Household coal traffic - 1950s, outside of coal-producing areas

[SED Freightman]

13 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Is this likely to be lime etc. in sheeted open wagons, or more specialist wagons?

 

Regarding the coal traffic, that makes sense for somewhere like Westerham but for a more rural and potentially much smaller location (with no gasworks and probably much reduced household coal consumption) I’m wondering if there would be much (or any) regular coal traffic?

Unfortunately the records I have do not state the wagon types used, but assuming the lime was for agricultural use by local farms, then perhaps it was bagged and carried in vans.

 

An example of a smaller more rural location with no industry would be the nearby village of Brasted. For the year November 1958 to October 1959 the small goods yard received 159 wagons of coal, 6 wagons of mineral traffic and 2 wagons of merchandise for delivery by BR cartage (lorry sent from Sevenoaks?). All the coal was for the local merchant Bowser who had coal pens in the yard. Whilst Brasted was/is a small villag, the merchant also delivered to other local villages. The mineral traffic included 4 wagons of fertilser for Stevens, a local farmer.  During the year no loaded wagons were forwarded.

 

[bécasse]

Significant fertiliser traffic on the railways had started in the early 1930s with many goods yards having "suitable" stores newly provided for the storage of the bagged fertiliser (and often signed accordingly) until it was collected by local farmers (although I don't remember either Westerham or Brasted having such stores). The traffic resulted from new formal agreements between the fertiliser manufacturers and the grouped railways (although I have it in the back of my mind that the LNER wasn't a party to the agreement but still carried the traffic). Prior to that time most agricultural fertiliser would have been rotted and/or liquid manure - and still is in the area where I live.

[Nearholmer]

Would lime actually be needed at Westerham? I can’t remember the soil types, but there’s a lot of chalk just up the hill.

 

Glad(ish) to see Westerham Press get a mention because a member of my family was head of the compositing bench there. They did very prestige work, short runs of high quality illustrated books, illustrated auction catalogues for the top London houses etc …… and when they went to the wall (IIRC sold at a knock down price in 1984) it emerged that they’d bled the pension fund dry, leaving lifelong loyal staffers with next to nothing. 55yo isn’t a good age to find yourself looking for a new job in a trade that is changing faster than you know, and needing to build a new pension pot.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Nearholmer

[SED Freightman]

28 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Would lime actually be needed at Westerham? I can’t remember the soil types, but there’s a lot of chalk just up the hill.

 

The ground at the foot of the North Downs (chalk) tends to be clay, however I think you are correct and the fertiliser would be a chemical type as suggested above by Becasse

[KeithHC]

I would doubt it would be Lime. The Oxted Greystone and Lime works are just a few miles to the west and it would be eas to use horse wagons or lorries. The Oxted works where rail connected but it would have been a journey to get to Westerham. It would have either been via Tunbridge Wells or from Bricklayers Arms. Also pre grouping using two railway companies. Mind you if the price was right who knows.

 

Keith

[Nearholmer]

Minor point of order: not two railway companies, one.

 

The Oxted Line was a joint one, and there was a connection to the Redhill-Tonbridge Line. There was a (sparse) passenger train service by this route to Charing Cross or Canon Street.

 

 

So, the route could have been via Tonbridge and Denton Green, but that is still going round the sun to meet the moon, and therefore expensive and a bit implausible.

[Compound2632]

12 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Is this likely to be lime etc. in sheeted open wagons, or more specialist wagons?

 

In an earlier age perhaps but by the 1950s, would it not be manufactured fertiliser in bags, probably in vans?

[KeithHC]

20 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Minor point of order: not two railway companies, one.

 

The Oxted Line was a joint one, and there was a connection to the Redhill-Tonbridge Line. There was a (sparse) passenger train service by this route to Charing Cross or Canon Street.

 

 

So, the route could have been via Tonbridge and Denton Green, but that is still going round the sun to meet the moon, and therefore expensive and a bit implausible.

