Transporting Coal

[Macsurfer]

Hi recently retired and am finally able to create a n gauge model train layout which is still in the planning and fact finding stage.I am intending to add a canal system into the layout, one of the dioramas will be a coal mine complex my question is how was the bulk coal loaded into the narrowboats from the mines pictures  or drawings would be a great help so I can scratch build something time zone working on is eara 3 1930s

[Derek R.]

Good luck with the project. Others will be able to show specific location where coal was loaded, but in the main, coal was loaded into railway trucks and shunted off to wharves where the coal would be either shot into the boats from a chute and hopper, or at canalside level where coal was manually shovelled through the truck side slide by shovel. There are several historic photo's of this procedure, and I am sure others will be able to show such images.

[Ray T]

Coventry Gas works, Longford is one example. 

There is also a railway to the left of the lorry which delivered coal.

 

Also: https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british-isles/warwickshire/

Edited April 9, 2020 by Ray T

[BEngo]

Some if not most loading points used the shovel it out of trucks, or tip rail trucks into chute as Derek says.  Others used boxes with lifting bottoms which driopped the coal into the boat.  Holly Bank basin is good example here.

  Many Black Country collieries shared a loading basin with others, particularly in NCB days.  Hednesford basin, Holly Bank Basin and Anglesey basin are good BCN examples. The South Warwickshire collieries  tended to have their own loading point.  Pooley Hall, Baddesley, Newdigate, Griff are all examples here.

 

Descriptions by Tom Foxon in Following the Trade (shovel and chute) David Blagrove in Bread upon the Waters.(tipping trucks at Pooley Hall colliery)  Pics in Philip Weaver collection of photos  - See the hNBOC book Birmingham Canal Navigations 1950-1977.   Other pictures if you google the colliery or loading point names above.

N

[Ray T]

Griff colliery.

 

 

 

Some got duplicated some how.

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by Ray T

[Ray T]

Newdigate colliery.

Bedworth

Griff Colliery.

 

Search here there is connections to canals. https://warwickshirerailways.com/misc/collierylines.htm

 

Many pictures of the coal trade here: A canal People.

 

Although the above are mainly 1950's is the scenery won't have changed much.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Ray T

[Macsurfer]

Many thanks to everybody the response is fantastic thanks again to everyone

[Heartland]

The Coventry Gasworks was called Foleshill, and the boats were loading coke in the foreground, not coal. Now with the gasworks, in the Midlands, local coal ceased to be used very early on, because of the chemical composition. Only certain places produced good coal for making gas and coke. For Foleshill the coal would have been transported by rail

 

Now Newdigate Colliery on the Coventry Canal did use locomotives to bring coal from the mine to the canal side. as did Griff.

 

In South Staffordshire there were coal loading basins, or wharves, on the BCN for Cannock Chase Collieries,  Cannock Wood Colliery, Conduit Collieries, Hampstead Colliery, Hilton Main Colliery etc. The Staffordshire & Worcestershire had Baggeridge and Littleton.   In fact it is a long list across the various coalfields for this time (1930's).  I suppose the key fact is to find a mine near a canal where the railway system, canal and public railways were close. With Newdigate the branch line was quite long to the pit. A good example of a mine near the canal was Walsall Wood on the Daw End Canal BCN.

[Ray T]

Slight tangent, Griff Granite Quarry. The granite would have been loaded by shovel & hand cart.

Second picture is unloading coal at Juxon Wharf, Oxford but it gives the idea.

[BuckbyLocks]

"The Coventry Gasworks was called Foleshill, and the boats were loading coke in the foreground, not coal. " 

Think you might be confusing Longford and Foleshill.  These boats are loading coal at Longford.

[Heartland]

Mike,

 

The image shows the gas holder, of that design, which I recall was talked about at the Newcomen a few years ago. Longford was close to the Wyken Colliery, but that closed in the 1920's. There was no gas works at Longford. Foleshill was at a distance from Longford Junction, though. Foleshill Gas Works were opened in 1909 after a construction period that started in 1902, they replaced an earlier gas works nearer Coventry 

[Richard T]

Andy Tidy - Captain Ahab has done a whole series of vlogs on the lost canals of the BCN. They contain many pictures of the old canal loading basins. https://www.facebook.com/andy.tidy.56

You can access many old maps showing basin layouts here maps.nls.uk The side by side feature is excellent as you see a modern map alongside an old one.

