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Mile end coal drops pics sought


simon b
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Hi all, does anyone have any pics of the coal drops at the old Mile end station out of liverpool street?

 

Looks like it was an unusual setup being built into the viaduct of the mainline, but pics seem to be non existent.

 

Ta.

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Atricle at Disused-stations: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/mile_end/index.shtml

(Didn't realise this was available at first, had already checked the site and it isn't listed in the index)

 

1895 OS 1:1,056 map: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201541#zoom=4&lat=4328&lon=10506&layers=BT

 

Structure still visible on Google maps (street names have changed):
https://maps.app.goo.gl/sfg4ujuFSt3qnRBM7

 

Also on Streetview 

Main gate: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZetDb1GGww8F7Dgq9

Front elevation: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xXsi2RVSskoVaHQn8

 

Edited by keefer
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There was also an article in 'Modern Railways' about them. I haven't my copy any more, as it would be at least thirty years old, but I think the following might be of use in a search:-

Williams Bros.

Brush Aggregates

There is a small track plan, which was originally in the MR article, on P42 of 'Focus on Freight' by Shaun Pearce, originally published by Ian Allen.

Edited by Fat Controller
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Thanks for the help gents. 

 

How unusual is the setup here? I've mostly seen coal drops as a stand alone structure, never incorporated into a major viaduct like that before. Would certainly make for an interesting model.

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Walworth Road drops were somewhat similar, a structure sticking out from a viaduct, only more complex because the site was exceedingly constricted.

 

If you get into this obscure topic, you will find that there were multiple ways of tackling the challenge, ranging from "build a stub-ended viaduct", as at Spitalfields, to install a wagon-lift down to ground-level and create a little coal yard using wagon turntables, depending on the space (or rather lack thereof) available.

 

The Daddy's of them all were in the area around St Pancras and Kings Cross, which had several banks of drops that must have processed hundreds of wagon-loads each day between them. One set is now a rank of arty shops https://www.kingscross.co.uk/coal-drops

 

Kensington High Street (now Circle Line) station had the reverse problem, so a wonderful arrangement was made whereby wagons were shunted up a zig-zag of tracks to get them high enough to be emptied by gravity:

 

"The last piece of important surface railway construction in the area took place in 1877–8, when R. M. Ordish on behalf of the Midland Railway laid out a big coal depot off Scarsdale Place next to High Street Kensington Station, on the site of the present London Tara Hotel (see page 108). This and a larger depot at West Kensington came into being after the Midland Railway had acquired an interest in the District's Richmond extension in 1875, thus securing a route for its coal trains into the heart of London."

 

I think, but am not totally sure, that this photo shows a Jinty shunting there, the Circle Line being down to the left, and the drops being covered by the big curved roof on the right. The wagons are partly in one of the reversing necks, and there is another reversing neck behind the photographer.steam-locomotive-no-47432-designation-0-

 

(The West Ken depot was a fairly boring ground-level fan of sidings and wagon turntables)

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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I recall the sand traffic using the Mile End coal drops site into the mid-1980s, mostly in vac-fitted hoppers and mins by that point, Class 31 hauled from either Marks Tay or somewhere on the Southminster branch, iirc. 

 

After that traffic ceased, I think one or two roads remained active for tamper to stable? 

 

I also recall the incline down to the lower yard (albeit some 10 years after the yard closed) and said incline being infilled in the late-80s and the fast lines slewed across. 

 

There are bits of the area in various photos that would make a cracking micro layout... Just waiting for a Y4 to become available. 

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On 07/12/2019 at 00:11, Nearholmer said:

 

 

"The last piece of important surface railway construction in the area took place in 1877–8, when R. M. Ordish on behalf of the Midland Railway laid out a big coal depot off Scarsdale Place next to High Street Kensington Station, on the site of the present London Tara Hotel (see page 108). This and a larger depot at West Kensington came into being after the Midland Railway had acquired an interest in the District's Richmond extension in 1875, thus securing a route for its coal trains into the heart of London."

 

I think, but am not totally sure, that this photo shows a Jinty shunting there, the Circle Line being down to the left, and the drops being covered by the big curved roof on the right. The wagons are partly in one of the reversing necks, and there is another reversing neck behind the photographer.steam-locomotive-no-47432-designation-0-

 

(The West Ken depot was a fairly boring ground-level fan of sidings and wagon turntables)

 

 

 

That certainly is a rare pic, it's the only one I've ever seen of a train actually in the sidings!

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On 07/12/2019 at 00:11, Nearholmer said:

 the Midland Railway had acquired an interest in the District's Richmond extension in 1875, 

 

Well, well, well. Midland money backing a James Staats Forbes line yet again - the Met being a Watkin line, of course. It becomes clearer how Forbes was able to fund his art collection from his Chairmanships of a handful of apparently impecunious railway companies...

 

The running dog of the mighty Derby octopus.

Edited by Compound2632
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Except that I’m not 100% sure that quote is conveying an accurate picture. MR certainly built the coal depots and the necessary route via Dudding Hill, and the connections near Acton, but I’m sceptical about the implication that they part-funded the District section - ‘having an interest in’ is a rather elastic term. I’d always understood it to be a mutually useful alliance, rather than direct investment, but I could be wrong.

Edited by Nearholmer
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I may have misunderstood - I thought the reference was to backing for Metropolitan District Railway new works, not LSWR. Any financial support, whether in the form of share purchase or loan, would be minuted at board level and so should in principle be discoverable, since all the Midland board and committee minute books are in the National Archives.

 

We seem to have wandered off to the wrong end of town for the OP...

Edited by Compound2632
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22 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I

 

We seem to have wandered off to the wrong end of town for the OP...

 

Keep going, the coal depots on LT metals are an interesting subject.

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Backtrack this month (02/2020) has an article about goods on the underground, which contains a different photo of a Kinty doing the zig-zags at Kensington High Street. It’s rather poor quality, but the roofs of the coal drops can be seen I. The background.

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