BR Pig Iron Wagons in the early 80s

[b*ggeredupclass03]

Hello, and Sorry for the absense. Right then, I realize both Pig iron and Hot pigs were still in use in the early 80s, and that they got TOPS Codes UPO and URO respectively. However, the only place I could find Information is MR. Bartlett's excellent website, and the photos taken were all around Workington, Cumbria. So were they all based around Workington or did they pop up elsewhere? More research has shown that The Hot Pigs popped up elsewhere, but mainly around Manchester, where there was a Steelworks at Old Trafford IIRC. Anyway, as I said, were they still nationwide or were they found purely around Steelworks by then?

[Fat Controller]

They would have been used to carry pig iron from plants such as Workington and Scunthorpe to smaller steel plants and foundries, where the pig iron would have been added to scrap steel. The plant at Old Trafford was a foundry specialing in railway wheels, IIRC.

I can't think I ever saw these wagons in traffic in their original role; pig iron to places such as Duport (Llanelli), British Steel Landore and Pensnett seemed to be carried in vacuum-fitted Plates by the mid-1970s.

[Southernman46]

some got used as coil wagons as S Wales SPO's (there's another thread on here somewhere with pictures)

[AberdeenBill]

I saw some UPOs in the Rutherglen (South Glasgow) area in the mid-1970s, which were probably still in use. I'd never seen them before There's an interesting picture on Paul's site of a Pig-Iron open in apparent use as a overhanging-load runner in 1968 at Staines of all places.

 

Bill

[Arthur]

As pig iron carriers they worked limited routes, obviously between producers (of which there we about 30 in 1955 and just 5 by 1980) and the end users, whose numbers were greater but also declined rapidly. As has been said, other wagon types were also used to carry pig iron. During the 1970s the iron and steel industry was severely rationalised, so, by 1980, there was significantly less pig iron traffic.

 

The only producers of pig iron were the blast furnace plants. By 1960 most, though, not all, were at integrated works and provided hot metal to adjacent steel making plants. However, most, in fact I cannot think of an exception, of these blast furnace plants also had pig casting machines and made pig iron. Workington was a particularly large pig iron producer, holding extensive stocks. Uniquely in the UK, it used low phosphorous ores producing a pig iron suitable for the acid steelmaking process. As a pig iron valued by both iron and steel founders, their product traveled far and wide.

 

The big end users of pig iron were the cold charging steel making plants. Examples would be, Duport at Llanelli, English Steel Corporation plants in Sheffield and Manchester, several plants in Scotland (Glengarnock, Clydesdale, Hallside and others) and Steel, Peech, Tozer in Rotherham. The latter had a significant supply from Appleby Frodingham ay Scunthorpe until the conversion to Electric Arc furnaces around 1960. Other users were iron and, some, steel founders, much larger in number but usually smaller in scale. Some would not have been served by rail.

 

The plant in Trafford Park was Taylor Brothers, by the 1940s part of the English Steel Corporation. As Brian stated, it made railway wheels, axles and wheelsets, and was a forge rather than a foundry. It was equipped with a small open hearth steelmaking plant which would have taken in pig iron and steel scrap. I'd have to check just when, but it had certainly lost steelmaking capacity before 1980, probably before 1970, and was being supplied with steel in billet form.

[Arthur]

Here's a photo of a class 40 heading up a pig iron train at Workington Yard bound for Pensnett (and Round Oak steelworks probably).

 

http://www.derbysulzers.com/40023workington77.jpg

[br2975]

By the 1980s the TOPS Code for pig iron wagons was still in existence, but how many, if any were still in use for that traffic is a moot point.

.

As mentioned above, a number were converted into Coil 'C' wagons (TOPS KCO/SCO) surviving until the mid 1980s.

.

ISTR pig iron traffic to Pensnett being carried in air braked SPA wagons (but stand to be corrected).

.