You might also want to look at Keith Lodges blog he has built a model railway in the hold of his boat. http://hadarford.blogspot.com/

Edited April 9, 2020 by Richard T
extra info added

[Tracy D'arth]

Wigan Pier, a coal tippler I believe, 

Its still there, such as it is.

[Chris Lowe]

7 hours ago, Macsurfer said:

ld something time zone working on is eara 3 1930s

you could model Wigan Pier

 

 

[Pluto]

That is not the original Wigan Pier. The idea of a pier in Wigan first appears in a song by George Formby senior, in which he describes a trip to Blackpool. Leaving Wigan North-Western Station, the party look out of the train window and see the wooden viaduct carrying the East Lancashire Railway from Wallgate towards Liverpool and crossing the L&LC. It is that viaduct which was the origin of Wigan Pier. The ELR had several wooden viaducts, two more over the L&LC, at Church and Rishton Reservoir. The Church one lasted until the 1920s when it was, as with the other wooden viaducts, converted to an embankment. The railway passes over the L&LC on the far left of this photo.

[Chris M Jones]

The boats loading small coal at Longford is nothing to do with the gas works situated behind. Longford loading wharf was for Coventry Colliery (also called Keresley Colliery) and boats were only loaded by lorry as shown in one of the pictures.

[Heartland]

That is an interested snippet of information, but I would query that road lorries from Keresley Colliery unloaded by the Gas Works as they had an extensive frontage there, and no obvious road access, unless the Warwickshire Coal Company/ NCB had permission by Coventry Corporation to do so.  It is more likely that coal sent by canal from Keresley would have been a different location. I have yet to come across such traffic, though. in any detail. Robert Wilson in his Too Many Boats does indicate that Coventry Colliery supplied coal to the South Eastern Division of BW. 

 

Perhaps you can elaborate on sources. The bulk of the Coventry Colliery coal went out by rail in wagons to the sidings at Foleshill.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Heartland

[Ray T]

Not a very clear map but it does show the railway sidings and the proximity of the coal chutes to the gas works.

[Heartland]

Ray T has provided the solution that the image showing the boats loading coal, was not at Foleshill Gasworks, but a little to the north, where road access was possible. However this still does not fit with the original enquiry, where a canal side railway connection and a mine close to the waterway would suit modelling purposes.

[Ray T]

9 minutes ago, Heartland said:

Ray T has provided the solution that the image showing the boats loading coal, was not at Foleshill Gasworks, but a little to the north, where road access was possible. However this still does not fit with the original enquiry, where a canal side railway connection and a mine close to the waterway would suit modelling purposes.

Newdigate.  https://warwickshirerailways.com/misc/newdigate.htm

 

Griff: https://warwickshirerailways.com/misc/map_of_bermuda_colliery.htm

 

Last bit one photo, something different to model

 

Often difficult as usually the pit head was a little way from canal connections, in Warwickshire anyway.

[Ray T]

With Griff Arm end it was where the gap in the two buildings are.

 

The kink in the basin can just be seen to the left of "A444."

 

[billh]

Somewhat further north, Ashton Moss Colliery (closed 1959) East Manchester, sent coal by rail and canal . The pit was adjacent to the LNWR Guide Bridge Junction Railway and had extensive sidings  , access to the main line was controlled from Ashton Moss Colliery Sidings Signal Box. There was a standard gauge line from the colliery to the Ashton Canal which crossed the LNWR line on what was actually Slate Lane road bridge, the rails in the stone setts on the bridge and then on part of Hanover St North, adjacent to the street canal bridge was a timber trestle bridge, from where coal was dropped into a hopper device at the side of the canal ready to load the colliery's own wooden boats. The distance from the pit yard to the loading point was about 100yards and  was last used c1933. Much of the colliery site is  now under the M60 motorway and Snipe retail park- the B&M store there is built over one of the pit shafts (depth before filling was over 3000ft!) . Some of the loading point  brickwork is still visible from the canal.

An old map of the area is here:

https://maps.nls.uk/view/126522962

[Pluto]

Denaby, on the S&SYN, would make a good model colliery loading wharf.

[archie57]

Bickershaw and Astley Green were both on the canal side...

[Rose Narrowboats]

Surprised no-one has mentioned Pooley Hall yet, or if you don't want to model the pithead but do want to run a Garratt, Baddesley!