Pre 1939 lime traffic

[doilum]

This is an extension of questions arising from the coal drops thread.

An invitation for anyone with knowledge of this traffic to educate the rest of us.

I know that it was important in agriculture for adjusting the pH of soils but would like to know more about the wagons used, processes involved and the eventual decline in rail traffic. I do remember that it was still in widespread use well into the 1960s.

[Fat Controller]

2 minutes ago, doilum said:

This is an extension of questions arising from the coal drops thread.

An invitation for anyone with knowledge of this traffic to educate the rest of us.

I know that it was important in agriculture for adjusting the pH of soils but would like to know more about the wagons used, processes involved and the eventual decline in rail traffic. I do remember that it was still in widespread use well into the 1960s.

Until the 1940s, lime mortar was used in brickwork; it was normally made of a mixture of burnt  lime and ash. Post WW2, it was largely replaced by Portland Cement.

It's still used in agriculture; Until the 1990s, Ferryhill (Co Durham) was sending trainloads of magnesium limestone to various locations in Scotland. Here in Kent, burnt chalk is spread after ploughing. My grandfather used to tell me this was to break down the clay. 

[doilum]

There is a useful Wikipedia article about agricultural liming.but doesn't answer the question.of traffic.

[iands]

In response to the 'lime' query in the 'coal drops' thread, I had a search through the LNER magazines to see if there was any reference to Selby. I couldn't find an answer, but I did learn that as well as the other usual industries and agriculture, lime was also used extensively in the processing of sugar beet. Sorry it doesn't provide an answer to your specific question, but may provide a pointer for me to search through other info. 

[Nearholmer]

There was a long discussion of this in, IIRC, the pre-group wagon loads thread, but a lot of the content remained valid long after 1923. In terms of wagons, by no means all went in the classic low-peak-roofed vans, sheeted opened, particularly those with sheet rails, seem to have been considered perfectly suitable for a lot of the traffic.

 

I too recall if being spread on fields in the 1960s, and my guess is that it is now pelletised to avoid it blowing all over the place, which it did. [My guess was wrong-ish: it now comes in granulated form, 3 to 4mm crushed rock finings. But, yes, it is to stop it blowing everywhere.]

 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Paul H Vigor]

3 hours ago, doilum said:

This is an extension of questions arising from the coal drops thread.

An invitation for anyone with knowledge of this traffic to educate the rest of us.

I know that it was important in agriculture for adjusting the pH of soils but would like to know more about the wagons used, processes involved and the eventual decline in rail traffic. I do remember that it was still in widespread use well into the 1960s.

Plenty of images of lime wagons on Google. Also, don't forget fluxing limestone used in iron smelting blast furnaces and capola remelting furnaces in iron foundries. 

[doilum]

From the drawings in Ken Hooles book on NE stations and photos of covered lime cells, my guess is that only 6 plank wagons could squeeze under the covered section. Happy to be corrected.

[Paul H Vigor]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There was a long discussion of this in, IIRC, the pre-group wagon loads thread, but a lot of the content remained valid long after 1923. In terms of wagons, by no means all went in the classic low-peak-roofed vans, sheeted opened, particularly those with sheet rails, seem to have been considered perfectly suitable for a lot of the traffic.

 

I too recall if being spread on fields in the 1960s, and my guess is that it is now pelletised to avoid it blowing all over the place, which it did. [My guess was wrong-ish: it now comes in granulated form, 3 to 4mm crushed rock finings. But, yes, it is to stop it blowing everywhere.]

 

 

Roofed wagons for burnt/quick lime (reacts in contact with moisture), opens for blast furnace fluxing limestone?

[Nearholmer]

Not as simple as that, you’d better find the previous discussion, wherein we identified that peak-roofed vans didn’t seem to figure in the south of England, round-ended wagons with sheet rails being used, as they were for a huge variety of other things. I can’t remember whether we really fathomed out exactly why.

 

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

Rather depends on how 'south of England' is defined ........ in my corner there's so much chalk that lime wouldn't have to travel very far and probably went by road.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I found out that even in the decidedly un-chalky Weald, lime was carted by road from the nearest bits of the Downs, and if you factor in all the types of stone that lime can be burned from nobody was all that far from a source, so even the rail trips were probably not all that long. Added to which, a well-sheeted open wagon is a dry container, not some leaky old thing.

 

[black and decker boy]

12 hours ago, iands said:

In response to the 'lime' query in the 'coal drops' thread, I had a search through the LNER magazines to see if there was any reference to Selby. I couldn't find an answer, but I did learn that as well as the other usual industries and agriculture, lime was also used extensively in the processing of sugar beet. Sorry it doesn't provide an answer to your specific question, but may provide a pointer for me to search through other info. 

Limestone is still used in processes sugar beet and certainly has been conveyed as trainloads to East Anglia in the modern era.

