Coal delivery for factory boiler

[spikey]

The factory I'm designing for my railway will have a boiler house, to which coal will be delivered via a short dedicated private siding.  Unfortunately the works is too small to justify the wagon tippler I've long fancied building, so it's going to be a case of a couple of wagons a week coming in and a couple of chaps with shovels offloading them.  Period is ten years either side of WW2, btw.

 

Visually, the best setup would be such that the wagon is shunted alongside the boiler house wall, in which there is a fairly large doorway through which the coal can be slung.  But would that be plausible, particularly as the wagon would presumably have to be far enough from the wall for the side door to drop down once the level's lowered enough?

 

Is there a better way of arranging for manual unloading?

[Aire Head]

15 minutes ago, spikey said:

The factory I'm designing for my railway will have a boiler house, to which coal will be delivered via a short dedicated private siding.  Unfortunately the works is too small to justify the wagon tippler I've long fancied building, so it's going to be a case of a couple of wagons a week coming in and a couple of chaps with shovels offloading them.  Period is ten years either side of WW2, btw.

 

Visually, the best setup would be such that the wagon is shunted alongside the boiler house wall, in which there is a fairly large doorway through which the coal can be slung.  But would that be plausible, particularly as the wagon would presumably have to be far enough from the wall for the side door to drop down once the level's lowered enough?

 

Is there a better way of arranging for manual unloading?

I would have thought most factory's would have had a stockpile of coal rather than unloading it directly into the boiler house.

[spikey]

1 minute ago, Aire Head said:

I would have thought most factory's would have had a stockpile of coal rather than unloading it directly into the boiler house.

 

That was plan A, with the wagons being unloaded into a bin à la coal merchants and then barrowed into the boiler house as required.  But then it occurred to me that if I was running the real-life show, I'd try to get it so that once we had a stockpile enough to keep us going for a month or so, we could somehow empty a wagon straight onto the boilerhouse floor or as good as.  The stockpile would be on the opposite side of the track outside the boilerhouse.

[The Johnster]

Space between the loading platform and the wagon is not an issue so long as the platform is lower than the bottom of the drop flap door on the wagon.  You knock the wedges out and stand back while the door drops flat on to the platform, and get on with the unloading.  You might even have a wedge shaped plank to act as a ramp for the wheelbarrow.  I am sure there were plenty of places where the wagon was used to store the coal if space was tight, but it's obviously better to have a stockpile to avoid demurrage charges on the wagon.  That means you can order a full wagon when your stockpile has about a week's worth of coal in it and top up the stockpile when the wagon arrives a few day later, and return the empty next day to avoid demurrage.

 

Much of course depends on the size of the factory, and the size of the boiler needed to drive the machinery, and the efficiency of the boiler.  

[jonny777]

Maybe you could build some form of Heath-Robinson conveyor system, such as a variation on this one in Lincoln goods yard? 

 

 

[eastglosmog]

Bear in mind that coal will deteriorate if left too long in a stockpile, at a rate depending on the type of coal, due to loss of flammable gas and oxidation of the coal,  giving rise to a loss in calorific content.  It also varied in price according to the season of the year.  You would want to stockpile in summer when price was low (if possible) and make sure the coal came out of the stockpile before it had deteriorated too much, so in one end of the pile and out of the other would be a better sequence than leave it in the pile while directly feeding the furnace.

[Aire Head]

Also what is the factory making as if they have a private siding they probably dispatch what they make by rail aswell

[bazjones1711]

I have built a wagon tippler for my layout , this is for coal deliveries for a steelworks,  with just the sidings for the tippler all on 5 ft 

Here is a link to some footage on YouTube as filmed by Hornby  , if you were to build a tippler you won't regret it hours of entertainment  especially  at shows 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by bazjones1711

[PatB]

Another issue with coal stockpiles is their tendency to spontaneously catch fire if left for long enough in sufficient bulk (actually rather more complex than time and size, but probably not relevant here), although I doubt if it would be too much of a problem for a facility of the sort of scale described.