Brian R

[andymozza]

Here's a photo of a class 40 heading up a pig iron train at Workington Yard bound for Pensnett (and Round Oak steelworks probably).

 

http://www.derbysulz...orkington77.jpg

Hi, Pig Iron for Pensnett , unloaded at LCP Fuels together with coke was for the many small local foundry,s in the Black Country. Round Oak was fed pretty much by steel scrap obtained locally and via BR, though I know of at least 2 occasions when specials arrived from Immingham with imported Iron Ore. During the 70's there were 4 times a week trains of pig iron from Workington of 30+ plate wagons, by 1983 it was down to a dozen wagons a week in SPA's. Cheers Andy.

[Arthur]

Andy

 

The pig iron being for local foundries makes sense as Round Oak was, by then, an electric arc furnace plant and pig iron would not usually be charged and scrap was the usual feedstock.

 

However, I doubt that the ore from Immingham was used at Round Oak, you cannot smelt iron ore in an Electric Arc furnace. Small amounts of ore can be used to burn out excess carbon during the heat but you wouldn't need a train load of the stuff. The ore was more likely bound for Bilston.

[andymozza]

Andy

 

The pig iron being for local foundries makes sense as Round Oak was, by then, an electric arc furnace plant and pig iron would not usually be charged and scrap was the usual feedstock.

 

However, I doubt that the ore from Immingham was used at Round Oak, you cannot smelt iron ore in an Electric Arc furnace. Small amounts of ore can be used to burn out excess carbon during the heat but you wouldn't need a train load of the stuff. The ore was more likely bound for Bilston.

Hi Arthur, they were definitly Iron ore trains, I was in the signal box both times when they arrived! If I remember correctly they both ran during the summer shutdown period, could they be anything to do with re-starting the furnaces? Both trains came from Immingham, the wagons were a mix of tipplers and 16t minerals. one was a pair of immingham 20,s the other 47,summer of 73 or 74. Cheers Andy.

[Arthur]

Hi Andy, I'm sure that you're right about the wagons from Immingham containing iron ore. What I'm doubting is that it was bound for Round Oak. There are only two uses for iron ore in the iron & steel industry, the main one being to smelt it to remove the metallic iron. That requires ore in large quantities and a blast furnace, Round Oak lost theirs in 1956 and the only blast furnace plant, at that time, in the West Midlands, was at Bilston, which is why I suggested that Bilston might be its destination.

 

Small amounts were also used as an oxidising agent in steelmaking, to help in the removal of excess carbon. This was routine in open hearth steelmaking but less common in electric arc furnaces, as used at Round Oak from 1956 onwards. Compared to using an Oxygen lance, which Round Oak did, adding ore was very inefficient. So I'm unclear why Round Oak would ship in train loads of it. They certainly didn't have any suitable handling facilities, nor ore stocking grounds.

 

There are no particular requirements for it when rebuilding furnaces so, if it did go to Round Oak, it is a mystery as to what they were going to do with it.

[andymozza]

Hi Arthur, thanks for your input. There is one other factor which may or may not be relevent to Round Oak taking in Iron Ore. Around the same sort of time there were arrivals of large ingot moulds, I believe from Workington which were used to cast larger "slabs" than RO normally used which were then sent elsewhere unprocessed. Could it be that the iron ore was added to the normal scrap steel used, to "lower" the quality of the steel since it was obviously going elsewhere for processing? One of David Larkin's BR Wagon books has a photo of plate wagons with the ingot moulds stored in the up sidings down the road at Kingswinford Jct. either before or after use. The "Wallows" site at RO where the steel scrap was stored/sorted did have some grab unloading machinery so the Iron ore could have been stocked down there. Finally I can see no logical reason for Bilston Iron Ore coming to Round Oak, there were nearer, more accessible sites to store train loads. Cheers Andy.

