Colliery Wagon Questions

[Possy92]

Hello all, me again!

 

I'm currently modeling 2 eras of rolling stock - Pre Nationalisation and nationalisation. (Debating having 1 side of the wagon Pre Nationalisation and other side Nationalised!

 

Pre Nationalisation Questions

 

My understanding is that companies like gas works/factories/private owners etc required coal and would more often than not have their own branded wagons, which would be sent to the colliery, filled up and then sent to their respective factory etc.

 

I've seen a few pictures of rakes and rakes of colliery owned wagons (not internal ones).... but where did these go? Could they be tacked on to orders from these factories, or sent to coaling plants for engine sheds? 

 

Would you see rakes of colliery wagons at loco coaling plants? The big 4 had their own coal wagons, so presumably they'd send those to the colliery to be filled up with coal too? (Loco coal wagons, but also non loco coal wagons for contacts with other businesses/factories also?)

 

Did they work in block trains or were they sent to marshalling yards, split up and sent off to wherever they were needed in a mixed goods, and then returned empty (eventually) on another train?

 

If the above is true, how far would they go? As I know certain coals are better for certain jobs, like anthracite coal. How far would a collieries own wagon go to supply the customer?

 

Nationalisation Questions

 

So after WW2, all coal mines effectively become the NCB.

 

The wagons, as discussed in the other topic, all come under BR, and I'm assuming they also get the P prefix to their wagons also, and would be spread all over the network?

 

Sorry if I've posted a lot in a short time! Some of this has been keeping me awake at night trying to Google answers!

 

Thank you for taking the time to read

 

Kind regards

 

 

 

 

[corneliuslundie]

A big question.

Many of the rakes of wagons you will have seen will have been for shipment at ports, especially in south Wales but also elsewhere.

Power stations and other industrial users sometimes had their own wagons but they may instead or as well have had coal delivered in colliery wagons or, and this was pretty common, in wagons owned by coal factors. Many small coal merchants owned their own wagons, sometimes only one or two (don't be fooled by the numbers on the wagons!). But again when they were busy extra coal may have been delivered in colliery or coal factor wagons.

There are at least 20 books around on private owner wagons, the biggest group being by Keith Turton. And there are still plenty of users which have not been covered in them.

The exception is the north east where almost all coal right from the start was moved in railway company (North Eastern Railway, later LNER) wagons.

Of course, from the start of the Second World War standard private owner coal wagons were pooled, so could have been seen anywhere.

Even before that one type of coal was used all over the country but mainly mined on south west Wales. You would therefore see anthracite colliery wagons in small numbers all over the country.

And you are right that different mines produced different types of coal, some best for domestic use, some for gas works etc. Some mines produced different types from different seams. Much of the south Wales coal was steam coal and good for use in ships' boilers, so much was exported - there were even foreign companies involved in the south Wales coal trade.

Re coal for use by the railway companies, most used their own wagons, at least later - for example the Cambrian Railways bought its first loco coal wagons in 1903 because the cost was cheaper than using coal company wagons. But the companies south of the Thames seem mostly to have had their coal delivered in coal company or factors' wagons, the major supplier being Stephenson Clark.

I have probably raised more questions in your mind than I have answered but I hope that this is a start.

Jonathan 

[Compound2632]

As @corneliuslundie says, the real turning-point was not nationalisation but the second world war. That may not really make much difference to you unless the two periods you are modelling are c. 1947 and c. 1949! Before the war, there were I suppose roughly five categories of coal wagon:

