Teesside/Cleveland or general North East Coke traffic.

[Sylvian Tennant]

Hello to you all, I've just started eBay which has proved a greater evil to my student finances than I had initially anticipated in the process I seem to have purchased a kit coke wagon which I would like to utilise. 

 

But the question I have is, can anyone provide me with any information about coke trains going to through Teesside, Cleveland or in general the North East in the 1950's/60's?

 

I'd like to to specifically know what type of wagons would have been used and if possible any images people can point me to. 

 

i've tried to google it, but I keep finding red labelled bottles and snorting and neither are particularly helpful at this moment in time.

[stovepipe]

A fair amount of coke produced in the north-east was sent to West Cumbria via the Stainmore Line up until the late 1950s when the traffic was diverted via the Tyne Valley line. Coke was produced at Fishburn, Redcar, Monkton, Norton and Derwenthaugh. I think the various types of BR/NCB 21t Hopper (HTO or HTV in TOPS parlance), but usually unbraked, were fairly universal on anything but internal works traffic. My impression is that the HCO type were more common elsewhere in the UK but could be seen in the north-east in lesser numbers. Having a search on the coking plants would probably bring up some useful photos. Which kit have you got?

[Sylvian Tennant]

Cheers stovepipe, well it's a Three Aitch LMS coke wagon that I bought as a bundle - I would give it some sort of credence with being a replacement vehicle within a rake. I'll have a look around.

[Fat Controller]

Don't forget Norwood..

[Mark Saunders]

From Memory, trying remember the ones in Durham!

 

Monkton, Derwenthaugh, Norwood, Hawthone, Fishburn, Lambton and South Bank!

 

There must have been ovens at Hartlepool and Port Clarence (Bell Brothers), the ones at Redcar appear to be newer and tied in with the Rebuilding of the works in the early 70's.

 

I believe that most of the Coke in the North East was moved in Coal Hoppers, having been used to deliver the coal and remove the Coke!

 

Mark Saunders

[Sylvian Tennant]

Excellent stuff, thank you. Just out of curiosity would the hoppers have been sheeted, I've heard that coke has become quite corrosive when wet and I've seen a picture a Q6 hauling sheeted 21t wagons around Hartlepool.

[russ p]

From Memory, trying remember the ones in Durham!

 

Monkton, Derwenthaugh, Norwood, Hawthone, Fishburn, Lambton and South Bank!

 

There must have been ovens at Hartlepool and Port Clarence (Bell Brothers), the ones at Redcar appear to be newer and tied in with the Rebuilding of the works in the early 70's.

 

I believe that most of the Coke in the North East was moved in Coal Hoppers, having been used to deliver the coal and remove the Coke!

 

Mark Saunders

The shells of the Hartlepool ones were there for years after they closed, near where the line to the 20" mill curved towards the crossing. There were also coke ovens at 'Cleveland' which were near the blast furnaces.

Also several county Durham collieries had coke ovens which seem to have been fairly small affairs that closed after ww2, Bearpark springs to mind

[Fat Controller]

Excellent stuff, thank you. Just out of curiosity would the hoppers have been sheeted, I've heard that coke has become quite corrosive when wet and I've seen a picture a Q6 hauling sheeted 21t wagons around Hartlepool.

The main source of corrosion on wagons that regularly carried coke is that the coke would sometimes be loaded hot and 'quenched' (sprayed with water) when in the hopper. The result would be that the paint on the wagons would flake away. I saw a couple of rakes of HCOs close up at Smoke Lane, Avonmouth, in the mid-1970s, and the only visible paint were the black patches for the wagon details.

I suspect that the sheeted hoppers you saw were being used for transporting burnt lime for use in steel-making; when this stuff encounters water, a very rapid reaction, known as 'slaking' occurs, which produces a lot of heat. Thus the lime would be carried in sheeted wagons, or in vehicles such as Covhops. Alternatively, the product might be processed dolomite from the Steetley plant at Cemetery Lane, Hartlepool, or perhaps from kilns near Ferryhill.

[kenw]

Where I lived in Shiney Row early 70s - late 80s overlooked the NCB line between Lambton coke works and the BR Penshaw exchange sidings.

Don't remember seeing anything other than standard 21 ton coal hoppers used, and nothing sheeted

[Porcy Mane]

Despite a Darlington Railway modeller doing the BR modification drawings for the BR built LMS type coke hoppers I think Ken is right in saying 21 ton hoppers (and 16ton minerals) for coke in the NE during the late fifties to early sixties.

Not to say that it never happened but I've looked at thousand of phots of trains in the NE during that time period and have never seen a phot of the three H type coke wagon in revenue earning train

The NCB bought some surplus LMS coke hoppers in the immediate post WWII period, cut off the raves and used these wagons for stone disposal and "Teaming bye". East Hetton & Pegswood collieries were two users.

There was a daily coke train that ran from the Consett Iron Co's Fell Coke ovens to Yorkshire. Photographs show this train to be always made up of 16 ton minerals.

 

Despite their age the Three H coke hoppers are still an excellent kit. Just build them for the heck of it.

 

As ever Rule one applies.

 

P

[Arthur]

...the sheeted hoppers you saw were being used for transporting burnt lime for use in steel-making;

 

Burnt lime isn't used in steel making, just crushed limestone so it's not usually covered. Dolomite is also used, though in much smaller volumes, and that might well be covered. Burnt lime might have been used in the Teesside chemical industries?

 

Here's a list of the Teesside coking plants operational between 1950 and 1960 and also some of the major coke consumers in the area.

 

The following ovens were associated with blast furnace plants, two closed during this period, Acklam ('56), Cargo Fleet ('62) and two operated throughout it, Cleveland and Hartlepool (North Works). Two plants opened during this period, South Bank ('56), Hartlepool (South Works '60).

