PART TWO TOWERS OF STRENGTH

WHETHER wagon-hoist or skip-hoist forms of operation were preferable for ferro-concrete coaling towers was a debate that occupied engineers for a considerable time.

The wagon versions used large amounts of electricity in bodily lifting heavy weights to heights of 60ft or more and it was often found cheaper to empty the wagon into a tippler at ground level and raise a skip instead, even if that container held as much as 20 tons.

The skip method also had the advantage that the operator didn’t have to climb by ladder to the top of the tower should a wagon need inspecting to ensure its contents had fully emptied. With a ground-level tippler, it was also easier if large foreign objects, such as loose timber wagon planks or metal bars, had accidentally found their way into a main line wagon, perhaps at a colliery, for they would jam the mechanism at ground level and could thus be more safely removed.

There was also a lower risk of small objects falling out unnoticed and ending up buried in a loco’s tender if the contents of full wagons were not first inspected (which was impractical of course). In one celebrated incident at Doncaster in the 1940s, a wagon containing loaded oil drums was tipped into the top of the tower by an unsuspecting operator. When the next load of coal was dropped, the drums burst, sending hundreds of gallons of sticky liquid into the 40ft deep hopper and putting the plant out of action until it was cleaned up.

Valuable

Even in day-to-day operation, there was a tendency for small amounts of lubricating oil to leak out of axleboxes while the wagons were inverted. At some depots, this was considered