Hauling coal trains

[v3man]

At Carberry Colliery the tender first loco hauled the brake van up from Smeaton Junction and then propelled the van into a short uphill spur. After making up it's train the whole ensemble then ran past the spur, the brake van was run down by gravity and the train backed on to the van, then it was off back to Smeaton Junction.

Smeaton Junction was up a 1 in 75 gradient from the ECML at Monktonhall Junction and I never saw a loco arrive there other than chimney first. Loaded departures descended back to Monktonhall tender first and then on to Granton, Leith Docks or Leith South or Millerhill, the first two of which also involved fairly steep downhill gradients of 1 in 104 and 1 in 72. Trains of empties to Lady Victoria pit on the Waverley route faced uphill gradients of 1 in 70 while those for Loanhead were climbing at 1 in 173 from Millerhill on the Glencorse Branch.

There were 13 Edinburgh Mineral Traffic turns from the exLNER sheds in 1960 12 of which were outshedded at Seafield and one working out of St.Margarets. Almost all their work involved empties uphill to collieries and loaded downhill to the docks. It probably was best, therefore, to run chimney first to the collieries making it easier the keep water back in the boiler and the firebox covered.

There was a Preparation Plant (i..washer) at Smeaton Junction. Some loaded trains were brought up from other collieries and it was the Smeaton Pilot's job, a J38 turn in 1960, to travel down to Monktonhall and bank these loaded trains back up to Smeaton. I was fortunate enough to have an unofficial footplate trip on one of the J38s one dark, frosty evening tender first light down to Monktonhall, wait a while until the train arrived, buffer up to the back,exchange whistles and then full tilt up the 1 in 75 with the fire glowing white hot - if only I had had a camera or recorder with me but we couldn't afford such things back then!

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I know it's diesel days, but at Temple Mills in the early 70's they used to shove the brake vans over the hump, and sometimes they made one hell of a thump, if you were coupled up

manna

[Graham Boak]

I'm a little surprised by the idea of getting in an extra trip - the attraction of the bonus is clear enough but I'd have thought that a crew would receive their task list at the start of the day. Running backwards and forwards between dock and colliery, the trip times would obviously vary according to any problems with the waggons or competing traffic, but you'd have to build up quite a bit of time to be able to make an extra trip. Overtime excluded, perhaps. Presumably a day's task would be shared out between near and distant collieries on the same coalfield? I can see a balance, where an extra trip may be available because some other crew has had trouble and the railway would otherwise lose money, but was that common?

Then again, a colliery (or set of collieries) would only be producing so many tons a day and hence so many trips. Producing less than quota seems so much likelier than producing more! An alternative is that collieries regularly had full waggon loads just sitting waiting the railway's convenience (after a few good days production perhaps). A long way from "just in time" methods -but even in those days the colliery wouldn't get paid until the coal was in someone else's hands.

[Si.]

Crews from North Blyth (52F) tried where possible to turn their loco onto wind before leaving the shed. As most of the working were primarily run on North - South trips (For example North Blyth - Ashington), more shelter from cold Northern winds was afforded to crews by following this practice. Although wind sheeting would often be erected if needed.

Common practice was to lay a Van Kip at exchange sidings. An arriving train could travel over the inclinded van kip, and the van would be detached when on the top of the incline. The set could then be left in the sidings, and another set drawn out. Once past the van kip, the van would be allowed to run back down the gradient onto the back of the set, prior to departing.