Oil / Petrol tank wagons

[Andy873]

Hi,

I'm trying to work out a couple of things.

Up to say around 1951, how common was it to transport oil / petrol across the country by rail. I'm asking this as I'm looking a railway station yard (Great Harwood, Lancs), out of the yard there was a set of rails entering the gas works on the opposite side of the road.

Coke was indeed needed by the gas works, but also oil or petrol as this was mixed with the town gas to make it burn better.

In 1947, I know over the winter months, the gas works took delivery of around 180,000 gallons of oil / petrol.

So my questions are:

1. How common was it to transport oil / petrol across the country by rail?
2. How much (in gallons) could a single tank wagon hold e.g 2,000 or 3,000 around 1947 - 1951?

Any help would be great!

Thanks,
Andy.

 

[30907]

Never thought of that traffic!
1. Pretty common.
2. A random Google suggests wagons of that period might be 4000gal/14t.

 

[d9009alycidon]

So larger gasworks also had outgoing traffic in the form of Tar which was a by-product of the gas production. Some wagons had rectangular tanks and some were more like the normal cylindrical type tank wagons.

Jim

 

[eastdyke]

As is sometimes the case, the modelling community has information that is easier to find for historical questions.
There is a summary of tank wagons used on British Railways on the 'Goods and Not So Goods -
An overview of railway freight operations for modellers (from around 1830 to about 2010)' website resource.
Here:
https://www.igg.org.uk/rail/4-rstock/5-tank.htm

As to Gas Works of the period (immediate post war) the main use of the rail connection would be for the primary feedstock - coal. Coke is a by-product, a part of which would be burnt to heat the retorts (almost certainly horizontal retorts) and the remainder sold generally locally but some could have gone out by rail.
Other by-products would include naptha, a mixture of flammable liquid hydrocarbons.

There is a film (actually 2 films) of the history of nearby Clitheroe Gas Works which would likely have had similarities with the works at Great Harwood:

I am struggling with the fact that the gas works itself might have used any of that petrol/oil for production. Perhaps there was a small fleet of lorries operated from the site or even an adjacent fuel depot?

Edited for spelling and syntax corrections.

 

[DelW]

Coke was indeed needed by the gas works, but also oil or petrol as this was mixed with the town gas to make it burn better.

I don't think you've got that quite right. Coke was produced by the gasworks, as a by-product of gas-making, and was sold as a (cleaner) fuel than coal. The main material going into the works would have been coal. Other by-products were also made, principally tar (coal tar) which was used in much the same way as bitumen is today, and would probably have been despatched in tank wagons. Because it came from coal not oil, tar wasn't softened by oil-derived fuel, and so was preferred for road-surfacing in places where petrol or diesel oil might be dropped or spilt. In the era you're referring to, I don't think there would have been significant amounts of oil going into gas-works, it was expensive and in short supply and I imagine would have been reserved for road transport use unless essential. In the 1960s my next-door neighbour worked at Swan Village gasworks in the West Midlands, but sadly he's no longer around to ask.

By the mid-late 1950s Tri-Ang model railways included model 4-wheel tank wagons in oil company liveries.

[sorry, Eastdyke covered some of that while I was typing]

 

[eastwestdivide]

A pretty definitive work on tank wagons is by R. Tourret: Petroleum Rail Tank Wagons of Britain

 

[krus_aragon]

The first pipeline infrastructure for transporting liquid fuel was built during the early phases of the Second World War, as a means of supplying aviation fuel to airbases. It was mothballed at the end of the war, but then brought back into use from the '50s onward, mainly for commercial use by refineries and storage depots.

On that basis, any commercial transportation of oil or petrol pre-1951 would have been by rail (or by road).

