Some industrial narrow gauge photos

[Artless Bodger]

I've been sorting through an old hard drive and discovered / rediscovered some photographs my brother scanned while working on the decommissioning of the old Aylesford Paper Mills East Mill site around 2009/10 (he was instrument / systems engineer there previously). There is a set of photos taken during the early construction of East Mill, some of which include a narrow gauge constructors railway and a few with standard gauge wagons. So on the assumption that they may be of interest, I attach a couple here for your delectation.

 

These show the inside of no 1 and 2 paper machine house, with the machines under construction. Made by Charles Walmsley of Bury these initially made newsprint. Construction of APM started in 1920/1 on a greenfield site at New Hythe, just north of Aylesford, on a strip of land between the then SECR Paddock Wood - Strood railway and the river Medway. Of potential interest here are the standard gauge wagons on a temporary track in the north end of the machine house, and in no 94, the narrow gauge contractors line snaking along between the machines. 

 

In 94 the LNWR low sided open was probably involved in delivery of machine parts - such as the felt guide rolls stacked in the foreground. The van in 115 is interesting as it appears to have vacuum brake hoses, and the doors are not full height, there's a drop down door at the bottom. Can anyone identify it please? 

 

The contractors narrow gauge is presumably ex WD from WW1, 2' gauge. Other photos in the set show tipper skips and a small petrol loco, I'll upload a few if there is any interest?

 

Cheers

[David C]

Yes, definitely of interest. Please upload as many as you can be bothered to. 

 

Thanks in advance

 

David C

[Artless Bodger]

Thank you for your interest.

 

To put things in some context, I've cropped a site plan which shows the dates of the buildings (the site developed from 1920 to 1957 and beyond). I've outlined the buildings shown in the photographs in red - these are the initial phase from 1921, no 1 and 2 paper machine house, coal bunkers, lancashire boilers, clay bunkers, beaterfloor and turbine house. The conveyor(s) were the overhead gantry cranes used to unload pulp from lighters on the river. 

 

Regarding photos 94 and 115, I've marked the temporary standard gauge line through the end of the machine house as the thick black line. The blue line is the course of the (later) east mill access siding known as "Reed's Siding", which lasted to the end of the site though latterly unused. The dotted light blue curve is my guess at the temporary connection to the temporary track in the machine house, as this must have been removed later but may have been in use while the next phase; nos 3 and 4 machines were installed. Some photos were taken from the top of the 'shaft' the chimney marked 'chy' within the red box. The other chimney was built later to serve the Stirling boilers put in north of the lancashires. Unfortunately I have no pictures from later phases of construction.

 

Photo 15 shows a mobile derrick (stabilised by stacks of bricks) used for what appears to be the excavation of the 'wet pit' which was a couple of deep sumps, one to collect the drainage prior to pump out to river, the other to handle the turbine condenser cooling water from and to the river. Some of the workmen appear to be wearing army uniform, presumably war surplus, some magnificent moustaches on display too. The derrick seems to have been used to lower the tipper skips (bodies only perhaps) into the excavation, as the hoist cable stretches over to it. The skeleton steelwork is the frame of the lancashire boiler house, no 1 & 2 m/c house is the roofed building behind - the travelling crane inside can just be made out.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

Sorry for the delay, busy yesterday cleaning loco wheels and fixing pickups.

 

Here's a few more (though there are 125 photos altogether most have no railway content at all - mainly of the building construction, and several appear to be almost identical).

 

No 1. The crane is standard gauge based  on other photos. The river Medway on the right and the buildings on the far side are the remains of a brickworks I think - long gone by the time I worked at APM. The Ferry Inn behind the crane was our personnel dept office in the 70s and 80s, and at the end of New Hythe lane. There is a petrol loco on the narrow gauge just visible behind the man by the skip. The wharf was built in a trench in the river bank and the excess bank excavated after to provide berths for lighters.

 

No 3. An interesting bit of plant, Winget developed concrete batching plants, they had a works at Strood. The only railway element here is that I think the telegraph poles in the background are those of the SECR Strood - Paddock Wood line. Ballast for the concrete was largely excavated on site to the south, the resultant pit became the mill's process water reservoir - we always referred to it as the ballast pit. Cement for concrete may have come by water as the Medway gap teemed with cement works, most with water access.

 

No 4. This is looking south (1 and 3 looking roughly north), those telegraph poles in the background again.