[spikey]

9 hours ago, Aire Head said:

Also what is the factory making as if they have a private siding they probably dispatch what they make by rail aswell

 

It's actually got three private sidings off a headshunt.  It was going to have just the one, but that changed when it suddenly became essential for me to invest in a Hornby Ruston.  So now it has a goods in, a goods out and a whatever, at the far end of which will be the boilerhouse.

 

As to what it makes, I have no idea.  That will depend on what's in the wagons going in.  As long as the name on the sign's suitably non-specific and what goes out of the premises goes out in vans, we don't need to know.  This way I also get to justify a wide range of tanker traffic too

 

[Aire Head]

1 hour ago, spikey said:

 

It's actually got three private sidings off a headshunt.  It was going to have just the one, but that changed when it suddenly became essential for me to invest in a Hornby Ruston.  So now it has a goods in, a goods out and a whatever, at the far end of which will be the boilerhouse.

 

As to what it makes, I have no idea.  That will depend on what's in the wagons going in.  As long as the name on the sign's suitably non-specific and what goes out of the premises goes out in vans, we don't need to know.  This way I also get to justify a wide range of tanker traffic too

 

Just call it's Joe Bloggs Manufacturing Limited, could be anything then! 

 

I'd still be tempted towards a small coal stockpile rather than direct to the boiler house. If you want an interesting load you could do a replacement boiler travelling on a well wagon.

[Wickham Green]

2 hours ago, Aire Head said:

Just call it's Joe Bloggs Manufacturing Limited, .........

..... but is there a market for lots an' lots of Joe Bloggses ?

[Free At Last]

5 hours ago, spikey said:

As to what it makes, I have no idea.  That will depend on what's in the wagons going in.  As long as the name on the sign's suitably non-specific and what goes out of the premises goes out in vans, we don't need to know.  This way I also get to justify a wide range of tanker traffic too

 

Sounds like ACME (a company manufacturing everything) from where Wile E. Coyote of Roadrunner fame procured everything from an anvil to guided missiles.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Free At Last

[Aire Head]

26 minutes ago, Wickham Green said:

..... but is there a market for lots an' lots of Joe Bloggses ?

 

There must be they crop up everywhere!

 

24 minutes ago, Free At Last said:

Sounds like ACME (a company manufacturing everything) from where Roadrunner procured everything from an anvil to guided missiles.

 

Exactly, I have to be honest this has kind of given me some thoughts so I can make something to shunt around all the different wagons I have

[IWCR]

I am modelling a site which had  an adjoining bakery which received coal.

This had a coal stage adjoining the bakehouse with a hatch at stage floor level straight into the building.

The coal stage is at a lower level than the floor of a wagon parked at it.

A  small set up like this would have no mechanical handling but would have been carefully arranged to minimise 

the manual work.  It is always easier to shovel / push coal downhill.

A coal stage would be sized to at least take a full wagon load, they wouldn't want to pay demurrage.

 

Pete

[GWR_Modeller]

Hi.  Would the boiler fire box be below ground level?  

[Siberian Snooper]

12 hours ago, GWR_Modeller said:

Hi.  Would the boiler fire box be below ground level?  

 

Most fireboxes are at just below waist level, whether the boiler is lowered into the ground or not is another matter, the original boilershop boilers were totally below ground in Devonport and the space they had occupied had flooded in my time there.

 

 

[GWR_Modeller]

I was thinking about the coal supply being delivered into a pile or ground level bunker and there shovelled down a chute to boiler level.  Walking through some older areas of cities there is sometimes a metal hatch in the wall or pavement presumably for coal delivery, in a factory situation would the delivery wagon be on a ramp or might the ground levels be arranged to facilitate this, like a coaling stage but smaller.

[Fat Controller]

9 minutes ago, GWR_Modeller said:

I was thinking about the coal supply being delivered into a pile or ground level bunker and there shovelled down a chute to boiler level.  Walking through some older areas of cities there is sometimes a metal hatch in the wall or pavement presumably for coal delivery, in a factory situation would the delivery wagon be on a ramp or might the ground levels be arranged to facilitate this, like a coaling stage but smaller.

I remember the coal deliveries to my old school. The boiler-room was under the canteen, and there was a manhole outside. The 'coal tanker' would put its discharge pipe through the manhole; if the coal tanker wasn't available. the replacement tipper would simply empty on to the manhole, and the caretaker would have to move the spillage with brush and shovel.

