Burning Ballast

[Ruston]

I have been reading The Railway Navvies, by Terry Coleman and in it he mentions the writings of Miss Henrietta Cresswell of Winchmore Hill. She was writing in 1869 about the coming of the railway (the GNR line to Enfield) and twice she mentions ballast.

 

...There were strata of black and white flints and yellow gravels; the men's white slops and the red heaps of burning ballast made vivid effects of light and shade and colour...

 

Five men were killed in making the five miles of railway. A man who sleeps on a ballast heap on a cold night never wakes, the fumes are poisonous as those of a charcoal brazier...

 

What were they using as ballast that was in burning heaps and that gave off poisonous fumes?

[Mark Saunders]

Sounds like calcining clamps as was used in the production of calcined iron ore rather than railway ballast!

 

Could it be there was a band of ironstone under the railway?

 

Mark Saunders 

[Fat Controller]

Winchmore Hill seems to have been to the north of London, adjacent to Palmer's Green. I struggle to think of any local source of toxic fumes.

[melmoth]

When I read the book I assumed that it was carbon monoxide, but that might have been because of the mention of charcoal.

[Ruston]

11 minutes ago, melmoth said:

When I read the book I assumed that it was carbon monoxide, but that might have been because of the mention of charcoal.

That's what I also assumed would kill a man (who presumably wanted to keep warm and/or was drunk) who slept on a heap of whatever it was that was previously burning but was now (presumably) just warm. In the same way as people much more recently have died by taking disposable barbecues into tents for the same reasons.

 

I know that ash was often used as ballast on minor lines but surely this is from boilers and so isn't burned on site and transporting even hot ash to a worksite in the days of wooden wagons seems unlikely. In any case the heaps are described as burning, which would rule this out, I would have thought.

[melmoth]

Colonel H.C.B Rogers' book "Express Steam Locomotive Development in Great Britain and France", suggests - particularly when talking about Archibald Sturrock's time in charge - that the Great Northern's permanent way was not of the highest quality. I don't know whether ash ballast might have been a cause in part.

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

Sounds like calcining clamps as was used in the production of calcined iron ore rather than railway ballast!

 

Could it be there was a band of ironstone under the railway?

 

Mark Saunders 

 

I'm sure that this must be the explanation.

 

Coal is mixed with iron ore and set on fire; it smoulders for some considerable time, (days?, weeks?), and the purpose is to remove excess moisture and concentrate the iron oxide content.

 

It would be perfectly viable to sleep on a warm, smouldering calcine bank - especially after 'one-over-the-eight' - and be suffocated in the fumes given off.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[Fat Controller]

However, North London isn't known for its iron-ore deposits..

 Prior to WW2, when cement became more common, my great-uncle's builder's yard had its own mortar pit. Burnt lime and domestic fire ash (usually with bits of coal in it) would be mixed together, then slaked with water. This would give out large amounts of heat, possibly sufficient to ignite the coal.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

1 hour ago, Ruston said:

I have been reading The Railway Navvies, by Terry Coleman and in it he mentions the writings of Miss Henrietta Cresswell of Winchmore Hill. She was writing in 1869 about the coming of the railway (the GNR line to Enfield) and twice she mentions ballast... and the red heaps of burning ballast made vivid effects of light and shade and colour...

 

Five men were killed in making the five miles of railway. A man who sleeps on a ballast heap on a cold night never wakes, the fumes are poisonous as those of a charcoal brazier...

 

What were they using as ballast that was in burning heaps and that gave off poisonous fumes?

Well, do we fully trust Miss Henrietta Cresswell's account?  And there's no iron ore in that location that might have been processed on site.

 

I am sure Miss Henrietta Cresswell can be trusted to have recognised a fire, and I will go with the idea that men wanting to stay warm may have slept on the resulting ash heaps with some fatal consequences. So the question I would ask is what do we know about mid C19th railway construction that required fires on site? I would venture a guess that boring holes in the sleepers might have been achieved by burning with red hot steel rods.

 

But I confess my woeful ignorance of the detail of mid C19th railway construction. A time machine would be useful. Or someone who really knows from research into  the process in contemporary records of those undertaking the work.

[Trog]

Could they possibly have been burning coal on a clay formation in the hope of producing a brick like layer to help keep the clay down and out of the ballast?

[jim.snowdon]

10 hours ago, Trog said:

Could they possibly have been burning coal on a clay formation in the hope of producing a brick like layer to help keep the clay down and out of the ballast?

Or, burning the clay to provide a clinker-like subgrade on which to lay whatever they were using as track ballast, much as a sand blanket would be used these days.

 

Jim 

[Darryl Tooley]

Chapter 12 of 'The Railway: British Track since 1804' by the late Andrew Dow refers to the use of burnt clay, obtained by burning clay with coal dust, as ballast.  Evidently it fell out of favour because of its tendency to turn to dust over time.

 

D

[cctransuk]

4 minutes ago, Darryl Tooley said:

Chapter 12 of 'The Railway: British Track since 1804' by the late Andrew Dow refers to the use of burnt clay, obtained by burning clay with coal dust, as ballast.  Evidently it fell out of favour because of its tendency to turn to dust over time.

 

D

 

So Henrietta knew what she was writing about; a process that would have produced copious amounts of CO.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[The Stationmaster]

The geology of the area is mainly clay with patches of sands so it sounds quite likely that clay was being burnt either to help stabilise it or to create burnt clay for 'ballast'.  However there is some clay suitable for brickmaking in that part of London so that it is another - probably less likely  - possibility.

[C126]

Sorry for taking so long to think of this, but with the mention of "flints" by Miss Cresswell, could the flints excavated have been burned somehow, to shatter them into smaller pieces for ballast?  Just a thought.

[petethemole]

Probably wouldn't make very good ballast, as flints that have been heated enough to crack or shatter have many cracks and would crush into smaller fragments under the load of passing trains.

[C126]

Aaah.  Thanks for the clarification, and so promptly.