• wagons owned by the collieries, used for making deliveries to customers large and small, including block trains to ports for shipping (especially in South Wales). These wagons were often used by the collieries as mobile coal stores especially in the summer months when demand was lower, in order to keep production at a steady rate.
• wagons owned by coal factors or merchants, buying from the collieries and selling on to customers large and small, including domestic customers. The coal merchants might also receive coal in colliery-owned wagons.
• wagons owned by industrial users, bringing coal from whatever colliery they currently had a contract with. Such users might also be receiving coal in colliery wagons, or from the larger coal factors.
• wagons owned by the railway companies, moving coal for collieries, factors, or industrial users at a price per ton-mile.
• loco coal wagons owned by the railway companies, conveying coal for locomotive purposes from the collieries with which the company had a contract. I've not yet worked out the rationale for having designated loco coal wagons but I suspect that there may have been an accounting reason, as they would have been assets used for non-revenue-earning purpose. Not all loco coal came in loco coal wagons - the supplying colliery's wagons might also been used and, as mentioned, several of the southern companies used Stephenson Clarke rather than supply their own wagons. I wonder if this had to do with the mileage these wagons would have to travel off the home system?

I've said "owned" but in fact in many cases the wagons were in fact hired from the private wagon building trade, often with a repair contract and sometimes with an option to buy at the end of the hire term - in fact the wagon trade invented hire-purchase. Even the railway companies sometimes resorted to hiring wagons. The non-railway-company-owned wagons were subject to a regime of inspection and registration by the railway companies. Not only did they pay tolls (on a ton-mile basis) to the railway companies but they also had to pay siding charges if their end destination was a railway company yard, as would be the case for most domestic coal merchants. If they had their coal delivered in a railway company wagon, there would be a demurrage payment instead (this continued after nationalisation). In either case there was considerable incentive to get the wagon unloaded quickly and on its way back to the colliery. Nevertheless turn-around times for a complete round trip were of the order of a week or more.

 

For the passing coal train in most areas, the result would be a mix of colliery, merchant, end user, and railway company wagons, with blocks of more than two or three the same not very common. 

[corneliuslundie]

One thing I did not pick up on is that railway companies would not have acted as coal factors buying coal and selling it on (though some railway employees were allowed to act as local coal merchants).

And I forgot to say that not all coal bought by railway companies would be for loco use. Quite an amount would have been used for space heating - stations, signal boxes etc. Works would also have used coal. A few railways also had electricity generating stations in the days when generation was by private companies. And in earlier years it would have been wanted for railway owned gas works, producing gas for carriage lighting etc. (I say earlier, but there were still gas lit carriages at nationalisation.

Have fun. And remember Rule 1: it's your railway.

Jonathan

[Possy92]

Thanks Gents, certainly some things to reflect on, and plenty of information to digest.

 

Think I need to expand my library and get some books on this, so thank you for the recommendations. 

 

thanks again!

[Nick Holliday]

One thing that is often overlooked, with regard to Railway Company loco coal wagons, is that quite a lot of this coal was actually transported by sea, especially to the southern lines, and unloaded at places like Deptford, Kingston Wharf and Fremington (for Barnstaple) on the Southern and Kingswear on the GWR. Loco coal wagons would be used to distribute loads to the neighbouring engine sheds. 

[phil_sutters]

31 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

One thing that is often overlooked, with regard to Railway Company loco coal wagons, is that quite a lot of this coal was actually transported by sea, especially to the southern lines, and unloaded at places like Deptford, Kingston Wharf and Fremington (for Barnstaple) on the Southern and Kingswear on the GWR. Loco coal wagons would be used to distribute loads to the neighbouring engine sheds. 

....and Highbridge Wharf for SDJR and Southern Railway use. In fact, as far as I can see, Highbridge mainly imported loco coal. I haven't seen any coal merchants' PO wagons in photos of the wharf. Mind you this traffic had ceased by your era. Imports were largely timber after the 1930s.

Edited April 5, 2021 by phil_sutters
Additional info

[Compound2632]

The other side to this question is that ideally you should think about the location you are modelling. Is it a through route that will see mineral trains coming from colliery districts to industrial centres? For example, if you were modelling a location between Banbury and Oxford, you would expect to see wagons from collieries in the Derbys / Notts / S. Yorks area producing domestic coal and gas coal, that may have come onto the GW either via the Midland at Bordesley or the Great Central at Banbury; coal from the Cannock Chase area might have come via Bordesley or via the OWW; but any South Wales steam coal or anthracite will be travelling in the oppposite direction, coming down from Didcot. Then there will be wagons of the local coal merchants - some with quite large fleets such as Stevens at Oxford.