[Arthur]

Andy, interesting points. In terms of lowering the quality of the steel by adding excess ore, well, I'm not sure exactly what the effect would be, you'd end up with a non steel really. Once you'd oxidised the carbon, you'd be essentially returning the whole charge back to poor quality iron. There'd be no advantage to deliberately making a lower quality steel and sending it on elsewhere for completion, that would just add to the overall cost, if you're going to make it, you might as well make it right first time.

 

In terms of unloading the ore, yes, I realise that they could have use loaders/cranes etc., I was rather more meaning they had no obvious means of handling ore in bulk, at the end of the day it could have been shoveled out by hand!, as it was years ago.

 

As for the arrival of larger ingot moulds, that's interesting. Round Oaks main business was rolling steel rounds, and other sections too. They had continuous casting machines for the first part of this process but also retained the older ingot (around 5t) casting facilities for certain products.

 

However, they also had a sideline in casting very large ingots, up to 42 tons. The ingot moulds from Workington (actually, they probably came from the nearby Distington Foundry) were almost certainly being supplied for this trade. One of Round Oaks customers for this was Walter Somers at Halesowen and in the 70's they supplied some 42t ingots for forging into parts for the North Sea oil and gas industries. Now with these, the steel ingot was supplied to the right specification, Somers didn't change the steel, they forged it to the correct shape, adding structural strength in the process, this would have been the reprocessing. Somers themselves had no facilities for making or re-processing the steel itself. Interestingly, these ingots were shipped hot, several 100 degrees C, in some form of insulated container, I'd like to know if they went by rail.

 

There's an answer somewhere!!

[andymozza]

Hi Arthur, Re: Ingots. I remember the ingots being shipped out by rail, I don't think they were 42t in weight though as they were put into 22t plate wagons and were Cold.Would such ingots have gone somewhere to keep processing plants going while furnaces were shut down? How the Somers ingots went I don't know, there was no rail access there and it is only 5 miles away from RO. All intriguing stuff! cheers Andy.

[Fat Controller]

BR had one wagon modified to carry hot ingots/slab- it was one of the longer air-braked steel wagons, IIRC. It was fitted with an angular, light grey/white, fabricated cover. I believe this was used in the Sheffield area, however.

I wonder where all the archives for these plants went? A good friend was the Archivist for Wolverhampton at the time Bilston finally shut; local management contacted her about depositing the works archives there, only to call back a few days later to say that they had been instructed to send them to the Group head office instead. Any idea which Group Bilston and Round Oak belonged to, Arthur? I don't think they were in 'Special Steels, Foundries and Engineering', which was the Group Landore and Dowlais belonged to, as I can't remember anything about them in the Group newsletters.

[bescotbeast]

An interesting thread this as I'm researching Shelton Bar (Stoke) for modelling purposes in the 1970s, well when i say modelling I refer to modelling in the virtual sense as its a Railworks project. From the scraps I've found on the internet Iron Ore was shipped in from Birkenhead and I believe Coke was locally manufactured although i could be wrong but anyway this thread is a great read.

Simon

[Arthur]

Andy, Round Oak would basically supply ingots for forging to customer specification, so they'd get in an ingot mould and cast it to the required weight and shape. They probably only supplied one 42t ingot, but also supplied them at 24t, 10t and 5t, and most would have been supplied cold, so you would have seen some of these.

 

The cost to Somers of re-heating a 42t ingot from cold to forging heat made the extra difficulty and cost of supplying it hot worthwhile. Somers would still have needed to heat it, but the energy saving would be considerable. The 42t ingot was made at Round Oak, forged by Walter Somers and machined by Linvic Engineering at Bilston, all of this was done within three weeks. Today it lies under the North Sea, forming a 'Y' coupling, linking gas lines from the Tartan and Piper gas fields into a single main.

 

These special ingots would have been cast to order, so certainly not whilst the furnaces were shut down.

 

It sounds probable, then, that the hot, 42t, ingot went by road, Park Gate in Rotherham used insulated road trailers for internal transfer.

