Midland Railway Company

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Looks like I can make the stacks then decide later what colour to paint them?

 

It's one of those rare occasions when the choice really is black or white.

[lezz01]

Painting coal white was something the army did. Trust me I know 

Regards Lez.

[Michael Hodgson]

44 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

Painting coal white was something the army did. Trust me I know 

Regards Lez.

The railways used whitewash - did the army use blanco?

[jamie92208]

I would suspect that the coal stacks would appear and disappear several tine depending on the price of coal. They may well have appeared in the summer when demand was low and coal was cheap. Coal stacks can catch fire spontaneously  if not looked after. The whitewash may well have been to reflect sunlight.  I used to be able to see the large stack at Prince of Wales colliery in Pontefract from my office window.  half a million tons waiting for the price to rise before they sold it.  There were two bulldozers employed full time moving it around to stop spontaneous combustion.  As Tricky has commented below, why spend cash unless there is a return.

 

Jamie

Edited November 1, 2021 by jamie92208

[Tricky]

Why go to the time and effort to stack coal so neatly rather than slinging it into coal staithes?

[eldavo]

51 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Why go to the time and effort to stack coal so neatly rather than slinging it into coal staithes?

 

Probably because they seemed to stack it on every available free bit of ground.  There are photos of lines of locos with stacks between them and just enough space for crews to get to the locos.  They clearly bought big time in the summer.

 

Cheers

Dave

 

[Dave Hunt]

I hadn't honestly taken much notice of coal stacks before starting to think about whether to include them in my layout. I had a vague idea that they may have been something to do with laying in stocks because of miners' strikes and similar but the dates on the photographs that Stephen has posted seem to predate that - unless there was some late 19th century unrest that I've forgotten about that could be appropriate. Jamie's comments make sense but so too do Tricky's. Another vague idea I had was that painting the stacks white was to prevent pilfering as it would readily show up when coal was removed but I've never seen any hard evidence of that.

 

All in all a bit of a can of wriggly things. At the moment it seems that the presence of coal stacks in 1906 is likely but I don't need to make them just yet so if anyone has other ideas and/or evidence of what went on I'd be grateful for them.

 

Dave

 

PS, just seen eldavo's reply, which also seems sensible - thanks.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Dave Hunt
Add PS

[queensquare]

Ive always understood that coal stacks were a combination of buying it cheaply during the summer months and as an insurance against unrest in the coal mines - the latter was a constant factor through the 19th and most of the 20th century, not just in the 1920s.

Pictures of my pet subject, Bath, show coal stacked all over the shed yard. As for painting it white, Ive seen no evidence at Bath. I would suspect that the picture Stephen posted has as much to do with providing a convenient photographic backdrop as anything else.

 

Jerry

[Dave Hunt]

Were the stacks at Bath neatly arranged into square cornered blocks, Jerry, or just random heaps?

 

Dave

[MR Chuffer]

22 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

square cornered blocks or just random heaps?

Cursory glance through LMS Engine Sheds Vol.2, p57 Bournville - random heap; p124 Kentish Town --random heap; p124 Lincoln - sq cornered blocks; p194 Skipton - random heap.. There may be more with a closer look.

[Compound2632]

30 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

Cursory glance through LMS Engine Sheds Vol.2, p57 Bournville - random heap; p124 Kentish Town --random heap; p124 Lincoln - sq cornered blocks; p194 Skipton - random heap.. There may be more with a closer look.

 

Dates, gentlemen, dates: 1957; post-WW2; 1950; 1936 respectively. In the Skipton photo, although the right-hand side looks ragged, It looks to me as if there was a wall of large lumps on the left and further sides. Presumably with labour shortages and mechanised handling post-war, there wasn't the time, labour, or skill to build neat stacks.

 

1 hour ago, queensquare said:

I would suspect that the picture Stephen posted has as much to do with providing a convenient photographic backdrop as anything else.

 

Except that I can't off-hand think of another Kentish Town loco portrait of the period (and there are many) taken against that background - it's usually the Bottling Stores in the background.

 

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Another vague idea I had was that painting the stacks white was to prevent pilfering as it would readily show up when coal was removed but I've never seen any hard evidence of that.

 

Vide E. Nesbit, The Railway Children (The London Magazine, 1905).

 

The practice was not confined to engine sheds; other industrial users did likewise. Note that here the "dry coal walls" stand on top of timber fences; I've not seen that in engine shed photos, I think. The stack is sufficiently high that coal has to be passed up out of the wagons. Putting "coal stack" into the Midland Railway Study Centre online catalogue (which is how I came up with the Kentish Town photo) turns up a number of agreements between the Midland and various firms for stacking coal on the company's premises, including plans of stacking grounds; of course those don't show how the coal was stacked.

 

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I would suspect that the coal stacks would appear and disappear several tine depending on the price of coal. They may well have appeared in the summer when demand was low and coal was cheap. Coal stacks can catch fire spontaneously  if not looked after. The whitewash may well have been to reflect sunlight. 

