Iain Wright asks how coal wagons were loaded at collieries in
Nottinghamshire at the turn of the century.  I don't know about that, 
but I can tell you how they were loaded at the Cadley Hill colliery 
in South Derbyshire when I worked there as a vacation student 
in 1950.

The colliery had a series of screens spanning over the width of, 
and at right angles to, three parallel railway sidings. These
reciprocating screens were operated by a twin-cylinder steam
engine. The finest coal fell through the first screen, the coarsest coal
through the last. Each size fraction fell through a shallow chute onto
a rubber conveyor belt, there being one conveyor over each of the
railway sidings. 

The conveyors were picking belts, manned by older men whose
undeground days were over. They would pick off any lumps of shale
and toss them into smal rail-mounted tubs at their sides, which were
pushed to the weighbridge to be weighed at theend of each shift.. 
The picking section of the belt ran horizontally, and then came a 
section which was pivotted, so it could hinge downwards

The frame holding this was held up at its far end by a steel rope, the
upper end of which passed round an axle. One end of the axle was
in an eccentric bearing, the position of which was controlled by a lever
which could be pinned in various positions. 

In one position, a pulley on the end of the axle was brought into contact
with another pulley on some line shafting. This friction drive was
sufficient
to cause the rope to wind round the shaft and the end of the conveyor 
to be raised. Using this means, it could be lifted up almost to the same 
horizon as the picking section of the belt.

In another position of the eccentric, the pulley on the axle was disengaged
from the line-shaft pulley, but brought into contact with a brake shoe. By 
holding the controlling lever with just the right pressure, the man could
control the rate at which the end of the conveyor descended. 

Once the end of the conveyor was fully descended, the man could lean
harder on the lever and thus, using the full force of the brake, lock the 
conveyor in position.

Each morning, a locomotive would bring a train of empty wagons and 
take them up the inclind track to a single siding beyond the screening/
picking belt shed. Then the engine would depart, and the trucks would 
be held by a rope on a stationary winch. As required, wagons could be 
detached one at a time and allowed to roll down by gravity and be 
diverted to one or other of the sidings under the picking belts, the wagons

being manually braked by the siding man.

Once the siding man had placed a wagon under the end of the conveyor,
the conveyor man would lower the end of the conveyor into the wagon, 
almost touching the bottom, so the coal had only a small distance to fall
off the end of the belt. This was important, as the coal had been sized
and its price depended on meeting a guaranteed size spectrum. Added 
breakage on delivering it to the railway wagon had to be minimized.

As the wagon filled up (i) the conveyor man gradually raised the end of
the belt, while (ii) the siding man gradually let the wagon roll further
down 
the track. Both were kept particularly busy when one waggon was filled 
and loading had to be transferred to the next wagon.

On that vacation I also spent some time at the neighbouring Bretby No 3
colliery, and a similar system was in use there. Here, an added hazard 
was that the branch line over which the empty wagons were brought in 
the morning ran over ground which was on fire. Three old men were 
employed to walk the track in the morning and spread sand over any 
charred sleepers, so the engine driver would not see what a  bad state 
the track was in -- otherwise,  the manager said, "He would never bring 
us the empties we need for the day's production".

In an effort to seal the underground fires, truckloads of discarded bran
mash
were brought by lorry from Ind Coope and Allsopp's breweries in nearby 
Burton on Trent and tipped over the ground. This became so hot that, if
 you thrust your hand down into it. you dare not go more than wrist deep, 
for fear of having your fingers burnt!

Somewhere, I have my drawing of the site layout at Cadley Hill, but film 
was scarce in those days, and sadly I have no photographs.

Tony Brewis


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