Mineral wagon top doors

[Richard Phillips]

I'm asking this question here because I've been asked a few times and never heard or found an answer that I thought convincing! The question is:

Just what were top flap (or "London traders") doors on mineral wagons for?

I speculate that they were just for ease of unloading without having to cut through the whole side to weaken it with one large side door, or that maybe it was for lining up to 5 plank staging heights, but, does anyone know the answer?

[Keith1500]

just throwing in my thoughts here (i.e. I dont know the answer either)

The lifting plank would certainly make unloading easier, particularly if you were having to move on and off the wagon during the process. Having a larger door would not have been allowed as if in the open state it would have fouled line side equipment.

The answer must lie in a practice existing in London - "london traders" Was this how London coal yards dealt with the unloading of coal. Did they put it directly in to coal sacks and then pass it from wagon to cart, in which case a lifting plank would have been most useful!

[Dave Noble]

I believe a London Traders door was a wooden wagon fitted with a top flap. The door was one plank less in height than the side sheeting, and the top flap (which was one plank wide) was hinged at one end. When closed, the loose end fitted into guides to maintain it's alignement, when open, it laid along the top of the wagon. There are photos in the Gloucester book, and Dave Capel has modelled one. In use it made unloading coal easier. It was not uncommon to prop the door open (so that it was horizontal) with a length of wood. A set of scales was placed on the ground by the door, and the coal could then be shovelled out of the doorway, onto the door, and then into the bag on the scales. Far easier than trying to work it out under the top through planks of the more usual 7 plank wagon.

However, I suspect the questionmay relate to the top flap on 16ton steel mineral wagons. I'm afraid I have no idea what that was for, when open there was still a bar across the top of the doorway so that unloading would not have been any easier. There must have been a very good reason for it because the amount of extra work in construction would have been appreciable.

[Paul]

I have just found these two postings on another website, looks like other people believe Dave's explanation of the London Traders door is the reason for the top door on the 16t!

Top Doors on Steel Mineral Wagons

These were specifically titled either ‘London traders’ or ‘London merchants’ doors. The received wisdom is that they relate to a London labour rate relating to the height coal had to be lifted during handling operations. Were they ever used and if so how? Or was this fitting incorporated simply to secure a cheaper labour rate by reducing the lift height, but rarely, if ever, used in practise? It would be interesting to know more.

What I, and doubtless millions of others, must have seen in the final years of the rail borne house coal trade, followed this pattern. A flat bed road truck or trailer was backed up close to loaded wagon, the wagon door dropped onto the flat bed, and propped roughly level. A steelyard or spring weighing machine was set up on the flat bed, and a couple of the merchant’s employees then filled the delivery sacks, stacking them at the front of the flat bed. Another flat bed truck might park alongside, and receive its’ load from the truck being used as the bagging and weighing platform.

The distinctive dress of the chaps involved in this very rough work is worthy of note. Where do we suppose the heavy leather aprons and distinctive cap with an enormous flap which lay on the shoulders were purchased? Living near London, I would imagine there will have been specialist suppliers of work wear associated with the docks in particular. Is there any knowledge of this amongst the readers?

Paul Jansz

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It is interesting that Brian Macdermott’s ex-coalman could not give a definitive answer on the ‘top flaps’. There seems little doubt that they were there simply to allow a man with a shovel to move more easily into and out of the wagon while manually unloading it. An example that confirms this is here http://www.lnwrs.org.uk/Wagons/coal/Diag054.php, which, in this case, is a hinged top plank rather than the later ‘cupboard doors’ but both had the same purpose. In the case of the numerous small coal merchants that existed until the 1950s/1960s era of the last century, then this unrestricted access would have included dragging sacks of coal from the wagon to their cart or lorry.

The most complete source of how coal was handled is probably this one http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gansg/8-yards/y-coal.htm. Incidentally both this source and others confirm that coal merchants dealing with bagged domestic coal would not normally allow coal to fall on the ground before bagging it. Partly because it just made a pretty hard and dirty job even harder and even dirtier, and there would be losses where lost coal = lost money. Also, domestic customers would complain if their coal was contaminated with goods yard detritus and, more than that, weights and measures inspectors frowned on coal bags containing anything other than coal. So, coal merchants would use loading banks if they were available, such as here http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrc12b.htm - note the sheets of wood used to contain spillage. In the absence of a loading bank then a flat bed cart of lorry was an excellent substitute, either parked alongside a coal wagon or backed onto it end on. If you look at the left of this picture you can see this here http://www.flickr.com/photos/loose_grip_99/2069606544/ which seems to be quite a late example if the date is correct.

