Only for those who have lived long enough to remember the days of steam railways :-)

Does anyone know anything about the water pick-up troughs that were between the rails at Edge Hill? What trains services used them? When were they installed? Does anyone have photos?

In the fifties and into the sixties I would travel on the Crewe to Lime Street stopping service and be held up on the big left hand curve at Edge Hill, waiting for the road into Lime Street. As I recall (it has been a while) there were the inevitable empty coaches parked to the left on the inside of the curve and the water troughs (more than one), shiny and full of water, would be on the right.



It wouldn't makes sense for trains headed into Lime Street to use them so near to the end of their journey and on a steep downhill. So I can only speculate they might have been for expresses leaving Riverside station. ButI don't know this for a fact, I never actually saw them being used.