Description:A London and North Western Railway tank locomotive hauling wagons filled with materials for widening the railway embankment between Rugeley and Armitage. This photograph was probably taken near Armitage church where the present subway passes between the Trent and Mersey canal and the River Trent which can be seen in the foreground. Labourers can be seen in and around the trucks and climbing the bank is a temporary narrow track for moving material about the site. The railway was being increased from two lines to four. Nearly two hundred men, many of them local labourers, were engaged in the work which included building bridges, a viaduct, and culverts and retaining walls. It is possible that the two parallel features sloping up the embankment form the sides of the newly formed tunnel.
Prior to the track widening, people who wished to cross the railway between Armitage and Mavesyn Ridware had to climb steps on the embankment and cross the tracks. Part of these works provided the subway tunnel through the embankment aligned with the river footbridge.
This picture is from an album of photographs taken by Thomas Harvey Boycott (1876-1949) who lived with his widowed mother, Fanny Maria, whose family had lived at Handsacre Hall as farmers, together with his unmarried aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Harvey. Harvey was a Clerk at Lichfield District Probate Court and a skilled amateur photographer. The album was a parting gift from Harvey and his mother to the Rev. R.E. Grice-Hutchinson (1885-1976) who was Curate of Armitage with Pipe Ridware 1909-1913. A note in the album states that "... there was a Mission for the Navvies in Old Road run by Miss Dorothy Garner."