 

[eastdyke]

My apologies to the OP @Andy873. On reflection, it is possible that both coke and oil were feedstocks at Great Harwood. Although I have not been able to confirm this, the Works could have included a Water Gas Plant, along with the traditional production from coal. I had discounted a Water Gas Plant based on the fact that the Town has a modern population of around 11,000. Having seen pictures of relatively large gasholders, the works could have had a larger distribution area.
We had a Water Gas Plant at Ipswich, although rarely and reluctantly used in my short time there.
Details of Water Gas Production here:
http://www.eugris.info/newsdownloads/Water Gas Profile - Reading on screen updated.pdf

A profile of water gas plants, their history, design, development, application and the type of contaminants which may be associated with them. ........

 

[Andy873]

Thanks every one for your input, and no apologies needed! It's all very interesting.

This is what I found out about the Great Harwood gas works, my sources are from the National Grid, and Dr. Russell Thomas who's an expert on gas / history of gas.

Although Great Harwood is indeed a small town by population, it became the centre of operations for the Accrington gas and water board due to its geographical location and had 121 miles of gas pipes connecting it.

It was actually three plants in one, the traditional retorts (86 in total) for coal gas, a CWG (Carburetting water gas) plant, and a gas purifier plant.

The official returns from the Accrington gas and water board between 1938 and 1947 show no coal at all was bought by the company - so it wasn't making any traditional coal gas at this time. It does state that coke & oil was being bought for the CWG plant there.

The 1947 return shows 3,009 tons of coke & 181,301 gallons of oil was bought for use with the CWG plant.
Gas was also bought from the Oswaldtwistle Urban Council and coke gas from Altham coke ovens - and then purified / resold.
After late 1953, the CWG plant was closed leaving only the purifying plant in operation.

Coke and oil was bought / used when there was less gas available to buy, and was usually made over the winter months because that was the peak time for demand.

So now back to the railway side of things...

If 3,000 tons of coke & 180,000 (approx) were being delivered by rail over a period of say four months then we can work it out.
For the oil, if we assume each tank would hold 4,000 then we are talking about 45 tank wagons over 4 months (11.25 per month).

As for the coke, I don't know in tons what a single wagon could carry, 10 tons maybe?

Thanks,
Andy.

 

[DelW]

Hmm, I stand corrected - it looks like that was quite an unusual gas-works. Interesting history that you've uncovered there.

As for the coke, I don't know in tons what a single wagon could carry, 10 tons maybe?

I have a "density of stored materials" data sheet (photocopied years ago from an unknown engineering design textbook) which gives that of coke as 480 - 560 kg/m3, compared with coal in lumps at 900kg/m3. So if you have some wagon dimensions you could work out how full it would be to carry a given weight. Presumably a standard coal wagon used to carry coke might run out of space before it reached maximum weight.

 

[eastdyke]

@Andy873 Thank you for filling in all of the gas-side bits! Being from 'down south' coke oven gas was not on my radar!
Coke wagons may have been normal 7 plank types fitted with 'coke rails', usually a further 3 planks but with gaps to enable perhaps 14ton loads. Later coke might have been transported in 20 ton purpose built coke hopper wagons.

Have you come across any pictures of the Water Gas plant at the site?
Best regards,
ED

 

[Andy873]

@DelW No need for the red face, I was surprised myself how different this gas works was.

@eastdyke Thank you for the information about the coke wagons - interesting!

Unfortunately I don't have any photographs of the water gas plant.

What I can tell you is this:

1. The Lancashire & Yorkshire railway company gave notice that they wanted to lay rails from their goods yard across Heys Lane and into the gas works - London Gazette Issue 26682 - pages 6401 & onto page 6402 - publication date 22-11-1895.

2. The proposal was approved by Parliament - London Gazette Issue 26760 - page 4147 - publication date 21-07-1896.

Here is a link to the National Library of Scotland (view of Great Harwood around 1909 - 1911) - If you have never used this site then I urge you to have a look - just enter a place name and use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=53.7862&lon=-2.3954&layers=168&b=1

Also, the gazette, it gives a vast amount of official information on all railway companies (as well as many other things):
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-no...mberOfLocationSearches=1&results-page-size=10

A note using the gazette website:
Use official names to search - e.g. Lancashire and Yorkshire railway NOT Lancashire & Yorkshire railway OR L & Y railway.
I searched for Great Harwood loop line and found nothing - when I used North Lancashire loop line I found 19 entries.

