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n a Tunnel L Bingley Preston Nelson Keighley 20 Miles X Shipley Tarleton X Leeds Selby Blackburn Accrington Bradford Halifax A Chorley ire & Ca Burscough lder N l av a ig n a C n tio a a n lder tio Bury C Huddersfield & a Bolton He ig Goole le al bbl av da an e N h C oc w Wigan R o rr X a N St. Helens ld e Leeds and Liverpool fi s

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C S r H e l s st a Canals closed or under restoration. Liverpool n che n le Man a Manchester t.He B C S ridge r wate X Gas & Electric works Coal mine Textile mills

The collieries and destinations for coal traffic on the canal. In Yorkshire, coal came from off the Aire & Calder Navigation; in from the Burnley and Wigan coalfields. In the early days of the canal, collieries near Stockbridge also provided coal. Burnley collieries often had ‘ginny roads’, chain operated tramways, for moving coal. Here coal is being loaded into a boat at the end of one of the tramways.

Coal from Wigan was sent in large quantities to Liverpool, particularly for the gas works there. This traffic continued until 1963, ceasing after a hard winter closed the canal for weeks, and because of the conversion to natural gas from the North Sea. Textile mills often had coal delivered by canal. They used the canal water for cooling the exhaust steam from their mill engines, for which they had to pay the canal company. As an incentive, they also received a rebate on tolls for any deliveries by canal.

Bank Hall Colliery, Burnley, continued to send coal by canal to Whitebirk Power Station until 1963.

In Yorkshire, coal was brought from collieries on the Aire & Calder Navigation or Canal. Coal from Plank Lane, Leigh, Here two horse boats are working through Woodlesford on their way to the Leeds & Liverpool to Wigan Power Station was Canal to deliver coal to towns in Airedale. the last regular coal trade on the canal, ceasing in 1972. The power station was about to close, and the quality of the coal was declining, giving two reasons for the end of the traffic.

Loading coal at Crooke, near Wigan, for delivery to the gas works in Liverpool around 1958.