Limestone wagons in the Teeside area, circa 1950-1960

[Dale]

I understand that wagons are not simply wagons, with an almost infinite level of variations. Can any one advise me of the right RTR OO wagons which would be suitable for forming a prototypical limestone train that might have served the Teesside steelworks in the 50's and 60's. I think i am looking at the Dapol 21t grey hopper's but I am already using these fella's on my ironstone train and the coal train too...

 

Many thanks folks,

 

D.

[Arthur]

The 21t hoppers aren't really the best for iron ore, they'd be running half full owing to the weight of the ore. If you want a variety in wagons, 21t hoppers for coking coal, 16t minerals for limestone and either iron ore tipplers or iron ore hoppers for the ore. Trains of ore hoppers in the 1960s were notoriously varied in their stock, 21t hoppers were pressed into use, but not entire trains of them.

 

Worth remembering that much of Teessides ore was imported by the 1960s, Cargo Fleet and Dorman Long both had ore wharves on the Tees.

[durham light infantry]

Dale, a lot of the limestone came from right where I am sat typing this now. It was mostly in LD containers, 3 of which fitted on a Conflat L. When it was in 21T hoppers it was tightly sheeted to stop rainwater turning it into quicklime! Covhops (to be released by Bachmann) were used in late steam and green/blue diesel days. I have some photographs but I think they are Porcy Mane's copyright. He will probably post some when he is not on the 16T minerals thread.

 

Mike

 

P.S. There is a new book called "Steetley Operations in the North of England, Volume 1: Dolomite" which covers the quarrying, processing and transport of Limestone. I have seen a few copies on eBay. But I also believe the Tanfield Railway Sales stand carries it.

[Arthur]

The L type containers carried a particular form of limestone, Dolomite, which was used for fettling and making up the walls of open hearth furnaces. Limestone used as a flux in blast furnaces and steel making furnaces was used in much larger quantities than L type containers would have handled.

[Porcy Mane]

Hi Mike, hope you and yours are well.

Dale,

You would be perfectly OK to use un-sheeted block trains of Dapol 21 ton hoppers.

These were used to transport “raw” unprocessed limestone to Tees-side steelworks. One particular block flow in the 50’s/60’s was from Dorman Longs Redmire Quarry.

Middlesborough/Thornaby Q6, K1’s then Class 24-25/1, 27 and 37 usually with Brake tenders were the staple motive power.

 

Can’t find my negs of one of the diesel workings at the mo but I can post if/when I find them.

Having said, “21 tonners were the norm”, I’ve seen phots of all-sorts on Tees-side (and Consett) bound limestone trains.

 

In the Fifties and very early sixties you would be fine with wooden hoppers of the 20 13 12 and 10 ton varieties. There is also plenty evidence of the smaller steel iron ore hoppers being used on Limestone.

There would be nothing wrong with using 13ton wooden 5 plankers and the Steel versions as my attached pic shows in a Redmire Tees-side working.

 

 

I suppose you could also use the humble 16 tonner. I’ve posted this link before but it’s worth another look.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/6642327935/

 

The sheeted hoppers, Covhops and Conlat L’s were for (but not exclusively) more specialised processed Limestones, Dolomas etc. that were used in steelmaking and also used to transport casting sands, one example being Dursand from Parkhead on the Old Stanhope and Tyne.

 

Some of North East quarries supplying Tees-side were Burdale, Thornton Dale and Hovingham in North Yorks. The rival quarries of Raisby and Steetley at Coxhoe, the various Weardale Quarries and Ford and Hedworth Williams Quarries in Sunderland all in the old County of Durham. There were plenty more and limestone came in from other parts of the UK.

 

Hth

 

Porcy

 

Ps Mike, by coincidence received a letter from John, one of the Co authors of the Steetley book just yesterday. (He used to live just round the corner) Volume II has just come out.

Dunno if you’ve seen this website?

http://www.magworks.co.uk/Gallery/Coxhoe%20Works/indexGallery.htm

 

Edited for punctuation. (Still don't know if it's right!)

[Fat Controller]

Unburnt (raw) limestone was added to the coke and ore at the blast-furnace as a flux. The burnt lime/and/or maglime, were added during the steel-making process- hence the two distinct flows from Redmire in Teesdale ('raw' lime) and Hardendale, near Shap (burnt lime) to Teesside for many years.

