Ash handling

[Julia]

 

How was ash handled at small sheds? I've seen pictures of various installs at big stations, but my layout is going to have a small 2 road engine shed. Would they have just dropped the ash onto a metal pan on top of the sleepers? Into a trench to then be dug? into buckets/hoppers? How deep were ash pits? 

 

How much ash would a loco produce per day? Once the ash had been collected, what happened next? I'm guessing it didn't just go onto an ever growing pile next to the track. Would they wait til they had a whole wagon's worth, then ship it off to somewhere? 

 

Cheers

 

J

Edited April 4, 2019 by Julia

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, Julia said:

 

How was ash handled at small sheds? I've seen pictures of various installs at big stations, but my layout is going to have a small 2 road engine shed. Would they have just dropped the ash onto a metal pan on top of the sleepers? Into a trench to then be dug? into buckets/hoppers? How deep were ash pits? 

 

How much ash would a loco produce per day? Once the ash had been collected, what happened next? I'm guessing it didn't just go onto an ever growing pile next to the track. Would they wait til they had a whole wagon's worth, then ship it off to somewhere? 

 

Cheers

 

J

Usually needed to go into a pit because on many older locos the ashpan could only be raked out from underneath or in soem cases by pulling out the firebars and pushing out from above.  Then it was a labourer/Shedman and a shovel - first up to ground level and then throw it from ground level up into a wagon (either one provided for the purpose or in many cases an empty coal wagon).  It probably varied between Railways but generally ashpits tended to be deeper than engine prep pits.

[Nearholmer]

What did they do with it once it was in a wagon?

 

coal ash isn’t very nice stuff, so it isn’t any good as fertiliser so far as I know. My dad used to give domestic coal ash to the chickens as a dust-bath, but I don’t think the GWR kept chickens, did it?

 

Aggregate in concrete making?

[Fat Controller]

Most seemed to go to tips around the network, though some was retained for use surfacing 'roadways' around sidings and so on. I'm not aware of any successful use of this sort of ash in concrete.

[Compound2632]

58 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

coal ash isn’t very nice stuff, so it isn’t any good as fertiliser so far as I know.

 

Rather the opposite, I thought. Good as a yard surface in those environmentally-unfriendly days as it poisoned the weeds?

Edited April 5, 2019 by Compound2632

[phil-b259]

46 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

What did they do with it once it was in a wagon?

 

coal ash isn’t very nice stuff, so it isn’t any good as fertiliser so far as I know. My dad used to give domestic coal ash to the chickens as a dust-bath, but I don’t think the GWR kept chickens, did it?

 

Aggregate in concrete making?

 

What they did was basically Dump it!

 

Loco ash is a pretty useless product and alternative uses are hard to come by. Yes ash from a modern power plant (which uses technology to extract every tiny bit of energy) can be a useful by product (and is indeed used in the manufacture of lightweight concrete blocks by the likes of Plasmor in Yorkshire - but that sort of ash is a world away from the stuff produced by steam locos which has large amounts of partially burnt fuel in it.

 

Due to its acidic (and concrete like nature once given a good soaking then baking by the British Weather ) loco ash was ideal to inhibit weed growth and provide hardstanding in goods yards etc.

 

It was also used to repair embankments - although this could cause problems later on when it either self combusted or was set fire to by vegetation clearance as the repaired embankment would start to subside as the coal fragments still present in the ash burned.

 

Quite a lot of ash was probably simply dumped in the most convenient hole - especially as given coal was what heated most homes and powered most industry in the days of mainline steam there was hardly a shortage of it in society at large.

[eastglosmog]

Post WWII at least, (and probably before), at Fairford on the East Gloucestershire (GWR) fires were dropped on the turntable line beside the water tower.  Ash shoveled into a heap beside the line.  No pit that I have seen.  From there, not sure where ash went - probably surfaced the goods yard or used to cover the platforms and roadways in icy weather. 

Edited April 5, 2019 by eastglosmog
typo

[eastglosmog]

Further to Phil's comment, there used to be a huge dump of loco ash at Swindon.  When Swindon works closed as I recall much of the ash was washed to recover the unburnt coal.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The LNER and subsequently BR(ER) dumped the ash from the London end of the network into the big holes in Bedfordshire from which much of the brick clay to construct London had been dug. Part of the reason much of Bedfordshire is now habitable for non-clangers and thus the spate of current house building. So that was a public service really...

[The Johnster]

Was not it a source of potassium, potash?  Our domestic coal fire ash when I was a kid was collected (don’t ask me how often) by ‘the ashman’ in the ash cart, I think for this purpose, and mother used to put it in the compost heap as well.  

[Davexoc]

This is what it looks like.

 

 

7820 Dinmore Manor being raked out at Toddington. Behind the steam and hot ash is the fireman raking the ash pan while spraying it with water.

After this the loco was coaled and moved to it's stabling point, after which we returned to the pit to shovel the cooling ash out.

Part of a Fire and Drive Experience in 2016 with disposal added on.

 

Dave

Edited April 5, 2019 by Davexoc
spaces removed

[phil-b259]

5 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Was not it a source of potassium, potash?  Our domestic coal fire ash when I was a kid was collected (don’t ask me how often) by ‘the ashman’ in the ash cart, I think for this purpose, and mother used to put it in the compost heap as well.  

 

That is probably going to depend largely on the chemical composition of the coal itself. What may have been good coal for use in domestic fires may not have been so good for loco fireboxes....

[Nearholmer]

I touched on this earlier. Wood ash is an absolutely excellent fertiliser, but coal ash can contain things that are poisonous to plants and/or will actually carry over into vegetables making them not particularly good for you. It does break-up clay, though, so maybe good for flowers rather than veg.