 

Don't forget the trains of empties going back to the collieries!

[TheSignalEngineer]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The other side to this question is that ideally you should think about the location you are modelling. Is it a through route that will see mineral trains coming from colliery districts to industrial centres? For example, if you were modelling a location between Banbury and Oxford, you would expect to see wagons from collieries in the Derbys / Notts / S. Yorks area producing domestic coal and gas coal, that may have come onto the GW either via the Midland at Bordesley or the Great Central at Banbury; coal from the Cannock Chase area might have come via Bordesley or via the OWW; but any South Wales steam coal or anthracite will be travelling in the oppposite direction, coming down from Didcot.

Also remember that coal trains were slow and non-perishable, so went via routes where they could be kept out of the way of more urgent traffic. A lot of coal heading from South Wales to Banbury went via Gloucester,  Stratford upon Avon and Leamington. Some from the north went from Bordesley to Stratford and the OWW to Oxford. The GWR gas works at Swindon got coking coal from Derbyshire which came in railway-owned hopper wagons which were worked to Washwood Heath then tripped to Bordesley for adding to a train heading south. Even in the 1960s we were getting long trains of coal wagons into Washwood Heath from the East Midlands where they were sorted for onward workings to customers in the south and west, balanced by steam coal and anthracite from South Wales going north. Empties from locally-used coal were taken there for making up into trains for local collieries or other main yards in  coal producing areas.

[corneliuslundie]

A good point about routing. I wonder how much goods traffic went through New Street (B'ham) rather than around, as there were plenty of alternative routes, even if staying on LMS lines.  The GWR had less choice though there were alternatives for goods from the south west of Birmingham, such as via Round Oak.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

A good point about routing. I wonder how much goods traffic went through New Street (B'ham) rather than around,

 

I believe there was always an agreement not to run goods trains through New Street. As you say, it wasn't possible anyway. On the Midland side, the three major goods stations all faced away from New Street (having originally been passenger termini) with tripping to Central via Lifford. The LNWR had the Stechford loop to take goods traffic between the London & Birmingham and Grand Junction lines, together with the Soho loop on the western side. I don't know if such a ban applied to Snow Hill; I've never quite got my head around the complexities of the Great Western in the Black Country, which could be served via the OWW.

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Compound2632

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The other side to this question is that ideally you should think about the location you are modelling. Is it a through route that will see mineral trains coming from colliery districts to industrial centres? For example, if you were modelling a location between Banbury and Oxford, you would expect to see wagons from collieries in the Derbys / Notts / S. Yorks area producing domestic coal and gas coal, that may have come onto the GW either via the Midland at Bordesley or the Great Central at Banbury; coal from the Cannock Chase area might have come via Bordesley or via the OWW; but any South Wales steam coal or anthracite will be travelling in the oppposite direction, coming down from Didcot. Then there will be wagons of the local coal merchants - some with quite large fleets such as Stevens at Oxford.

 

Don't forget the trains of empties going back to the collieries!

The route taken by South Wales coal to the Oxford area is an interesting point.  Prior to the opening of the Severn Tunnel a high percentage of the GWR's coal traffic to the London area but particularly at the Oxford area was actually routed from Pontypool Road via Hereford, Worcester and Oxford and not - as many people seem to think - via Gloucester and Swindon.  Things changed with the opening of the Severn Tunnel but even in 1901 there was a daily coal train from Pontypool Road to Oxford via the OWW - one of three trains conveying coal which arrived at Oxford between 03.00 and 04.00 daily although the other two - from - from Oxley and Cannock Chase - continued forward.

 

Freight trains had always run via Birmingham Snow Hill but basically because the GWr had no alternative troute within Birmingham itself.  However, as mentioned, a lot of GWR freight traffic ran via the OWW anyway so would have avoided Snow Hill unless it was sent back from Wolverhampton to service terminals south of Snow Hill.