 

Maybe stacking between "dry coal walls" helped prevent fire somehow? Or was at least effective in confining it to the stack?

 

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Prince of Wales colliery in Pontefract

 

On 9 October 1897, 7 tons 11 cwt of coal from Prince of Wales was delivered to Skipton, in J. Shaw's wagon No. 35. It had come onto the Midland at Methley.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Compound2632

[queensquare]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Were the stacks at Bath neatly arranged into square cornered blocks, Jerry, or just random heaps?

 

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

 

they appear to be fairly neatly stacked and covering almost any piece of spare ground available and over the entire length of the site of both the Midland and S&D sheds.

 

54 on the old turntable has coal stacks behind it. These are near the entrance to the S&D shed yard, roughly where the water softening plant would later be built.

 

 

those se behind the Mail van are further along the yard adjacent to the throat of the Midland shed. The buildings in the background are the wooden S&D coal stage and shed. The Midland coal stage and shed are off to the right. I don't have a date for this picture but would guess late 19/early 20 century.

 

 

 

The final picture of the Spinner is on the road adjacent to the Midland shed, the Midland coal stage is just off to the left, the rear of the S&D shed is in the background.

 

Jerry

Edited November 1, 2021 by queensquare

[Michael Hodgson]

What I've always found hard to understand is why they felt if worthwhile to resort to a dry stone walling approach to storing their coal reserves.  Even when labour was cheap, that seems extravagant use of manual labour.  Bulldozers date from about WW2, prior to that you would presumably be using wheelbarrows to move it about. 

 

In that context, the effort and cost of whitewashing the heap is neither here nor there.  I'd always understood its purpose as being to locate where theft was occurring.  Clerical records would give management an overall view of the extent to which it was occurring (deliveries less approved usage and remaining stock = losses), but would not give any clues as to where it was being lost - that might well be assumed to be theft but could equally well  be valid but unbooked usage (probably including any extravagance), spillages or accounting deficiencies.  Perhaps management had a perception of a significant level of theft by "the lower orders" - the great unwashed or dishonest employees?

 

Bearing in mind that the whole population wanted the stuff for domestic heating, coal storage (even just in wagons in a yard or siding) gave the railways a security problem.  Coal Merchants (often in railway yards) had the same problem.  Pilferage was likely to be in small quantities - a burglar would need sacks, or at least bucket, barrow or if ambitious, a horse & cart to carry the stuff away.  Stationmasters, Foremen etc would see it as part of their job to prevent employee abuses and even ordinary railwaymen would challenge intruders who were seen during working hours.  However at night even places manned 24-hours only had poor quality illumination so you wouldn't see the far corners of a yard.  Station goods yards were fenced, and they all had gates.  But I've never seen photos of those gates shut - did they close them routinely at the end of the working day?  Photos were of course only taken in daylight. 

 

Maybe the constabulary apprehended anybody spotted in the dead of night carrying a shovel and wheeling a barrow for "going equipped"?    But I don't think there was a long procession of coal thieves before the local magistrates. It was a different society then.  So was the level of theft actually negligible, given that everybody knew everybody else in the neighbourhood, and nicking coal just wasn't worth the risk of getting caught?

 

And was stacking it neatly a necessity if you wanted to store as much as possible on a given piece of land?

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, queensquare said:

 

I don't have a date for this picture but would guess late 19/early 20 century.

 

Digression - I'm easily distracted. Mail Van No. 42 was built at Derby in 1887. It's obviously not brand new in this photo! I can't find a match in the Derby Registers so it would seem not to be a photo taken by the official photographer; such a posed shot of such a vehicle seems unlikely from the camera of an amateur, though. But two things have got me going: the S&DJR three-plank dropside wagon in loco coal traffic - note how the large lumps help to build the load up much higher than the wagon rave - a mobile version of the coal stacking technique; and the slotted post signal on the right.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Compound2632
sp.

[Tricky]

If I was a potential coal thief, I'd throw off the top painted layer and pinch the unpainted ones underneath!

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Bearing in mind that the whole population wanted the stuff for domestic heating, coal storage (even just in wagons in a yard or siding) gave the railways a security problem.  Coal Merchants (often in railway yards) had the same problem.  Pilferage was likely to be in small quantities - a burglar would need sacks, or at least bucket, barrow or if ambitious, a horse & cart to carry the stuff away.  Stationmasters, Foremen etc would see it as part of their job to prevent employee abuses and even ordinary railwaymen would challenge intruders who were seen during working hours.  However at night even places manned 24-hours only had poor quality illumination so you wouldn't see the far corners of a yard.  Station goods yards were fenced, and they all had gates.  But I've never seen photos of those gates shut - did they close them routinely at the end of the working day?  Photos were of course only taken in daylight. 

