INDUSTRIAL CHANGE…

( Items from this column from 30, 20 and 10 years ago)

Ravenscraig ( July 1990): Up to 40% of Railfreight’s business in Scotland is threatened by the closure of the British Steel strip mill, whose survival cannot be guaranteed beyond 1994. Some of the loss could be offset by a new contract to transport steel slabs.

■ Closure in fact took place much earlier, in 1992, seriously affecting the livelihoods of 10,000 people in the Motherwell and Wishaw areas. Following clearance of the site ( turning it into reputedly the largest derelict area in Europe), it is being turned into a new township.

Shotton ( July 2000): Cheshire County Council is still trying to make the best job out of the economic disaster that befell the area in March 1980, when the steelworks closed and 6,500 jobs were lost, including all its rail traffic. It is now home to the Deesside Industrial Park.

■ It has never been worked out how to better integrate Shotton’s High Level and Low Level stations, which serve the North Wales Coast and WrexhamBidston routes. Both have major mobility deficiencies, and Network Rail has been working on proposals for a new interchange for at least five years.

Longbridge ( July 2010): The 1916 Midland Railway signal box is a curious survivor among the wasteland that was once the MG Rover car factory, shut five years ago. The vast site could be used for a religious ceremony when the Pope visits the West Midlands in the autumn.

■ The box was soon demolished, with the level frame passed to the Chasewater Railway. While MG still occupies part of the site, its cars are assembled in China and most of the land is covered with new housing. The Pope, by the way, held his service at nearby Cofton Park instead.