Pie dishes, as supplied by Mrs BR from work for clayhoods...........

altogether now, "Who ate all the piesssss, who ate allll the piessssss you fat baaaaaaa!"

ps go for snake and pygmy!

that second photo is a beauty...damn....those 66 FL beasts are growing on me...

They are on me too - less of a ying/yang balance about them though.. more of a ying ying ying.

A consequence of using bucket loading with a none too marvellous operator (or number thereof) driving the bucket loader(s). If you look into the top of loaded wagons (pic available) you can sometimes see how it has happened. It starts to become a serious problem when bits are broken off and discharged into the power station's coal handling plant and are not caught at the first grid intended to catch such bits (or even worse things).

Are you saying these things are loaded by a man on a mechanical shovel?

I'm amazed that they are not loaded by conveyor or hopper

or something similar. It's marvellous what you can learn on here.

Cheers!

Frank

P.S. Are you sure it's not a very big CAT Chris, I bet the loading shovel has C A T on the side in big letters!

Are you saying these things are loaded by a man on a mechanical shovel?

Limestone hoppers are loaded using a front loader at Peak Forest. Suprisingly quickly as well.

Paul.

quite a few loading points use loading shovels, hull docks, immingham, tyne dock, various opencast sites, when you consider the drivers are expected to load 1200t or so in about two hours ( two loading shovels normally) i imagine they are giving it a bit of welly and aren't hanging about, you can normally tell trains that have been loaded this way as theres quite a bit of coal down the outside of the wagons. A good point about bits of the partition falling off, begs the question? are they necessary. Would be a good thing to model, i've thought about it, the partitions in a Bachmann HHA do come out quite easily so could easily be replaced, its one of those things that could just look like you've knackered your model if not done right!

Chris

At some of the bigger locations, as many as eight front-loaders may be working at the same time; the buckets on these things probably load ten or more tonnes with each bite. The driver needs to get the bucket into the top of the wagon, or else there's lots of dust, along with the risk of half the load falling on either side of the wagon.

The partitions are as much to keep the sides apart as anything, I suspect- I wonder what the long-term result of the damage to them will be?

The original MGR hoppers had 'breaker-bars' across the top, to break up loads dropped from overhead hoppers; these ended up broken or missing as well.

Brian