Urban coal , part 1
I have been thinking about urban coal. Victorian cities consumed huge amounts of coal and of course Glasgow was no exception. Statistics for the quantities mined and moved are available, but staggering though they are do not actually make me think about coal. So instead I started to look at chimneys. I live in a normal west end two bedroom tenement flat which as built had three fireplaces and a kitchen range for cooking and hot water. So thats 32 fires in this block of 8. 14 closes and 2 churches in this street . Up to 450 now. An interesting aside is this link which gives a feel for the the kind of architecture I am on about, I live at the west end of Woodlands. Also has a good map showing how kelvinbridge station and yard was sandwiched in there.
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=16798&p=0
Have a look on google earth at the west end and try and guess how many in total. I gave up, the answer is a very big number.
So how did the railways and in particular the Caledonian deal with the need to bring in and facilitate the distribution of all the coal needed? Firstly, they had a lot of coalyards, I reckon at least a dozen to the west of the city centre, including the NB ones. Thats just yards for wagon to bag to cart deliveries, big factories and institutions such as hospitals had private sidings for direct wagonloads and the tramways were connected to the railways at various places to allow wagonloads to be delivered at night.
Hmm, so not a couple of small coal staithes then.
Here is a picture of Kelvinbridge yard, note the piles of coal between the six sidings. Piles that are actually the height of wagons. Bagged coal was used to form “walls” to support it all and anecdotal evidence suggests that summer stockpiles were built up to cope with the winter months. Bear in mind that the photo is from the 1950s when gas and electricity were beginning to have an impact on coal usage. As a personal aside I remember talking to the elderly lady who lived in the flat below me many years ago who had been resident in the west end long enough to remember the yard being shunted at night in the 1920s and 30s. To quote her “ I have no idea how the people that lived next to the yard ever got a wink of sleep”
Thats the background to my thinking, sorry to blether on a bit. Therefore I have started to make some piles. To the modellers eye these may at first look excessive. But given the evidence it seems to me to be along the lines of what must have gone on. Still a lot of detailing but it does begin to look very urban.
Just a couple of snapshots to give you the idea. As ever, comments welcome.
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