Coal deliveries on branch lines

[philsandy]

When coal was delivered to a coal merchants siding on a suburban branch line, would the loco wait till the wagons had been emptied into the coal staithes and then take away the empty wagons, or would the empties be picked up later, say the next day?

[Miss Prism]

Wagons were never unloaded that quickly. Empties would be picked up when it was convenient to do so.

 

[Wickham Green too]

3 minutes ago, philsandy said:

When coal was delivered to a coal merchants siding on a suburban branch line, would the loco wait till the wagons had been emptied into the coal staithes and then take away the empty wagons, or would the empties be picked up later, say the next day?

Next day - or more likely several days later ...... the wagon owners ( where they weren't the local coal merchant himself ) would have liked a quick return of their vehicle for the next revenue-earning trip but the coal merchants were often happy to retain this 'storage-bin-on-wheels' until they'd bagged the contents .......... hence the Railways, collieries and wagon hire companies charged 'demurrage' on any wagon retained for more than a set period. 

[johnofwessex]

As far as i understand it coal was generally unloaded from the wagon to the merchants lorry/cart.

 

The 'coal staithes' so beloved of modellers were - normally not backing onto the track

[DCB]

15 hours ago, philsandy said:

When coal was delivered to a coal merchants siding on a suburban branch line, would the loco wait till the wagons had been emptied into the coal staithes and then take away the empty wagons, or would the empties be picked up later, say the next day?

The loco would definitely not hang around while the wagons were unloaded.

It takes a long time for a bloke with a shovel to empty a 12 ton coal wagon and there is a definite limit to how many blokes could work on one wagon at the same time.

There would often be more than one merchant and more than one grade of coal delivered so the wagons would not necessarily be unloaded in order.

Demurrage was payable if the wagon was not emptied and ready to be sent away after a short time which hurried the process along, but in addition to fulls arriving wagons would need to be shunted to sort out the empties from those still part full  before the empties could be removed.  Coal wagons were unloaded many ways, almost always out  in the open, not in a goods shed, sometimes directly into sacks, sometimes onto wheelbarrows and dumped in a heap (staithe) away from the siding, sometimes directly onto carts for resale.  

Its actually very interesting to shunt a yard where some wagons are to be removed and some remain and some are delivered, you will probably block at least one main line in the process but in the steam age there was usually plenty of time between off peak trains for some pretty snappy shunting.   Coal, Pick up goods, Milk etc didn't run during the peaks.

Edited April 11, 2020 by DavidCBroad

[The Johnster]

Merchants would leave as much coal in the wagon for as long as possible, and some were the sort of dodgy characters that the railway had difficulty charging demurrage to successfully; disputing the invoice was more or less standard procedure. This was one of the reasons that the collieries were constantly chasing the railway for the supply of empties that the pit depended on to remain in production.  The railway, until Beeching changed everything, were common carriers by the conditions of the original Acts of Parliament that authorised their construction and operation in the first place, and mineral (as well as general merchandise mileage) freight charges, and consequently demurrage, were set by government.  As well as merchants, industrial customers found it cheaper to delay and negotiate demurrage than to pay or find space for storage. 
 

For mineral and general merchandise, branch pickup locos left wagons and picked up empties (or any that had managed to find return loads), picking up the emptied wagons they’d judt delivered loaded the following day or several days later when they were emptied.  Empty wagons trapped behind partly empty ones might be left where they were unless they were urgently needed elsewhere, usually specific use types like conflats or end loaders

[brossard]

A related question I hope.  In the era of NCB, were there still small private coal merchants serving small communities?

 

John

[doilum]

10 minutes ago, brossard said:

A related question I hope.  In the era of NCB, were there still small private coal merchants serving small communities?

 

John

Simple answer is yes. As far as I am aware, (I stand to be corrected) the NCB didn't sell directly to the public. Some of these merchants survived into the present century even though Dr Beeching  had long since lifted the rails.

[The Johnster]

There may even be one or two still functioning, but domestic coal is normally sourced from petrol stations or even supermarkets nowadays.  Are there any opencast or drift coal production sites that do land sales?

