GWR Coal Drops & loading/unloading of coal in towns and goods yards

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Weighbridges were used for a heck of a lot more than coal.   In fact I do wonder to just what extent they might have been used for received coal because the weight of coal taken out of the yard by a coal merchant or trader was not of great interest to the railway.   What the railway was most interested in was the tonnage which had been loaded into a wagon at a colliery.

 

I have been transcribing and analysing a Mineral Inwards ledger from Skipton, covering several years from autumn 1897, in the collection of the Midland Railway Study Centre. As far as I can see, the entries were made up from the wagon labels, so the weights quoted were those recorded at the dispatching colliery. They were recorded in tons and hundredweight (no quarters); it is notable that at this period many Midland high side opens only had their tare weight written in tons and hundredweight, so clearly there was no very great precision wanted. 

 

The Study Centre collection also contains a Chief Goods Manager's Office Circular dated 16 January 1917 with the title "Weighing charges for Motor and Steam Road Lorries and Trailers carrying Coal, Coke or Patent Fuel" and a much earlier General Manager's Order

of 5 January 1854 entitled "Charges for Weighing on the Company's Machines." from which is it evident that this was a cost a coal merchant could avoid by doing his own weighing. that that went on, in an unsafe manner, is witnessed by this disclaimer form:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of MRS item 28926.]

 

20 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

And tonnage was irrelevant when raising any charges againsta. trader for coal stored on railway land because what mattered there was Excess Space p i.e. a trader occupying more land to stack coal than he was paying for. So all you needed to do was measure the area occupied by his stack(s) of coal - and a right s*dding nuisance of a job it was too but one of my colleagues loved hammering coal merchants for extra charges so you can guess how we traded work in that respect.

 

Courtesy of Ian Pope, I have had sight of a Midland Railway Register of Coal Traders, giving station-by-station a listing of the area rented by each coal merchant, covering the 1890s at least - for Skipton, it has been interesting to compare the area rented by each merchant with the tonnage they received.

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Here's Leamington Spa (Avenue) (LMS). Coal yard at top of photo. Date 1937.

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrlave4349.htm

 

 

What is interesting there, apart from the existence of walls or fences creating coal storage areas, is that they are a good way back from the siding - certainly plenty of room for a coal cart to pass - and are open towards the siding. Not at all like what one sees on many layouts.

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

So following the Stationmaster's logic would the GWR charge by the day for a private wagon to sit in the siding and would that be more expensive than it sitting on the ground?

 

Yes, siding rent; and yes, almost certainly more expensive than renting ground space. In the register mentioned above, the stacking ground rental for a plot around 40 ft by 18 ft was £1 per annum; at that period the Midland seems to have been less bothered about making the charge exactly proportional to the area occupied than was Mike's colleague.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Compound2632

[Morello Cherry]

Apologies if this has been mentioned but what about this image of Moreton in Marsh?

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrmm982b.htm

 

There seem to be three very dark patches.

 

The interesting thing to me is that the dark area that I think is coal is on a dock but then I am not so sure from this image of the dock that it is coal

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrmm987b.htm

 

Charlbury down the road looks a bit more rough and ready.

 

[Jonboy]

Whilst we are on the subject, My wife’s grandparents were coal merchants working out of Upton and Blewbury on the Didcot to Southampton line.

 

They had a conveyor and hopper arrangement to load their lorry’s which is just visible in this 1962 Postcard behind the station. If anyone has any other images or details of how it work I would be interested, what has thrown me is apparently it’s conveyor started under the siding track.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Jonboy

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

Apologies if this has been mentioned but what about this image of Moreton in Marsh?

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrmm982b.htm

 

There seem to be three very dark patches.

 

The interesting thing to me is that the dark area that I think is coal is on a dock but then I am not so sure from this image of the dock that it is coal

 

It looks like coal to me; from the aerial view it's clear that there is a triangular area occupied by two or three coal merchants, each with a plot along one side of the triangle - their huts form a line perpendicular to the station platforms that says "this is the entrance to the coal yard". They're a good way back from the loading dock, but the two sidings serving this area are in use for general merchandise as well as coal - mileage traffic of all sorts. Part of these sidings has a loading bank, too. 

 

The Charlbury photo shows that coal was not just heaped up but arranged in stacks with walls built up using larger lumps of coal. (looks early 20th century to me.) One can imagine that practice dying out as labour got more expensive. Perhaps if the timber bunkers really were a late development, they should be seen as a substitute for coal-built stacks, as large coal ceased to be commonplace?