 

There was also ICI's Billingham plant, closed 1962.

 

Bell Bros/Dorman Longs Clarence plant closed in 1936, the 'new' Redcar plant didn't open until 1977.

 

The steelworks ovens largely supplied internal demands though some was sold on. ICI's Billingham plant, I would imagine, sold on most of it's coke, the ovens being primarily there to provide coal chemicals for processing.

 

Gjers, Mills & Co, in the old Middlesborough Ironmasters District, would have bought coke in for their blast furnaces (closed 1965) as would Cargo Fleet after losing its own ovens in 1962. Skinningrove steelworks, on the coast, had lost it's coke ovens in 1937 so would have also bought in coke during this period.

 

There were 19 other coke oven plants, largely associated with collieries, in the North East and operational for at least some of the period 1950-1970. Locations and dates available if it's of any interest.

[Porcy Mane]

Not about coke hoppers but just to expand a little on Aurthurs post:

It prompted me to call a guy that spent his life working in the Limestone quarries of the Ferryhill Coxhoe area. Although retired for a good few years his recollection of railborne limestone were that crushed dolomite/limestone should always be sheeted as the load could solidify in wagon if unduly wet but BR would rarely provide hoppers with tarpaulins so more often than not loaded wagons would run un-sheeted.

To contradict that; I've a good few phots of Coxhoe/Ferryhill > Consett traffic that show short trains of sheeted 21 ton,13 ton steel and 13 ton wooden hoppers on the Lanchester Vallay branch in the mid sixties. Problem is, it's only an assumption what these wagons are carrying.

Seems like the situation hadn't improved into the 1980's. There was a recent article in a NERA magazine that said that Agricultural lime loaded at Ferryhill Station into specially cleaned MTV's and HTV's should be sheeted to avoid contamination. The wagons were never sheeted and this was reflected in BR's rates.

Also another reason one could see sheeted hoppers around the Teeside area were those employed carrying product from the British Periclase/Steetly magnesite works on the headland at Hartlepool.

 

P

Edited for spelling. (and it's still crap).

[Waveydavey]

Burnt lime isn't used in steel making........

From the closure of Redmire through to the first closure of Redcar Hardendale Quarry used to supply two types of limestone for steel making on Teesside. One type to Redcar for the blast furnace and the other, in covered wagons and in smaller quantities, for the BOS plant in Lackenby. As a TOPS clerk during the mid 90s I used to take the phone call from the quarry with the TOPS releases. The stone for Lackenby was always referred to as 'burnt lime'.

 

Cheers

 

David

[Arthur]

 

Yes, small quantities of burnt lime/quick lime are used in BOS converters as part of the lining but they weren't in use on Teeside until 1970. Prior to that all steel on Teesside was made by the open hearth process which did not use burnt lime.

[Arthur]

so more often than not loaded wagons would run un-sheeted.

 

It was more important to supply the Dolomite dry where possible, it was ground and sprayed into the open hearths to fettle, reline, them. A job previously, and still in some plants done with shovels. It was one material the L type containers were used for.

 

I've recounted this before, one shift when I worked at Shotton, I was ambling down the melting shop on the charging stage when there was a massive, deep, BOOM from behind me. I instinctively ducked and whirled round to see flames billowing out, and then retreating back into, one of the open hearths further down the shop. The whole place shook and the air was full of metallic dust shaken from every surface. WTF was that I asked one of the furnace hands? "Wet stone" was his reply. Wet limestone had been charged into the furnace, the heat had vaporised the water instantly, and the explosion was the instant generation of steam. No one was hurt but I had to euthanise my underpants.

[Arthur]

How about a photo, some hoppers loaded with coke at Dorman Long's Clay Lane blast furnaces. The furnaces are just to the right, the structural steelwork being the hi line bunkers.

 

[Porcy Mane]

 "Wet stone" was his reply. Wet limestone had been charged into the furnace"

Maybe delivered in an un-sheeted hopper? 

I have read about rubber seals failing on L type containers. Apparently Steetley used to check the integrity of the seals, a job I thought would have fallen on BR.

 

P

[Sylvian Tennant]

Despite a Darlington Railway modeller doing the BR modification drawings for the BR built LMS type coke hoppers I think Ken is right in saying 21 ton hoppers (and 16ton minerals) for coke in the NE during the late fifties to early sixties.

Not to say that it never happened but I've looked at thousand of phots of trains in the NE during that time period and have never seen a phot of the three H type coke wagon in revenue earning train

The NCB bought some surplus LMS coke hoppers in the immediate post WWII period, cut off the raves and used these wagons for stone disposal and "Teaming bye". East Hetton & Pegswood collieries were two users.

There was a daily coke train that ran from the Consett Iron Co's Fell Coke ovens to Yorkshire. Photographs show this train to be always made up of 16 ton minerals.

 

Despite their age the Three H coke hoppers are still an excellent kit. Just build them for the heck of it.

 

As ever Rule one applies.

 

P

 

 

Thanks for the info Porcy, and also the picture Arthur. 

 

I had an inkling that it might  afar fetch idea however I think I'll crowbar it in a rake of 21t empties I'm planning to make just for something slightly different.

 

In regards to the steely limestone traffic I had asked this a while back and people came back and said that the sheeted 21t must have been coal (again the corrosive nature or what not). I was hoping people would have confirmed that it was limestone to be able so i could run some Conflat L's instead of COVHOPS (which I ended up buying anyway).

[Mark Saunders]

In one of the Colour Rail photographs taken at Lynemouth showing the Railtour their during the 1950's showing the Signalbox has one of the Coke hoppers without the rails!

 

It has been published in Backtrack or similar!

 

Mark Saunders