Tony Brewis wrote:
>This was a coal merchanting company set up in London
>in the 1880s by my grandfather. In hindsight, it was amazing how
>often one could see a Tyne Main truck in a goods train in south
>east Lancashire - usually never more than one per train of fifty or
>so wagons. I was just wondering how far afield any individual
>company's trucks tended to wander. Goods trains in the late
>1930s and 1940s seemed mostly to be a random mix of different
>company's trucks.
Was Tyne Main actually a merchanting company (ie retail), or was it a coal
factoring business (wholesale)? Factors wagons would have been far more
widespread, whereas the average merchant's wagons would have been confined
to journeys between their home depot and the colliery that was his main
supplier - often one of the nearest! Factors' wagons would likely have
loaded at several collieries (for different types of coal) and could have
travelled anywhere - though in reality most factors concentrated on the
area(s) in which they were based. Wagons of the really big factoring
companies (Stephenson Clarke, Charrington, etc) could literally turn up
anywhere.
From Sept 1939 all PO coal wagons were pooled and became common user, like
the railway company vehicles, so trains would indeed have been a purely
random selection.
I do not seem to have a photo of a Tyne Main wagon, but a sketch of a wagon
refers to "The Tyne Main Coal Coy, London, No.551". Did the company have a
retail depot?
Richard Kelham
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