Coal traffic for the South West - Where did it originate from?

[drduncan]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

The main areas for U-Boat activity affecting coastal coal traffic in WWI were the Irish sea, including off the west end of the Bristol Channel, the North Sea and the Channel itself but not the narrow part.  

To be a little more precise the U boat operating areas varied with time and affected all traffic, ocean or coastal. The defence and attack of seaborne trade is a fascinating area, and while most attention is on the WW2 u boat campaign there is useful stuff to be found eg:

E Grove (Ed) the defeat of the enemy attack on shipping (Navy Records Society) which is the reprint of the naval staff history of the WW2 campaign but also discusses the WW1 one (and is frequently the source for other scholarship on the WW1 subject) 
J Terraine, Business in great waters (opening chapters only)

The u boat campaigns in context in both wars are addressed by

M Farquharson-Robert’s, a history of the Royal Navy: World War 1

D. Redford, a history of the Royal Navy: World War 2

C. Barnett, Engage the enemy more closely (this is a WW2 only history)

D

[Morello Cherry]

There are a couple of interesting bits of information in Simmons' Oxford Companion. He mentions that the average distance of rail haul for coal pre WW2 was 44 miles but during WW2 as traffic was transferred from vulnerable east coast colliers to rail it increased to 57 miles. A coaster's average haul was 250 miles. He points out that the other big advantage the coastal colliers had was the amount they could carry, in 1900 the average London coastal collier was bringing in 1000 tons.

 

He also points coasters were better over distance compared to rail because of costs. Coasters had fixed costs at port but these decreased with distance whereas, rail traffic the costs increased with distance.

 

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Rivercider said:

The Exeter to Newton Abbot book by Peter Kay mentions that the Torquay based coal merchants of Renwick Wilton and Dobson installed the coal grader/loader at Teignmouth Docks to handle the coal imports. Did they have their own wagon fleet?

 

Yes, quite a large fleet, it would appear. Keith Montague's Gloucester RC&W Co. book has photos of M12 supplied in 1895 and No. 521 in 1909. At this date Dobson had not joined the partnership; their location is given as Torquay and Dartmouth.

[KeithMacdonald]

Is Yelland Power Station a good example?

 

Quote

The small generating station, located on the Taw estuary, opened in 1953 and the sidings connected with the B.R. Barnstaple-Torrington line. Coal was brought in by sea and rail traffic was used only in exceptional circumstances, resulting in the loco seeing very little use.

 

 

Fremington Quay. Ball clay out, coal in.

 

 

More here:

http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/barnstaple-to-torrington-and-halwill-jct-ecl.html

 

[KeithMacdonald]

 

Quote

The up platform and signal box at Fremington viewed from a passing train, looking towards Barnstaple Junction in 1956. The three 6 ton capacity Grafton rail mounted steam cranes on Fremington Quay handled the loading of ball clay from Peter's Marland and Meeth, with coal being brought-in by ships.

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

According to Wiki..

 

Quote

Fuel for the power station was obtained from coal mines in South Wales, and was transported across the Bristol Channel onto a jetty specially constructed for the power station. However, due to the closure of the coal mines in the 1980s, coal would be more expensive to obtain from other areas of the country. Therefore, it was more economical to close the power station.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelland#East_Yelland_Coal-fired_Power_Station

[Dunsignalling]

I was once told that Loco coal for Exmouth Junction and its sub-sheds also came in via Fremington Quay in preference to paying the GWR to deliver it.

 

John

[Michael Hodgson]

22 hours ago, Brinkly said:

• Would gas works have their own supply of coal too? 

If you are modellling a gas works, bear in mind that they might also have traffic travelling in the other direction in the form of coke or coal tar which were could be produced as by-products. 

[Michael Hodgson]

22 hours ago, Brinkly said:

• Would gas works have their own supply of coal too? 

If you are modellling a gas works, bear in mind that they might also have traffic travelling in the other direction in the form of coke or coal tar which were could be produced as by-products. 

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

If you are modellling a gas works, bear in mind that they might also have traffic travelling in the other direction in the form of coke or coal tar which were could be produced as by-products. 

 

Although I believe that many smaller gasworks sold their coke locally, and possibly other by-products also. Coke for industrial use in quantity was often obtained direct from coking plants at collieries producing the right type of coal - possibly a coal that did not yield as much gas as the type preferred for town gas manufacture.

[RichardT]

5 hours ago, Rivercider said:

The Exeter to Newton Abbot book by Peter Kay mentions that the Torquay based coal merchants of Renwick Wilton and Dobson installed the coal grader/loader at Teignmouth Docks to handle the coal imports. Did they have their own wagon fleet?

 

cheers

Yes, they did.

 

Richard T

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

There are a couple of interesting bits of information in Simmons' Oxford Companion. He mentions that the average distance of rail haul for coal pre WW2 was 44 miles but during WW2 as traffic was transferred from vulnerable east coast colliers to rail it increased to 57 miles. A coaster's average haul was 250 miles. He points out that the other big advantage the coastal colliers had was the amount they could carry, in 1900 the average London coastal collier was bringing in 1000 tons.