Colin Hume

Looks like there is still no substantiated answer, so the mystery continues! Hope its interesting reading!

Paul

[Paul]

Here's the next installment of the steel top door debate!

Is This the Coal Clue We've Been Looking For?

We have recently been discussing the reason for 'London Trader's Top Flaps' on 16-ton steel mineral wagons.

The first part of a two-part article on coal trains appears in the current issue of Model Rail and deals with pre-Nationalisation. The author alludes to wooden wagons having a drop down top flap which enabled London traders personnel to place walkways across wagons in closely spaced sets of sidings to save then walking up and down the ranks of wagons.

Sounds feasible. We'll see what the author says in part two. If it doesn't give us any further information, I'll contact him via the magazine.

Brian Macdermott

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Re the coal clue you are looking for, it does seem to me that there is a problem in the whole discussion; namely that the purpose why the top doors were originally fitted and the subsequent use or uses made of them may not coincide - a sort of "history of unintended consequences". Also, we may be looking for a single overall solution to a question which actually has a range of potential answers, differing between all sorts of locations.

A salient consideration is that opening top flaps were not, as far as I am aware, a feature of RCH wagon specifications from 1887 onwards. Southern 7-plank wagons had "cupboard" type doors above the main side doors, as did the slightly larger LSWR types from which they were probably derived; but they seem to be for merchandise as well as mineral traffic. Moreover the top flap doors seem to have given way to just a reduced-height plank by the early twentieth century. All of this suggests a wide diversity of practice across the country, so there may just not be a single answer to our question.

Moreover, the photographs which correspondents have cited all show wagons part-unloaded; to the point where it is possible to stand inside and shovel or otherwise unload the coal out through a side door, often propped to form a platform. My question remains how the unloading was done to reach this point, i.e. what was done first of all to a loaded wagon on arrival?

Unless someone can show otherwise ...

Neil Burgess

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Those readers with a copy of Colin Gifford's And Gone Forever might care to look at photo 211. This is Bidston, not London, and the top door flaps are open. Unfortunately, the position of the main door cannot be seen, but it is probably on the flatbed lorry parked alongside. Then look at picture 214!

John East

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I am doubtful that we yet have a definitive explanation of the history and use of these top flaps, despite the further postings on this subject. It might help if I summarise what we have to date:

1. English wooden mineral wagons (whether company-owned or privately-owned) traditionally had a through top plank for strength and a drop door below this. But some used for coal traffic had the so-called 'London Traders’ top flap' in the top plank, i.e. either a hinged plank which would lift vertically or a pair of outward-opening ‘cupboard doors’. In either case, the side would then be fully open and unobstructed in the doorway area when the flaps were also open.

2. Many types of steel-bodied BR-built mineral wagons had a drop flap above the side door but there was a horizontal strengthening bar between them. So, when the door was open and the flap was down, the opening remained obstructed by this bar.

3. It is suggested that the flaps were introduced to reduce the height to which a coalman had to raise the coal when shovelling ‘over the side’ (and thereby suppress his labour rate). If so, the wagon owner was put to a fairly significant extra expense in building a weaker wagon body whilst potentially saving on labour costs and one must question the economics – particularly post-Nationalisation. But a bigger objection seems to be that wagons were not normally emptied (let alone loaded) in this way, in which case the ‘shovelling height’ is seemingly irrelevant.

4. If the object of the flaps was to give the coalman an unobstructed doorway whilst working on the wagon (with no need to duck when going in or out), this was achieved with a wooden wagon but clearly not with a steel one.

5. The Model Rail article now suggests that the flaps enabled walkways to be put across between wagons in closely-spaced (London?) sidings. I’m sorry but I don’t buy that idea. The presence of a flap gives no obvious advantage to the placing or use of a walkway (plank) that could not be achieved by placing it on top of the wagon side proper. And how would the system work without support in the unobstructed doorway on a wooden wagon or when two adjacent wagons were not standing closely in line? I have read elsewhere that coalmen used plank ramps and barrows to empty wagons and it is possible that the plank was more secure and usefully lower if placed above the (closed) side door but with the flaps open, but that seems more like a side-benefit than the true reason.

I think that our researches and speculation must continue for a while longer! As an aside, a coal merchant would not normally use a steelyard to weigh coal into sacks, as suggested by Paul Jansz. A steelyard is quite delicate and intended for simple static weighing; it will easily come off its supports if subjected to the shock of coal being shovelled into a sack on its platform. Spring scales are the usual equipment, often automatic in that, when the scoop is filled to the set weight, it will tip and empty into the open sack.

