It is a Bank Holiday Monday in the UK but I have been working in Trainz down at Pontefract Baghill.
The NERA Express magazine from August 1962 has a useful article by E.G. Marsden OBE, who I doubt is still with us, since his recollections are of the 1920s at Pontefract.
Part of the article deals with coal.
There were two long sidings to the south of the station off the goods yard on the down side of the line.
E.G. Marsden explained what they were for, coal trains.
A Raven T2 Class 0-8-0 runs around its 500 ton load at Pontefract Baghill.
According to the article, the maximum permitted load for an 8-coupled T Class engines on Class C goods workings was 1,125 tons.
That fell to 1,000 tons for a Class B goods working and fell even more if the workings were by P2 or P3 six-coupled engines, to 925 tons and 805 tons respectively.
Unfortunately, the limit between Grimethorpe, Hickleton and South Kirkby collieries to Pontefract on the joint M.R.-N.E.R. Swinton & Knottingly line was only 715 tons behind a T Class engine on a Class C goods working and 650 tons on a Class B goods working. (555 tons and 500 tons for the P2/P3).
This meant that the Selby crew would run past with the empties on the up train and then return from the collieries tender first with part of the 1,125 tons which would run onwards from Pontefract.
They would deposit this load in the reception sidings and then head back to the collieries to collect the remaining balance.
Upon return to Pontefract with this load, the next job was to join them together and then depart for Gascoigne Wood concentration sidings.
However, some trains went on through Selby to the docks at Hull, where the coal would be shipped out.
After uncoupling the brake van, turning on the turntable in the station yard and connecting up the two trainloads, the T2 draws the fifty-nine P4 10 1/2 ton coal hoppers forwards on to the main line.
The Brake van sits on one of the two down goods yard loops and the end of the train can just about be made out in the background.
This is what that trainload would have looked like to the intrepid aviator back in 1922.
Pontefract South Signal Box in the foreground across from the goods shed.
After collecting the Diagram V3 six-wheel 20 ton brake van from the loop and placing it on the rear of the train, the T2 gets away past Pontefract Junction Signal Box with the 1,125 ton load.
The station at Pontefract was just about able to deal with this traffic in terms of the number and length of sidings, loops and standage.
I have had to tweak it a little to cope with Trainz and its foibles but the shape and flavour of the station are fully evident.
My work on this session will continue as it took 47 minutes to accomplish, which would have had the traffic fellows in a fury.
Luckily, there seem to be no down trains coming through but somewhere I will have to account for the morning pick-up goods out of Milford and what traffic that left at the station.
According to the RCTS, it was the opening of the collieries alongside the Joint S&K line which sparked the building of the T Class/T1 Class 0-8-0s.
Coal was king.
E.G. Marsden wrote back in 1962 that the North Eastern would send its engines to the ends of the earth to collect coal wagons.
Thanks for your article E.G. and I will raise a glass to you and your memory tonight.
Now I might have to ask Paul to supply me with a Selby-based T2......
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K3 at Wapping Bridge 27.5.24 by A1 Northeastern, on Flickr
