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On 23/10/2020 at 01:59, The Johnster said:

I don't know what actual size or tonnage 'Vectis Isle' was, but she's certainly much bigger than a puffer.  

 

I agree with the appearance aspect of a sea-going vessel, a proper ship, raised quarterdeck, proper bridge, lifeboats on davits, fixed (not collapsible mast(s) and rigging,  Another difference is a proper keel to enable her to maintain a course in a seaway, not the flat bottom of a barge or puffer.  i believe that there is a more formal aspect to this delineation in the ship's registration, which can be as for coastal or deep sea voyages, though I am unsure of what the demarcation is.  

I'm not sure whether the differences between unlimited and near coastal (the current definitions of deep sea and coastal) relate to the ship's design and size so much as to its crewing requirements, particularly the qualfiications of its master and other officers. Within those broad categories there are tonnage break points at 500 and 3000 gt (for engineers it's based on power in kW with vessels of less than 350 kW not requring any) and there used to be a break point at 200 gt below which manning requirements were far less. 

I'm not sure about the lack of a keel, Waine doesn't give many hull lines (a shame for modelling purposes)  but those for even quite large coasters seem to be almost as flat bottomed as puffers and they would also have to have been able to take the ground in tidal harbours just as the Vectis Isle is in the photo. They are though typically less bluff in the bows with somewhat finer lines generally though perhaps not as fine as the Dutch motor coasters . 

Going through the vessels in Waine's books there were a few between 90 and 100 ft long that look properly shiplike and one or two that were actually smaller than the largest Crinan puffers but still looking more like typical seagoing ships. 

The other distinction that occurs to me is in the length of potential voyages with vessels like puffers and their motorised equivalents (I think the RN defined them both as powered lighters) not needing watchkeeping either on deck or in the engine room which those capable of longer coastal and short international voyages would have required manning for.

 

For you amusement and pity, this is what I did with the Shell Welder kit in the 1980s 

Using mainly plasticard I simply built a hatch and cover over the oil industry stuff and added bulwarks with freeing ports to the main deck , raised the height of the bridge and accomodation to suit the 1:87 sized crew, enlarged portholes and doors and added metal railings to the poop and forecastle 

539147579_exShellWeldercoaster1-872.jpg.85803d6401850247a9cd2b5951281d87.jpg

137572327_exShellWeldercoaster1-871.jpg.6b4b68a92631d0dfa58ba0cc23d9bdd1.jpg

The layout this was intended for was never built and the unfinished model ended up as a window sill ornament and, over the years, gradually lost what details it did have to the duster and vacuum cleaner. It would have needed a taller main mast, booms and derricks and the engineers would have needed to be very thin to use the engine room skylight! but it maybe shows what a 15 inch long coaster might look like.  I think it would have had to be a waterline model to hide just how lacking in height the hold was but I liked the basic hull shape.

I think this kit can still be found though even thirty five years ago, when Novo were producing it,  the moulds were decidedly time expired. 

 

 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
adding motor vessel, spelling
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Mast apart that looks pretty much the part, David, certainly better than anything I could've done in the 80s, and my abilities have deteriorated in my dotage since.  Shell Welder, as I recall, was about the only game in town, and I'd considered a port layout which would have had a vessel not dissimilar to yours.  I also considered a cut down Esso Glasgow, but the hull would have been disproportionately slim for a cargo vessel, and wouldn't have cut my mustard.

 

Cargo vessels of any size in 4mm scale or ballpark are still pretty thin on the ground, but you are falling over kits for a liner that never even completed it's first voyage, or Bismarck, in most model shops.  We have Flower Class Corvettes aplenty, and they are not impossible on 1960s layouts when mothballed Naval ships awaiting disposal were still a feature of dock space such as Penarth or Cardiff's East Dock, but I tend to want to portray working areas (with working ships if it's a port) and stay away from the Grey Funnel Line.  Apart from the laid up ships mentioned and the odd courtesy visit, they were infrequent visitors to my end of the Bristol Channel and still are, but one does occasionally see a Fishery Patrol Vessel or a Frigate prowling menacingly further west sometimes.  There are kits for Liberties, but these are not in 1/76th scale, and usually portray the ships in wartime condition with gun platforms and liferafts at the ready.  A Liberty would be a fair size in 1/76th, best part of 6' long, and would overpower most layouts; the best most of us could do would be a bow or stern protruding from behind a warehouse in low relief.  They were a very major part of the maritime scene well into the 60s and could be seen a decade later.  