Nick Stanbury

It would therefore appear that the answer is still to be discovered and it is not just us fellow model engineers that are confused. The quest for knowledge continues and I will try keep you updated as and when further information is shared!

Paul

[Paul]

Time for the next update!

I'm with Nick Stanbury in not buying the idea of a 'London Flap' being provided to put planks between wagons. My first question would be: why should anyone want to put planks across in the first place? The only place where sidings were close together was where wagons were stabled - they had to have a reasonable interval between them to allow unloading unless bottom discharge was used and if anyone wanted to know what was in a wagon they need only look at the label - on the solebar.

So maybe planks were used to make shortcuts across sidings in the way suggested by that hardly lends itself as a reason for constructing a wagon in a particular way. I have also done a spot of delving back in rule books and, while lots of things are mentioned before shunting commences, there is no mention of planks between wagons - which suggests that, if it did happen, it was very unofficial and sufficiently uncommon to have never resulted in an accident. So, I too will be interested to hear more.

Mike Romans

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At last, a definitive answer to the reason for 'London Trader's Top Flaps' on 16-ton steel mineral wagons, or is it?

Quote from Hansard for 18 December 1947:

"Mr Sharp asked the Minister of Transport what is the additional cost and weight of the 16 tons steel mineral wagon caused by the provision of top flap door now required by his Department; and why this is now deemed essential.

Mr Barnes replied that the additional cost is £6 a wagon and the extra weight 1 cwt. The doors are being fitted at the request of the Chamber of Coal Traders in order to reduce strain on men engaged in unloading."

So how did they reduce strain? I note that these top flaps were fitted to the BR 16T, 21T and 24.5T steel wagons and earlier variants. In the case of the 21T, the first series produced around 1950 did not have the flaps. There was a second series designed in 1961 and produced until 1963. The second series had vacuum brakes, roller bearings and...top flaps. The 24.5 tonner, at 9 feet 10 inches high, was taller than the other wagons. It had top flaps, and these are much larger than on the other two wagons. This was because the size of the side door, and the reinforcing bar above it, seems to be in more or less the same position as the smaller capacity wagons.

There is a photograph of the 24.5T wagon here http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p3171461.html which can be compared to the 16T at http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p52653360.html.

Photographs of these wagons being unloaded show that the flap is at about head level, and this I think is the clue to what the top flap doors were for. They were there so that once they could be dropped, a person standing in the wagon could then see out without stooping to look out from under the side door, or by standing on the load. This idea is reinforced by the existence of a 1965 report which noted that coal wagons were being delivered to around 20,000 coal merchants at that time, and that most were small organisations where the normal method of unloading was by hand with two man teams. Hand unloading of wagons declined after the mid-1960s with the introduction of coal concentration depots, and the decline in the use of coal as a domestic fuel. British railways started to re-body its steel mineral wagon fleet from the 1970s onward, and none of the re-bodied wagons included the top flaps.

Colin Hume

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Re unloading coal, I use to do this once a month when I was lampman in the Shirebrook area. At that time, we had 17 signal boxes to cover for lamping. What we use to do was drop main door then throw coal out, I could work from both left and right sides of the door.

Kevin Mulhall

[Dave Noble]

I don't buy that.

If you look at the simple mechanics of it, the 16 ton wagon has sides just short of 5 feet high. That means that a man 5 foot 6 tall could look over the side quite easily if he had to, though I'm not sure why he would need to.

Kevin says that with the top flap open "a person standing in the wagon could then see out without stooping to look out from under the side door". Admittedly I've never had to empty coal out of a wagon, but whenever you are shovelling you always try to work from a flat, solid floor. That means that you would, for most of the time, be shovelling off the wagon floor, and you could only do that from a stooping position, so that looking out through the door would not be a problem.

Keep trying.

Dave.

[Dave Noble]

Just an observation, but on the 24 1/2 tonner, the top flaps are so deep that when open they would partially obstruct the lower door opening. This implies that the size of the door opening was (at some point) less important than the benefit of an open top flap!

A thought. If the bottom door was, say, 3 feet high, then you would have to stand at least 3 feet away from it when you knocked the door fasteners up to open it, to make sure it didn't hit you. Could it be that with a full load of coal pushing on the door, that it was very difficult to knock the catches up, but by opening the top flap and partially emptying the wagon, the load would be reduced so that the job would be not only easier, but less likely to bury the worker in coal. This would apply even more to the higher 24 1/2 tonner.

Dave.

[Richard Phillips]

There does seem to be a "standardised" lower door size, so in the 24.5 tonner there was no choice but to make the top door deeper (or the separating portion wider), and I doubt a tiny flap on the 24.5 tonner would really have been much use... but then again it seems like that on a 16 tonner, unless it allows someone manually unloading access to dig behind the door and release some pressure on it as Dave suggests.