 

He also points coasters were better over distance compared to rail because of costs. Coasters had fixed costs at port but these decreased with distance whereas, rail traffic the costs increased with distance.

 

 

 

Yes, because ships make money while they are at sea, but cost money while they are in port (pilotage, wharfage, services, and so on).

[eastglosmog]

I've posted this before, but it seams to have got lost with the great outage.

The NCB coalfield map, showing what classes of coal could be had from various coalfields in the early 1970s.

[drduncan]

23 hours ago, Brinkly said:

 

• Where there any big merchants in Devon and Cornwall or any 'typical' colliery wagons which would appear down here?  

Hi Nick,

 

There are a few short articles in the GWSG journal ‘Pannier’ nos 11, 15, 16 and 18

If we keep it to the vague interwar period, then there is photographic evidence for:

Collieries:

Norths

John Brown co collieries

Amalgamated Anthracite

GLM

Tredegar

Bolsover

Eastern United

Denby

Tirpentwys

Bowson of Cinderford

Clyne Merthyr

West Cannock

Oxcroft

P D

coal merchants or factors:

Cory 

H G L

HM office of works

Renwick Wilton

S & C (Stephenson Clarke)

 

Unfortunately  I haven’t found anything about the range, operations or history of the Plymouth Coal Co…

 

Duncan

[Siberian Snooper]

Don't forget that there were coal handling facilities at Lockyer Quay and Bayly Wharf on Sutton Harbour, I would imagine that they imported coal here, rather than export it.

 

Here's a link to the 25 inch NLS map of the area, I hope it loads OK, it currently isn't for me.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/106006871

 

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

Newton Abbot power station

 

Quote

The site was located at Jetty Marsh, adjacent to the Moretonhampstead and South Devon Railway branch of the Great Western Railway, and between the River Teign and River Lemon. This allowed the station to receive coal deliveries both by rail, and by barge at the jetty. The power station also drew water from the Teign, before discharging it again in the Lemon.

 

"By barge" would probably have been coal by sea, trans-shipped in Teignmouth Docks, and then towed up river on a rising tide.

 

The jetty is visible on the old OS map here:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=50.5337&lon=-3.5976&layers=168&b=1

 

[Michael Hodgson]

22 hours ago, Brinkly said:

• Would gas works have their own supply of coal too? 

If you are modellling a gas works, bear in mind that they might also have traffic travelling in the other direction in the form of coke or coal tar which were could be produced as by-products. 

[KeithMacdonald]

Thanks to  @eastglosmog for that excellent NCB map.

 

Falling into the not-a-lot-of-people-know-that category are the coal deposits in Devon itself. Admittedly they were small in comparison, so small they are not even on the NCB map. But they did exist, and did have some rail traffic.

 

1) the Bideford Black mines

 

Quote

The geologically unique earth pigment Bideford Black was mined for at least 200 years in Bideford and surrounding areas until 1968 when cheaper chemically produced ‘blacks’ made the industry commercially unviable. The soft black clay-like material ran alongside seams of high quality anthracite (coal) that were also mined to be used locally.  ‘Mineral Black’, or ‘Biddiblack’, was commercially produced for applications in the boat building industry, for colouring rubber products, for camouflage on tanks in WWII and was even bought by Max Factor for the production of mascara. Evidence of the industry can still be found in street names and certain places around the town if you know where to look but generally the younger generations know very little about its heritage, if anything at all...

Ref

https://bidefordblack.blogspot.com/p/history.html

and

http://bidefordblack.blogspot.com/2013/09/were-still-digging.html

and

http://www.gooseygoo.co.uk/bideford-blaaaack/

 

2) Oligocene brown (lignite) coal in the china clay basins at Petrockstowe and Teigngrace, Bovey Tracey. Apparently of low quality and used mainly for firing clay at the nearby potteries.

 

[asmay2002]

I believe that the supply of Loco coal for the Southern was contracted out to Stephenson, Clarke (who owned collieries in South Wales, ships & PO wagons).

[gwrrob]

I can't remember the source Nick @Brinkly but it might be the John Copsey book GWR in South Devon, where a couple of coal turns to Tavistock Junction from Rogerstone and Severn Tunnel Junction were noted.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, gwrrob said:

I can't remember the source Nick @Brinkly but it might be the John Copsey book GWR in South Devon, where a couple of coal turns to Tavistock Junction from Rogerstone and Severn Tunnel Junction were noted.

There was definitely a coal empties working to Rogerstone post-war - so that would be empties to Western Valley pits.

 

21 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

Don't forget that there were coal handling facilities at Lockyer Quay and Bayly Wharf on Sutton Harbour, I would imagine that they imported coal here, rather than export it.

 

Here's a link to the 25 inch NLS map of the area, I hope it loads OK, it currently isn't for me.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/106006871

 

 

 

At one time Sutton Harbour definitely received sea borne coal (although I think railborne might also have arrived there - possibly not in the same era as seaborne?)

[Morello Cherry]

Nothing to do with much but while looking for something else I came across this film about mining in Somerset in the 1960s. Plenty of shots of Radstock.

