Pioneering moves: the gantry

Our Curator of Engineering, Sarah Baines, tells us why we should take another look at this iconic industrial relic that for nearly 100 years, transferred goods from rail to road, connecting the Northwest to the rest of the world.

Over the last few months, we’ve been busy making essential repairs to the towering outdoor gantry outside of Power Hall. We’ve undertaken painstaking shotblasting to remove historic water damage and rust before we begin conservation treatment and lastly, repainting it to its original dark rusty red colour.

The historic gantry in our Upper Yard is one of the most striking features of the museum site. It runs almost the full length of the Shipping Shed—now known as the museum’s Power Hall gallery—and provides a unique sculptural feature on our historic site. Visitors can weave between its looming iron columns and marvel at its imposing structure while enjoying our unique site in Castlefield.

History of the gantry

When it was first built in the 1880s, the gantry was at the heart of the thriving Liverpool Road Goods Station. It was built to support a steam-powered travelling crane, which moved back and forth across the top of the structure, controlled by an operator from a platform or cabin above. The vast gantry supported moving overhead cranes which moved heavy goods on and off railway wagons.

The exact date is unknown, but from maps, we know it was in place by 1884 and was likely built around the same time as New Warehouse, which was completed in 1882. To put it in context, the earliest powered overhead crane was McNicoll and Vernon’s Patent Steam Travelling Crane introduced in 1858, so station managers were pioneering this new kind of technology as the success of Liverpool Road Goods Station grew.

What is now the Power Hall was built as the new shipping shed at Liverpool Road Station in 1855 to speed up the movement of goods to and from the railways. For nearly 150 years, Liverpool Road Station was bursting with produce from all over the world, including raw cotton, live pigs, timber, and fresh fruit and vegetables, providing Manchester’s manufacturers easier access to a global market. The building was designed so produce and goods could be quickly unloaded from railway wagons, then collected by delivery drivers for distribution by road across the city. Goods from across the world were transferred from rail to road transport and out across the North West, using innovative machinery like the gantry crane.

Pioneering new technology

The gantry tells a fascinating story of how Liverpool Road Station was adapted over time. Pioneering technology was installed to help busy workers move goods on and off the railway quickly and smoothly as the demand on Liverpool Road Station grew.

As the station got busier and busier, new haulage technology was installed. The gantry crane was the biggest and most advanced. The gantry structure supported two 10-ton travelling cranes to operate across two moving bridges, unloading up to 16 railway wagons of goods on each of the two railway tracks below—a huge feat back in the 1880s. This type of crane was called a travelling crane, because the crane travelled along the cross girders at height to where it was needed to lift something.

While it helped workers lift heavy loads, it also had its downsides. The crane would have originally been powered by a steam engine, probably at a distance, with the power transmitted by ropes. Outdoor overhead gantry cranes like this could also be powered by their own self-contained engine and boiler, as the smoke and steam could dissipate. Contemporary sources describe how this could cause burning cinders to fall on workers below as the cranes moved overhead, causing injury. Following advances in technology, the gantry crane would have been converted to electricity in about the 1920s and continued to be a vital part of the goods station’s success until 1975 when Liverpool Road Station closed.

Restoring the gantry to its former glory

As part of a larger initiative to make essential repairs across our site, including the New Warehouse’s 150-year-old roof, the 1830 Viaduct and Station and our iconic Power Hall, we’ve been busy preserving this important industrial survivor for the future.

This included shot blasting areas of the metal structure to remove historic damage. Shot blasting involves firing a high-speed stream of particles at each section of metal to carefully remove each layer of corrosion and rust, a painstaking process which took four months to complete. Undertaking shot blasting on such a historic structure involves a lot of care, and our specialist teams have been working hard to ensure we retain as much of the original materials as possible. Once the shot blasting was complete, a primer was applied to protect the newly exposed metal, ready for it to be re-painted.

Working with Buttress Architects, we had paint samples analysed to determine the colour and type of paint originally used on the gantry. Samples were taken for cross-sectional analysis, which allowed us to look back though the layers of paint that had built up on the gantry through time. There were at least eight layers of paint, from the original red-brown lead oil paint to the modern dark grey oil paint. You can also see several layers of sooty deposits between the earlier 19th century layers, indicating the high levels of air pollution present in industrial Manchester. The earliest paint layers identified on the gantry all consist of dark red-brown ochre, which we’ve matched as closely as possible, ready to repaint the gantry back to its former glory next spring.

Future-proofing the gantry

The gantry on our site is a vital part of Manchester’s industrial heritage and showcases how innovative new technology installed at Liverpool Road Station powered Manchester forward. We’re working hard to future-proof this iconic structure for generations to come and we can’t wait to unveil it to you in Summer 2025 when we reopen Power Hall.

For more information about the repair works happening on site please visit our We are changing webpages and follow us on social media for behind-the-scenes information.

These works have been made possible by the museum’s current £14.2 million worth of national capital funding by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to complete urgent repairs across New Warehouse, the gantry and the 1830 Viaduct.