Changes

[[File:Gloucester c1798.jpg|thumb|300px|right| Two trows passing a bridge at Gloucester c1798]]Before the building of the Severn Valley Railway, a large proportion of the goods traffic was transported by river barge, known on the Severn and Wye as ‘Trows’. Trows were fitted with a collapsible mast to pass under bridges on the river and were sailed or hauled upstream against the current, depending on weather and river conditions. Much of the traffic created by the iron and pottery industries of the Ironbridge Gorge was moved by trows. In the mid-1750s there were more than 85 barge owners in the area, [[Bowers Bower Yard Lime Kilns Siding | Bowers Yard]] being one of the riverside wharves at which they were based.<ref name=IGM>Information board on the Trow ‘Spry’ at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Victorian Town.</ref> At ports such as [[Bewdley]] and Stourport, goods arrived by trow to be distributed around the countryside by packhorse with a return flow leaving in the same manner for the seaports in the west of England. In 1797, 17 trows went weekly between Bewdley and Bristol and 28 between Stourport and Bristol.<ref>”British Canals, An Illustrated History”, Charles Hadfield (1950), pp 18, 192</ref>

The coming of the railway had a significant impact on this traffic. By 1871, less than 10 years after the opening of the Severn Valley Railway, there were just 5 barge owners operating. Barge traffic north of Bridgnorth ended altogether on 25 January 1895 after the barge ''Harry'' loaded with firebricks from Ironbridge collided with the bridge at Bridgnorth and sank.<ref name=IGM/><ref>[[Bibliography#Books|Trinder (2005)]] pp. 136.</ref>