rail served domestic coal yards 1980s and 90s

[bluedepot]

as part of searching for layout ideas i looked at quite a few speedlink era pictures today including speedlink coal which led me to look at coal yards.

what would be in a domestic coal yard?

an office building
coal staithes
sacks of coal
possibly some under cover storage
a loader / digger
flatbed lorry
weighbridge?
possibly a crane

anything else?

the up side of including a rail served coal yard is I have a sound fitted coal sector 37 and about 20 hea hoppers already. also it needn't be anything more than 2 sidings. the deliveries can be short trains -  even just a few wagons.

the downside is the speedlink coal network closed in 1990 so if i run trains for the late sectorisation era I'll maybe just have to pretend the yard is open but only road served now - but rail connection left in place.

any suggestions or can anyone suggest good pictures online?

I think the yard pictures i saw were for lincoln, washward heath, acton... and a few others i forget now.

what other wagons could I use? 16 and 21 ton presumably but anything else?

cheers

Tim

[Jim Martin]

There was a topic on this subject on Another Forum a while back. You might find some ideas there: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/68853-domestic-coal-wagons-coal-yards-in-the-80s/page-1.

If nothing else, there's a link to one of my favourite railway photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28083135@N06/15122387846, although it's a couple of years too early for you.

Jim

[bluedepot]

thanks Jim

the flickr link didn't work unfortunately

what concerns me slightly is there aren't many pictures online and i never saw a coal yard in real life!

it seems I would need to have an under rail pit to discharge the coal into and then a conveyor belt to move the coal into storage hoppers. I presume there were a few hoppers to store various grade of coal? the discharge pit could be under cover or in the open judging from the few pictures I've seen.

for variety some 21t hoppers could be used as well I think? there were bottom discharging anyway.


Tim

[willike1958]

Hi, I have a similar coal yard project to undertake as part of my Houghtonbrook layout (http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=10285.msg106134#msg106134) which will use a photo of Bradford Springmill Street - see below - as inspiration.
Kevin

[GScaleBruce]

So far as the Southern region (my own area of interest) is concerned, by the 1980s most if not all domestic coal went through Coal Concentration Depots and the era of small station yards was over. However, some trains could be quite short, with varied traction - this link includes some photos of the Didcot to Chessington CCD service. There was a CCD at Chessington South and a smaller facility at Tolworth, iirc. Although these photos show class 37s and 58s, I seem to recall class 73s being used on the Chessington branch.

[bluedepot]

hi kevin - cheers for the pic.  those are the type of storage hoppers i want in blue there.  it seems that this yard had a portable conveyor (in yellow on the left maybe although can't see it?) 

i was thinking of having two under rail discharge pits with two conveyors, one that could swing from one storage hopper to another, and another one for loading a lorry.  the pits will be on the same line i think, just one after the other, and possibly with a shed roof covering them.  no idea how i will make all that... this is just idea so far...

hi bruce - thanks i will look at that link to see what ccds looked like. i remember coal being delivered in sacks and going in a coal bunker... that's it though... no experience of the coal yard at all so all the pictures help...


cheers


tim

[70000]

The Ipswich Co-Op coal yard at Derby Road station was rail served until 1989.

By the early 1980's, any 16T mineral wagons were unloaded by a digger with a grab on it, from memory, but they did originally have this hydraulic wagon tipper for unloading, which appears to date from the early 1950's (these appear to be official photos of its "launch").
A conveyor belt took the coal to large storage sheds where it was bagged and then loaded onto the Co-Op fleet of lorries for delivery in the Ipswich area. Electric delivery vehicles were generally used within Ipswich (the last ones lasting as late as 1983) - see https://www.flickr.com/photos/72399068@N08/8331924199/in/album-72157632401404204/ with diesel vehicles for customers further out.





Haven't been able to find out who the unloading tipper was constructed by as yet, as I would like to reproduce it on my OO layout.

[red_death]

Definitely worth looking on Flickr for pictures of Tolworth and Chessington South as Bruce suggests - there were a couple more IIRC in London - all look very modellable.  I like the look of some of the last household coal in the SE - HEAs and everything from 33/73/47/56/58 etc!

Must avoid another distraction!

Cheers, Mike

[CaleyDave]

Haymarket Coal Yard.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/101242744@N07/23024195919/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cagiva1994/6097736664/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cagiva1994/13090363554/
(usual disclaimer, not my Picture)

Rail express Had a series of articles on how to build the hoppers and conveyor belt based on the one at Haymarket a few years ago. I think the MGR wagons being used on Domestic coal was reasonably common in the area at the time as Thornton and Millerhill were both awash with them.

[bluedepot]

thanks for replies and useful links. I'm not going to build anything that will win a prize for accuracy but I will at least attempt to represent the conveyor belt and hoppers! I was thinking of using a peco inspection pit, put a grate over it, add some kind of open shed over the pit, then look for some 3d printed or european conveyor belts and hoppers.

[Fenrisian]

I can remember (just) a coal yard in Luton that was rail served. It featured a conveyor belt leading to a coal mountain. The lorries carried the coal loose.
There was a dispenser that was linked to a set of scales. The coal man would hang a sack from the scales and set the dispenser going. Coal would pour into the sack until the cwt was reached. The coal man then brought the coal to the bunker

[Steven B]

Three Coal Concentration Depots (CCD) in the north west spring to mind: Chadderton, Deepdale and Blackburn.

Chadderton CCD:
https://www.chaddy-goods.co.uk/
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/62261-chadderton-ccd/

Deepdale (Preston) CCD:
http://www.prestonstation.org.uk/TrainsToLongridge_AStL.html - class 37 in Coal Sector Livery

Blackburn CCD (now a Northern Trains depot) had a Class 04. Chadderton took mainline locos, and commonly an 08 on trip workings.

This RMWeb thread is also worth a read:
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84597-coal-yards-in-the-1970s/

Vacuum braked minerals and hoppers would have been seen early in he 1980s but towards the end of the decade had been replaced by HEA. BR went through a period of building/refurbishing coal yards to allow them to make use of the HEA hoppers. Ultimately the trains were doomed - gas was becoming more and more popular.


Steven B

[Neil of Teesside]

It should really be coal bins or cells and not coal staithes as Staithes is a small fishing village in North Yorkshire where CBeebies' Old Jack's Boat is film (for those of us with pre-school children) and Captain Cook worked in a grocery store (for the rest of us).

Have you tried https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/ - he's got plenty of coal yard photos predominantly from the north-east of England and Yorkshire (Hexham and Leyburn for example).

[bluedepot]

thanks for the replies

i am still planning to build a coal yard!


tim

[twinklekev]

There was a Charringtons coal yard next to Romford station that was rail served. I can clearly remember seeing hopper wagons in there. The line used to run down to street level from the old GER line to Liverpool street. I can't remember when it closed though, sorry