Edited April 5, 2021 by The Stationmaster

[Compound2632]

Just now, The Stationmaster said:

not - as many people seem to think - via Gloucester and Swindon. 

 

Guilty as charged! And glad to be corrected. I can see that that makes a great deal of sense in terms of line capacity between Swindon and Didcot.

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

A good point about routing. I wonder how much goods traffic went through New Street (B'ham) rather than around, as there were plenty of alternative routes, even if staying on LMS lines.  

Jonathan

Virtually none. The lines in and out of New Street and we even had special indicators for banking on the Midland side towards Church Road  in New Street PSB days.  

In the early 1960s I remenber three. They were the Templeconbe to Derby which carried traffic for the fruit and veg market around 2am, the Sheffield to Central Goods which carried the Grimsby fish traffic about 4am and the Cadburys vans at lunch time which ran non-stop from the factory to Water Orton. Some of those vans were attached to the Glasgow fitted via the S&C giving next day delivery across central Scotland. 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Virtually none. The lines in and out of New Street and we even had special indicators for banking on the Midland side towards Church Road  in New Street PSB days.  

In the early 1960s I remenber three. They were the Templeconbe to Derby which carried traffic for the fruit and veg market around 2am, the Sheffield to Central Goods which carried the Grimsby fish traffic about 4am and the Cadburys vans at lunch time which ran non-stop from the factory to Water Orton. Some of those vans were attached to the Glasgow fitted via the S&C giving next day delivery across central Scotland. 

 

All those three were fitted freights - and fish were passengers at least until the 50s, surely? (New Street had fish sidings on the Midland side.)

[Guy Rixon]

10 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

One thing that is often overlooked, with regard to Railway Company loco coal wagons, is that quite a lot of this coal was actually transported by sea, especially to the southern lines, and unloaded at places like Deptford, Kingston Wharf and Fremington (for Barnstaple) on the Southern and Kingswear on the GWR. Loco coal wagons would be used to distribute loads to the neighbouring engine sheds. 

Further to that, railway companies often bought coal from factors, not direct from individual collieries (IIUC). If the factors were bringing the coal in by ship, it would be factors' wagons delivering to the running sheds, not colliery wagons.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I've just checked out the station working book for 1964. The Templecombe actually ran as a Class 3 so would have been restricted to vehicles permitted to run at higher speeds in NPCCS trains. The Sheffield was a Class 4 fitted freight (90% with automatic brakes operative) whilst the Cadburys ran as 6T49 so needed at least 20% of the vehicles to have automatic brakes operative. The Grimsby vans could be any type, including ex-LNE ones in the freight wagon series.

[Guy Rixon]

On 04/04/2021 at 14:14, Possy92 said:

Did they work in block trains or were they sent to marshalling yards, split up and sent off to wherever they were needed in a mixed goods, and then returned empty (eventually) on another train?

 

It depends on what you mean by "block train".

 

Were there fixed sets of wagons that shuttled between one loading point (i.e. one colliery) and one (industrial) customer? Rarely, but it did happen, where the customer could handle a whole trainload: think power stations and the larger gasworks; maybe steelworks. This was called "circuit working". It was where you'd find the more specialized PO wagons such as high-capacity hoppers. Circuit-working stock was non-pool and at least one owner tried to claim that it was exempt from government requisition in wartime (he lost the case IIRC).

 

Were there cases where entire trainloads went ad hoc to the same destination? Yes, where the customer was a factor and the destination was a port, especially if the coal was for export and the ship was large. Large colliers needed multiple trains to fill them.

 

Was it typical to see a whole train of wagons identical apart from numbers? No, not typical at all. Apart from circuit working (wagons owned by customer) , this would be less likely than a mix of wagons.

 

Were there entire trains of just coal, run between marshalling points? Yes, commonly. And in these trains, I would expect to see cuts of similar wagons, usually factor's or colliery wagons travelling together. But it would be unlikely that all the wagons in the train came from the same colliery.