 

No 6. Looking a bit east of south, the steam crane on the wharf wall construction has moved quite a bit south along the river bank from photo 1. Narrow gauge and skips on the wharf wall level on the left and ramping down to the basement levels on in front. I'm not sure how far down the chimney foundations went, but machine house basement floor level was 8' OD, machine floor level 16' OD, original ground level was somewhat lower as photos of a flood tide at just over 14' inundated part of the site. Clearly quite a lot of excavation was required.

 

No 7. View north. 3 NG tracks in the excavated m/c house basement area, the right hand 2 appear to be an extempore travelling carriage for the pole derrick which lifted the roof trusses into place, the wagons (?) on them seem to be heavily ballasted. Ferry Inn framed in  no 1 m/c annexe steelwork, the barn like buildings on the right are on the other side of the river.

 

More to come, in time.

 

 

[Artless Bodger]

A correction to the captions above. Studying later photos in the series prior to uploading, I noticed that the barn like buildings visible in no1 and no7 on the RHS are in fact on the same side of the river (west) as the mill, and appear to be associated with a small wharf with a steam crane and possibly originally a wood yard. They are on the site of the much later export shed and dock on what was known as Blackhorse site. Whether the yard and wharf had been taken over for use during the mill construction is not clear, certainly there was not a standard gauge connection past the Ferry Inn between the Blackhorse sidings and East Mill sidings in any map or site plan I've seen, and no evidence of embedded rails in the road (a short part of it public at the end of New Hythe Lane) when I looked in the late 70s. I'll put up the relevant photo later with more information.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Artless Bodger
Not actually on the export shed site - too close to New Hythe Lane, it's where the APM builder's dept and yard were situated later.

[Artless Bodger]

Regarding the barn like buildings and wharf, here is the photo that showed me my error, and a few more roughly contiguous, which might show a narrow gauge connection to that area from the mill construction site. If anyone can make out NG on the wharf site I'd be interested to know.

 

No 31. Taken from the top of the chimney, looking north, the newly completed wharf wall on the right as seen in no 1 with what I presume to be a Thames sailing barge alongside, and northwards extension still under construction. The 'barns' are visible along with the associated wharf and small steam crane - though any railway tracks are hard to see. The Ferry Inn centre left with the landing stage opposite and footpath leading away towards Eccles. The creek entering here is the old course of the river, the mill was sited on the navigation improvement known as Middle Cut. The works beyond was originally a brickworks, then made cement until about 1905 (https://www.cementkilns.co.uk/cement_kiln_aylesford.html), so is presumably disused at the time of the photo - it certainly looks it, despite the sailing barge at its wharf. (Apologies, I'm doing my research as I add these photographs). 

In the bottom left almost parallel to the bottom of the photo are the foundations for the salle (where the paper would be inspected and packed), which appear in contiguous photos as follow.

 

No 33. Looking somewhat more vertically down from no 31, the salle foundations are visible. There are several NG tracks visible, two entering the machine house north end, one of which leads off towards a possible connection with the short length in the top LH corner. Some quite crazy sleepering visible and dicey supports across excavations on a mix of planks and logs. Also intriguing is the NG laid down the centre of the standard gauge crane track - were the NG locos used to shunt SG wagons to and from parts of the site? None of the photos show a standard gauge loco on site. Other interesting items: there seem to be parts of a lancashire boiler laying on the ground - the end plate with fireholes and the two flue tubes. I'd have thought the boilers would be delivered complete, though perhaps they'd be out of gauge on the railway, but might have come by water. That is the boiler house bottom middle. Your thoughts on the matter wold be appreciated.

 

No 32. Rotating anticlockwise from no 33, the machine house roof and in the top right the end of the salle foundations, the tracks out of the machine house faintly visible and the left hand track appears to be that in the top left of no 33. I wonder whether that track continues to the site of the 'barns' beyond New Hythe Lane and the Ferry Inn? It would make sense in that initially there was no wharf at the mill site and materials could have been landed at the small wharf and moved by NG railway to the construction site. I've wondered about the 'telegraph poles' across parts of the site, but now think they might be electricity supply, not telephone wires.

 

Cheers for now.

[Artless Bodger]

Some for today.

 

No 35. Looking east towards the river at the south end of construction, the beater floor is the further part of the new steelwork, the power house is where the travelling crane is installed - 5 steam turbines, 2 coupled and driving a main lineshaft powering the beaters and refiners, 3 driving generators - power was DC. Part of a site plan from later added to show some of these items. Well laid track in the foreground! Skip wagon just visible in front of concrete mixer.

