South Yorkshire colliery shunters in the 1980s

[65179]

I've asked a question on the UK Prototype Questions bit of the forum about which colliery in the Doncaster area I remember from a childhood trip over the Pennines (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/56286-doncaster-colliery-identification-help-required/)

 

This has prompted me to start looking at South Yorkshire collieries in the 1980s and so I wondered what sorts of shunters were used at these pits at that time?

 

I'd particularly like to know what replaced this and this at Markham Main and how long those replacements lasted (any advice on where to look for this info would be appreciated), but I'm mostly after an idea of what sort of industrial locos would still have been in use at any of the collieries in the South Yorkshire coalfield into the 1980s? I've found photos of on-hire BR class 08s at Manvers Main and a BSC Janus 0-6-0 at Orgreave, but am I right to guess these wouldn't have been typical?

 

 

Thanks,

 

Simon

[t-b-g]

Orgreave Coke Works had a small fleet of the Janus types when I was there briefly in 1979. They were used in the coke works and from memory one was outstationed at Orgreave Colliery, on loan or hire possibly.

 

The coke works also had a pair of 4 wheel Sentinel shunters, that worked as a pair coupled back to back. Double headed they were still regarded as inferior to a single Janus. There was also a bit of a mystery monster loco, that I never saw work and was usually locked away in a shed. It was always "broken down and waiting for spares from America" I did see it once through a left open door and it looked like a shunter with a cab at one end and a bonnet a bit like a Class 20 but with the main part of the bonnet raised higher than the section just in front of the cab. I heard the name Paxman mentioned but I wasn't sure if that referred to the loco as a whole or just the diesel engine itself. The people there talked about it as if it was imported from the USA but I have never been able to find any proof.

 

A google search revealed this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/5791090067/

 

Which may well be the mystery shunter and the two Sentinels. The shed behind is where the mystery one was kept and it did look very like the one between the Sentinels in the scrapline, so it may just have been a Yorkshire Engine Company one rather than an import.

 

Plus this:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/5758262813/ and several other good S Yorks industrials on the same site, including some scrapped diesels at Manvers Main.

 

There was certainly one ex BR shunter in colliery use in S Yorkshre as I remember seeing it but I can't remember where. I think it still had the number D2224 or something similar on the cabside, although it had been repainted into a pale blue livery.

 

I did find this though....

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adogriff/6310608066/

 

These are hazy memories now, from over 30 years ago as a teenager, so if they are slightly out please forgive me!

 

I did take a few photos at the time, including some lovely old wooden NCB wagons (possibly ex NER hoppers amongst them), gradually falling apart somewhere like Kiveton Park. One day I will find them again.......

 

A very interesting part of the world, industrial South Yorkshire is (or was!).

[Arthur]

Orgreave colliery and coke works was aquired by The United Steels Companies after WW1. On nationalisation of the coal industry the coke works and by products plant was retained by United Steels under their United Coke & Chemical Co. subsidiary. United Steels also owned The Yorkshire Engine Company, bought specifically to be an in house supplier of motive power, so Yorkshire designs at Orgreave would be expected. The loco between the two Sentinels is a Yorkshire 0-6-0 DE, a DE4 I think, which were Paxman equipped. The bonnet top was a straight line however, meeting the cab just below roof level.

[t-b-g]

Orgreave colliery and coke works was aquired by The United Steels Companies after WW1. On nationalisation of the coal industry the coke works and by products plant was retained by United Steels under their United Coke & Chemical Co. subsidiary. United Steels also owned The Yorkshire Engine Company, bought specifically to be an in house supplier of motive power, so Yorkshire designs at Orgreave would be expected. The loco between the two Sentinels is a Yorkshire 0-6-0 DE, a DE4 I think, which were Paxman equipped. The bonnet top was a straight line however, meeting the cab just below roof level.

 

I wonder if I saw it with a bonnet panel removed in front of the cab. The more I think about it the more is seems likely that the one in the photo was what I saw all those years ago, especially with the Paxman link. It was certainly in a grotty faded green colour, rather like the photo. As long as they had enough Janus types working they were happy and didn't bother with the Paxman or the Sentinels. The Janus was very highly thought of and they were very reliable, considering the fairly grotty conditions they had to put up with.

[martin1]

kiverton park collery had 3 ex br class 04s,and a hudswell clarke 060,connisbrough collery also had the same type of hudswell loco,i remember seeing it as we passed on the train,witwell had 3 yorkshire de3s i think ill have a look and see if i can find any other info,i was quite intrested in the industrial locos when a school and used to bike to them,coalite had at least 3 sentinels all 060s and also 2 north british 040s,there have been a couple of janus pass through the scrapyard near to work recently,i remember the janus at orgreeve too,wasant there a couple of odd looking locos just for working on the coke ovens too?

