NCB Steam Traction

[wombatofludham]

This may seem an obvious question, but having grown up in a mining community I have always wondered if, when the NCB used steam traction on their lines, they used the local colliery's own output for their loco coal supplies?  You might be thinking "duh, of course!" but I know Lea Hall in Rugeley produced coal with a high chlorine content which is why when it was fed to the next door power station it had to be mixed with other coal, and of course not all coal was good for steam locos which is why South Wales steam coal was so valued around the world for it's lack of impurities and low clinkerage, so not all coal at local collieries would necessarily be suitable for steam locos but may be more suited for domestic, chemical or other industrial uses, in which case, what would the colliery loco burn?

 

So, the question is for those expert in industrial steam, did NCB steamers make do with the local coal or did they have to be provided with specialist steam coal from other collieries?

[New Haven Neil]

At Backworth in Northumberland it was 'sweep-ups' - spillage - from the screens, put into the loco bunkers!

[br2975]

At most South Wales NCB sheds I recall visiting, the locos (without 'apparent' exception) were coaled from BR wagons. I have no recollection of any being coaled from an NCB Internal User wagon.

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That could suggest that the coal for the locos was brought in from other pit(s).

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But then the NCB had no scruples about using BR wagons for its' own internal use.

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So, I'm none the wiser !

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Confused of Cardiff

[The Johnster]

I concur with confused Brian about South Wales pits.  The main (though by no means exclusive) use of internal user wagons was either to move coal from a pithead to a washery acting as a central washery for several nearby pits all connected by an internal railway system, like at Maesteg, or to take it to coking ovens on an internal NCB system, such as at Nantgarw, or Abercwmboi on the Mountain Ash network, but BR wagons seemed to be used for all sorts of things internally as well; the shunters just coupled the locos to whatever was there at the time.  

 

I can confirm that at Abersychan, loco coal was supplied in BR wagons taken from the exchange sidings, so possibly not Blaenserchan coal.  I am able to confirm this because I drove the loco, under supervision, a quite terrifying experience with 3 loaded wagons pushing a Hunslet austerity down one of the steepest adhesion worked inclines in the country (1 in 16 IIRC, and bits of it were much more precipitous).  At the bottom you turned sharp left into the 'big arch', a tunnel beneath the BR line, which decanted you out onto the side of a public highway, so you daren't let them run away!  Brakes pinned down on all 3 wagons, and the Hunslet's good steam brake as well, but nerve racking for a 15 year old told not to let the wheels 'pick up' or we'd end up in Pontypool High Street!

 

We did ok.

[wombatofludham]

I concur with confused Brian about South Wales pits.  The main (though by no means exclusive) use of internal user wagons was either to move coal from a pithead to a washery acting as a central washery for several nearby pits all connected by an internal railway system, like at Maesteg, or to take it to coking ovens on an internal NCB system, such as at Nantgarw, or Abercwmboi on the Mountain Ash network, but BR wagons seemed to be used for all sorts of things internally as well; the shunters just coupled the locos to whatever was there at the time.  

 

I can confirm that at Abersychan, loco coal was supplied in BR wagons taken from the exchange sidings, so possibly not Blaenserchan coal.  I am able to confirm this because I drove the loco, under supervision, a quite terrifying experience with 3 loaded wagons pushing a Hunslet austerity down one of the steepest adhesion worked inclines in the country (1 in 16 IIRC, and bits of it were much more precipitous).  At the bottom you turned sharp left into the 'big arch', a tunnel beneath the BR line, which decanted you out onto the side of a public highway, so you daren't let them run away!  Brakes pinned down on all 3 wagons, and the Hunslet's good steam brake as well, but nerve racking for a 15 year old told not to let the wheels 'pick up' or we'd end up in Pontypool High Street!

 

We did ok.

 

Interesting, so it suggests that some collieries might have had external supplies bought in, whilst others could use their internal left overs, which I must admit was my suspicion. 

 

To broaden out the question a bit, anyone recall how coal was graded?  I think "steam coal" is so called because it is coal with lower clinkering and higher calorific content but I assume coal for other uses (domestic, industrial/chemical processes or for coking) must have been less suitable for steam generation?  I also vaguely recall from Chemistry and Geography at school (again I went to school in a mining area) that different parts of the country had coal of varying quality but not much else.  I also recall how it could change within a few miles, the Black Country coal being quite well known for self combustion whilst the Chase and Staffordshire coal wasn't quite so incendiary.

 

I think I need to find a definitive text on British coalfields!

[Respite]

Interesting, so it suggests that some collieries might have had external supplies bought in, whilst others could use their internal left overs, which I must admit was my suspicion. 