 

This is all rekindling my ideas for a port/docks sort of layout, and I must resist such temptation...

Edited by The Johnster
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1 minute ago, The Johnster said:

Mast apart that looks pretty much the part, David, certainly better than anything I could've done in the 80s, and my abilities have deteriorated in my dotage since.  Shell Welder, as I recall, was about the only game in town, and I'd considered a port layout which would have had a vessel not dissimilar to yours.  I also considered a cut down Esso Glasgow, but the hull would have been disproportionately slim for a cargo vessel, and wouldn't have cut my mustard.

 

Cargo vessels of any size in 4mm scale or ballpark are still pretty thin on the ground, but you are falling over kits for a liner that never even completed it's first voyage, or Bismarck, in most model shops.  We have Flower Class Corvettes aplenty, and they are not impossible on 1960s layouts when mothballed Naval ships awaiting disposal were still a feature of dock space such as Penarth or Cardiff's East Dock, but I tend to want to portray working areas (with working ships if it's a port) and stay away from the Grey Funnel Line.  Apart from the laid up ships mentioned and the odd courtesy visit, they were infrequent visitors to my end of the Bristol Channel and still are, but one does occasionally see a Fishery Patrol Vessel or a Frigate prowling menacingly further west sometimes.  There are kits for Liberties, but these are not in 1/76th scale, and usually portray the ships in wartime condition with gun platforms and liferafts at the ready.  A Liberty would be a fair size in 1/76th, best part of 6 long, and would overpower most layouts; the best most of us could do would be a bow or stern protruding from behind a warehouse in low relief.  They were a very major part of the maritime scene well into the 60s and could be seen a decade later.  

 

This is all rekindling my ideas for a port/docks sort of layout, and I must resist such temptation...

 

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I just found a side view of Bob Roberts' Vectis Isle for sale on Ebay;  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/pf4033-UK-Coaster-Vectis-Isle-built-1939-ex-Badzo-photograph-by-J-Byass-/292404293592. 

It should be possible to get a rough estimate of length from that.  The same seller also has this, a smaller coaster that I reckon is very roughly 100ft LOA;  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ce3186-Vectis-Shipping-Coaster-Needles-just-off-shore-photograph-/293187827615.

 

I tried to find some data for Vectis Isle but the waters are muddied (!) by there being two later ships of that name.

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20 hours ago, petethemole said:

I just found a side view of Bob Roberts' Vectis Isle for sale on Ebay;  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/pf4033-UK-Coaster-Vectis-Isle-built-1939-ex-Badzo-photograph-by-J-Byass-/292404293592. 

It should be possible to get a rough estimate of length from that.  The same seller also has this, a smaller coaster that I reckon is very roughly 100ft LOA;  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ce3186-Vectis-Shipping-Coaster-Needles-just-off-shore-photograph-/293187827615.

 

I tried to find some data for Vectis Isle but the waters are muddied (!) by there being two later ships of that name.

Thanks Pete

I had the same problem with Vectis Isle but from the side view it looks to be of similar or greater length as Artitec's  1:87 scale model coaster (which is 550mm long) so the frame I took from the film was very foreshortened. As Johnster says, it probably would be too long for any but a large layout.

I'm afraid the smaller Vectis Shipping vessel really doesn't cut it for me. It's even more of a powered lighter than a Clyde puffer and looks to be a day boat- one with no onboard accomodation for the crew. I think Vectis Shipping used to be engaged in the trade between the mainland and the Isle of Wight- largely killed off by RoRo ferries-  and that looks like the sort of vessel that would have been used. The company moved into the 5000 t European coastal market and, asd Carisbrooke Shipping (same address in Cowes)  now also operates much larger ships worldwide.

