Since the 1860s trains have conveyed crushed limestone from Derbyshire to the soda ash and chemicals works in mid-Cheshire. By the 1930s a new higher capacity design of wagon was needed, and so the 'Hoppers' were built by Charles Roberts for Imperial Chemical Industries. The fleet of 152 bogie hopper wagons became instantly recognisable to railway enthusiasts. For just over sixty-one years between 1936 and the end of 1997 the wagons worked almost...