English: Birkenhead (Mollington St.) Engine Sheds.
View NW, showing the ex-London & North Western depot (on the left) and the ex-Great Western depot on far side. This was the main Birkenhead Joint depot, located just south of Birkenhead Town station (closed 7/5/45) on the BJ line into Birkenhead Woodside. After Nationalization, the Depot (coded 6C, in the London Midland Chester Division) had an allocation (in 1950) of 94 locomotives, about equally divided between LMS and GW types (plus five ex-War Department (WD)2-8-0s). The extensive yards serving the Birkenhead Docks etc. required a large number of shunting engines; these included LMS Dock Tanks and some of the old Great Western 0-6-0Ts sporting bells for warning at road crossings. The Depots provided larger tank-engines for the local services to Chester and a variety of larger tender locomotives for the numerous freight trains run from Birkenhead to a great variety of destinations, all of which started their journeys on the line to Hooton and Chester. The Depot closed to Steam on 6/11/67, but remained for Diesel motive-power until 24/11/85. In the photograph are seen:- an ex-Midland 0-6-0T and two ex-LNW 0-8-0s; to the right, two GW 2-6-2Ts and probably a 43XX 2-6-0.