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

This is all rekindling my ideas for a port/docks sort of layout, and I must resist such temptation...

Why resist? A port layout offers all sorts of possibilities in a relatively small space. Goods yards tend to be spread out over acres but quaysides tend to be very cramped while offering possibilities for a far greater variety of traffic.

Apart from the obvious one of making the quayside the front of the layout so you're, as it were, seeing the scene from the deck of an arriving or departing ship that you don't need to model, I can think of two solutions to the overlarge ship compared with the railway vehicles problem. One is to put the water behind the railway, as Gordon Gravett has in his latest layout, and as John Ahern did with Madderport.

1883990741_MadderportandMVErica1.JPG.388852b912165b50d267974cbfd14a08.JPG

 

24468963_MadderportandMVErica2.JPG.2e936f405b5d7f1579825986632875cf.JPG

 

 

316541813_MVREricaIMG_5301.jpg.ac0449041ad3fab69293f4806cb5a1fe.jpg

(I took these photos on different visits to Pendon and the Madded Valley's conservers do move the Erica and the trawler around a bit just as John Ahern intended.)

 

With this arrangement, and Gordon's is particularly ingenious, a smallish coaster wouldn't dominate the foreground and suitable warehouses etc  could even block having to model its full length.  The Madderport section of the MVR isn't that large, the totral length of quayside is only about four feet,  and though the MV Erica is about six wagon lengths long, she doesn't dominate it and nor does the travelling crane.

 

Another solution is to use just the bow section of a much larger cargo ship as the end view blocker.  This was what Yann Baude used for Quai de la Volga a micro layout featured in Loco Revue no 672 in 2003. This was a small dockside shunting layout inspired by a childhood visit to the commercial port of Calais (not the ferry port) in the 1960s but not based on any particular port

980435694_QuaidelaVolga.jpg.b83607411714fbd410ead3aa1e86c8ba.jpg

This layout had a metre long by thirty centimetre wide visible section with an entry between two buildings  from a fiddle yard to the right  and an assymetric three way point leading to the two quayside tracks and a private siding into a works.  Behind the bows of the S.S. Tarifa was a 15cm (6 inch) long sector plate to allow the small shunting locos to run round wagons or for wagons to be loaded and unloaded. Interestingly the quayside tracks were not inset and I've noticed that, wherever possible, quayside tracks are not; inset track is expensive!

Baude's trackwork was hand made using Peco code 60 rail soldered to pcb sleepers- a technique that he says elsewhere allows rolling stock with relatively coarse flanges to run on much lighter profile rail.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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On 17/10/2020 at 12:35, Michael Crofts said:

Just a thought, does anyone know what sort of crane was on the wharf at Snape?

It's shown on the map extract.

No sign of it now.

Map - composite.jpg

Cygnet and Nadir.jpg

 

How inspirational is that photo for a quayside shunting layout? Do you have any more photos you can share, perchance?

 

Steve S

 

Update

 

Silly me - one quick Google search later and lots of inspirational buildings!

Edited by SteveyDee68
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My plans were more for a full on dock type of layout than these small harbour set ups.  Inspired by the backwaters of Cardiff's docks, especially those in their declining years in the 50s and early 60s, the original West and East Docks.  The backdrop is Stothbert level luffing cranes, the topworks of big ships, big factories, warehouses, grain stores, but what is modelled is the mess of coal sidings, small rail served industries, wagon repair shops, oil stores, foundries, commercial chandlers, and, post war, scrappies that infested the area between the docks and the SWML. There is still some coal traffic but it's in decline, and most of the rest of the railway work has little to to with the ships.  A pilot relieves incoming coal trips from places like Crwys, Cherry Orchard, Roath Jc, Radyr etc, work for East Dock shed's collection of pre-grouping relics, which then disappear off stage ebv, on the high level approach to the coal hoists in the background, but the empties come off the hoists by gravity to ground level and are collected by a ground level pilot that does the other work here as well.  Ground level consists of a reception loop serving the outgoing coal empties and the local industries, but this is done by BR locos in South Wales ports once owned by the GWR and now the BRDB, later absorbed into British Waterways.  