Graig Merthyr colliery used coal brought in from elsewhere. Graig Merthyr was an anthracite pit and the local coal burnt through the firebars so 16 ton mineral wagons were used to bring in more suitable coal which was put onto the loco footplate with a big fork, not a shovel. The bunkers on the austerity locos at Graig Merthyr were just somewhere to put the fire irons!

 

I know that at Bedlay colliery with the 0-6-0Ts and also at Bickershaw the locos were bunkered by backing under the screens.

At Ladysmith Washery, Whitehaven if the line under the loading hoppers was clear the loco could back up for bunkers but often the method of coaling was shoveling from a heap on the ground or getting a mechanical shovel to do it.

Nantgarw and Astley Green used a crane with a clamshell bucket.

[philwaglab]

Graig Merthyr colliery used coal brought in from elsewhere. Graig Merthyr was an anthracite pit and the local coal burnt through the firebars so 16 ton mineral wagons were used to bring in more suitable coal which was put onto the loco footplate with a big fork, not a shovel. The bunkers on the austerity locos at Graig Merthyr were just somewhere to put the fire irons!

 

I know that at Bedlay colliery with the 0-6-0Ts and also at Bickershaw the locos were bunkered by backing under the screens.

At Ladysmith Washery, Whitehaven if the line under the loading hoppers was clear the loco could back up for bunkers but often the method of coaling was shoveling from a heap on the ground or getting a mechanical shovel to do it.

Nantgarw and Astley Green used a crane with a clamshell bucket.

 

Loco coal for the Graig Merthyr locos came from Ogmore Central washery 

[Wickham Green]

I suppose it's a reasonable guess that the pits that had to bring in suitable coal were the first to be dieselised* ............. or is that too logical ??!?

 

* perhaps the ONLY ones ?

[Fat Controller]

I suppose it's a reasonable guess that the pits that had to bring in suitable coal were the first to be dieselised* ............. or is that too logical ??!?

 

* perhaps the ONLY ones ?

Strangely, not necessarily- Graig Merthyr was steam-operated until the end. Coal wasn't just brought in for the locos, but for concessionary coal, if the local coal wasn't fit for use in home fires.

[tomparryharry]

Strangely, not necessarily- Graig Merthyr was steam-operated until the end. Coal wasn't just brought in for the locos, but for concessionary coal, if the local coal wasn't fit for use in home fires.

I think Cwm Llantwit got dieselised quite early on. I used to walk up past Tynant landsale yard in the late 60's.

 

The calorific content varies enormously from seam to seam, and district to district, never mind coal mines. Maritime Colliery retained a big laboratory office long after Maritime closed in the early seventies, just to test South Wales coal.

[The Johnster]

Yes, coal is more than just black lumps of geology.  Its calorific content, sulpher content, friability (deep or shallow pan), acidity, and all sorts of chemical stuff that I don't really understand varies considerably between seams within the same pit, as well as between pits that are quite close to each other.  The anthracite coal from the western end of the South Wales field, and it's extension in South Pembrokeshire, is very different; hard, almost glassy, stuff with little dust and burning at a higher temperature with less smoke.  It is less suitable for use in domestic grates.

 

Domestic house coal was graded by quality, presumably by chemical content and friability, and size, and coal merchants offered a fairly wide choice of product; middle class types like my family went for 'best nuts'.  It was sold by hundredweight; our bunker contained about a ton and a half and we would need about 4 deliveries per winter.  My job for some years was to clean the grate from yesterday's fire, and put the ashes in the bin for them, bring a bucket full in for each fire, and lay the fire; not until my early teens was I entrusted with actually lighting it.  We used one grate most of the time, the 'parlour' one being lit for special occasions and the bedroom ones not unless somebody was at death's door; I was not allowed to use mine for homework and the ink froze in my pen on several occasions with use in a room where there was ice on the inside of the windows; this was the normal and accepted level of child abuse in those days and my father complained very bitterly about how much it was going to cost him when I bought myself a fan heater with one of my first weeks' paper round money...

 

Kids today, don't know they're born...

 

Customers were able to specify the chemical composition of the coal they were buying to suit their individual needs; a gasworks might require a different sort of coal to a coking ovens or a factory with Lancashire boilers powering it's machinery, or a shipping company.  Mixes of coal from different pits and with different chemical properties were sometimes used in order to get the most efficient use of the stuff.  Even loco coal differed; some customers wanted coal that could be banked up so that the loco could be kept in steam for long periods between duties but always ready for work, while the main line companies of course designed fireboxes to use the coal most cheaply and readily available to them; performance suffered if the supply dried up and an alternative source had to be found, a constant problem after WW2.   Crwys Sidngs on the Rhymney in northern Cardiff, near my childhood home, featured endless shunting movements which were apparently completely pointless re-shuffling of what looked to me like identical wagons loaded with identical black lumps in order to achieve the correct mix to to be tripped to the dock and tipped into ships.