[t-b-g]

kiverton park collery had 3 ex br class 04s,and a hudswell clarke 060,connisbrough collery also had the same type of hudswell loco,i remember seeing it as we passed on the train,witwell had 3 yorkshire de3s i think ill have a look and see if i can find any other info,i was quite intrested in the industrial locos when a school and used to bike to them,coalite had at least 3 sentinels all 060s and also 2 north british 040s,there have been a couple of janus pass through the scrapyard near to work recently,i remember the janus at orgreeve too,wasant there a couple of odd looking locos just for working on the coke ovens too?

 

Again, hazy memory but there were some locos (possibly OH electric types) that just worked up and down a straight track alongside the coke ovens. I never went too close to them as I was on a "work experience" type placement and some poor fellow had been killed in an accident there just before I arrived, so I was told to stay out of that area. They just ran up to whatever coke oven was being opened with a big hopper type wagon, to collect the contents when the doors were opened and then unload it into a big hopper underground.

[Guest Natalie Graham]

I don't know what Dinnington colliery had but it must have been something pretty powerful as at one time in the early 80s there was a large pile up of maybe a dozen 16 ton mineral wagons that had been run into the buffers and were all on top of each other in a heap.

 

Edit to add: Having looked on Flickr it would appear that they had this one at some point: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/7060050115/

 

and before that this rather splendid Avonside: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tibshelf/5966655300/

[Arthur]

I wonder if I saw it with a bonnet panel removed in front of the cab...... The Janus was very highly thought of and they were very reliable, considering the fairly grotty conditions they had to put up with.

 

Certainly possible, comparing it to some other photos I'm pretty sure it is a 400hp Paxman engined DE4. None were supplied new to Orgreave; Samuel Fox at Stocksbridge (part of United Steel), NCB East Midlands and John Summers were the only customers. The Janus was a highly regarded locomotive pretty much wherever they worked and three went new to United Coke & Chemicals.

 

Again, hazy memory but there were some locos (possibly OH electric types) that just worked up and down a straight track alongside the coke ovens..........They just ran up to whatever coke oven was being opened with a big hopper type wagon, to collect the contents when the doors were opened and then unload it into a big hopper underground.

 

These are the quench car locomotives, they collected power from rigid busbars running alongside the coke oven battery via shoe contacts. They did run on a straight track, collecting the pushed coke, running the hopper under the quench tower for rapid cooling, and then back to dump it onto the coke bench. Here is an article, with photos, on Wellman, Smith Owen coke oven locos. A few ovens, Derwenthaugh for example, used fireless steam locomotives for the same duty.

 

http://www.coke-oven-managers.org/PDFs/2005/cokecar.pdf

 

There's a series of seven photos of coke oven operation in my Iron & Steel gallery, here's a link to the first coke oven image.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/9294-coke-ovens-1/

[t-b-g]

Certainly possible, comparing it to some other photos I'm pretty sure it is a 400hp Paxman engined DE4. None were supplied new to Orgreave; Samuel Fox at Stocksbridge (part of United Steel), NCB East Midlands and John Summers were the only customers. The Janus was a highly regarded locomotive pretty much wherever they worked and three went new to United Coke & Chemicals.

 

 

 

These are the quench car locomotives, they collected power from rigid busbars running alongside the coke oven battery via shoe contacts. They did run on a straight track, collecting the pushed coke, running the hopper under the quench tower for rapid cooling, and then back to dump it onto the coke bench. Here is an article, with photos, on Wellman, Smith Owen coke oven locos. A few ovens, Derwenthaugh for example, used fireless steam locomotives for the same duty.

 

http://www.coke-oven...005/cokecar.pdf

 

There's a series of seven photos of coke oven operation in my Iron & Steel gallery, here's a link to the first coke oven image.

 

http://www.rmweb.co....4-coke-ovens-1/

 

Many thanks for the information and the links. You have filled in a lot of gaps from two thirds of a lifetime ago! I always thought that Orgreave would make an excellent model, especially if you could include the main line and the exchange sidings. Much of the shunting in the works was by gravity, which would make life interesting for a modeller. You would also need loads of LMS type coke hoppers!

[t-b-g]

This stream also has a number of suitable diesel photos from the right sort of period, including a good selection of ex BR types. I can just about remember seeing some of them too!

