Coal bins for Peckforton and Beeston Castle

[ge_rik]

Used up some of the off-cuts of foamboard from the brewery building on coal bins for the station yards at Peckforton and Beeston Castle.

I've not bedded then into their locations as yet. Will probably add a few more details such as filled sacks and maybe a coal office at BC.

I've blogged the build for anyone who might be interested - How I made some coal bins / staithes

Rik

 

[Martino]

Excellent Rik. Thanks also for the ‘how to’ article. I’ve previously used spare LGB sleepers but your foam board seems much better. I always enjoy looking through your website.

Just wish I could find some coal in this part of the USA!

 

[dunnyrail]

Used up some of the off-cuts of foamboard from the brewery building on coal bins for the station yards at Peckforton and Beeston Castle.
View attachment 251356View attachment 251357
I've not bedded then into their locations as yet. Will probably add a few more details such as filled sacks and maybe a coal office at BC.

I've blogged the build for anyone who might be interested - How I made some coal bins / staithes

Rik

There has been a lot of talk in Mags about the correct orientation of Coal Bins in Yards. Logical convention would be for the Open Bit to be on the Cart Side for Merchant to Bag Up the Coal. Unloads direct from the Wagon via the Drop Door into the Bin with the door supported on the High Side on the Bin. But there were many exceptions to this so you pays your money and takes your pick!

Excellent Rik. Thanks also for the ‘how to’ article. I’ve previously used spare LGB sleepers but your foam board seems much better. I always enjoy looking through your website.

Just wish I could find some coal in this part of the USA!

Can you not get some BBQ Coke?

 

[Paul M]

Smashing! It's given me some inspiration to have a go

 

[ge_rik]

There has been a lot of talk in Mags about the correct orientation of Coal Bins in Yards. Logical convention would be for the Open Bit to be on the Cart Side for Merchant to Bag Up the Coal. Unloads direct from the Wagon via the Drop Door into the Bin with the door supported on the High Side on the Bin. But there were many exceptions to this so you pays your money and takes your pick!

When installing the first set of bins at Beeston Market (with their backs to the track), I did a bit of research and found they seem to have been situated in all sorts of different places in yards - sometimes quite a distance from the tracks and facing them. The coal stacks at Llanfair Caereinion appeared to be very ad hoc. eg see 5:15 into this film from the 1960s

Watch Llanfair Railway - BFI Player

Beware the iron horse – locomotive 822 [The Earl] – lumbering through the streets of Welshpool, no barriers to keep it at bay, and emerging, ghost-like, from its shed at night!

player.bfi.org.uk

As for me, the ones at BM back on to the track, those at BC will face the track and the ones at Peckforton will be at right angles to it. As you say, very much a case of pot luck.

Rik

 

[Degauss]

....The coal stacks at Llanfair Caereinion appeared to be very ad hoc. eg see 5:15 into this film from the 1960s

Watch Llanfair Railway - BFI Player

Beware the iron horse – locomotive 822 [The Earl] – lumbering through the streets of Welshpool, no barriers to keep it at bay, and emerging, ghost-like, from its shed at night!

player.bfi.org.uk

Rik

Oh dear. BFI films cannot be watched outside of the UK!

 

[trammayo]

Yes I can confirm what Rik says - stock piles all over the place. Working on a farm outside Leeds, there was a coal round (and two lorries on the milk round) - about 10 ton a day of either Doubles, Trebles or Cobbles to bag up and deliver. When it was quiet, we'd load the lorry up and take it round to the stock piles. We even had a brick hut but that was hardly ever used - it was warmer in the cafe down Armley road!

 

[JimmyB]

Coal Staithes; I think that's what we use to call them!

 

[Martino]

There has been a lot of talk in Mags about the correct orientation of Coal Bins in Yards. Logical convention would be for the Open Bit to be on the Cart Side for Merchant to Bag Up the Coal. Unloads direct from the Wagon via the Drop Door into the Bin with the door supported on the High Side on the Bin. But there were many exceptions to this so you pays your money and takes your pick!
Can you not get some BBQ Coke?