 

There is a small platform for a workman's service, at shift change times, and this of course requires absolute block signalling on the exit to the fy; the high level probably acts as the scenic break for this.  These layouts only ever existed on sheets of paper, but the scene is heavy industry, big heavy stuff made of girders, plate girder or bow strung bridges, gantry cranes, proper heavy engineering, men's work, lad...

 

But I'm happy with the alternative I've settled for, small rail connected coal mining village with poor road connections in a remote Mid Glamorgan valley, more within my space and budget.  To operate properly, the docks layout needs a fy at both ends on the high level, and I don't have space for this with trains of a credible length even using setrack turnouts on some roads.

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There's a scene in the 1960 flim 'Tiger Bay' (John Mills, Hayley Mills when she was 8) in which she escapes from policemen searching for her from St Mary's Church on Bute Road, under the bridge carrying the Bute Road Branch over Tyndall Street, to emerge the other side directly onto Newport Transporter Bridge, thus getting making her getaway as the gondola sets out across the Usk, which I thought was a pretty neat trick when I saw the film as an 8 year old myself that year.  This is the sort of ambience I was after for the putative docks layout.  

 

Quite a lot of my childhood is in 'Tiger Bay', most of it in continuity errors!  The scene allegedly showing the ship emerging from the 'Queen's Lock' was actually shot at Avonmouth, followed by a shot of a different ship going out past the inner wrack buoy with Penarth Head in the background.  I was appalled at the errors at the time, but of course now I love the film for the many memories it contains.  I actually knew some of the kids employed as Pier Head extras; they were the real Pier Head gang, and it's even possible in the film that some of them are wearing my old shoes...  They weren't quite as rough as the film has them!

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Talk of small coasters reminds me of Robin.

I managed to have a look round her. A couple of on board shots including the Captain's accommodation.

At , from memory 142', she would be a reasonable size model in 4mm scale.

The length was critical as that as the maximum that could enter the lock at Dublin.

Bernard

DSC_0114.JPG.e99b7841d969aa0f2736f77756e9757a.JPGDSC_0095.JPG.ff23a6e00375fce50edb3640aab25dfe.JPGDSC_0102.JPG.2ed7932bd6782e31089a38ded82ad303.JPG

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5 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Talk of small coasters reminds me of Robin.

I managed to have a look round her. A couple of on board shots including the Captain's accommodation.

At , from memory 142', she would be a reasonable size model in 4mm scale.

The length was critical as that as the maximum that could enter the lock at Dublin.

Bernard

DSC_0114.JPG.e99b7841d969aa0f2736f77756e9757a.JPG

The Robin does illustrate why IC engines became popular for small coasters before they were widely adopted for larger vessels. Steam engine rooms with their boilers just took up too much space that could have been used for cargo so, despite their early relative unreliability, oil engines had a huge advantage. That advantage became less the larger the ship became. 

 

The same logic seems to have applied to inland waterways where steam powered barges and narrow boats were comparatively rare and most traction went directly from horse to internal combustion. Steam tugs didn't need space for cargo and did tow trains of barges. One factor I'd not realised until fairly recently was that horse drawn barges lost quite a lot of cargo capacity to the fuel they had to carry for the horse in the form of feed and hay. If you've ever wondered why the towpath side of canals always seems to be more thickly hedged off compared with the other side, it was to stop the bargees from grazing their horses on other people's fields.

 

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7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The Robin does illustrate why IC engines became popular for small coasters before they were widely adopted for larger vessels. Steam engine rooms with their boilers just took up too much space that could have been used for cargo so, despite their early relative unreliability, oil engines had a huge advantage. That advantage became less the larger the ship became. 

 

 

 

I did have a look at the engine area. Robin was originally coal fired and then converted to oil. It was the amount of space required for the steam coal that seemed to have been the  reason for the change. Looking at the bulkheads it would have been a gain of at least 2m if not nearer to 3m of extra cargo space.

Bernard

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Returning to the question of the cranes at Watchet, Colin Maggs 'Branch Lines of Somerset' has two photos of cranes at Watchet. One from about 1936 shows what is definitely a crane on a track. The other from the broad gauge era has one that possibly is one, although the track is hard to see.