[spikey]

23 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

 

Most fireboxes are at just below waist level ...

That's as I remember them, including the primary school one for which the coal was delivered as per Fat Controller's recollection - except I've never met a "coal tanker".  I do though recall one occasion when the delivery came just as for domestic coal, that is to say in sacks on the back of a flatbed lorry.  We kids were ever in awe of the coalmen's ability to stand at the side of the coal lorry, grab a hundredweight sack full of coal, and drop nearly all the contents down the coal hole without it taking the sack with it ...

[Fat Controller]

2 minutes ago, spikey said:

That's as I remember them, including the primary school one for which the coal was delivered as per Fat Controller's recollection - except I've never met a "coal tanker".  I do though recall one occasion when the delivery came just as for domestic coal, that is to say in sacks on the back of a flatbed lorry.  We kids were ever in awe of the coalmen's ability to stand at the side of the coal lorry, grab a hundredweight sack full of coal, and drop nearly all the contents down the coal hole without it taking the sack with it ...

A 'coal tanker' was like a hopper-wagon body on a lorry chassis, with a conveyor under the hopper opening. They weren't much used by smaller merchants, but the NCB used them, as did large merchants such as Charringtons and Powell Duffryn. they were fine with smaller coal, such as anthracite beans, but not so good when the load was of mixed sizes.

[doilum]

2 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

A 'coal tanker' was like a hopper-wagon body on a lorry chassis, with a conveyor under the hopper opening. They weren't much used by smaller merchants, but the NCB used them, as did large merchants such as Charringtons and Powell Duffryn. they were fine with smaller coal, such as anthracite beans, but not so good when the load was of mixed sizes.

These were still in use until fairly recently. In mining areas some schools stayed coal fired for political reasons and invested in boilers with mechanical stokers. From memory, the coal was "blown" in through a flexible pipe. Visiting my old alma mater last week, the first thing I noticed was a brand new gas exhaust replacing the old chimney. The coal tankers were a familiar sight from at least the early 1960s.

[doilum]

On 28/10/2019 at 20:03, spikey said:

The factory I'm designing for my railway will have a boiler house, to which coal will be delivered via a short dedicated private siding.  Unfortunately the works is too small to justify the wagon tippler I've long fancied building, so it's going to be a case of a couple of wagons a week coming in and a couple of chaps with shovels offloading them.  Period is ten years either side of WW2, btw.

 

Visually, the best setup would be such that the wagon is shunted alongside the boiler house wall, in which there is a fairly large doorway through which the coal can be slung.  But would that be plausible, particularly as the wagon would presumably have to be far enough from the wall for the side door to drop down once the level's lowered enough?

 

Is there a better way of arranging for manual unloading?

Having followed this thread for while you have probably had the correct solution before asking the question. The coal would most likely be kept in a covered bunker adjacent to the boiler house. This would keep the coal stock relatively dry and easier to stoke, but more importantly, secure from theft. If the building is close enough for the side door to act as a bridge, the only other requirement is a an aperture large enough for a man to stand in and step through. It might then have a sliding door arrangement similar to any other rail side loading bay. If your door way was around 8 feet in both directions you won't be far off. 

[Luke Piewalker]

On 29/10/2019 at 11:07, Aire Head said:

 

There must be they crop up everywhere!

 

 

Exactly, I have to be honest this has kind of given me some thoughts so I can make something to shunt around all the different wagons I have

The opportunity for big round cartoon bombs with fuses and 'bomb' written on them, the aforementioned ACME anvils, large red sticks of dynamite with 'dynamite' written on them, large trapezoid weights with a big ring on top and the weight in tons clearly marked... And obviously fake tunnel paint.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Luke Piewalker
Typo

[Aire Head]

14 hours ago, Luke Piewalker said:

The opportunity for big round cartoon bombs with fuses and 'bomb' written on them, the aforementioned ACME anvils, large red sticks of dynamite with 'dynamite' written on them, large trapezoid weights with a big ring on top and the weight in tons clearly marked... And obviously fake tunnel paint.

See now you've said that I want to model it all as wagon loads