[corneliuslundie]

Moving forward to the 1970s there were block trains from places such as the Cwmbargoed opencast mines to the power stations and other industrial users on the coast, initially 16 tonners, later a mix of 16 and bigger mineral wagons, and eventually hoppers. Later still merry-go-round working where the loading and unloading was carried out without the train stopping. In the period of the 16 tonners there would be shunting at the sidings at the opencast mine but the whole train would be coal for one destination.

So a lot depends on the period.

Jonathan

[laurenceb]

A usfull starter is Private Owner Wagons by Bill Hudson ,Oakwood Press 1996

[Wickham Green too]

On 04/04/2021 at 14:14, Possy92 said:

I'm currently modeling 2 eras of rolling stock - Pre Nationalisation and nationalisation. (Debating having 1 side of the wagon Pre Nationalisation and other side Nationalised! .....

An interesting concept BUT with a couple of problems. Firstly the different mix of  wagons, with a preponderance of older, smaller, wagons before the war and a growing proportion of 'all-steel' vehicles afterwards - but we can assume your fleet will be predominantly '1923' type coal wagons ( That's what the model trade gives us anyway ! ). Crucially, though, the pre-war wagons would have included a fair proportion with paint in a reasonable nick - but that was certainly not the case afterwards : you can paint & weather the two sides of your wagons differently - but how are you going to finish the ends to match ??!?

[Possy92]

14 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Crucially, though, the pre-war wagons would have included a fair proportion with paint in a reasonable nick - but that was certainly not the case afterwards : you can paint & weather the two sides of your wagons differently - but how are you going to finish the ends to match ??!?

 

The million dollar question! it had occurred to me that it could be the "sticky wicket". I'll just have to buy more wagon kits XD. in fairness, as you say the post war wagons, with the introduction of the steel bodied wagons the wooden ones would be phased out, so I hopefully wouldn't need as many.

 

Again, thanks all for the advice, for instance, the coal arriving via boat is an interesting concept. I'm modelling somewhere in the North West of England, so my "main sources" of coal are places like copy pit, (and many others in the Burnley, Nelson and Blackburn, plus Haig Colliery in Cumbria as a possible stretch.  Obviously, places like Liverpool and Preston Docks would be contenders as to where my coal could come from also.

[TheSignalEngineer]

2 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

Were there entire trains of just coal, run between marshalling points? Yes, commonly. And in these trains,

When I was working around Saltley c1966-8 we had several complete trains per day direct from the East Midlands either from collieries or yards like Toton to the gas works sidings between Saltley Station and Duddeston Road. Similar trains ran to Hams Hall Power Station or Washwood Heath Tame and Rea Sidings for Nechells Power Station.

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by TheSignalEngineer

[Aire Head]

Another thing to consider is different types of coal.

 

For example Yorkshire pits typically produced “Steam Coal” which as the name implies was good for and was typically used for burning to produce steam.

 

Lancashire coals on the other hands tended to contain more volatile gases and similar and as such was more suited to use in Gas Works and for coking.

 

This means that if you model some lines you will get loaded coal trains travelling in different directions carrying the different types of coal to the user where they are more suitable.

 

Further to this Welsh Coal was typically Anthracite which was highly calorific and burned better and was often used by industries such as brewing.

[MR Chuffer]

7 minutes ago, Possy92 said:

Obviously, places like Liverpool and Preston Docks would be contenders as to where my coal could come from also.

Been keeping on eye on this thread and a lot makes sense, then I see this? Located in the Northwest, where? Why would coal come from a port when Wigan was coal central. Also a lot of coal used in the Northwest came across the Pennines from Yorkshire.

 

I asked a question a while ago about why do so many photos I see of Lancashire railways seem to be coal from Yorkshire and empties returning, and got a wealth of information including an NCB map of UK coal deposits. A reason for the one way traffic was "quality". Wigan was sulphurous as was Burnley, good for gas, bad for steaming and brewing, etc. I can send you the map of you PM me.