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On 27/10/2020 at 12:52, Michael Crofts said:

I know the original post was about big dockside cranes, but I like little ones, so here's one I photographed last week at Commercial Wharf, Barbican, Plymouth. My photo. Link to more photos underneath.

Commercial Wharf, Barbican, Plymouth. Hand-operated dockside crane.

 

flickr.com/photos/119194913@N05/sets/72157716633746071/

 

 

Is that the same Yard Crane as modelled by Ancorton Models?

(Crane Kit - Laser Cut Wood Kit OO Gauge - 95811)

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On 08/11/2020 at 16:04, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Is that the same Yard Crane as modelled by Ancorton Models?

(Crane Kit - Laser Cut Wood Kit OO Gauge - 95811)

At first glance they look similar and the Ancorton model would look fine to anyone except an engineer. Of course the Ancorton model is of a timber-built crane whereas the Barbican example is cast iron and steel. I am not aware of any timber-built railway yard or dockside cranes which survived after about 1900 - but perhaps someone knows of examples. There were certainly plenty of timber-built cranes inside goods sheds and warehouses right up to the end of wagon load freight. I remember the one at Monmouth Troy was there right up until the station was redeveloped for housing.

So far as the engineering is concerned, warning: pedantry follows!

The biggest engineering difference between the Barbican and Ancorton examples is that on the Barbican crane the winch near the base has reduction gears to a spool or drum, which winds a cable. That cable passes round the large wheel or pulley with curved spokes, the shaft or axle of which has another spool with a chain, and it's that chain which takes the load. The arrangement gives a large amount of leverage. You can see what I mean in the photo set, here: flickr.com/photos/119194913@N05/sets/72157716633746071/ On the Ancorton model there seems to be a single cable which passes round the large upper wheel, so that wheel provides no leverage at all, and it's not clear why such a large wheel would be needed. Even under stress a cable can run over a smaller pulley.

The more I look at the Ancorton model the more I see things which an engineer would not like. First and most obvious, the large top wheel or pulley is not in line with the small pulley at the end of the jib. I'd bet money there is no prototype for that. It's dangerous. And the large wheel is mounted on the jib, not the post. That would never be seen in reality because it massively increases the stress on the joint between post and jib. The compression strut on the Ancorton model is simply faced onto the jib and post, presumably with bolts to hold the strut in place (not shown on the model), but bolts alone simply wouldn't work, in the absence of metal fixings the strut would have to be scarfed (inset) into the jib and post to prevent the compression forces moving it out on the jib and down on the post. Cutting the scarfing joints would weaken both jib and post. In reality for any timber-built crane in the post mediaeval period a metal joint would be provided at each end of the strut, like this one on the set of sheer legs preserved at Portland, but obviously adapted to the square-cut scantling of the Ancorton example. Also, on the Ancorton model the strut terminates above the winch instead of below it at the base of the post. The stresses imposed on the post by the Ancorton arrangement would be significantly greater than if the strut went to the base. I suppose there might be a prototype for that but I can't remember ever seeing such an arrangement.

As I said, the Ancorton model would look OK to anyone except an engineer.

 

 

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A common feature of docksides in South Wales and I assume other coal exporting areas like Northeast England were coal hoists, which can be regarded as a specialised type of crane.   Like the big Stothbert cargo handling cranes, they would be overpowering on most layouts.  Timber framed, they worked in a not dissimilar way to the coaling plants of steam loco sheds away from the GW, the loaded wagons being either shunted or gravity fed on to a platform which could be raised and lowered, with a wagon turntable either adjacent to or built into the platform so that the end door of the wagon was turned to face the ship.  The platform was then raised to sufficient height to clear the side of the ship and tipped, the coal dropping into the ship's hold through  a moveable chute on a boom that could be swung from side to side and luffed to distribute the coal inside the ship's cargo hold.  The coal was then further distributed around the hold by trimmers, highly skilled, particularly dangerous for obvious reasons (how would you like a working environment in which 16ton loads of coal are dropped on top of you, in fact aimed to just miss you, from about 60 feet up while you are standing up to your knees in the last lot at a rate of about one every minute) and consequently highly paid specialist dockers, and in South Wales those at Penarth had the reputation of being the most skilled and fastest. 