Maybe the lower door size was set by the fact it would potentially foul the next running line (realising a wagon is out of gauge with a door open)?

The 24 tonners would have been unlikely wagons to see in a coal merchant's siding I would have thought, being more often seen on power station traffic I suspect and probably not unloaded manually. I'm further puzzled why the BR 21 tonners first produced didn't have top doors and then did in a later lot, unless they were following the GWR rivetted design adapted to the BR/LMS pattern mineral wagon construction and "the Chamber of Coal Traders" had something to say about the design without top doors.

Then, the 16 ton rebodies dispensed with this door and then was it the rebodied 21 tonners that only had one side door?!

[Paul]

The suggestion of using the top flap to partially empty the coal sounds logical to me, especially from the safety aspect. After all you wouldn't want to dodge the side door with the weight of the coal behind it or the couple of ton's of coal that would likely follow the door! Maybe the side door had to clear of coal before opening?

Just a thought but wouldn't the doors on the 24 1/2 tonners have been determined because of the standards first established for the hight of the top flap? Again lending itself to the argument that strengthening plate was set at that hight to enable easier unloading of the coal by hand?

Additionally would the strengthening plate (or angle) had been designed with the protection of the wagon side in mind for loading and unloading? Or was it purely to add stability to the wagon sides?

[Dave Harris]

The current discussion regarding the removeable top planks over the side doors on mineral wagons prompted me to talk to friends in the model railway fraternity who are also historical researchers. Their belief(without concrete documentary evedence however) is that the inclusion of the 'top doors' on mineral wagons was at the request of The Chamber of Coal traders (london) and/or the Coal Factors Society (london) whose members were always looking for the fastest way to unload such wagons and get them away to the colliery for another load, and, if required take a load of general mechandise back to the coal producing areas. The inclusion of the top doors, whilst weakening the wagon structure made unloading coal much easier and also assisted in the use of the wagon for carrying general mechandise on what would otherwise been an 'empty' run. As one friend put it - 'typical londoners, always looking to make a penny or pound!'

[Dave Harris]

Further to my last post I have done some further research with the following results.
Having dug out some old papers from the BRHSG...British Rail Historical Study Group, I came across a paper written by Trevor Mann, one of the leading wagon historians/researchers.
Trevor contends that the conversion of RCH design coal wagons was undertaken during the Second World War because more general mechandise wagons were required, and that due to the pooling of wagons there was a surplus of coal wagons. Hence RCH design 8 plank wagons had their top 3 planks modified and the 7 plank wagons had their top 2 planks modified. This was done to provide some extra general merchandise wagons and some 100'LMS' wagons were converted along with some 200 'LNER' wagons.There is photographic eveidence held by Trevor that at least one Private Owner wagon was so modified; so it would appear that the LMS and LNER took the first wagons which came into the wagon repair shops and undertook the modification, irrespective of ownership of the wagons.
The above information appears in 'British Railways Goods Wagons' by Essery, Rowland & steel, published in 1970.
I also located a comment in 'An Illustrated history of Southern Wagons, Vol 4' by Bixley, Blackburn, Chorley and King, concerning the Southern Railway 12Ton Open Goods Wagons, that some 250 wagons had thier doors modified to the so-called 'traders Door'. This featured a tapered top plank which, when dropped on a platform, made it much easier to push a sack truck or trolley over the door. He says that the 'traders door' appears to have originated on the LNER but was adopted by all four post-grouping companies. Whilst the overall strength of the wagon would obviously be reduced it would certainly make for a more versatile wagon and given the comments by Mann and Casserly I would tend to believe their explanations as the only wagons which had this type of door included in an original design appear to be the 10/12 opens of the Southern Railway, many of which were rebuilds of wagons from the pre-groupng companies absorbed by the Southern Railway in 1923........ So it would appear that the term 'London Traders' may be somewhat misleading? Any further information would be of interest.

[Dave Harris]

Having re-read Dave's posts I have done some further 'digging' and unearthed a very comprehensive article by Peter Fidczuk which appeared in 'Modellers Backtrack' in early 1991, which covered in detail all the detail variations of the pre-war , wartime and post war 16ton steel mineral wagon designs.
In the article Peter says that in 1947 representations were made to the REC and MOT by the Chamber of Coal traders who complained that the height of the new steel mineral wagons was placing additional strain on their workforce during unloading. Apparently the LNER, LMS and MOT diagram 1/102 and 1/103 designs were approximately 3inches higher than the RCH 1923 wooden mineral wagon. Accordingly the MOT designs were reworked in include a top flap door which reduced the unloading height. two new deigns were prepared: the welded body became diagram 1/104 and the rivetted body became diagram 1/105. Peter goes on to say that whilst prior to 1939 many wooden coal wagons also had top doors, usually of the swing type, the reason for these doors was not a consideration for the health and wellbeing of workers loading and unloading wagons, but more to do with the payment of additional wages if the unloading height exceeded a certain height. Perhaps Peter's article answers the original question?

