MCO wagons

[clachnaharry]

The goods yard on the early 70's layout which I am building will feature incoming coal traffic and outgoing scrap traffic.

 

In such a case, would it be correct to shunt empty 16 ton mineral wagons which had brought in coal across to the scrap sidings to be loaded with scrap metal? Was such dual use permitted or were wagons reserved for specific traffic types?

[Fat Controller]

That's certainly what happened at Blaydon into the 1980s- I don't think they even moved the wagons between unloading and reloading, as the 'scrappy' loaded the scrap straight from his lorries, using a Poclain crane.

I can't think of any instances of 16-tonners being 'pooled' for one sort of traffic, apart from the ones used to provide fitted heads on trains of unfitted stone tipplers. In my days checking wagon details at BSC Landore in summer 1974, I did note 16t wagons lettered, variously, 'Sand', 'Empty to Temple Mills Wagon Works', and even numbered DMxxxxxxxM, but all were carrying scrap- most also showed signs of having recently carried coal.

[Guest Phil]

Inclined to agree.

Part of the TOPS system required AFCs to submit their wagon orders for around 1400 each day - done by the chief clerk in our office, so I don't know how it worked. Basically, the AFC listed the types of wagons it would need each day, against forecast loads. When the vehicles emptied in TOPS, the system (in most cases) automatically applied a destination. If the AFC had ordered MCOs then there would be an even chance of wagons released in it's own TRA * being retained for it's own order.

 

 

* TOPS Responsibility Area.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

Mornin'

 

One thought is cross-contamination of product. Cleaning out the wagons for each trip would be a burden.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[TheSignalEngineer]

Pre-TOPS collieries frowned on getting wagons with bits of scrap stuck in pools of oil in the bottom. I even got into trouble once for loading a lever frame into a 16T mineral wagon when there was a shortage at the collieries. I got away with it because it was the only wagon to hand and the frame was needed elsewhere for an emergency renewal.

[Fat Controller]

Mornin'

 

One thought is cross-contamination of product. Cleaning out the wagons for each trip would be a burden.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

The coal merchants would 'clean' each wagon pretty thoroughly, as they were paying for every last bit of coal. I suspect the only times a 16t would have a 'bottoming' (a term that might be familiar to you, Dave, given where you live) would be before carrying limestone or sugar beet, or after carrying fish offal.

[The Stationmaster]

The coal merchants would 'clean' each wagon pretty thoroughly, as they were paying for every last bit of coal. I suspect the only times a 16t would have a 'bottoming' (a term that might be familiar to you, Dave, given where you live) would be before carrying limestone or sugar beet, or after carrying fish offal.

 

Like heck Brian - 'dirty' wagons coming out of coal traffic for scrap and vice versa were a perpetual problem in South Wales (the full story might not matter here but we at one stage had an ever increasing merry-go-round of 'dirty' coal wagons running between various yards as each of us tried to get rid of them to somewhere else). The biggest problem was most likely wagons which had been in industrial coal traffic and there was also a major problem with wagons going from scrap to coal - the discharge side at East Usk power station had to shut down for a week on one occasion after a large piece of scrap was dumped into it among a load of coal.

 

And coal merchants didn't want dust and rubbish so they left that in the wagon to rot, especially if they'd had the wagon on hand for 6 months and the contents had degraded and broken down (6 months? - when Merthyr was cutover to TOPS in 1973 and label dates were checked for time on hand there was nothing under 99 days - the highest TOPS could record - and well over half had been there for more than 6 months).

 

The big problem - again not so much a domestic traffic thing - was small coal which after being dampened a few times went off like concrete and which could hide pieces of scrap if the wagon wasn't cleaned between traffics. So as far as possible wagons for coal and scrap were kept apart and if the twain met the wagon had to be cleaned - if you could find someone somewhere to clean it. Mind you I'm sure the average coal merchant would be happy to clean a wagon - when he was paid to do it.

[Fat Controller]

Like heck Brian - 'dirty' wagons coming out of coal traffic for scrap and vice versa were a perpetual problem in South Wales (the full story might not matter here but we at one stage had an ever increasing merry-go-round of 'dirty' coal wagons running between various yards as each of us tried to get rid of them to somewhere else). The biggest problem was most likely wagons which had been in industrial coal traffic and there was also a major problem with wagons going from scrap to coal - the discharge side at East Usk power station had to shut down for a week on one occasion after a large piece of scrap was dumped into it among a load of coal.

 

And coal merchants didn't want dust and rubbish so they left that in the wagon to rot, especially if they'd had the wagon on hand for 6 months and the contents had degraded and broken down (6 months? - when Merthyr was cutover to TOPS in 1973 and label dates were checked for time on hand there was nothing under 99 days - the highest TOPS could record - and well over half had been there for more than 6 months).

 

The big problem - again not so much a domestic traffic thing - was small coal which after being dampened a few times went off like concrete and which could hide pieces of scrap if the wagon wasn't cleaned between traffics. So as far as possible wagons for coal and scrap were kept apart and if the twain met the wagon had to be cleaned - if you could find someone somewhere to clean it. Mind you I'm sure the average coal merchant would be happy to clean a wagon - when he was paid to do it.

That was perhaps the difference on the Blaydon traffic; it was house coal (including anthracite and patent fuels from South Wales), rather than the finer industrial and shipping coals, so the wagons would have been relatively clean. Curiously, there was wagon-cleaning at Blaydon at the time, though not of minerals; someone had a contract to do deep cleaning of things like the Clitheroe Cement tanks and Railease scrap wagons for a while in 1984/5.

Coedbach Washery had an interesting way of solving the problem of 'sticky' coal in the MDOs and MCOs for Swansea Docks- they used to put straw on the floor of the wagons before loading..

[clachnaharry]

Thanks chaps. So it looks as I can justify empty scrap minerals in and empty coal minerals out on the basis of avoiding contamination, but also justify the occasional refilling of coal empties with scrap on the basis of a wagon shortage.