 

I think it’s referred to as sugar stone

 

the byproduct of the process can be used as a secondary aggregate in road building 

 

 

lime powder is still used extensively for soil modification in construction, the lime lowers the water content of the soil so stabilises it.

Edited March 12, 2023 by black and decker boy

[BR traction instructor]

The Tunstead to Margam, latterly Hardendale to Margam CBA hoppers carried powdered lime for use as a flux in steel making from the late 60s until relatively recently.

 

BeRTIe

[Compound2632]

The context of the question indicates that the OP's interest is in wagonload lime rather than the bulk trainload transport of more recent times. I've been looking again at Maj. Pringle's report on an accident at Peckwash Sidings on the North Midland line in December 1901, when a mineral train ran through signals. The train was made up of 44 wagons loaded with coal, limestone, and lime and five empty wagons. The list of damage to stock includes ten wagon, all of which appear to be the standard Midland 8-ton opens. (This is at a period when the proportion of PO mineral wagons to company-owned wagons in mineral traffic was at its lowest on the Midland.) I've no proof positive but I'm inclined to think that all three types of load were in ordinary Midland wagons; i would expect the only concession for the lime would be sheeting.

 

Less circumstantial is some data I have from a minerals inwards ledger from Skipton (Midland) for the years 1896-1900; I've only so far transcribed and analysed the five months from October 1896 to February 1897. Lime was being received for the Skipton Gas Co. from the Craven Lime Works at Stainforth, about three wagon loads per month (at around 5.5 tons per wagon), mostly in the Craven Lime Co.'s own wagons but occasionally in Midland wagons. (I don't believe there is any evidence for the Craven Lime Co. having peaked roof wagons - @jamie92208?) The Gas Co, is the only customer for lime except towards the end of November 1896, when consignments of one wagon-load each were received for three customers, two from the Lime Works at Giggleswick and one from Ray Gill at Conoley, all in Midland wagons. The three recipients are names that do not appear elsewhere in the register (so they were not coal merchants.) I wonder if these are seasonal purchases of lime for agricultural use? 

[Nearholmer]

It might be worth pondering the history of the peak-roof design.

 

I’m fairly sure that it evolved out of the ordinary round-ended wagon with sheet rail. The sheet rails on many of these were lengths of timber, some metal bars or stout chains strung between the “headboards”. There was a Cambrian Railways lime/sand wagon design of the 1890s, and there may have been others, where the “headboards” were peaked, rather than rounded, again with a timber sheet rail, and it is very easy to see how this could have been adapted with planks going under the sheet, exactly as is sometimes done with a canal boat. It’s only a small step from that to leaving most of the planks in-situ during loading, and tarring/nailing-down most of the sheet.

 

My surmise/guess/assumption is that the peak-roofed van took root where lime was carried in PO wagons devoted exclusively to that use, rather than railway company wagons that were used pretty much indiscriminately for anything except goods that were very prone to theft or were truly very damp sensitive. 
 

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I found out that even in the decidedly un-chalky Weald, lime was carted by road from the nearest bits of the Downs, ...

Thinking about what I said earlier, there must have been a certain export trade of lime away from the Downs - The Dorking Greystone Lime Company used rail transport internally and were connected to the South Eastern at Betchworth ( Captain Baxter presumably handling the output ) ...... and, in earlier times, the Croydon Merstham and Godstone Railway ventured into the area as an extension of the Surrey Iron Railway - which charged 2d per ton mile for lime or limestone among other traffics.

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It might be worth pondering the history of the peak-roof design.

 

And also how many actual examples can be found, with their dates.

[jamie92208]

As mentipned by @Compound2632 above I have done quite a bit of research into this topic. Particularly about the quarries in the Yorkshire Dale's. From those researches there were very few peaked roof wwagonsin that area. Most product was dispatched in open 5 and later 7 0lank wagons.  This was due to the methods of loading. Also the wagons were dual purpose and conveyed coal as back loads with the quarriesboth using the coal for the li e kilns or for landsale in the local communities.  Many of the kilns had lime borrowed straight from the kiln into the wagon thus the 5 plankers which were used in the Helwith Bridge area until at least 1958.  I don't know whether or otherwise the wagons of burnt lime were sheeted.  At least one quarry, Giggleswick went to 7 plank opens in 1922when it's sidings were rebuilt at Giggleswick Station. Only one quarry in that area, Delaney's at Horton in Ribblesdale,had any peak roofed wagonsbut only 10 out of a large fleet that numbered over 100. Most of the wagons were built by Beadman's at Keighley.  I doha even some production figures extracted from the Midland PO registers at TNA Kew but not to hand.  There is an excellent book by David Johnson about the industry. The second edition is well worth buying but again I don't have the title ISBN etc to hand.  If anyone is interested I can do those details later.

 

Jamie

 

 

[Nearholmer]

There was, both from the N and S Downs, and all the bigger works were rail connected. Dorking Greystone (Betchworth/Brockham); Peppers of Amberley; Oxted Greystone; the pits at Merstham that the CM&G originally went to; Butser Hill; multiple in the Lewes area, Offham for instance; and those are just ones that I can think of quickly.

