Limestone wagons in a small goods yard?

[spikey]

My railway's a pre-WW2 branch line with a small but busy goods yard and a factory with private sidings.  The business of the factory is indeterminate.

 

What justification if any could I use for the appearance in the goods yard of a couple of private owner wgaons loaded with limestone?

[Nearholmer]

Limestone, as stone, or lime, as in burnt lime?

 

The latter was, indeed still is I think, used widely as a soil improver, so might be seen anywhere that the soil needed it (heavy clay, to break it up, or boggy ground, to reduce acidity). It also has other, non-agricultural uses, and might still have been being used in small quantities for mortar.

 

Stone as stone: building stone? Stone to be worked for things like architectural ornamentation? Broken stone for use as fill or road sub-base?

 

Theres a thread on here about pre-group wagon loads, which has got deeply into lime traffic.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

16 minutes ago, spikey said:

...What justification if any could I use for the appearance in the goods yard of a couple of private owner wgaons loaded with limestone?

If there is no good building stone available from local quarries, masons had to get their supplies from somewhere from which to construct, alter and repair prestige buildings: grand homes, churches, bank and town hall facades, monuments. I suppose the next question would be which PO wagons carried building stone, if that were the justification.

[spikey]

Thank you, gentlemen.  For some reason I hadn't considered limestone as a building material!  All I could think of was agricultural lime, which I assume would have been transported bagged.

 

Off now to find that thread about wgaon loads ...

[Mark Saunders]

Tar tanks were still in common as many roads were just surface dressing of tar & chippings, Colas still had some into the 1970's.

[tomparryharry]

Limestone is used as a flux in the steel-making process. wagon loads of lime were taken to Blaenavon, where the wagons were back-shunted to the open furnace tops, and there shovelled in. The sidings line still exists, but is now taken up, and tarmaced over. the end of the siding terminates at Big Pit, where the chutes are some 30-odd feet above the tops of the furnaces.

 

Hope this helps,

Ian.