 

Speed was a significant factor as the less time the ship spends in port the less she costs her owners, who want her back out to sea a quickly as possible.  Once she is at sea, the skill of the trimmers pays off as it is vital that the cargo does not shift as she rolls to the waves, as this would result in a very dangerous situation which has caused the loss of many ships.  Sailing vessels were most vulnerable but steam and motor ships were not immune. 

 

I have a vague idea of one day producing a working model of one of these in 4mm and exhibiting it, but will probably shuffle off my mortal coils before ever doing it!  Aye, but there's the rub...

 

 

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Most of the north-east of England didn't use hoists, but took advantage of the deeply-incised nature of local estuaries to use things called 'staithes'. These were (very) large wooden trestles, each carrying a number of parallel tracks. Hopper wagons (wood, later steel-bodied) would discharge their loads through holes in the deck, via chutes, into the collier's hold. Once emptied, they'd return by gravity to the landward end of the staith. As the wagon fleet was all railway-owned, the empty wagons were simply assembled into trains, and taken away for their next load. There was no need for the seperation of individual collieries wagons, as occurred in South Wales.

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk00U_1naJpC0xsIcg-C7ngO7FLeC4Q:1605893302031&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=coal+staithes+blyth&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL6sHe0pHtAhXVShUIHfsqDNYQjJkEegQIChAB&biw=1830&bih=833 has some photos.

 

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On 20/11/2020 at 16:55, The Johnster said:

A common feature of docksides in South Wales and I assume other coal exporting areas like Northeast England were coal hoists, which can be regarded as a specialised type of crane.  

 

 

I guess that that is what the towers on the right of this photo of the Bute Dock in Cardiff, in Victorian times, are. From a collection of Victorian photos made by my Grandfather. The collection was made by Grandpa, not the photos. They were by Valentine and other photographers and are more usually seen as postcards, but these were 8" x 6" prints on paper. Most are now with the relevant local archives.

Bute Docks Cardiff.jpg

Edited by phil_sutters
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Blowing that up as far as I can on my monitor shows just how fine the detail that could be captured on those old glass plate negatives were.  The photo is of the West Dock, the first built in Cardiff and originally described as a ship canal, but fairly obviously termed the West Dock when the East Dock was built to the, um, east of it.  The wooden clad tower structures are indeed coal hoists, and may possibly even be the ones I remember here as a child, but if they were the cladding had been removed.

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I have cropped and enlarged the coal hoist section. There is little point in trying to sharpen these old prints now that I have scanned them and given the originals to local archives, as the pixels become more obvious, rather than the details getting clearer. The other print hasn't any cranes or hoists but it complements the first. I have another Cardiff print - of Queen Street with trams - and several of Penarth. My mother's parents visited Penarth quite a lot in her youth and were photographed there. They eventually moved to Whitchurch. Normally I would refer you to my photosharing albums on ipernity to see other old prints, but it appears to have problems at the moment.

Bute Docks Cardiff  coal hoists.jpg

Bute Docks entrance Cardiff 4web.jpg

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6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Blowing that up as far as I can on my monitor shows just how fine the detail that could be captured on those old glass plate negatives were.  The photo is of the West Dock, the first built in Cardiff and originally described as a ship canal, but fairly obviously termed the West Dock when the East Dock was built to the, um, east of it.  The wooden clad tower structures are indeed coal hoists, and may possibly even be the ones I remember here as a child, but if they were the cladding had been removed.

I think the covered ones were replaced by larger open-framed ones, in conjunction with Sir Felix Pole's plans for the large-scale introduction of 20t mineral wagons. Lots of the more recent hoists were mobile, so could be moved along the length of the quay. This speeded up loading, and reduced work for the trimmers (the labourers who spread the coal around the hold.) There is a very interesting book published by 'Noodle'- 'Great Western Docks and Marine'- which has details of all the ports owned by the GWR, along with those it served.

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