Private Owner Wagons in the North East

[Greedy Boards]

Dear All

Have noticed that there are a number of people out there that believe there were only NER/LNER wagons that shipped raw materials and finished products around the North East, and that PO wagons were the stuff of legend & myth. Consequently would like to consign this myth to the scrap-heap, or should I say slag-heap for the record.

The iron & steel making process requires coal/coke, limestone & iron ore. The former provides bi-products such as coal tar, pitch, benzene/benzol, sulphuric acid, naphthalene to name but a few. The ironmasters owned their own coal mines & coke works, and were known to sell on bi-products wherever possible, to maximise income. Pease & Partners, Bell Brothers, and Dorman Long, and South Durham Steel and Iron had their own wagon fleets, and along with Sadlers used hopper, plank & tank wagons to convey many of their own products. The iron & steel process also delivered slag as a bi-product, and companies such as Tarslag (1923) Limited and Tarmac relied heavily on slag from this area of North Eastern Yorkshire, added to coal tar from North Eastern manufacture. So the area had a number of private owners who ran both local wagon fleets and industrial locomotives, in addition to the NER/LNER/BR wagons that many people remember more vividly.

Regards

Greedy Boards

[Dave]

Quite agree.
A lot of the confusion comes from the monopoly the NER had for transporting coal around the area covered by the NER using their hoppers and drops.

[65447]

Dear All

Have noticed that there are a number of people out there that believe there were only NER/LNER wagons that shipped raw materials and finished products around the North East, and that PO wagons were the stuff of legend & myth. Consequently would like to consign this myth to the scrap-heap, or should I say slag-heap for the record.

The iron & steel making process requires coal/coke, limestone & iron ore. The former provides bi-products such as coal tar, pitch, benzene/benzol, sulphuric acid, naphthalene to name but a few. The ironmasters owned their own coal mines & coke works, and were known to sell on bi-products wherever possible, to maximise income. Pease & Partners, Bell Brothers, and Dorman Long, and South Durham Steel and Iron had their own wagon fleets, and along with Sadlers used hopper, plank & tank wagons to convey many of their own products. The iron & steel process also delivered slag as a bi-product, and companies such as Tarslag (1923) Limited and Tarmac relied heavily on slag from this area of North Eastern Yorkshire, added to coal tar from North Eastern manufacture. So the area had a number of private owners who ran both local wagon fleets and industrial locomotives, in addition to the NER/LNER/BR wagons that many people remember more vividly.

Regards

Greedy Boards

And these are amongst the names given in the earlier thread on the same topic, where you said much the same thing: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5185&p=46192#p46192.

[Greedy Boards]

Dear All

The earliest example that I can find of a PO wagon in the North Eastern Region is an image of a tank wagon in Oil on the Rails written by Alan Coppin, where he uses an photograph courtesy of the Historical Model Railway Society (HMRS). The image is of a tank wagon registered with the Stockton and Darlington Railway (SDR), which would place it between 1825 - 1863, when the SDR amalgamated with the NER formed previously in 1854. During this period, the Egglescliffe Chemical Company was set up by the SDR by Robert Wilson in 1833, and continued until a slight change of name to Eaglescliffe Chemical Company in 1938, which eventually became part of British Chrome & Chemicals Ltd in 1954.

The SDR had the backing of a number of people, principally Edward Pease. The Pease family origins were in textiles, but as water power gave way to steam power, so the family diversified into collieries, and hence the connection with the SDR. Joseph Pease and co-sponsors purchased land on the south bank of the Tees, which later became the site of Middlesbrough, and the SDR was extended to provide coal drops at this deeper point on the Tees in1830. The sponsors formed a partnership called the Middlesbrough Owners, who set about attracting further companies to this new location, and in 1841, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan set up the first foundry & rolling mill. Subsequently, further ironmasters duly set up, including Bell Brothers at Port Clarence in 1854, the Pease family joined the ironmaster surge in the 1850s, and Christopher Furness set up the South Durham Steel and Iron Co at Stockton Malleable Iron Works in 1860.

Dorman Long took advantage on a recession in the iron & steel industry in the 1870s, to establish their own company in 1875, and set about taking over other works in the area. Bell Brothers at Port Clarence, and Sir Bernard Samuelsons at both Newport Works and South Bank Works were completely taken over by 1923, and the largets merger with Bolckow & Vaughan took place in 1929, forming the largest iron & steel company in the UK.

In addition to local PO operations, national companies have had private sidings in the area, and these included Anglo-American (1904 - 1956); British Petroleum (1912 - 1956); British Steel (1967 - 1999); Cleveland Potash still operating today; Imperial Chemical Industries (1926 - 1990s); National Benzole (1925 - 1956); Procor wagons for hire by companies locally (1975 - 1995); Redline Motor Spirit (1925 - 1956); and Tarmac (1914 - 1990s), who benefitted from the availability of large amounts of furnace slag for tarmacadam roadstone.

So the potential for PO wagon operations on both a local & national scale is very evident, and can add colour & variety to any North Eastern Region layout.

Regards

Greedy Boards