 

Nos 120, 121. A bit off topic but to enlarge on the above. 121 one of the turbines, looks like part of the gearbox coupling the two mainshaft turbines on the left. 120 the mainshaft. Though the mill was much altered when I worked there and line shaft drive to the beaterfloor a thing of the past, some of those piers were still in existence with the bearing hold-down bolts, about 3" diameter.

 

Now, I must not let my enthusiasm for the papermaking and mill history get in the way of the railway content.

 

No 42. Coal bunkers under construction. The NG track is carried on wooden sleepers here, I presume because this appears to be on waybeams over the wet pits, and the planks in the 2' to make a safe walkway for workers - the wet pits went down to 8' below OD so were about 24' deep here. Elsewhere the NG track is laid on steel sleepers (Decauville track?) except where carried over excavations.

 

No 43. Two boilers installed, these look in pristine condition and freshly delivered complete, so raises questions about the apparent boiler components seen earlier. The open pit below the track is evident here.

 

[Artless Bodger]

Back to the railway.

 

No 45. Standing with our backs to the river, looking roughly west. A nice portrait of a V skip, on metal sleepered track. Does anyone know what the 3 hole link bar is for? I thought to restrain the skip from tipping but that is usually done with a small lever catch. The skip frame does not look quite like a WDLR one.

 

No 46. A bit further north than 45, again with our backs to the river, the line in the foreground is the standard gauge siding along the wharf. The narrow gauge (skip off the rails behind the workman (supervisor? he seems to be wearing leather gaiters) and the frame only visible above and beyond it. It looks as though concrete was run in wagons along behind the bunkers, then out to the river with a turnplate at the end and a stub track to the right of the workman where the concrete could be tipped into wheelbarrows. The pipe in the foreground would be used to discharge water to the river, pumped from the wet pit excavation below, the entire site was underlain by river terrace gravel (source of ballast for the concrete) and subject to varying water table height with the tides.

 

No 48. Looking roughly north, the standard gauge curve connecting the siding off the main line (to the left) to the wharf, also narrow gauge tracks.

 

No 24. Looking down on the riverward extension of the standard gauge track in no 48. Though it looks like some double exposure has occurred, this shows how fluid some of the track laying must have been with parts of points in situ but incomplete. I think the building with the chimney must be another concrete mixing plant.

[sir douglas]

its a general Hudson "rugga" skip, they made thousands of them and were used all over the world before and after the wars. there is nothing stopping the body from tipping but the skip sits on the ends on a flat plate

 

i suppose the chain is to pull the body back down easier after its been tipped

https://images.app.goo.gl/6RpeBAuSuFLHvegf6

[Artless Bodger]

Thank you Sir Douglas, that is a very clear photo and shows the catch well. 

[Artless Bodger]

Jumping about a bit - the photos are in chronological order as numbered, but I jumped to some that I thought might be more interesting or informative, so going back a bit to some I jumped over.

 

No 10. South end of machine house looking roughly north. Shows the mobile derrick mounted on 3 NG wagon chassis - rails rather precariously laid on top of the vertical stanchion foundations. Also a nice little pump in the foreground draining the excavation of the power house basement.

 

No 16. Boiler house - some NG in evidence.

 

No 17. Beater house under construction, looking west to the SECR mainline and Reed's Siding. MR wagon and another (GN?). NG track and point lever. Skip by concrete mixer. Mobile derrick on NG chassis visible again.

 

No 18. Coal bunkers under construction, river out of shot to the right. Standard gauge track and some bits of NG. Regarding that trolley - it would be a bit of a coincidence but there was a very similar wooden trolley, with towing ring on the frame stretcher on the east mill sidings in the early 1980s - just visible near the water tower on the 'modern' photos.

[Krusty]

Quote

Does anyone know what the 3 hole link bar is for?

 

It fixed the skip in one of three positions: 

(a) level for filling and running

(b) partly tipped for shovelling out the contents

(c) fully tipped.

These bars were very common on German vee skips. There are YouTube videos showing them in use, although not easy to find unless you get lucky.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Krusty

[Artless Bodger]

54 minutes ago, Krusty said:

 

It fixed the skip in one of three positions: 

(a) level for filling and running

(b) partly tipped for shovelling out the contents

(c) fully tipped.