 

One of the other reasons, I mean besides the obvious fuel issue, for retention of steam locos into the 70s by the NCB was that many of them were fairly modern and in good condition, Hunslet type 18 and a ½ inch 'Austerities' which were the NCB standard loco and a very good choice for them; powerful, easy to maintain, not too sensitive to poor track conditions, and cheaper than a diesel which, size for size, were less powerful and more expensive to buy and maintain throughout the 50s, 60s, and into the mid 70s.  The men liked steam and there was no internal political imperative to scrap it in the name of modernisation, as there was on BR  Many pits acquired diesels only to find that it was necessary to retain steam, and all the associated facilities, in order to provide spare cover; a loco breakdown could bring a pit to a full stop in hours in a coalfield where there was little space at the surface for stockpiling and it was essential to keep things on the move.  The Mountain Ash system had several diesels, including D3000 still in BR livery, but I never saw any of them working and they seem to have been regarded as the back up to the steam fleet.  Pits where production stopped over weekends for underground maintenance provide a very suitable environment for locos that need boiler washouts on that sort of time scale, as opposed to having an expensive diesel idle and not paying it's way!

 

For modelling purposes, I try to make all the coal from Cwmdimbath look the same, but different from my loco coal.  But a colliery might turn out different grades of coal in different screenings from different seams.  On a larger layout, coal from different pits might be suggested by differently screened and sized lumps; power station coal should be quite small in lump size.  Anthracite looks shinier and is cleaner and less dusty, and comes in more jagged lumps.  'Fresh' coal, recently out of the washery, is wet and the wagons drip copiously and have puddles alongside them in the sidings.  Very little is left lying around on the ground; it is a valuable resource and if somebody does not go around with a bucket, pick it up, and return it to stocks, someone else will as soon as it is dark.  Pilferage is endemic and even relatively well off and respectable types indulge freely!

Edited June 5, 2018 by The Johnster

[Norton961]

Re the use of wagons for transporting piut props, here is a photo of a South Wales colliery showing the alternative way of loading pit props.

 

 

This is the second metheod of loading pit props circa 1959

 

A couple of photos of S Wales collieries.

This is Bargoed in 1958

 

Glyncorrwg 1957 with 9799

 

David

 

 

[Signaller69]

Re the use of wagons for transporting piut props, here is a photo of a South Wales colliery showing the alternative way of loading pit props.

 

Glyncorrwg Coll 9799 in 1957.jpg Glyncorrwg 1957 with 9799

 

David

Useful photos. Looks like 3 different gauges at Glyncorrwg (including dual narrow gauge)? Std gauge, 3' & 2'6" gauges possibly?

 

Martyn

[doilum]

Yes, coal is more than just black lumps of geology.  Its calorific content, sulpher content, friability (deep or shallow pan), acidity, and all sorts of chemical stuff that I don't really understand varies considerably between seams within the same pit, as well as between pits that are quite close to each other.  The anthracite coal from the western end of the South Wales field, and it's extension in South Pembrokeshire, is very different; hard, almost glassy, stuff with little dust and burning at a higher temperature with less smoke.  It is less suitable for use in domestic grates.

 

Domestic house coal was graded by quality, presumably by chemical content and friability, and size, and coal merchants offered a fairly wide choice of product; middle class types like my family went for 'best nuts'.  It was sold by hundredweight; our bunker contained about a ton and a half and we would need about 4 deliveries per winter.  My job for some years was to clean the grate from yesterday's fire, and put the ashes in the bin for them, bring a bucket full in for each fire, and lay the fire; not until my early teens was I entrusted with actually lighting it.  We used one grate most of the time, the 'parlour' one being lit for special occasions and the bedroom ones not unless somebody was at death's door; I was not allowed to use mine for homework and the ink froze in my pen on several occasions with use in a room where there was ice on the inside of the windows; this was the normal and accepted level of child abuse in those days and my father complained very bitterly about how much it was going to cost him when I bought myself a fan heater with one of my first weeks' paper round money...

 

Kids today, don't know they're born...

 

Customers were able to specify the chemical composition of the coal they were buying to suit their individual needs; a gasworks might require a different sort of coal to a coking ovens or a factory with Lancashire boilers powering it's machinery, or a shipping company.  Mixes of coal from different pits and with different chemical properties were sometimes used in order to get the most efficient use of the stuff.  Even loco coal differed; some customers wanted coal that could be banked up so that the loco could be kept in steam for long periods between duties but always ready for work, while the main line companies of course designed fireboxes to use the coal most cheaply and readily available to them; performance suffered if the supply dried up and an alternative source had to be found, a constant problem after WW2.   Crwys Sidngs on the Rhymney in northern Cardiff, near my childhood home, featured endless shunting movements which were apparently completely pointless re-shuffling of what looked to me like identical wagons loaded with identical black lumps in order to achieve the correct mix to to be tripped to the dock and tipped into ships.