Hmm... all I’ve seen is charcoal, which is somewhat woody. I’ll keep my eyes open. Of course, I’ve got a gas barbie so never thought of that!

 

[ge_rik]

While waiting for Storm Hannah to blow through, I've been attacking my stocks of foamboard and plasticard. The coal office will be for Beeston Castle with a nameboard "William France - Coal Merchant". His father was the coal merchant in Beeston in the 1911 census, so William will be 42 in 1932 (WWI permitting). Not sure I've got the dimensions of the coal scales right, just working off a couple of online photos, but hopefully they will look OK.



Rik

 

[My45G]

There has been a lot of talk in Mags about the correct orientation of Coal Bins in Yards. Logical convention would be for the Open Bit to be on the Cart Side for Merchant to Bag Up the Coal. Unloads direct from the Wagon via the Drop Door into the Bin with the door supported on the High Side on the Bin. But there were many exceptions to this so you pays your money and takes your pick!
Can you not get some BBQ Coke?

I have yet to find any photographs of coal bins with their back to the track and I have spent a long time looking, does anyone have one? There are lots of photos of bins elsewhere in the yard, Corfe Castle on the Swanage Rly is a good example. Conversely, just about every model railway I have seen has the backs to the track. A nice idea in theory that never actually happened.

 

[ge_rik]

I did a fair bit of searching the last time I made some bins / staithes for Beeston Market. Like you, the only ones I could find were well away from the tracks and not with their backs to them. The nearest I could find to the classic (model) interpretation was this image of Cleckheaton Central - but it's not that convincing.

 

[ge_rik]

In this aerial shot of Clare station. It looks like the majority of bins are facing the tracks, but maybe a couple do have their backs to the tracks. Hard to see (bottom right of the photo). It might be that the wagons are discharged into the ones backing the track and the coal is then barrowed across to the other larger bins. There seemed to be a lot of manual labour involved in handling coal in the steam age.

Disused Stations: Clare Station

Rik

 

[trammayo]

The only way to get the coal out of the truck was to shovel it. The trucks had to be emptied within three days or demurrage would be applied which cost money. Stockpiling was usually undertaken in the summer as a little less coal was consumed. One has to remember that, apart from heating the room, burning coal provided hot water and cooking/oven heat. It was all mandraulic!

 

[ge_rik]

After some extensive searching on the Disused Stations website - I think I've found one picture which (might) show coal bins with their backs to the tracks. Uxbridge. Otherwise the way coal was stored at stations seems to have been fairly ad hoc.

 

[Paul M]

Isn't it a classic case of "there's a prototype for everything"?

 

[SophieB]

Hmm... all I’ve seen is charcoal, which is somewhat woody. I’ll keep my eyes open. Of course, I’ve got a gas barbie so never thought of that!

Try looking in pet supply stores. I've always used the charcoal they sell for fish tank/aquarium filters.

 

[dunnyrail]

I did say that both ways of locating Coal Bins were appropriate and wish that I could find the Articles on the subject published many moons ago in a Magazine ‘possibly’ the Railway Modeller that showed examples of both. But as ever bothered are many ways of skinning a Rabbit or was it a Cat?

 

[Paul M]

I did say that both ways of locating Coal Bins were appropriate and wish that I could find the Articles on the subject published many moons ago in a Magazine ‘possibly’ the Railway Modeller that showed examples of both. But as ever bothered are many ways of skinning a Rabbit or was it a Cat?

IThat's was Railway Modeller, either last year or the year before. They concluded that put them where you want, there isn't a set position.

 

[ge_rik]

The only way to get the coal out of the truck was to shovel it. The trucks had to be emptied within three days or demurrage would be applied which cost money. Stockpiling was usually undertaken in the summer as a little less coal was consumed. One has to remember that, apart from heating the room, burning coal provided hot water and cooking/oven heat. It was all mandraulic!

Interesting to see on the W&LLR video that they've supported the wagon door on trestles and are shovelling straight into the back of a lorry. Cutting out the middle man.

Rik