Mineral Wagons
Coal and other minerals represent the major revenue earner for the railways of the UK, and many lines were built with the specific intention of tapping mines and quarries.Unlike open wagons for general merchandise, the railway companies were not obliged to provide wagons to carry coal, and therefore many owners of mines, dealers and local coal merchants bought or hired their own fleets of wagons, and paid fees to the companies to haul them. The wagons gradually increased in capacity, from 6 tons at the dawn of railways, to 16 tons in the late 1940s, and then larger 21 and 24 ton capacity wagons as well. Some railways promoted the use of hopper wagons, but most favoured a simple wooden or steel wagon with doors at the sides, and sometimes at one end or in the floor. Collieries tended to use wagons with all three types of door, so the coal could be tipped out of the end into ships holds for export, or shoveled out of the side, or dropped through the floor into chutes between the rails. Coal merchants tended to use wagons with side doors only, and often their fleets were much smaller and older than those of the collieries. There was very strict regulation of the designs and specifications of wagon that could be built and operated, governed by a collective body of the railway companies called the Railway Clearing House (RCH).
Early 6 and 8 ton coal wagons had sides made of only three or four wide planks, typically each 7 or 9 inches wide, and were about fifteen feet long. In the 1880s 10 ton wagons began to be built, and 12 tons wagons in the 1900s, but there was a strict overall limit on the laden weight, hence some wagon manufacturers began to try out experimental types such as the Butterley Patent Wagon. By the 1930s new coal wagons were all 12 ton capacity, 16 feet 6 inches in length and with high sided bodies of seven or eight planks. Some also had additional planks to carry coke, which has more bulk per ton. Wagons on specific flows of coal for industry were sometimes built without any doors at all, and emptied by inversion on a "tippler".
Many owners tried to build their coal wagons as cheaply as possible, as they were not faced with the problem of operating them, and the RCH gradually forced the abolition of features such as unsprung wooden buffers (illegal by 1913), and grease lubicated bearings that froze solid in cold weather. There were also many accidents caused by the collapse of coal wagons in trains due to poor maintenance, and so many rules were introduced to force better standards. But it was only in the 1960s that coal trains began to operate with vacuum brakes.
At Foxfield can be seen probably the best representative selection of coal wagons from the 1900s to the 1960s, encompassing some rare surviving examples of once common designs. In approximate historical order they are:
Private
Owner 12 ton coal wagon (RCH 1907 design), number NCB151
GWR 12 ton china clay wagon, last number
NCB293
Butterley Co 12 ton patent steel mineral
wagon, last number SIS 615
Central Electricity Generating Board 20 ton
coal tippler wagon, number 23
LNER 20 ton Locomotive Coal wagon,
number E303255 / NCB20
BR 16 ton Mineral Wagons, numbers
B29551, B594225, B568839, etc (and three unknown)
BR
27 Ton iron ore tippler wagon B386369
Shelton 12 ton Loco sand wagon,
formerly 12/13 ton coal wagon (RCH 1923 design), SIS number 202
National Coal Board 12 ton tippler coal wagon,
number 2