 

One of the other reasons, I mean besides the obvious fuel issue, for retention of steam locos into the 70s by the NCB was that many of them were fairly modern and in good condition, Hunslet type 18 and a ½ inch 'Austerities' which were the NCB standard loco and a very good choice for them; powerful, easy to maintain, not too sensitive to poor track conditions, and cheaper than a diesel which, size for size, were less powerful and more expensive to buy and maintain throughout the 50s, 60s, and into the mid 70s.  The men liked steam and there was no internal political imperative to scrap it in the name of modernisation, as there was on BR  Many pits acquired diesels only to find that it was necessary to retain steam, and all the associated facilities, in order to provide spare cover; a loco breakdown could bring a pit to a full stop in hours in a coalfield where there was little space at the surface for stockpiling and it was essential to keep things on the move.  The Mountain Ash system had several diesels, including D3000 still in BR livery, but I never saw any of them working and they seem to have been regarded as the back up to the steam fleet.  Pits where production stopped over weekends for underground maintenance provide a very suitable environment for locos that need boiler washouts on that sort of time scale, as opposed to having an expensive diesel idle and not paying it's way!

 

For modelling purposes, I try to make all the coal from Cwmdimbath look the same, but different from my loco coal.  But a colliery might turn out different grades of coal in different screenings from different seams.  On a larger layout, coal from different pits might be suggested by differently screened and sized lumps; power station coal should be quite small in lump size.  Anthracite looks shinier and is cleaner and less dusty, and comes in more jagged lumps.  'Fresh' coal, recently out of the washery, is wet and the wagons drip copiously and have puddles alongside them in the sidings.  Very little is left lying around on the ground; it is a valuable resource and if somebody does not go around with a bucket, pick it up, and return it to stocks, someone else will as soon as it is dark.  Pilferage is endemic and even relatively well off and respectable types indulge freely!

My grandmothers Christmas cakes were legendary. My late father recalled how as a small boy, he would be sent to the coal house to sort coal. His task was to identfy coal from the Haig Moor seam and having brushed off any dust, fill three buckets with "doubles". This would provide the consistency required for steller baking. The kitchen doors were closed, and God help anyone who opened it until baking was completed.

[doilum]

Many of the Yorkshire locomotives were converted to mechanical stoking as part of the Clean Air act compliance. From what I have read, they often fell into disrepair due to the need for a dedicated supply of clean "singles". One large lump or foreign object could jam the screw feed mechanism. This suggests that normal practice was to take whatever coal was available to hand.

[doilum]

I have also read receently that in later years, locomotives were effectively "leased" from the local area. The diesels were much more expensive,so it made sense to keep a steam loco as the standby. A standby diesel would be at risk of battery and hydraulic problems and in very cold winters, of frezing fuel.

Some colliery managers seem to have had a soft spot for the steamers and would also remember oil crises after Suez and again in 1974. Steam and diesel disappeared together as internal railways were abandoned in favour of conveyor fed rapid loading bunkers for the MGR trains.

[The Johnster]

A hand fired steam loco can burn any sort of coal, though of course will have a firebox designed for a specific type to achieve the most efficient steam raising and coal consumption, but careful screening is required for mechanical stokers, leading to the extra cost of screening 'mechanical' coal and keeping it free from contamination with coal for ordinary locos.  This proved beyond the capability of most operators.  One of the main problems with steam operation on BR in the closing years was obtaining decent coal even for hand fired locos!

[keefer]

I'm sure I read in a recent thread that BR was denied a lot of the best coal, particularly Welsh steam coal, as it was such a valuable export bringing in much-needed revenue for cash-strapped Britain in the '50/60s

[doilum]

And of crews who would set off with half empty tenders if the quality of coal at their destination was better than that at their home shed.

[The Johnster]

I'm sure I read in a recent thread that BR was denied a lot of the best coal, particularly Welsh steam coal, as it was such a valuable export bringing in much-needed revenue for cash-strapped Britain in the '50/60s

 

Probably true in the 50s, but by the 60s exports from South Wales ports was a mere trickle; Cardiff exported it's last in '65 and Barry not long after, reduced to a few coasters serving power stations in Cornwall, Eire, and Brittany.  Swansea continued for a while.  The ports were adapting to imports, bananas at Barry, cars and timber at Cardiff and Newport, and the oil trade.