 

Round Oak would have, if needed, kept a supply of cold ingots to keep it's rolling mills running during any furnace shutdown.

 

Brian, yes, I can throw some light on that;

 

Round Oak was never placed into a BSC division because it was never fully nationalised; from 1967, to closure in 1982, it was a joint venture between the BSC and Tube Investments. Briefly nationalised in 1951, like the rest of the industry, it was sold back to private ownership in 1953. The original owners, The Earl(s) of Dudley declined to buy it back, and engineering group, Tube Investments, keen to ensure supplies of steel for their engineering activities, bought it, along with the small integrated works at Park Gate in Rotherham. TI invested massively in both works and Round Oak became the UK's first general steelmaker to switch to Electric Arc furnaces and to adopt continuous casting. I think it escaped full nationalisation because, like GKN/Brymbo, it was closely linked to engineering and one of its main products, rolled round bar, was widely used in the engineering and founding trades. TIs more general steelmaker, Park Gate/Aldwarke, was nationalised.

 

Bilston was fully nationalised. The BSCs first divisional structure, 1967-1970, based, somewhat loosely, on geography, saw it in the Northern and Tubes Division. This included former Stewarts & Lloyds works at Corby, several in Scotland, and Bilston, plus all the Teesside works. As a structure it didn't encourage the rationalisation the BSC sought so in 1970 a new divisional structure based on Product lines was introduced.

Bilston was placed in the Special Steels Division, based in Sheffield. Odd in some ways as it was really a general steel supplier but I think it fell between two stools. With Skinningrove planned to lose steel making capacity in 1972, Bilston would then be the smallest integrated works. A small works for a volume, general, steel maker, but large compared to many of its fellows in the specialist division. There was overlap between the General and Special Steels Divisions.

 

No doubt there were many lost archives though many were saved and concentrated, under the BSC, at an archive centre at Shotton. I've no idea whether or not it's still there.

[Arthur]

An interesting thread this as I'm researching Shelton Bar (Stoke) for modelling purposes in the 1970s, well when i say modelling I refer to modelling in the virtual sense as its a Railworks project. From the scraps I've found on the internet Iron Ore was shipped in from Birkenhead and I believe Coke was locally manufactured although i could be wrong but anyway this thread is a great read.

Simon

 

Simon

 

Bylines magazine had a series of articles about Shelton and its railways, spread over several issues, earlier this year, though most of it predates your 1970 period. Shelton had been acquired by John Summers, in 1920, to supply pig iron to Summers cold melting shops at Shotton, and I would think that the ore used was home ore, from Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.

 

When, in 1953, Shotton opened its first blast furnace, an ore dock, for imported ore, was built at Birkenhead. This then supplied both the Summers works. Shelton did have coke ovens, but they closed in 1967, the blast furnaces not until 1977, so for a decade coke was brought in, possibly from the ovens at Shotton.

 

Shelton, by the mid 1960s, was a peculiar works. It had one of the countries oldest and smallest blast furnace plants, serving one of the most modern steelworks employing the Kaldo process of oxygen steelmaking and continuous casting. Shelton had dispensed with ingot casting completely. They even tried out Spray Steelmaking, one of only three works (Millom and Irlam were the others) to install a production plant.

[Guest Phil]

Can't really add anything to this thread apart from reiterating that pig iron was worked into Pensnett in SPV "plates" in the early 1980s, which were replaced by SPAs later in that decade.

 

Not sure if anyone has googled it but here are a couple of enticing piccies ;

 

7641 with target 55 in the headcode box seemingly drawing a train over Kingswinford junction onto the branch. Interesting situation because it suggests one of two moves to me. It is either the tripper from Brierley Hill to Pensnett which has propelled out mainline, to get over, to access the Pensnett branch, or it is a trip engine which is drawing a train from off the Dudley line into the yard. Personally, I think it is the former, because there is no brakevan between the type two and the pig iron, and those look like grey HTOs for Messrs LCP further down the train.