[Dave Noble]

Well done to Dave Harris for finding the article, but I struggle to believe that the top flaps were to reduce the unloading height.

Two things come to mind, firstly, imagine doing the job yourself. You've emptied the coal from the middle of the wagon, and there's the stuff left at the other side and the ends, do you carry every shovelfull over to the flap in the middle of the wagon to save lifting it another 3 inches, or just thow it over the top where you are? And secondly, why would it be emptied over the top anyway when there is a door in the side. Open the door and a good proportion of the load would just fall out, the rest could then be "bulldozed" out with a shovel, much, much easier than lifting it.

I'm sure we're still missing something.

[Dave Harris]

Good questions Dave! Looks like we all have some more 'digging' to do! Incidently, today I was looking through 'Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company' - 'A Century of Achievement', in which is a picture of a welded body 16Ton Mineral wagon, photgraphed when new at BRCW in 1958, complete with top door/flap. So these 'useful' top doors/flaps were still being perpetuated at this late date!

[Dave Harris]

Having made further enquiries through the HMRS stewards, whilst no 'concrete' evidence is available the concencus of opinion is that the doors intially followed the 'design' of some 12 tonn 'RCH' wooden bodied wagons. The accepeted reason being that coal merchants were looking for ways to make hand unloading easier, much as i inferred in my earlier post regarding extra payment to staff who were unloading over the top rail of a fixed top plank wagon, despite the fact that the incorporation of these doors severely weakened the wagon structure
I have also seen a couple of photos of these wagons being unloaded by use of a tipping mechanism and the comment made under the photos was that the main side doors were primaraly inteneded to used for this purpose. looking closely at the side doors it is evedent that if staff wished to release the door then they woud either have to stand in the wagon on top of its load and try to pull up the wedges holding the door shut, or risk injury to themselves by knocking the pegs upwards from outside the wagon which would mean the sudden and uncontrolled exit of several tons of coal onto the floor and possibly themselves when the door suddenly dropped, dangerous to say the least! The concencous would appear to be that manual unloading from inside the wagon took place until sufficent coal had been removed to allow the main door to opened in relative safety and that towards that end, maual unloading by the use of the top flap, allowed as suggested before,less height for shovelling coal out of the wagon and avoided special payments to staff. I realise this is not a 'definitive' answer, but feel that having checked with HMRS stewards that it is probably the most likely reason for the doors, and that BR followed the RCH design initially, with the 'modification' of the contineous top bar until it was proved that the doors were in fact a waste of time and certainly more expensive than a 'solid' walled wagon.

[Dave Harris]

Having dug out yet more books from the cupboard, I have been looking at Vol 2 of Keith Turton's private owners wagons book series. In that Keith says he used to work in the local coal merchants just after the war and that wagons were unloaded by hand.This procedure consisted of throwing shovel loads of coal over the top of the wagon, and was made easier if the top plank(s) were possible to open.This procedure was continued until sufficent coal had been removed from the central area of the wagon for the main door to be opened safely. The remaining coal being emptied through the main door after this. I therefore feel that the answer I got earlier re coal merchants not wishing to pay extra wages for 'over height' unloading is correct and that whilst weakening the wagon design this 'modification was undertaken to save on wages and to a degree make initial unloading a little easier. BR seemed to have pepetuated the 'design' on the 16 ton steel minerals until realising that it cost more to build the wagons like this and little being gained from the modification, especially with mechanical unloading methods becoming available, they stopped producing such wagons and even had the top flaps on the early series welded shut. Hope this answers the original question?

[Richard Phillips]

Certainly seems the most rational explanation. A perpetuation of a dated design practice relating to manual unloading that became obsolete as manual handling in the coal trade died out.

[jim worner]

Not strictly on topic, but I used to live beside a coal merchants yard on the Wrington branch of the old GWR. On leave from my RAF apprenticeship in 1957 I did empty a waggon for pocket money. A flatbed was parked tail on to the waggon, the side door unlatched (great crash!), scales put on and I was left to get on with bagging the coal. I loaded 2 lorries in the day. However the waggon did not have the top door, so they were not universal.