[brossard]

I was thinking of the early 60s.  I was wondering what to do with my coal merchant:

 

 

Would this be something that would be seen?  If not what would it look like?

 

John

[The Johnster]

That’s pretty much it.  Old wooden table outside with folded up sacks on it and a weighing beam around somewhere, and Robert’s your mum’s brother, or your dad’s.   Flatbed 4 wheel lorry for deliveries, couple of shovels leaning on the wall. 

[brossard]

Right, I can get the balance weight and sacks from Skytrex.  I just need a 1/43 coal lorry and I haven't been able to find one.

 

John

[TomJ]

10 hours ago, The Johnster said:

There may even be one or two still functioning, but domestic coal is normally sourced from petrol stations or even supermarkets nowadays.  Are there any opencast or drift coal production sites that do land sales?

Not sure where it comes from but we get our coal from a local coal merchant who either delivers or sells from his yard. It can’t ever have been rail connected - it’s in the middle of the village!

[meil]

10 hours ago, doilum said:

Simple answer is yes. As far as I am aware, (I stand to be corrected) the NCB didn't sell directly to the public. Some of these merchants survived into the present century even though Dr Beeching  had long since lifted the rails.

The NCB didn't sell direct to retail but equally there were other organisations that sold wholesale to local coal merchants. These used to be more in the line of specialist products (anthracite, smokeless fuels etc) - the NCB around us only sold locally produced coal.

 

It was the 1984 strikes that put an end to a lot of local domestic coal merchants.

[doilum]

From local experience, from the 1980s onward, most collieries were redeveloped to send their entire production to the power station. Locally, only Allerton Bywater produced domestic coal from the High Moor seam. This coal had an excellent reputation and was sold to merchants nationwide. 

[Ian Smeeton]

Many small towns & villages had their own coal merchants. Some survived the passing of the railway.

 

This is the remnants at Tywyn.

 

 

Sun in the wrong place, but you can just about see the 'Ghost Sign'.

 

Not actually rail connected, I don't think, from what I can see on the NLS site, but close by the line. just on the opposite side of the road to Sandilands Cottages on this map. There was probably another merchant serving the other side of town (Tywyn)

 

Have a look around your local town, there may be mnore relics than you might at first believe.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[jonny777]

11 hours ago, brossard said:

I was thinking of the early 60s.  I was wondering what to do with my coal merchant:

 

 

Would this be something that would be seen?  If not what would it look like?

 

John

 

 

Yes, that looks excellent. You may not even need a lorry. 

In the early 1960s our Lincolnshire village area was still served by a horse and cart. The local merchant had a few 16t coal trucks at the station and coal men shovelled the coal into cwt sacks and lifted them on their shoulders to stack on the cart. They were strong men because 1cwt was equivalent to about 50kg these days. 

 

We kids would sit on our bikes and watch with some awe, or feed a carrot to the horse if we were allowed. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by jonny777

[Fat Controller]

7 hours ago, brossard said:

Right, I can get the balance weight and sacks from Skytrex.  I just need a 1/43 coal lorry and I haven't been able to find one.

 

John

I think you might have to do as the merchants did, but in 1/43scale; look for ex-military vehicles. Lots of merchants used these into the 1960s. A quick Google found this:-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/12029589720?iid=202605659386

[The Johnster]

What I remember is flatbeds, with the sacks stacked against a board behind the cab, which was tall enough to have the merchant’s name on it as advertising.  They didn’t have a particularly military look to them, and some pretty ancient ones were still in service.  They were, however, usually kept clean. 
 

Cue avalanche of photos showing ex-army fixed side lorries delivering domestic coal in the 50s/60s.  

[Fat Controller]

16 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

What I remember is flatbeds, with the sacks stacked against a board behind the cab, which was tall enough to have the merchant’s name on it as advertising.  They didn’t have a particularly military look to them, and some pretty ancient ones were still in service.  They were, however, usually kept clean. 
 

Cue avalanche of photos showing ex-army fixed side lorries delivering domestic coal in the 50s/60s.  