[Nearholmer]

Soap making?? It might have been used to make ‘lye’.

[Julia]

1 hour ago, Davexoc said:

This is what it looks like.

 

 

7820 Dinmore Manor being raked out at Toddington. Behind the steam and hot ash is the fireman raking the ash pan while spraying it with water.

After this the loco was coaled and moved to it's stabling point, after which we returned to the pit to shovel the cooling ash out.

Part of a Fire and Drive Experience in 2016 with disposal added on.

 

Dave

 

 

That's really useful info. Gives me a much clearer idea. 

 

Out of interest, how much ash did you have to dig out? 

 

 

 

J

[Davexoc]

13 minutes ago, Julia said:

 

 

That's really useful info. Gives me a much clearer idea. 

 

Out of interest, how much ash did you have to dig out? 

About 8 - 10 wheelbarrows full IIRC from about 1.5 - 2 tonnes of coal, so not a lot really...

 

Dave

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

That is probably going to depend largely on the chemical composition of the coal itself. What may have been good coal for use in domestic fires may not have been so good for loco fireboxes....

That makes sense.  I lived (still do) in Cardiff, where the domestic coal was from the South Wales Valleys, and could not have been radically chemically different from the Aberdare steam coal favoured by the GW for locomotive use, but the point is still very much a valid one.  I am not expert in such matters, but I do know that different pits produced different types of coal, and some pits' coal differed between seams.  

 

Coal for export was usually a mix from different pits tipped into the ships' holds specified by the order to the chemical specification of the customer; steelworks coking coal for Bilbao would be different to that for Buenos Aires gasworks or ship bunkering coal for Aden.  Sulphur and calorific content was varied and important to the customers.  The mix was made up by shunting wagons from different pits on to the tipping hoists, a complex operation as the coal had to be available when the ship was ready to receive it.  Shipowners did not like paying port charges and wanted their vessels back out to sea earning money and not spending it as quickly as possible, and berth space at the hoists was seldom easily available and had to be booked.

 

Coal isn't just black rocks, you know, so it's ash cannot be all just the same, either.

 

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Coal isn't just black rocks, you know, so it's ash cannot be all just the same, either.

 

 

Not just ash; clinker too.

[Nick Holliday]

When I was working at Wembley Stadium in the seventies, building, amongst other things, the concrete parking apron, the old car park remained in use. During fine weather the old surface was like concrete, but, after rain, it could turn into a quagmire, and at major events, tractors were on hand to extricate stricken cars. There seemed to be no proper sub-base, just the natural clayey sub-soil beneath the topping. The next day, machinery was brought in to level the area, and lorry loads of ash were tipped in to reinstate the surface for the next time.

[TheQ]

I use my coal ash on the grassy muddy driveway,  it fills the puddles  and gets ground into the mud.. 

[The Stationmaster]

10 hours ago, Julia said:

 

 

That's really useful info. Gives me a much clearer idea. 

 

Out of interest, how much ash did you have to dig out? 

 

 

 

J

Speaking from experience after suffering an over-exuberant BR 'Fireman' who didn't know how to run down a fire on a preserved 'Castle' the polite answer would be 'too much' but that would be a mixture of ash, clinker, and part burnt coal in the firebox as well as the contents of the ashpan.

Note incidentally in Dave's post the use of water and remember that at most sheds there were water hydrants in the vicinity of the ash pits.

 

As Brian ('Fat Controller') posted ash was normally sent to tips and in some places on the Western (and possibly elsewhere) combustible material was not permitted to be tipped because underneath the tip was slowly burning away from past tipping of ash which had never been cooled and had gone into a wagon while still smouldering.   Ash, and even better smokebox char, was used to build up ground surfaces as a fill material at one time and as others have said it could be used for top surfacing - the LNER got very fond of doing that in the interwar years.  The GWR/WR definitely used ash as a surfacing for walkways and footpaths and it was good material for that because it drained fairly well - far better than the stuff that had to be used after ash ceased to be available.

Edited April 6, 2019 by The Stationmaster

[Trog]

I am sure I remember being told years ago that the DCE used to employ a bloke at Northampton, whose job it was to make some sort of (polozonic?) cement out of ash from the Northampton Loco shed. If you look at the old brick built PW cabins etc on the south end of the WCML the mortar is quite sandy and black in colour, perhaps the product of his labours.

[spikey]

18 hours ago, Davexoc said:

 ... Behind the steam and hot ash is the fireman raking the ash pan while spraying it with water.

 

 

A fascinating thread, and that's a cracking good snap of something very few of us ever get/got to see.  But I have to ask - how OK is/was it considered to drop the fire on top of the hose? 

 

ETA - Mrs Spikey, the gardener hereabouts, says ashes from coal fires are a no-no on your garden or in a compost heap, and it's wood ash you need to make lye.

Edited April 6, 2019 by spikey

[Davexoc]

4 hours ago, spikey said:

 

A fascinating thread, and that's a cracking good snap of something very few of us ever get/got to see.  But I have to ask - how OK is/was it considered to drop the fire on top of the hose? 

I seem to recall that it was a very thick walled rubber hose, and it had been joined in a several places. The tap is at the southern end of the pit and as the loco faced south, it was technically the wrong end, or wrong way around.....

[Nearholmer]

Spikey

 

i would agree wholeheartedly with Mrs S about not using coal ash in the garden, but differ on the subject of lye. It can be made with coal ash, i’m 99% certain. You probably wouldn’t want then to make soap with it, but it has other uses.

 

Kevin

 

 

Edited April 6, 2019 by Nearholmer