These bars were very common on German vee skips. There are YouTube videos showing them in use, although not easy to find unless you get lucky.

Excellent, thank you Krusty. The bars appear on wagons in a few other photos, but not all.

 

I'll have to look more closely at some of those Youtube videos. 

[Artless Bodger]

Some for today.

 

No 22. Inside the machine house - excavating the basements, the tops of the concrete foundations are the future machine floor level 16' OD, the basements were at 8' OD. NG points and a turnplate in the foreground, one of the skips looks as though it has also been turned off the spur on a turnplate. The 3 hole link evident on this one.

 

No 23. Having turned 180 degrees, now looking south, mobile derrick erecting the beater house and power house steelwork.

 

No 26. A view down on the area of no 23, from the top of the chimney. I've tried the clarity editor on this to sharpen it up a bit. A nice array of NG and SG track. I'm tempted to interpret the NG track coming in top centre and swinging round to parallel the SG as coming from the site of the ballast pit, bringing ballast for the concrete plants, it might then be that the odd shed near the river bank in some shots, with a tall chimney, was a washing and grading plant, using water pumped from either the river, or excavations to wash the gravel before use.

[Artless Bodger]

No 49. Looking roughly south east, the mainline is behind the cameraman, the sidings visible are standard gauge, with the ramp up to the side of the machine house, where the machine parts were brought in.

 

No 50. Looking roughly south east, mainline behind the photographer but further south than 49 (the tent like edifice in both photos), std gauge in the foreground on the alignment of the later (1930s) permanent siding that ran under the kraft beaterfloor, no 6 electrical annexe and into no 6 loading dock. The further SG track is the one which swings round to enter the dry end of no 1 & 2 m/c house, seen in 49.

 

No 51. Down by the riverside again looking north, some wonderful track laying, especially where the NG crosses the SG.

 

No 52. Back inside 1 & 2 m/c house. The lower NG track on the left is in what becomes the pipe tunnel running the length of the machine house, no 2's dryer basement beyond it, no 1's dryer basement on the right hand side. 

 

No 55. Standing in the Salle area, north of the machine houses looking roughly west towards the main line and New Hythe Lane. The main line is on the dark embankment beyond the post and wire fence, the home signal protecting New Hythe Lane crossing is visible. New Hythe Halt does not seem the have been built yet - it was originally just a wooden platform, on the site of the later New Hythe station, adjacent to the level crossing. Some of those wooden huts, WW1 army surplus, were still in use as management offices in the 1980s and lasted almost until the end of the mill in the early 2000s.

 

A note on terminology:

Papermachines have a wet end - at the beginning where the pulp slurry is fed onto the wire mesh belt forming wire (or just 'wire'), the paper web is pressed then dried on steam heater cylinders (the dry end) and is then reeled up. 

 

Pulps and papers are often referred to by the pulp type, depending on pulping process; kraft (from the German for strong) is chemically pulped wood by the 'kraft' or suplhate process, used for wrapping, bag and sack papers, unbleached it is brown, but can be bleached to cream or white. 

 

Beaters (and refiners) are machines which defibre pulp sheets or rags and fibrillate the fibres to improve the fibre bonding characteristics, and so the strength of the paper. Beaters are a batch process, refiners continuous process.

 

Salle (German for hall) is traditionally the room where the paper is further processed to the form required by the customer (slit into narrower reels, cut into sheets, inspected, sorted, packed etc).

 

[Nearholmer]

On 07/05/2020 at 17:28, sir douglas said:

its a general Hudson "rugga" skip

 

I' afraid that it definitely isn't.

 

The Rugga design is later than these pictures, and is very distinctive because the frame shows a flush face to the exterior.

 

The skips in these pictures are typical earlier "continental" type, although they may be from a British maker, possibly even Hudson. If I was to make a wild guess, I would say Orenstein & Koppel, sourced via their London agent Jones of Greenwich (IIRC).

 

Looking at the track, I doubt this was locomotive-worked and I don't think the skips have the longitudinal stiffeners in the centre of the frame that usually distinguish those designed to take significant tractive and buffing loads.

 

Blooming excellent set of photos, so thanks for posting them.