 

Product went out by rail, horse and cart and, where it could, by water.

 

If you like chalk pits and art, it’s fortunate that Eric Ravillious lived for a while near Lewes and was a dab hand at painting pictures with Kerr Stuart “Wren” class 2ft gauge locos in them.

 

 

Away from the SE and away from chalk, there were lime pits using low-grade “Blisworth” limestone (although we’re a fair way from Blisworth, also used locally as a building stone, where I live now, and one of those was big enough to merit a rail connection to its frankly tiny bank of kilns. The output from that one probably didn’t go more than ten or fifteen miles. Another, only slightly bigger, one nearby used the canal for output.

 

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Nearholmer

[bécasse]

The output from Offham went by barge on the Ouse, the only rail connection was the inclined plain that took the chalk down from the pit to river level (where there was a navigable cut from the river itself). The barges worked as far north as the wharf situated almost under the Ouse Valley viaduct on the Brighton main line.

 

Otherwise, you are right, the large pits all had rail connections.

[Dave John]

 

There seem to be few peak roof lime wagons owned by railway companies rather than private owners. However, the Caledonian built 40 Dia 25 lime wagons from 1886 to 1888. I would be surprised to find any of them lasting into the grouping.

 

An example;

 

 

[jamie92208]

The lime quarries around Skipton used both rail and water with a tramway from the Skipton rock quarries near Embsay to the Springs Branch canal below Skipton Castle. This was a short branch from the main Leeds to Liverpool canal. Initially the output was tipped down a long Shute until some over enthusiastic tipping went through the bottom of a boat, an incline was then built. The The quarry also acquired a main line connection via Embsay. The other two big quarries, Swinden, owned by Spencers and Threshfield, owned by Delaneys, also sent their product out by rail via the Grassington branch. Ray Gill quarry mentioned above was only ever road connected using Mann steam wagons in the 20th century.  Having re read Stephens entry above it becomes obvious that they were using the station at Cononley as their railhead and then rail transport for the relatively short journey to Skipton.  Ray Gill was the name of the quarry but it was operated by Spencers.

 

Jamie

Edited March 12, 2023 by jamie92208

[Nearholmer]

31 minutes ago, bécasse said:

The output from Offham went by barge on the Ouse

Sorry, I was having a brain failure and getting it mixed-up with Mount Caburn, because I explored both years ago. Both had interesting inclined planes, I think the one at Offham was designed by Jessop, and at Mount Caburn some of the rails used came secondhand from IIRC the original London and Brighton or London and Croydon. There were plenty lying about and they were wrought-iron and of a very low, fat vignoles section IIRC.

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Nearholmer

[jamie92208]

I've now got onto my other machine and have access to some more information.

 

The book that I mentioned is, "Limestone Industries of the Yorkshire Dales, second edition" by David Johnson ISBN 978-1-4456-0060-4 published by Amberley Press in 2013.   I have no connection with the author apart from having provided him with some information for the 2nd edition after buying the first edition.   He is an archaeologist by profession and covers the uses of the stone as well as the history of the industry.

 

I've also looked at my spreadsheet regarding PO wagons.   Delaney's had over 300 wagons registered prior to 1923 and in that time only had 20 peak roofed ones, which were built by Charles Roberts in 1895.   I don't have a copyright photo of them but my friend, Dave Charlesworth scratchbuilt me this example using a Slaters chassis kit.   The transfers were commissioned by me and are now in the Powsides range.

I also did artwork for the Craven Lime Company and several other PO wagons from that area.  Powsides do them along with Settle Limes and Helwith Bridge.   Settle Limes didn't come into existence until the 1930's when a marketing organisation eventually took over Delaney's Ribblesdale Lime and the craven Lime Co.

 

Jamie

 

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Ray Gill quarry mentioned above was only ever road connected using Mann steam wagons in the 20th century.

 

Looking at the 1890s 25 in map, never rail connected (though with an internal rail system, presumably NG). So lime must have been carted to Cononley for transhipment for Skipton. This would certainly account for the use of a railway company wagon.

 

The Midland did in the very early days have wagons specifically for lime; in May 1850 tenders were sought for 25 iron bodies for lime wagons, that of Thornewell being accepted subject to his being willing to increase the number to 50. There were also PO wagons, it being reported in September 1852 that many of the Breedon Lime Co.'s wagons were out of condition and were to be refused. It's not absolutely clear, though, that these were wagons for the conveyance of lime rather than limestone.

 

Here's a wagon label, dated 31 March 1898:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of Midland Railway Study Centre item 14603.]

 

That wagon number, 79243, indicates that without doubt this is not a PO wagon but rather a Midland wagon; the wagon is sheeted and (for once) the sheet number has been written in.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Compound2632