc as described above). For layouts set after about 1960 you could add a couple of spherical gas tanks (see Fig ___) and run pressurised gas tank wagons into the siding.
The image shown below, courtesy and copyright Mr Ian Mackay, shows a tanker barge in use on the broad Bridgewater canal, photographed in south Manchester in 2008. I was able to contact the owners of this barge and its history turned out to be rather more interesting than expected. It was originally a Dutch barge which was brought over to the UK just before World War One, she is 42 feet long and 9 feet 4 inches wide. She was initially used for transporting bulbs grown in the Fens to Ely Dock and subsequently she was briefly used in the general carrying trade between Kings Lynn and Cambridge. In the 1920s she was purchased by Shell Mex & BP who had won the contract to supply diesel oil in drums to the newly dieselised remote fenland water pumping stations (the stations had originally been coal fired). She was converted to a tanker in 1938 and registered with Lloyds, becoming the smallest tanker in the Shell BP fleet, she has two tanks and can carry a total of 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel and had a wooden housing running down the centerline of the tank tops to carry the hoses used for loading and discharge. The oil was initially supplied from railway wagons at transshipment points like Littleport, Chatteris and Benwick docks, but in later years road tankers from Kings Lynn arranged to meet the barge at pre-selected places not far from the pumping stations. After World War Two Shell Fen was based at Appleyard Lincoln’s boatyard at Ely who initially operated her under contract. In the 1960s the yard took ownership but the vessel remained in service carrying Shell BP cargo into the mid 1970s. She was then sold and served for a time as a floating fuel oil and grease supply station for barges on the Bridgewater Canal during which period she was painted in the red white and yellow Shell livery. She is currently laid up at Stretford boatyard and undergoing restoration, at the time the photographs below were taken the wooden hose housing was not in place.
Fig ___ Broad canal tanker
During the transit from the Fens to the Bridgewater Canal the barge had to make sea crossing of the wash before turning into the Trent. The owners have set up a web site whch has a coloured picture of the barge in its later Shell livery along with some black and white images at
http://shellfen.piczo.com/?cr=4
This is not a 'clickable link' as that would cause problems for people downloading the entire site, it has to be cut and pasted into the address bar of the browser. For more information on Shell BP joint distribution operations see also Lineside Operations - Petroleum and LPG.
Enclosed docks are better suited to layouts set in large towns such as London, Liverpool, Southampton, Leith (Edinburgh), Hull and Cardiff. If you have room you could include both river-side and tidal docks, the docks run by the Southern Railway at Southampton had both enclosed tidal docks and also a long riverside berth backed by warehouses with railway lines front and rear.
Transit sheds were used to give protection for goods being loaded or off-loaded from the ships, they were common along the quays uncommon elsewhere. Several dock companies built simple open sheds (roofed but with few or no walls) to provide protection from rain (typically wooden posts supporting timber ties with a king post roof covered in slates. Canvass sheets or simple lightweight timber walling sections were used to provide 'walls' as and when required. Iron built sheds of this type date from the first decades of the nineteenth century but timber structures were still being built at smaller docks into the early twentieth century. Typical sizes for transit sheds in moderately large docks would be 50 to 100 feet long and 20-30 feet wide. Transit sheds tended to be single storey buildings but in the later nineteenth century the transit sheds increased in size, becoming two or three stories tall to allow the use of high speed hydraulic cranes and the like. Warehouses were for storing goods and were usually set back from the quay itself. Some warehouses were placed on the quay to give direct access to the ships, these were for handling goods in bulk such as grain and secure 'bonded' warehouses for holding valuable goods (tobacco, alcohol, silk etc.).
The room required for a docks on a layout is more a matter of length than depth, one modeller built a 'docks scene' into his layout which consisted of two sidings running along a row of comparatively low structures. These buildings represented the 'transit sheds' where cargo was collated and loaded onto road or rail vehicles. The 'dock' as such on this layout was presumed to be on the far side. The plan was to use cut-out flats for the ships, slotting these in behind the buildings as required.
Using this idea with the basic 'larger industries' track plan shown in Fig ___ we can create the exchange sidings behind a large city dock complex (London's Royal docks had such a set of sidings arranged on the northern (inland) side).
Fig ___ Enclosed dock
Regarding the 'industry' on the right I would advise against making this a grain silo, grain can be unloaded on the quay directly into wagons as described above. A seed crushing factory offers some scope for unusual wagons.
The enclosed tidal docks remained in use until the 1970's, notable examples include Liverpool and London, but the increasing size of ships and the shift to containers and pallets killed them off quickly in the 1960's and 70's. By 1970 many of the older docks were largely derelict, the internal railway systems mostly closed in the 1970's and many dock companies finally give up the ghost in the early 1980's. Ships were larger and the new container ships and roll-on-roll-off ferries required specialised berths.
Not all the older ports closed completely, both Bristol and Liverpool docks have remained in use, although only a tiny proportion of the berths remain. Former small ports have grown by providing specialised handling facilities, Felixstowe on the South coast with its berths for container ships and roll-on-roll-off ferries is today one of Britain's most important ports.
A modern layout could probably find room for a simple container terminal, there is an example on the Tyne which could be modelled in a space perhaps two foot by seven inches. Immediately adjacent to the container berth is a steel works which has a small dock with a simple warehouse and on the opposite bank is an oil refinery. Re-arranging these elements provides for some interesting possibilities within a reasonable space.
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