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eric_the_duck/5940595457/in/photostream/

[johnw1]

According to my RCTS 1983 Stock Book this was the ex BR shunter situation in Yorkshire in September 1983

 

NCB British Oah Disposal Point class 03 03037,class 08 08016 and class 11 12099 and 12122

NCB Grimethorpe Colliery class 03 D2057 and D2093

NCB Bowers Road Disposal Point class 03 D2148

NCB Wentworth Stores class 03 D2182

NCB Barrow Colliery class 03 D2199

NCB Mavers Colliery Wath class 03 D2373, class 04 D2225, D2238 and D2337

NCB Brookhouse Colliery class 04 D2229

NCB Dodworth Colliery class 04 D2239

NCB Maltby Colliery class 04 D2248

NCB Woolley Colliery class 04 D2284

NCB Manton Colliery class 04 D2300

NCB Steetley Colliery class 05 D2607

NCB Cortonwood Colliery class 04 D2317

NCB Kiverton Park Colliery class 04 D2322 and D2328

NCB Dinnington Colliery class 04 D2327

NCB Thurcroft Colliery class 04 D2334

NCB North Gawber Colliery class 08 08679

[Respite]

I visited Cadeby, Maltby, Manton, Manvers, Brodsworth, Barnburgh and Dinnington collieries in 1987 mainly to see the old HC jackshaft drive diesels with steam loco chimneys. The locos in the area were mainly in a terrible state, often one loco working and any others needing repair or derelict. Cadeby had Dick working and David spare awaiting a new fluid flywheel fitting which never got done although the replacement lay on the ground by it. David was still in its original HC lined green paint job, HCs paintwork being superb quality. They also had a yellow 0-6-0 Sentinel Ken as spare, with very worn tyres, that I did find working on my first visit.

 

Maltby was a sea of wet coal slurry and the only shunting the NCB did was HBAs with house coal to Garston Dock for shipping to Ireland. One line remained into the screens shunted by an 04 which had worked for sometime as a 2-4-0. Next visit it was bust and an on hire 08 was swimming through the coal slurry. The 04was derelict with a missing engine. This is the loco now at Cheddleton D2334 restored to working order and a real resurrection. Ken later went to Maltby but needed its seized brake gear sorting so Thomas Hill men were called in. They jacked it up in the open near the weighbridge hut and the wheels went off for new tyres, the brake gear was overhauled but the grooved coupling rod bearings just went back in, during the course of this job it nearly fell over due to the ground conditions at Maltby, the shed having long been cut off from the rest of the system. Despite being the late 1980s Health & Safety on the NCBs systems at the pits was terrible.

 

Dinnington just had an HC 0-6-0DM, still workable, but all traffic was rapid loading and BR handled. A friend did bid for it to preserve it but the value of the Gardner engines was considerable, they were lifted out as soon as a scrap merchant got them and sent to China for use in junks. Hartwood Exports were one company that seemed to be clearing up the old HCs and 04s.

 

Manton had an 04 working that was getting very run down but the work there was solely taking 9 empty MGRs at a time up the yard, the rest was done by gravity so it kept going until they got Thomas Hill to repair the HC they had, £4000 was spent on it, and it then became the main loco until closure.

 

Brodsworth was a wagon fest, the yard was full of NE wooden hoppers and various other wagons in NCB black livery. A few of these were kept in use for an internal job, all other coal going out by BR, the empty MGR sets being pulled up through the screens by a mule system. The working loco was a decrepit MSC type Hudswell, the driver telling me its quartering was out. A nice old HC Leslie still in its original HC maroon was OOU outside the shed I think unworkable but looking pretty good.

 

Manvers had a collection of all sorts of locos, two Sentinels, a TH Vanguard, a Hunslet 400DH centre cab called Harry on the run to Barnburgh, and 04 mop bucket exhaust Dorothy in yellow with its name painted in writig style on the cab, it was used on placing empties uder the screens and the fitters tld me it had never needed any attention apart form the gearbox working loose every so often a fault with 04s especially on the NCB lines. Derelict were HC Carl, two massive RH 060s and an 040DH Hunslet called Robert that had foolishly been used on the Barnburgh line with its very steep gradients and had runaway overturned and had a damaged cab. Very soon the Manvers system got the numb 08s and a lot of character and interest was gone.

[65179]

A big thank you to everyone who has replied to this topic. I didn't get out and about in South Yorkshire until the late 1980s and didn't make it to the South Yorkshire Joint until the early 1990s so much of what has been described was gone by then. I've learnt a lot from your contributions and with the help of old-maps.co.uk have had fun looking at the layouts of the various collieries mentioned. The variety is incredible. Lots of modelling potential!

 

Thanks,

 

Simon