Edited May 19, 2022 by Compound2632

[Andy Keane]

48 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

What is interesting there, apart from the existence of walls or fences creating coal storage areas, is that they are a good way back from the siding - certainly plenty of room for a coal cart to pass - and are open towards the siding. Not at all like what one sees on many layouts.

This is why I took the photo of Sidmouth - I think many modellers assume coal was emptied into the back of the staith if it existed and that the back was very close to the track. But from all I have seen this is not what happened. Staithes seem to be both filled and emptied from the open front which was some way back from the track. Not that I would have the courage to say that to a team of P4 modellers.

It also seems staithes came along in the late 30s and 40s perhaps as has been said because the big lumps of coal where not there. I was really surprised by some early photos showing limps of coal the size of large boulders!

Andy

[Morello Cherry]

Just off to the right behind the water tower was Charlbury gasworks. I am not sure but I'd assume a fair amount of coal was for that. Or is that the long siding at the back where there appears to be a cart backed up against a wagon?

 

The Charlbury shot is interesting because there is a wheelbarrow and what looks like ramps, I pity the poor sod tasked with that job. Amazing that somewhere as tiny of turn of the century Charlbury could generate so much traffic and need such a complicated track layout. (Nice to model though).

[Andy Keane]

My wife comes from Weymouth. How about this photo, I had not realised this was a GWR shed.

https://davidheyscollection-static.myshopblocks.com/images/cm/fbebdffdbcbb16e5b691dbe40e68363d.jpg

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Andy Keane

[Titanius Anglesmith]

Upminster in 1934, with what looks to me like coal bins that back up to the siding, opposite the goods shed 

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW043925

 

 

Bromley North, 1929. Coal bins backed up to a siding, but opposite another siding

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW028346

 

 

Uxbridge Vine St, 1933. Coal bins backed up to the siding

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW041117

Edited May 19, 2022 by Titanius Anglesmith

[Cwmtwrch]

5 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

GWR coal depot at Gobowen station in 1988

Actually it appears to be a small version of the 1970s/1980s BR coal concentration depot. There is a pit behind the hoppers, into which they are discharged, and from which the conveyor visible on the left brings the coal to the base of another conveyor operating  on a pivot, for distribution to the appropriate one of a number of cells set on the arc of a circle.

[Cwmtwrch]

2 hours ago, Jonboy said:

They had a conveyor and hopper arrangement to load their lorry’s which is just visible in this 1962 Postcard behind the station. If anyone has any other images or details of how it work I would be interested, what has thrown me is apparently it’s conveyor started under the siding track.

Are you certain that the conveyor started under the siding? 1962 is too early for the type of coal concentration depot I referred to above, so I would think it much more likely that the conveyor involved was integral to the hopper, with a small receiving hopper at the bottom of the conveyor loaded by means of a grab crane. The use of 16T minerals is indicative, but not conclusive, as 1/104 and 1/106 wagons had both top and bottom doors, but the far more common 1/108 had no bottom doors. Unfortunately the reproduction of the postcard is not good enough to tell if the two wagons visible have bottom door markings or not.

[KeithMacdonald]

The Lambourn Valley Railway website has a page devoted to the local coal merchants L. J. Bodman & Sons

 

https://www.lambournvalleyrailway.info/bodmans.html

 

 

 

[Andy Keane]

20 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

The Lambourn Valley Railway website has a page devoted to the local coal merchants L. J. Bodman & Sons

 

https://www.lambournvalleyrailway.info/bodmans.html

 

 

 

That seems to show sacks being filled inside the railway wagon before being transferred to the lorry. Interesting.

[Andy Keane]

2 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

My wife comes from Weymouth. How about this photo, I had not realised this was GWR shed.

https://davidheyscollection-static.myshopblocks.com/images/cm/fbebdffdbcbb16e5b691dbe40e68363d.jpg

 

Having now looked at photos of Weymouth I now wonder if anyone has built a model of the station or loco depot.

[Rivercider]

8 hours ago, bécasse said:

Photos of the real Sidmouth station, right up to the final period when it was being operated by WR dmus and bubble cars, show the coal office, mineral wagons, coal lorry and piles of coal on the ground and available 25" OS maps show no indications whatsoever of coal pens (even though these were normally shown where they existed). There is only one possible conclusion, there never were any coal pens at SIdmouth, and the ones that exist on the model in question are a (not unusual) figment of the modeller's imagination.