[Dale]

Folks, I have to say a massive thanks for the info. As much as my layout is fictious, its basically an alternative for Thornaby / Middlesbrough so this gives me a 'reason for things to be how they are'. I want to make it as prototypical as (as they like to say in my line of work) "reasonably practicable".

 

I have had a look at the variety of wagons available at the moment and already have some 5 and 7 plank unfitted grey wagons from Bachmann but these are just open wagons, with no doors on the side, end or hopper doors beneath. I was planning on using these for a mixed freight with assorted loads in them. Am i right in saying that i am only looking for wagons with the V arrows to indicate hopper doors in the floor or would end opening or tippler wagons be ok?

 

With a train of assorted hoppers (Dapol 14t, bachman 24t Iron and the Dapol 21t) for the ironstone (modellers licence as i am aware it probably cam in by ship), and a rake of 21t Dapol hoppers for the coal bound for coking, I would rather go for wagons on the limestone instead of yet another hopper train. (Still got to put together finished goods trains and a scrap metal train...)

 

I will go and have a look at eHattons and see whats available RTR and come back with some 'options for you folks to yes/no

 

D.

[Dale]

Well a quick look with the search 'mineral' in ehattons has brought up very little. There are a load of fitted wagons but only a couple of unfitted ones. 16t steel either with or without a top flap door.

 

Hmmmm

[Dale]

I have found a rake of three steel 16t mineral unfitted wagons on ebay with the V for hopper doors in the bottom, Bachmann code 37-250 but am I right in saying that ideally I want wooden wagons but with the V mark? I take it they would be unfitted?

 

D.

[Fat Controller]

You could get away with the following in the non-hopper fleet:-

27t tippler (Bachmann or Hornby)

16t mineral with or without top doors (the representatives of the latter would be the type produced by the Ministry of Supply and the LMS)

5 or 7 plank wooden bodied opens

16t slope-sided minerals.

13t steel-bodied opens.

The bottom-doors wouldn't have been used to unload these in this traffic, I suspect- rather the wagons would probably gone through a rotary tippler.

I very much doubt you'd see fitted minerals on these traffics regularly; they might have been used for the burnt lime traffic, as they were used for this in other circumstances.

[Porcy Mane]

Unburnt (raw) limestone was added to the coke and ore at the blast-furnace as a flux. The burnt lime/and/or maglime, were added during the steel-making process- hence the two distinct flows from Redmire in Teesdale ('raw' lime) and Hardendale, near Shap (burnt lime) to Teesside for many years.

 

But the original poster specified dates before Hardendale and it's associated Shap Fell quarry started large production. I think the Hardendale-Tees-side flows only started post 1992 but would be happy to be proved otherwise. In Co. Durham Raisby, Steetly and Sir Hedworth Williamsons limeworks at Sunderland (Amongst others) were supplying "Burnt Lime" to the Tees-side steel industries.

As an aside Steetly and Raisby had a major high court battle over the patent and trade name "Basic" in relation to the burnt lime process Steetley being the victor. The Steetly works at Coxhoe was always known locally as "The Basics" or "The "Bassix" in local lingo.

The Conflat L was a container design developed jointly by BR and Steetley Ltd.

 

Cheers,

Porcy

[Porcy Mane]

 

With a train of assorted hoppers (Dapol 14t, bachman 24t Iron and the Dapol 21t) for the ironstone (modellers licence as i am aware it probably cam in by ship), and a rake of 21t Dapol hoppers for the coal bound for coking, I would rather go for wagons on the limestone instead of yet another hopper train. (Still got to put together finished goods trains and a scrap metal train...)

 

I will go and have a look at eHattons and see whats available RTR and come back with some 'options for you folks to yes/no

 

D.

 

Dale,

There was still plenty of Iron Ore coming into the Tees-side are by rail in the 50’ and 60’s.

You could well use Bachmanns 27ton tipplers for your ore traffic.

http://www.ehattons.com/32870/Bachmann_UK_37_275E_Pack_of_4_27_Ton_Steel_Tippler_Wagon_BR_Grey_Iron_Ore_/StockDetail.aspx

Block trains of these ran from Iron stone quarries in Rutland etc well into the 1960’s. Usual loco power on arrival into Tees-side and Hartlepool would be Austerity 2-8-0’s.