 

 

A useful shot of a rather full Pensnett yard with some pig iron plates stood on what looks like the old main line towards Baggeridge, Wombourne and Oxley.

 

 

 

 

A little later and I believe the pig iron is now in SPAs

 

 

 

 

 

[b*ggeredupclass03]

In that case, Does anyone have any Diagrams or drawings of these wagons, or know where I could find any? As I said, info on them seems pretty scarce on the ground. Reason being that If I can't find any Kits for the Pig Iron, then I'll scratchbuild it (I was going to scratchbuild the Hot Pig anyway, unless someone knows of any kits for these as well.)

[mikeh]

In the earlt 1960s there was a 9V03 1945 MWFO Eckington & Renishaw-Round Oak, which I believe from contemporary reports was pig iron.

I have a note that Renishaw Park steelworks was purchased by Tube Investments in 1956 for "its complementary pig iron facilities". Was usually an 8F from Burton.

 

Fascinating thread, anything on traffic around Round Oak and Bilston is of great interest to me.

 

Regards

Mike

[br2975]

In that case, Does anyone have any Diagrams or drawings of these wagons, or know where I could find any? As I said, info on them seems pretty scarce on the ground. Reason being that If I can't find any Kits for the Pig Iron, then I'll scratchbuild it (I was going to scratchbuild the Hot Pig anyway, unless someone knows of any kits for these as well.)

 

Look in you 'box' for a PM

 

Brian R

[Fat Controller]

Simon

 

Bylines magazine had a series of articles about Shelton and its railways, spread over several issues, earlier this year, though most of it predates your 1970 period. Shelton had been acquired by John Summers, in 1920, to supply pig iron to Summers cold melting shops at Shotton, and I would think that the ore used was home ore, from Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.

 

When, in 1953, Shotton opened its first blast furnace, an ore dock, for imported ore, was built at Birkenhead. This then supplied both the Summers works. Shelton did have coke ovens, but they closed in 1967, the blast furnaces not until 1977, so for a decade coke was brought in, possibly from the ovens at Shotton.

 

Shelton, by the mid 1960s, was a peculiar works. It had one of the countries oldest and smallest blast furnace plants, serving one of the most modern steelworks employing the Kaldo process of oxygen steelmaking and continuous casting. Shelton had dispensed with ingot casting completely. They even tried out Spray Steelmaking, one of only three works (Millom and Irlam were the others) to install a production plant.

I believe that some, at least, of the coking coal supplied to Shotton originated at pits in North Staffs, so it's possible that wagons worked north with coal, then returned with coke to Shelton Bar. There was also a NCB-owned coking plant near Kidsgrove which might have supplied Shelton Bar.

What on earth is Spray Steelmaking?

[Arthur]

Brian,

 

I'll post a diagram (worth a 1000 words) to explain/dsecribe spray steel making when I'm back home tomorrow. It was a British developed oxygen steel making process which offered the possibility of being continuous, rather than a batch, process. Very different to anything else.

 

Mike, just for clarity, Renishaw was an ironworks and foundry, they didn't make steel. It's two foundry iron blast furnaces were very early casualties of BSC rationalisation, closing in April 1968, though it's foundry activities continued until the 1990s. Yes, Round Oak could certainly have used pig iron.

[mikeh]

Mike, just for clarity, Renishaw was an ironworks and foundry, they didn't make steel. It's two foundry iron blast furnaces were very early casualties of BSC rationalisation, closing in April 1968, though it's foundry activities continued until the 1990s. Yes, Round Oak could certainly have used pig iron.

Not sure why I typed steelworks - I have it as Renishaw Ironworks in my notes.....

Incidentally, the train was known as the "Cuckoo" to the bobbies between Great Bridge and Dudley - no idea why!

 

Regards

Mike