 

 

[sir douglas]

thanks, its got the Hudson axle boxes

[Nearholmer]

You could be right; they do look like the ones used on the WDLR skips

 

For those who enjoy axle-boxes, here are a couple more. Trouble is, designs varied over time, and there were multiple variants available (grease; oil; heavy; light; etc.) at any one time, so it isn’t always easy to identify the maker unless their name is in the casting.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Fen End Pit]

Superb photos, thanks for posting.

David

[Artless Bodger]

Evidence of any motive power is scanty in these photos, however:

 

Nos 98 and 99, taken from the water tower show a small petrol loco - possibly a Simplex 20HP. 

 

No 108. A similar view, note the standard gauge temporary track in 98/99 has been moved to the further door into the turbine house in the interim period.

 

No 109. The water tower, with the standard gauge siding off the main line on the left and the temporary connections curving off to the turbine house and the far end of the machine house visible. On the main line embankment to the left a white post may be the signal protecting New Hythe Lane level crossing, and also just visible what looks like a gantry arrangement seen in photo no 97. My interpretation of this is that machinery could be transferred from main line wagons to the 4 wheel trolleys for internal use, and moved on the temporary track to their location, thus obviating the need for a standard gauge shunting loco. The trolleys might be moved with winches - several are visible in the series of photos. The sparse sleepering of the temporary track into the turbine house wouldn't have supported much weight.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Brilliant!

 

Definitely a loco, and definitely from the Simplex family, if that is taken to include the Kent Construction "Planet" rebuilds/derivatives.

[Artless Bodger]

Another photo with a loco visible - No 88. The loco appears to be shunting a couple of empty skips to receive material excavated from the river bank. This photo also shows how far the river bank was cut back to make berths for unloading lighters carrying pulp bales. The river piers of the conveyor cranes were (I'm fairly sure) constructed in pits on 'dry' land. In other pictures the width of the wharf from the coal bunkers to the river seems much wider than it was in my time, showing the excavation of the bank was carried further north to accommodate coal barges. 

 

No 89. A bit further to the left, the loco and steam crane visible and loaded skips being pushed by 2 men each further down the wharf. Bearing in mind Nearholmer's observations about the strength of the skips, perhaps the loco was only used to move rakes of empties?

[Nearholmer]

And, the usual range of pre-HaSaW Act "interesting" practices, like a couple of blokes balancing on some wobbly planks while they erect a ladder, footed on the wobbly planks.

[Artless Bodger]

There is a British Pathe News film of electricians fitting lighting to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. It is the bit where the bloke slides through the little gap in the tower cap and down the suspension chain that churns my stomach. I find it hard just to walk across the bridge! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6lp0KAEHOM

 

There were enough blokes in the mill when I worked there in the 70s - 80s who had finger joints missing etc from ingoing nip accidents. We often measured drying cylinder temperatures by poking a long handle mounting a thermocouple in between the rotating dryer cylinders - no 2 had 68 cylinders by then, at 2-3 mins per cylinder it was an afternoon's work. There was not much clear gap bewteen the cylinders at up to 130 deg C, moving paper at 300 m/min, carrier ropes etc. On one occasion the carrier rope came off  and snagged a bearing cover lifting it up and through the dryer hood - it was quite a big bit of cast metal and made quite a thump when it landed! since around 2000 you couldn't even get near the cylinders - 1.6m high guard fences all round.

 

Crews were dead scared of anything 'acid' but handled caustic soda prill with insouciance - when I challenged the lack of eye protection one said 'but it's only like washing soda.'

 

A tip from one H&S professional - if you want to test or demonstrate the hazards of a nip - use baby carrots, they're just about the same size as a finger.

[Artless Bodger]

No 111. The river bank has been cut back, the concrete surface of the wharf is under construction complete with the inset rails for the eventual dockside cranes. A large steam crane has appeared, this may be the one later used at the coal tip in the south part of the site, but isn't the Smith, Rodley crane we had still in the 70s. Two standard gauge wagons present - I'm inclined to guess the steam cranes were used to shunt them into position. Narrow gauge poking out from under the end of the Lancashire boiler house and along the front of the coal bunkers. The big brackets along the top front of the bunkers support the trolley wires for the dockside cranes. 

 

No 112. Not much of railway interest, but included for the dodgy work practice of two ladders roped together. Looking towards the river, the stack in the background looks like pulp bales, but not stacked in the pulp yard under the conveyor, so a bit of a mystery.

 

No 75. The wharf road and coal bunkers at an earlier stage, bloke leaning on a skip in the distance. Wonderful bit of tracklaying.