Sand and gravel processing

[SM42]

There were at least three rail served sand quarries in Kidderminster. 

 

There was one  behind the engine shed and possibly this now has two blocks of flats built in it facing Chester Rd South. One opposite the engine shed on the SVR branch (off Hoo Rd by the SVR bridge) and another behind what is now the SVR carriage shed and is now a housing estate in a hole 

 

There is conjecture that the sand was sent off for casting use at Swindon works from the former. How much processing took place beforehand I don't know

 

As a child I regularly played in the remains of these two quarries and recall the concrete remnants of a building at the one next to the current SVR yard. My dad used to make reference to the noise of the stone cracker as gravel was also produced so this may explain these remains 

 

The one opposite the old shed was more fun as you had to dodge round the JCB working what was now a  landfill site. There was no evidence of any former infrastructure at this one, but it is still there, filled in (with god knows what with but I recall numerous scorched tin cans from the local waste incinerator and random piles of earth) and covered in methane vents and trees. 

 

IIRC from old maps these all had a single standard gauge siding serving them. 

 

Back in the 1980s when Kidderminster still had a goods yard there was a brick and concrete ramp alongside on of the sidings, (probably in the current SVR car park now) wide enough for a lorry  and this allowed a tipper truck to tip sand into BR steel highs, however by this time both the above quarries had long closed so where it came from I do not know. 

 

Andy

[PatB]

10 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

Some links to BGS photographs showing sand pit workings and railways which might be useful background:

http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=61558
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=61560
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=61533
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=61536
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62166
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62172
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62149
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62146
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62153
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62150
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62264
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62227
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62230
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62161
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62160
http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=62157

 

Must be slow today. It took me several minutes to work out why the Broad Gauge Society might want photos of sand pits ;-).

[eastglosmog]

16 minutes ago, PatB said:

 

Must be slow today. It took me several minutes to work out why the Broad Gauge Society might want photos of sand pits ;-).

For that little known Great Western branch to Kent. Sorry, should have spelt it out as the British Geological Survey.

[009 micro modeller]

I’ve found a couple of references in the Leleux Oakwood Press book. Page 105 describes the tipping platform at Billington Siding ‘from which both unwashed and bagged sand could be loaded into main line wagons’ (but where would the unwashed sand be on its way to?) while p.88 notes that a washing  plant was built at Double Arches in 1963, an advantage of this being that waste could be disposed of in the pit rather than needing to be brought back again. Could similar practices have worked with gravel? Also a photo from 1960 shows sand being loaded into BR steel-bodied sand wagons but what would aggregate have been transported in during the same era? I had assumed 16 ton mineral wagons or something similar but possibly this is incorrect.

Edited September 19, 2019 by 009 micro modeller

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I’ve found a couple of references in the Leleux Oakwood Press book. Page 105 describes the tipping platform at Billington Siding ‘from which both unwashed and bagged sand could be loaded into main line wagons’ (but where would the unwashed sand be on its way to?) while p.88 notes that a washing  plant was built at Double Arches in 1963, an advantage of this being that waste could be disposed of in the pit rather than needing to be brought back again. Could similar practices have worked with gravel? Also a photo from 1960 shows sand being loaded into BR steel-bodied sand wagons but what would aggregate have been transported in during the same era? I had assumed 16 ton mineral wagons or something similar but possibly this is incorrect.

The shingle traffic from Dungeness used ex-LNER steel-bodied opens, with side doors secured shut. Elsewhere 13t, 21t and 24.5t coal hoppers and various ex-Iron Ore hoppers were used. It should be said that 'Earth and Stones' traffic in the 1960s was a mere shadow of that from the 1970s and subsequent decades. Foster-Yeoman, for example, were allocated three 24.5t hoppers when these were introduced; by the mid 1970s, this had grown to several hundred assorted wagons.

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Elsewhere 13t, 21t and 24.5t coal hoppers and various ex-Iron Ore hoppers 

 

Including 16t? I’m not surprised that former ironstone wagons were used, but knowing that may help in my research. Were wooden wagons not used because they were unsuitable or because they were being phased out by then?

 

It’s interesting that stone traffic has increased, given that a lot of other freight traffic has declined since the 1960s. I wonder why?

Edited September 19, 2019 by 009 micro modeller

[Fat Controller]

3 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

But not 16t? I’m not surprised that former ironstone wagons were used, but knowing that may help in my research. Were wooden wagons not used because they were unsuitable or because they were being phased out by then?

 

It’s interesting that stone traffic has increased, given that a lot of other freight traffic has declined since the 1960s. I wonder why?

16-tonners were used, loaded up to about the half/three-quarter mark; until there were sufficient fitted ex-Ore wagons, fitted ones were used to provide fitted heads. In the Peak District, the 3/4 was painted on the sides.

Wooden-bodied wagons didn't stand up well to having a load of stone dropped in them from a height.

The initial growth in Earth and Stones traffic was co-incident with the motorway building programme; many of these were in areas lacking accessible quantities of hard rock, so material had to be brought in from some distance away. Once the terminals had been built, other markets for the stone were found in the burgeoning construction sector; hence the survival of terminals such as Fareham, Brentford, Hayes and Harlington, amongst others.

[Nearholmer]

Didn’t some have little slots cut in the sides, to allow the maximum load height to be visible?

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Didn’t some have little slots cut in the sides, to allow the maximum load height to be visible?

That was a bit later, when they'd gone into the Civil Engineers' fleet; there had been problems with wagons filled with wet spoil, loaded well above 16t.

[Trog]

On ‎19‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 21:07, Fat Controller said:

That was a bit later, when they'd gone into the Civil Engineers' fleet; there had been problems with wagons filled with wet spoil, loaded well above 16t.

 

 

Did not work though as the spoil bridged the slots quite nicely and the guard could not see it from the loco.

 

I believe the record for a ZHV was a bit over 40 tons, the carriage and wagon having it put on a weigh bridge after spotting that the springs did not look all that happy.

[Fat Controller]

22 minutes ago, Trog said:

 

 

Did not work though as the spoil bridged the slots quite nicely and the guard could not see it from the loco.

 

I believe the record for a ZHV was a bit over 40 tons, the carriage and wagon having it put on a weigh bridge after spotting that the springs did not look all that happy.

When the deep-relaying was being done, prior to the opening of the Channel Tunnel, I remember seeing three (very obviously overloaded) POAs at Folkestone East. C&W had red-carded them, as one had broken a spring.

As a student, I spent a summer vacation working at a BSC plant in South Wales; I got the jobs no-one else wanted, one of which was going through the weighbridge records to see how much scrap had been delivered by rail. Loose scrap was close to 16t per wagon, but baled scrap was sometimes 10t more than that, as the people loading the wagons would keep dropping bales in until they were visible from ground level.