Today's photo is the Rob Roy built by Ailsa Shipbuilding Company, Troon in 1896. If you zoom in on the photo you can see the detail of people on the pier and the crates from J Alexander, Glasgow. ...
The full programme for Renfrewshire's doors open days weekend is now available to download from the doors open days website here. This is a screenshot of our entry in the programme: The eagled eyed among you will note that we are said to provide a resume service for business archives! This looks to be another example of the pesky autocorrect at work and should...
The steamer Queen Mary is up for sale today in an online auction by Capital Boats, sale details here. She was built by William Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton in 1933. There's a news article on STV about it here and in the evening times here. ...
The National Maritime Museum is looking for help with its Warship Histories Project. They are looking to harness the knowledge their users have about their collections to enhance the existing information they have on over 20,000 British warships from about 1500 to 1950. This information includes: The data includes the name, type and launch date of almost every British warship in the time...
Today's photo is of the Renfrew Ferry, this ship was built by Fleming and Ferguson of Paisley in 1952. She was a river chain ferry and took cars which was a new development in the 1950s until then the renfrew ferry had been passenger only. Specification details are available from the Clydebuilt site here. I think she now operates as a static leisure...
We've started the preparations for our doors open day on Sunday 11th September, just over three weeks away now! As part of that, we're going to be distributing flyers locally to encourage as many of our neighbours and residents of Johnstone to visit us at some point on the day. You can download the flyer here and it has a map of how...
Today's photo is of the Rosslyn, a bucket dredger built by Lobnitz and Co. of Renfrew in 1912. A bucket dredger is equipped with a bucket dredge, which is a device that picks up sediment by mechanical means, often with many circulating buckets attached to a wheel or chain. Very detailed information on bucket dredgers, how they work, their history and plans is available here. Specification...
In a month's time on Sunday 11th September, the Ballast Trust will be opening its doors as part of Renfrewshire's doors open day weekend. We'll be open from 10 am to 4 pm. We'll be welcoming you into the courtyard and behind the big red doors to find out what we do here, see some of the treasures we're currently working on and...
Today's Friday photo is the Rivercloy, a Clyde puffer built in Larne, Northern Ireland by Larne Shipbuilders in 1910. She was built for G & G Hamilton of Brodick. ...
The August batch of photos have been scanned and are up on our flickr pages. We're up to the 'Rs' which is a small batch but includes one of my favourites of the puffer ROMAN unloading potatoes at Kilchattan Bay. I've blogged about it before so can't use it as a Friday Photo for this week and will have to pick something else...
The National Archives announced today that the records of railway workers are now available online via Ancestry. At the Ballast Trust the railway records we are working on tend to be the production drawings and often all you get of the person who drew them is a set of initials in the title box. The information now online has come from the TNA's Railway...