Thank you my lord……. I will now retire to the bench and seek the assistance of Miss Probert…….

 

Keith

[TheQ]

The best example of a gas works would be Fakenham gas works, now the only remaining intact gas works in England and Wales.

Here's a clip of the map of 1929,

As you can see, not railway connected but not too far from a station. 

The gas works pre dates the railway.

The station site is now a Jewsons ( builders merchants), the railway track bed curving below the gas works is now a road.

The gasworks. https://fakenhamgasmuseum.com/

 

[KeithHC]

Getting back to household coal. I remember back in the early to mid sixties there was always a couple of coal wagons at my local station Salfords. This was before the aggregate yard and the fuel store for Gatwick. I never saw and other regular services there but presume there must have been a local goods service. There must have also been some wagon load traffic for the nearby Hall and Co. site as well. It’s hard to think that there must have been a pick-up service operating along the main Brighton line with as it was then an intensive electric service. It seamed to me at the time that there was a train about every 5 to 10 minutes passing through. Ah the days of BILs, LAVs, PULs, PANs and of course the BEL and the more modern stuff……

 

Keith

[doilum]

51 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

In an earlier age perhaps but by the 1950s, would it not be manufactured fertiliser in bags, probably in vans?

The 12 cell coal drops at Selby had the end pair covered for lime. During the war or shortly after, this structure was removed presumably because lime traffic had ceased. This may have been due to changing farming practices or the convenience of direct delivery by road from local quarries to the farm.

[SED Freightman]

2 hours ago, KeithHC said:

I would doubt it would be Lime. The Oxted Greystone and Lime works are just a few miles to the west and it would be eas to use horse wagons or lorries. The Oxted works where rail connected but it would have been a journey to get to Westerham. It would have either been via Tunbridge Wells or from Bricklayers Arms. Also pre grouping using two railway companies. Mind you if the price was right who knows.

 

Keith

Thinking a bit more about lime, I guess the Westerham / Brasted area would most likely have been supplied by road from Jessups Limeworks (not rail conected) at Dunton Green.

[Nearholmer]

In former times, farmers also built “field kilns” to burn imported chalk at the point of use. When I delved into the topic in regard The High Weald, I was surprised to find that was the way it was done - farm carts fetching chalk from The Downs, and burning it on the farms using wood as the fuel, even into the railway age.

[KeithHC]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

In former times, farmers also built “field kilns” to burn imported chalk at the point of use. When I delved into the topic in regard The High Weald, I was surprised to find that was the way it was done - farm carts fetching chalk from The Downs, and burning it on the farms using wood as the fuel, even into the railway age.

Interesting could there have been a reuse of the kilns used for iron smelting in the Weald.

 

Keith

[MR Chuffer]

Not sure this is mentioned upthread, but my terminus is split into 2 yards, a coal yard with capacity 25-30 wagons and a separate goods yard with a separate road entrance. If coal is inbound only, then I don't require a weighing station at its entrance, as the coal has already been weighed at its origin?

 

The goods entrance has weighing facilities for booking goods outbound.

 

Is that correct? (pre-WW1 MR - but probs applicable through the years).

[SED Freightman]

36 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

Not sure this is mentioned upthread, but my terminus is split into 2 yards, a coal yard with capacity 25-30 wagons and a separate goods yard with a separate road entrance. If coal is inbound only, then I don't require a weighing station at its entrance, as the coal has already been weighed at its origin?

 

The goods entrance has weighing facilities for booking goods outbound.

 

Is that correct? (pre-WW1 MR - but probs applicable through the years).

If the coal yard only despatched bagged coal then there would probably be no need for a weighbridge as the coal would be weighed into the sacks. However if any coal was despatched in bulk, say to a local industry, then the carts / lorries would need to be weighed empty and loaded so that the merchant could arrange billing and control their stocks.  Of course if the end customer had a weighbridge that could perhaps be used instead if agreed with the merchant.