 

One shouldn't overlook the extent to which the Ten Commandments were drummed into children from an early age! Only the offspring of middle class liberal literary types were so devoid of moral compass as to view "mining" from the top of the coal stack as a legitimate activity. As to security:

 

"But there came a dreadful night when the Station Master put on a pair of old sand shoes that he had worn at the seaside in his summer holiday, and crept out very quietly to the yard where the Sodom and Gomorrah heap of coal was, with the whitewashed line round it. He crept out there, and he waited like a cat by a mousehole. On the top of the heap something small and dark was scrabbling and rattling furtively among the coal. The Station Master concealed himself in the shadow of a brake-van that had a little tin chimney and was labelled:— G. N. and S. R. 34576 Return at once to White Heather Sidings and in this concealment he lurked till the small thing on the top of the heap ceased to scrabble and rattle, came to the edge of the heap, cautiously let itself down, and lifted something after it. Then the arm of the Station Master was raised, the hand of the Station Master fell on a collar, and there was Peter firmly held by the jacket, with an old carpenter's bag full of coal in his trembling clutch."

[Michael Hodgson]

57 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

One shouldn't overlook the extent to which the Ten Commandments were drummed into children from an early age! Only the offspring of middle class liberal literary types were so devoid of moral compass as to view "mining" from the top of the coal stack as a legitimate activity.

Yes and no.  You could go out and leave your door unlocked, especially in rural areas, but pragmatic dishonest practices were accepted, such as the improper entries in the train registers at Quintinshill to cover up an unofficial shift change.  There are numerous stories of signalmen getting an unauthorised delivery of footplate coal for the stove having obliged a driver who had inadvertently passed a signal with no harm done.  Whilst the working class would see that as only right and proper, management would view it as theft, as no doubt would the law.

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Yes and no.  You could go out and leave your door unlocked, especially in rural areas, 

 

Most people didn't have locks, having nothing worth stealing.

 

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

There are numerous stories of signalmen getting an unauthorised delivery of footplate coal for the stove having obliged a driver who had inadvertently passed a signal with no harm done.  

 

That's more a case of redistribution of company property within the company itself.

 

What has disappeared from modern society but was of overwhelming influence even a century ago is Nonconformist morality - and the Nonconformist hypocrisy that went with it - fear of the judgement of God and more especially of one's neighbour.

[jamie92208]

As to the dry stone walling techniques, that maximises storage space. The natural angle of lie of coal, according to an N R geologist friend of my brother, is 30 degrees.. thus a random heap will naturallly end up with sides at that angle. Making proper walls maximises the available stacking space.

 

By the way, coal picking on the stacks at Ponty Prince, was still alive and well in 1995 wen one of the varmints ran into me.  He ran directly into my body armour and broke 2 ribs without me touching him. The condition of prisoner noted on the detention sheet was "dazed".

 

Jamie

Edited November 1, 2021 by jamie92208

[Tricky]

Would anyone have a drawing for level crossing gates? I’ve tried the study centre index but it didn’t throw anything up. I may have seen an article in a Midland Record but again can’t find it in on -line index listings. 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Would anyone have a drawing for level crossing gates? I’ve tried the study centre index but it didn’t throw anything up. I may have seen an article in a Midland Record but again can’t find it in on -line index listings. 

 

Try Item 28524-068 - thumbnail on the catalogue so you'll have to ask Dave H. for a high res version, or look in Midland Record No. 15 where it is reproduced. Worth comparing with period photos though as there's some variety. Also 77-13554 which can be downloaded in high res from the website, though that's more of an occupation crossing gate.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Compound2632

[Dave Hunt]

Thanks for all the input Gentlemen. Based on what has been posted I think that I'll go for unpainted stacks with 'dry stone walls' around them. Blocks of balsa painted matt black with pieces of coal stuck on would seem to be a good starting point for modelling them.

 

Dave

[Northroader]

15 hours ago, Tricky said:

Would anyone have a drawing for level crossing gates? I’ve tried the study centre index but it didn’t throw anything up. I may have seen an article in a Midland Record but again can’t find it in on -line index listings. 

 

Here’s a sketch I made, done from a book out of the library. I’m pretty certain that the drawing I worked off was in “A Pictorial Record of Midland Railway Architecture” (OPC 1985)

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Northroader said:

Here’s a sketch I made, done from a book out of the library. I’m pretty certain that the drawing I worked off was in “A Pictorial Record of Midland Railway Architecture” (OPC 1985)

 

The invaluable V.R. Anderson and G.K. Fox again. Top sketch is evidently based on a photo of Weston, Plate 6, the the gent in the bowler is a product of your imagination; similar gates are seen at Burton Joyce, Plate181. Both photos are in the Midland Railway Study Centre, embedded links:

 

Weston, MRSC Item 70101 (plus other versions):

 

 

Burton Joyce, MRC Item 60285 (catalogue thumbnail):

 

 

I'm afraid I haven't found a match for your lower sketch.

[Northroader]

In the vernacular of the time, the nattily dressed gent is a “D299 masher”, an erudite being who could tell you everything about wagons.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Northroader