Dorman Long owned Burley Ironstone Quarry in Rutland until 1957 and still took ore from here until its closure in 1962. There is plenty of pics of 27 ton tipplers being loaded here.

I think there was a write up of these block workings in Modern Railways sometime in the mid Sixties.

Porcy

[Fat Controller]

There was limestone traffic from Cumbria to Teesside when we moved to Clara Vale (on the Newcastle and Carlisle) in 1983- at this point, it was the covered hoppers carrying burnt lime. The open hoppers started on the line when Redmire closed. I agree, however, that these two flows would have been relatively recent ones; I suspect that Hardendale (which was owned by British Steel, and is now Tata) was probably opened in conjunction with the BOS plant at Lackenby. This would have been early 1970s, I think. Prior to that, most limestone would have been drawn from the local area.

[Dale]

Am i definitely ok with tipplers as one of the lads at my local club said we definitely didn't get tipplers in Teesside. Just want to be sure before I splash cash. For a varied train of unfitted wagons it looks like i will be scouring ebay a little but it's worth it to avoid another train of hopper wagons.

 

Thanks again for all the help folks, its appreciated.

 

D.

[Arthur]

In the absence of definitive information it's impossible to say whether any of the Teesside works handle ore in tipplers.

 

Here is what I can say; South Durham Iron & Steel at Hartlepool were supplied from the East Midlands by hopper wagons, Skinningrove had a tippler but I've seen photographs of hoppers being tippled on it, Dorman Long used internal 45t hoppers to feed its stocking grounds from its own wharf. I don't know about Cargo Fleet, it was an older works and owned by South Durham. It's more likely to have had facilities for handling hoppers. So it's all suggestive of hoppers rather than tipplers.

 

By the 1950s there was a trend in the UK to favour hoppers for imported ores which were generally crushed, dry and free running, so suitable for hoppers. Examples of hoppers on such work were, Tyne Dock-Consett, Birkenhead-Shotwick (Shotton) and Clyde General Terminus-Clyde Ironworks & Ravenscraig.

 

Tipplers were seeing increased use for home ore traffic as the ore was often wet, sticky and with great lumps loaded direct from the ore face into the wagon. It didn't flow freely from hoppers, probably why Skinningrove were tippling from hoppers.

 

So, it just depends Dale, on how closely you want to model what actually happened. They may not have used tipplers, but there was no particular reason why any of the Teesside works didn't use them, installing one would have been small change compared to the investment made in all of these works in the 1950s and 60s. Your choice.

[Porcy Mane]

Am i definitely ok with tipplers as one of the lads at my local club said we definitely didn't get tipplers in Teesside.

 

Thats what I thought until I was shown phots to prove otherwise. I'd better start digging out the evidence then...

[Arthur]

There was a thread on Steelmaking on Teesside last year;

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/28937-steel-making-on-teeside/

[Dale]

Cheers lad's.

 

The best I can think of would be to build a train up of the square 'wagon' style wagons with bottom doors on them? I was planning on using these type of wagons for the domestic coal as my layout has coal drops (which i believe is the NE way) the wagons would be unloaded like hopper's i guess rather than being tippled but would still make a different train from my Bachmann ore hoppers again. Dear god, its a minefield for the uninitiated lol.

 

Or i just say '###### it', put a rake of mixed mineral wagons together and wait for tutting when the layout goes public...

 

And i thought picking the right loco's was a minefield

 

So coal for the coke ovens = Dapol 21t hoppers

Ironstone for the blast = assorted hoppers (Bachmann 24t, Dapol 14t, and Dapol 21t half filled)

Limestone for the blast = Assorted mineral wagons with bottom opening doors ( the V symbol above the sole bar right?)

Domestic coal = As Limestone

Fast freight for the V2 = fitted box vans and some refrigerated vans too

Finished product steel trains - bogie bolsters and Parkside kit's (quint, plate, trestle etc)

Pick up / mixed goods = what ever box vans, opens and conflats i have left

 

D.

 

Eeeek, what about the scrap metal...