 

 

There is also a brief shot of the halt at Farrington Gurney where the tickets were sold out of an office at the back of the Miners Arms pub. The pub (now a restaurant) and ticket office are still there even if the line isn't.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Morello Cherry

[Invicta]

If anyone interested in this subject has access to Keith Turton's series of PO wagon books, Vol 8 contains a section on Yeovil merchant Bradford & Sons, which provides an interesting snapshot of coal traffic for the South West- Bradford had depots in Somerset, Dorset and Devon including Yeovil, Axminster, Lyme Regis, Colyton, Bridport, Exeter, Poole, Bournemouth, Seaton, Dorchester and Weymouth amongst others.

 

What makes Bradfords particularly interesting for this discussion is the survival (at the time of publication- 2009-  it had recently been added to the HMRS archives at Swanwick) of one of their wagon ledgers, covering the period April 1927-March 1931, giving detailed information on the movements of their fleet of around 200 wagons. The book gives some extracts from these, which show Bradford wagons travelling to a remarkable variety of collieries in Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and South Wales- Turton suggests at least 40 individual collieries, owned by 25 colliery companies in eight different mining districts

[DCB]

On 28/05/2022 at 10:44, Dunsignalling said:

I was once told that Loco coal for Exmouth Junction and its sub-sheds also came in via Fremington Quay in preference to paying the GWR to deliver it.

John

 It definitely came in by sea from South Wales.  It was cheaper per se than by rail.  Exmouth Jct sub sheds were just about all the SR in Devon and Cornwall so it was quite heavy traffic.

The War changed everything.
Pre WW2 the coal traffic had evolved.   It originated for the pumping engines for the tin mines even before the  railways, which started circa 1804 in Cornwall, Trevithick an all that.     Cornwall was right at the leading edge of the industrial revolution and getting coal to the mines was the driver for tramway and railway construction, which was well advanced long before railways through Devon joined the Cornwall network to the rest of the Country.  Indeed the Cornish network was in decline before the gauge was changed to allow GWR trains to Penzance. The coal import by sea business was thus well established before the railways came and the shipping enjoyed a massive boost by the coming of affordable  steam engines for coasters.

Sea delivery means lifting coal up onto the quayside and up onto carts, and quickly as shipping companies needed quick turn rounds, labour intensive, casual labour intensive.   Rail delivery  is either level or downhill unloading, and more important merchants could use wagons as coal storage, at a cost admittedly, but nothing like the pressure on merchants to unload ships.  It was a history of rail battling to wrest the traffic from sea as ships became too large for small harbours, the mining industry declined, the house coal industry expanded and the town gas industry came and eventually went.   Great subject for research which wastes time you could otherwise be using for modelling

On 28/05/2022 at 14:14, drduncan said:

Hi Nick,

 

There are a few short articles in the GWSG journal ‘Pannier’ nos 11, 15, 16 and 18

If we keep it to the vague interwar period, then there is photographic evidence for:

Collieries:

Norths

John Brown co collieries

Amalgamated Anthracite

GLM

Tredegar

Bolsover

Eastern United

Denby

Tirpentwys

Bowson of Cinderford

Clyne Merthyr

West Cannock

Oxcroft

P D

coal merchants or factors:

Cory 

H G L

HM office of works

Renwick Wilton

S & C (Stephenson Clarke)

 

Unfortunately  I haven’t found anything about the range, operations or history of the Plymouth Coal Co…

 

Duncan

Bowsons of Cinderford and Eastern United are Forest of Dean, I think they were served by the GWR Forest branch not the Severn and Wye.

Anyway BTCC racing has finished on ITV4 until 5.20 so I'm off to work on the outside railway again.

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Invicta said:

If anyone interested in this subject has access to Keith Turton's series of PO wagon books, Vol 8 contains a section on Yeovil merchant Bradford & Sons, which provides an interesting snapshot of coal traffic for the South West- Bradford had depots in Somerset, Dorset and Devon including Yeovil, Axminster, Lyme Regis, Colyton, Bridport, Exeter, Poole, Bournemouth, Seaton, Dorchester and Weymouth amongst others.

 

What makes Bradfords particularly interesting for this discussion is the survival (at the time of publication- 2009-  it had recently been added to the HMRS archives at Swanwick) of one of their wagon ledgers, covering the period April 1927-March 1931, giving detailed information on the movements of their fleet of around 200 wagons. The book gives some extracts from these, which show Bradford wagons travelling to a remarkable variety of collieries in Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and South Wales- Turton suggests at least 40 individual collieries, owned by 25 colliery companies in eight different mining districts

Bradfords are indeed still around, though nowadays solely as builders merchants. They haven't been in the fuel business for a good many years. They continue to operate out of former railway yards at Axminster, Honiton and (probably) a number of other locations.

 

Their Honiton presence was either acquired or expanded through the takeover of Messrs. Miller & Lilley (of Honiton, Ottery St Mary and Sidmouth, who also operated their own wagons at one time) though such vehicles had already been consigned to history by then.

 

John

Edited May 29, 2022 by Dunsignalling