They weren't the big 4x4 types, like the Matador and QL; these were too high to drop a sack on someone's shoulder. Rather, they were the long-bonneted 4x2 'rear-echelon' vehicles, such as 'O' series Bedfords, K series Austins, Dodges, Fordsons and suchlike. Many hadn't actually seen any military service, being kept in reserve in case the Cold War might warm up. My father ( builder, not coal merchant) had a Bedford 0-series well into the 1960s.

[Wickham Green too]

13 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

The loco would definitely not hang around while the wagons were unloaded.

It takes a long time for a bloke with a shovel to empty a 12 ton coal wagon and there is a definite limit to how many blokes could work on one wagon at the same time. ..........

....... and think about WHEN your goods train arrived : on my local line it was generally about three in the morning when any self-respecting coal merchant would still be tucked up in bed. ( Admittedly, though a branch,  this line is electrified and the goods effectively segregated from daytime passenger workings.)

[doilum]

Not sure about licences or taxation, but these were small vehicles probably 3.5 tons. We have one locally that has been fully restored albiet with drop sides as used by the coal leaders to drop concessionary coal. On Houghton Street I upgraded the Dinky example as a tribute to a great uncle who was a coal leader.

 

[whart57]

1 hour ago, jonny777 said:

The local merchant had a few 16t coal trucks at the station and coal men shovelled the coal into cwt sacks and lifted them on their shoulders to stack on the cart. They were strong men because 1cwt was equivalent to about 50kg these days. 

 

 

From the age of 15 until I finished college I used to do farm work as a summer vac job. This was the late sixties and early seventies and the first bits of 'Elf and Sadie' were coming in. One of these was to ban manhandling of grain and other sacks of over 1cwt. Two and a half hundredweight was not unknown and the older guys dismissively referred to 1cwt sacks as "boy's sizes"

[The Stationmaster]

When the Cardiff Valleys were cutover to TOPS in 1973/74 every single coal wagon on hand at Merthyr showed as having been there for 99 days.  But very few, if any. of them had actually been there for 99 days - it was simply the highest figure which that part of TOPS could record.

 

Basically coal merchants used railway wagons for cheap storage - something which dated back to the days when they'd owned their own wagons or used coal factors or colliery owned wagons. Bback then all they had to pay was 'Siding Rent' for a wagon which had been on hand over the permitted period and paying that rent was often the cheapest way of storing coal.  What went wrong at nationalisation was handing the coal wagon fleet to BR hence it became the owner of what in some respects could be very inefficient assets which spent more time standing still than earning revenue.  While BR charged Demurrage (instead of Siding rent) on wagons detained past the allowed time it still worked to the financial advantage of a coal merchant - especially if he bought his coal in at cheap summer prices and sold it to his domestic customers at the much higher winter prices - and when did a high percentage of households most need to buy coal?

 

Thus coal wagons almost invariably hung around for far longer than the time physically need to empty them.

[DCB]

2 hours ago, doilum said:

From local experience, from the 1980s onward, most collieries were redeveloped to send their entire production to the power station. Locally, only Allerton Bywater produced domestic coal from the High Moor seam. This coal had an excellent reputation and was sold to merchants nationwide. 

The coal varied in quality.  As one moved east the south wales coal field went from the famed "Steam Coal" slow burning coal ideal for steam ships, through good locomotive coal as used by the GWR, to House Coal on the Eastern end in the Forest of Dean, (FOD) which is ni to England. In the days of PO wagons many shuttled from pit to port, but the FOD ones, Parkend, Eastern United, etc went further afield to merchants supplying domestic users.  Most Branch lines remained open for coal after all other passenger and general goods services were withdrawn, some for several years. Again larger yards had more than one merchant.   As regards lorries, a ton of coal was 20 X 1 cwt sacks so max weight was a limiting factor, the obligatory weigh bridge allowed the blokes to stay legal (or not as the case may be).   The overnight pick up goods was generally a suburban phenomenon, through freights moved at night but most rural pick up goods ran during the day between the peaks, such as they were, they didn't exactly run an hourly service to Princetown or Ashburton...    Or Paddington to Bristol in steam days.