 

Nice shot of the blast furnace in your link. I have stood right at the top of that beast, you get quite a view.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

Hello there,

 

Outside of your RTR criteria. The conflat L's with the dolomite are likely to have originated at Dowlow on the former Buxton to Ashbourne line in the Peak district. Bill Bedford produced a brass and resin kit for them.

 

Regards

 

Dave

[Fat Controller]

Hello there,

 

Outside of your RTR criteria. The conflat L's with the dolomite are likely to have originated at Dowlow on the former Buxton to Ashbourne line in the Peak district. Bill Bedford produced a brass and resin kit for them.

 

Regards

 

Dave

Dowlow is on Carboniferous Limestone (Calcium Carbonate), IIRC, and as such produced 'ordinary' lime (Calcium Oxide). Sources of Magnesian Limestone (Magnesium Carbonate- Magnesium Oxide when burnt) in the UK are somewhat more localised; there is a very significant exposure around Ferryhill (County Durham), and others around South Yorkshire (which is where Steetley originated, IIRC).

The lime from around Ferryhill was not just used as a flux in the blast-furnaces; Steetley had a plant on the coast at Hartlepool which produced refractory materials for furnace linings, and other products, using Dolime and sea-water.

[Porcy Mane]

there is a very significant exposure around Ferryhill (County Durham), and others around South Yorkshire (which is where Steetley originated, IIRC).

The lime from around Ferryhill was not just used as a flux in the blast-furnaces; Steetley had a plant on the coast at Hartlepool which produced refractory materials for furnace linings, and other products, using Dolime and sea-water.

 

Methinks we may be drifting a little off topic...

The Ferryhill Limestones is the self same strata as that at Steetley Village. It just dips under ground for a bit more than a few miles. It's worth having a look around some of the links on this website.

http://magworks.co.uk/Homepage/Magworks.htm

Now off to find some tee-side tippler pics...

P

[Dale]

Now off to find some tee-side tippler pics...

P

 

Chop chop

[Porcy Mane]

Chop chop

 

Cheeky. Typical Rigger! Know many Tiffy's?

 

You should have a PM. (W Hartlepool allocated Q6’s on Tipplers.) Also if you have or can get a look Norman Hills book, “Teesside Railways” check out Page 77. There you’ll find a John Boyes pic of an Austerity on Tipplers.

These weren’t the pic’s I was thinking of originally. They will probably be in the attic and I can’t get up there at the moment.

 

Early 1960’s WTTs show a number of block workings, some or all of which I believe were Tipplers. One working was from Kettering (Loddington Ironestone branch?) and the other from Wellingborogh London Road where there was a siding named, the “South Durham Iron and Steel Co”. The siding was adjacent and connected to the Irchester Ironstone Quarries which was owned by S.D.I.&S.Ltd/Cargo Fleet Iron Works.

S.D.I.&S.Ltd also owned Storefield ironstone Quarry near Kettering from where trains were also dispatched.

Trains ran as required. The14:05 and 18:05 departures from Wellingborough went either to W Hartlepool or Normanby Sidings.

The 14:00 &21:15 departures from Kettering went to W Hartlepool only and the Storefield deps at 15:35 & 16:50 went to either West Hartlepool or Normanby Independent. There was also a Sunday Kettering to W Hartlepool working.

All are listed as Class 4 Freights

By the summer of 1967 the West Hartlepool arrivals in the WTT’s have been annotated to “Cliff House New Iron Ore Terminal”. They are also marked as Company Trains.

These have also been changed to run as Class 7*(Star) Freights.

I can’t check my 1950’s WTT’s. They are also currently living in the attic.

 

HTH

P

[Porcy Mane]

 

Eeeek, what about the scrap metal...

 

 

16 ton minerals. (Again)

See this pic:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/36891-16t-minerals/page__view__findpost__p__673696

 

And here is some Storefield tipplers.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/36891-16t-minerals/page__st__825&do=findComment&comment=822978

 

Maybe Tees-side bound?

 

Time for Bed...

 

P

[Steve Taylor]

Apologies Dale for piggy backing the topic and morning Mr Mane. What were the lime flows from Hartley Quarry over Stainmore (latterly via Carlisle) for? Did that quarry produce the wrong grade for steel making? There are a few pics around of short lime trains coming east and of the quarry itself and it seems to be predominantly served by sheeted timber bodied wagons.