 

Incidentally, Sidmouth, with a population of around 10.000, would probably have needed around 5.000 tons of household coal a year (plus, of course, coal for the gasworks during the period it existed), an average of less than 10 wagonloads a week.

I have both the Middleton Press and Oakwood Press books covering the Sidmouth Branch. Although not very clear there are coal pens visible in the background of several photos, ramshackle timber built pens at the north end, and also pens which appear to be constructed of concrete blocks further down the siding. The Middleton Press book also gives figures of 12347t of coal and coke received in 1928, and 12058t in 1936. 

Coal pens or bins seem to feature in quite a few LSWR stations in Devon. 

 

cheers 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Rivercider said:

Although not very clear there are coal pens visible in the background of several photos, ramshackle timber built pens at the north end, and also pens which appear to be constructed of concrete blocks further down the siding.

 

Concrete blocks would correspond to the model but where they arranged like the model, with a wall alongside the siding? And what date are the photographs that show this?

[Rivercider]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Concrete blocks would correspond to the model but where they arranged like the model, with a wall alongside the siding? And what date are the photographs that show this?

The decrepit wooden pens on the east side of the siding are dated July 1960 in the Oakwood book, there is a 16t min or two alongside. The same view (107) is in the Middleton Press book, view 108 from the same date also shows stacks of coal and bags alongside the coal siding on the west side. Picture 109 (undated but about the same date?) shows the goods shed, in the right background can be seen some of the pens made of blocks, again on the west side they obscure the view of the track. The caption mentions building materials as well as coal were handled.

 

cheers 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Rivercider
Additional info

[Andy Keane]

2 hours ago, Rivercider said:

The decrepit wooden pens on the east side of the siding are dated July 1960 in the Oakwood book, there is a 16t min or two alongside. The same view (107) is in the Middleton Press book, view 108 from the same date also shows stacks of coal and bags alongside the coal siding on the west side. Picture 109 (undated but about the same date?) shows the goods shed, in the right background can be seen some of the pens made of blocks, again on the west side they obscure the view of the track. The caption mentions building materials as well as coal were handled.

 

cheers 

Are the pens open side towards the track or closed back side towards the track?

Andy

[JimC]

58 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Are the pens open side towards the track or closed back side towards the track?

Andy

Would closed side pens towards the track permit resting the wagon door on the back of the pen, which I would guess could make unloading easier and maybe even safer?

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, JimC said:

Would closed side pens towards the track permit resting the wagon door on the back of the pen, which I would guess could make unloading easier and maybe even safer?

 

Theoretically. But did it happen? There certainly was the dangerous practice of propping the door open with a baulk of timber, as attested by the MR disclaimer form I posted yesterday.

 

Not everything that is possible is probable.

[Compound2632]

Furthermore, there's the question of whether the company would permit the erection of a timber fence alongside a siding, where it would obstruct the loading and unloading of other traffic; this would also need the coal merchant's agreed rented stacking ground to come right up to the siding, equally causing an obstruction.

[Andy Keane]

My understanding is that although dropping the hatch door onto the back of the staith would save work it was considered dangerous and so was not normal GWR practise?

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Andy Keane said:

My understanding is that although dropping the hatch door onto the back of the staith would save work it was considered dangerous and so was not normal GWR practise?

 

It couldn't possibly be GWR practice if the "staiths" themselves were not usual GWR practice! Besides, this circles back to the key point that unloading the coal wagons wasn't the railway company's responsibility but the coal merchant's.

[Harlequin]

27 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

My understanding is that although dropping the hatch door onto the back of the staith would save work it was considered dangerous and so was not normal GWR practise?

 

22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It couldn't possibly be GWR practice if the "staiths" themselves were not usual GWR practice! Besides, this circles back to the key point that unloading the coal wagons wasn't the railway company's responsibility but the coal merchant's.

 

From the GWR 1936 General Appendix:

Quote

WAGON DOORS NOT TO BE PROPPED UP.

 

Notices bearing the following wording must be exhibited at all Stations and Goods Depots where mileage traffic is dealt with:-

 

"Warning is given against the  dangerous practice of propping up the doors of merchandise trucks for the support of Coal Weighing Machines, for loading or unloading traffic, or for any other purpose.

"The Great Western Railway Company give notice that such practice is prohibited, and any person disregarding this caution will be held responsible for injury or damage that may result."

 

These notices may be requisitioned through the stores department in the usual way.