[MR Chuffer]

34 minutes ago, SED Freightman said:

if any coal was despatched in bulk, say to a local industry

Thx, that makes sense, I hadn't accounted for that scenario

[doilum]

Of related interest. Try the next thread on prototype discussions. Quaint goods yards 1979-90s. Several examples of coal still being bagged directly from 16 tonnes onto flat bed lorries.

[009 micro modeller]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

In an earlier age perhaps but by the 1950s, would it not be manufactured fertiliser in bags, probably in vans?

That’s what I was wondering. Especially if the quantities involved were not particularly high.

[johnofwessex]

19 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Would lime actually be needed at Westerham? I can’t remember the soil types, but there’s a lot of chalk just up the hill.

 

Glad(ish) to see Westerham Press get a mention because a member of my family was head of the compositing bench there. They did very prestige work, short runs of high quality illustrated books, illustrated auction catalogues for the top London houses etc …… and when they went to the wall (IIRC sold at a knock down price in 1984) it emerged that they’d bled the pension fund dry, leaving lifelong loyal staffers with next to nothing. 55yo isn’t a good age to find yourself looking for a new job in a trade that is changing faster than you know, and needing to build a new pension pot.

 

 

 

https://www.westerhamheritage.org.uk/content/work-2/industries/westerham-press

[johnofwessex]

I believe some gas works eg Burnham on Sea only got through  a wagon or two of coal a week so road haulage from the station was more than sufficient.

 

I have heard of one installation with one employee who made gas 2 or 3 days a week and did meter reading and gas repairs the rest of the week.

 

A friends father described a visit to a South Devon resort (Sidmouth?) prior to WW2, the electricity came from a gas engine at the gasworks and the lights went out when the engineer went home for the night at about 11pm.  Someone else I knew had to 'buy up' small electricity undertakings when the industry was nationalised, one consisted of half a dozen houses in a Welsh valley supplied by a car engine coupled to a generator in the local garage.

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

the electricity came from a gas engine at the gasworks and the lights went out when the engineer went home for the night at about 11pm

Now, that is interesting, because where I grew up the electricity supply had originally been from a smallish gas-engine and dynamo setup at the gasworks (someone has come up with a photo of it since I expressed mystification about it yesterday) and although the place was connected to the grid by the time I was a kid, the street lighting still all went off at 11pm. It was still like that when I moved away in 1982 but ceased to be sometime shortly after. It had never occurred to me that that might have been a throwback to a nightly shutdown of the dynamos.

[KeithHC]

22 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

I believe some gas works eg Burnham on Sea only got through  a wagon or two of coal a week so road haulage from the station was more than sufficient.

 

I have heard of one installation with one employee who made gas 2 or 3 days a week and did meter reading and gas repairs the rest of the week.

 

A friends father described a visit to a South Devon resort (Sidmouth?) prior to WW2, the electricity came from a gas engine at the gasworks and the lights went out when the engineer went home for the night at about 11pm.  Someone else I knew had to 'buy up' small electricity undertakings when the industry was nationalised, one consisted of half a dozen houses in a Welsh valley supplied by a car engine coupled to a generator in the local garage.

Shipton on Stour had the one man operation it was discussed on here a couple of months ago.

 

Keith

[TheQ]

Many of the houses on the side of the rivers on the broads had generators in sheds till very recently like the last 40 years.

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

Someone else I knew had to 'buy up' small electricity undertakings when the industry was nationalised, one consisted of half a dozen houses in a Welsh valley supplied by a car engine coupled to a generator in the local garage.

That (‘half a dozen houses’) is more the sort of rural small village setting I was thinking of for my layout, so it’s interesting that they did have some sort of electrical supply (not ‘mains’ exactly but not quite independently generated either). But would they have had gas or instead just have had coal ranges for cooking, wood or coal for heating and paraffin etc. for lamps?