These two sites are great for research - and free for personal use.

Andy.

 

[Andy873]

Also, just going back to one of my original questions - how common was it to transport oil / petrol - well just re-read that report by Beeching.
He says in 1961, 4.8 million tons of oil / petrol was transported by rail - although I don't know what that is in gallons.

 

[eastdyke]

A figure of 250 gallons per ton might be typical for a diesel fuel oil. More for petrol, less for crude.
So as an approximation 1,200 million gallons.

 

[DelW]

From the same source I used before, if I've done the conversions correctly, I get figures which work out to:

• diesel density 881kg/m3 = 254 gal/ton (very close to Eastdyke's value)
• paraffin density 801kg/m3 = 279 gal/ton
• petrol (max density) 769kg/m3 = 291 gal/ton
• petrol (min density) 689kg/m3 = 324 gal/ton

 

[mailbyrail]

Tourret's book says the very first tank wagon was built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Co in 1865 for Kurtz & Son of Liverpool to carry 7 tons of tar from gasworks to chemical plants - this was around 1,200 gallons. He illustrates and details tank wagons that were built subsequently and a small number were for tar distillers, these were almost all rectangular tanks rather than barrelled.

The sidings outside Orgreaves (and other Yorkshire) coking plants were full of steaming coke wagons in the 1970s - an amazing sight on a cold winter morning. The coke was off to Scunthorpe steel works so nothing to do with gas works but giving a clue to the traditional carriage of coke. Because it was much less dense than coal, wagon capacity was increased by having wooden planking ('raves') above the wagon sides giving a capacity of 20 tons - the TOPS code at the time was HCO.
A couple of websites covering coke carriage in BR times which might be of interest are:
http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/project_cokehops.html
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/7048-coke-traffic-on-br/

 

[Ken H]

A figure of 250 gallons per ton might be typical for a diesel fuel oil. More for petrol, less for crude.
So as an approximation 1,200 million gallons.

My dad worked for an oil company, and they had a CEGB(1) contract. For the fluidised bed(2) boilers used in base load power stations for burning pulverised coal (basically coal dust), they needed fuel oil to light and warm up the boiler to a temperature where the coal would easily ignite. Whether this product was rail fed I dont know. But I know Skelton Grange, near Leeds, took its fuel oil by road tanker.

(1) Central Electricity Generating Board#
(2) This was a boiler with a floor with holes in it, covered in sand. They blew air through the sand 'fluidising' it. They then blew in coal dust into the hot chamber which ignited. The resulting 'fly ash' was used to make breeze blocks. Remember the fly ash trains to Fletton, near Peterborough?

 

[Ken H]

Tourret's book says the very first tank wagon was built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Co in 1865 for Kurtz & Son of Liverpool to carry 7 tons of tar from gasworks to chemical plants - this was around 1,200 gallons. He illustrates and details tank wagons that were built subsequently and a small number were for tar distillers, these were almost all rectangular tanks rather than barrelled.

The sidings outside Orgreaves (and other Yorkshire) coking plants were full of steaming coke wagons in the 1970s - an amazing sight on a cold winter morning. The coke was off to Scunthorpe steel works so nothing to do with gas works but giving a clue to the traditional carriage of coke. Because it was much less dense than coal, wagon capacity was increased by having wooden planking ('raves') above the wagon sides giving a capacity of 20 tons - the TOPS code at the time was HCO.
A couple of websites covering coke carriage in BR times which might be of interest are:
http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/project_cokehops.html
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/7048-coke-traffic-on-br/

At Skipton there used to be a 'tar siding' by the south box. There would be a few tankers. They had burners into cavities in the tanks, I suppose to warm the tar so it would flow. A road vehicle was sometimes there to take it to wherever it was going, I assume a tarmac plant. Didn't half niff. Its where Tesco is now.

 

[mailbyrail]

Another page on rmweb deals specifically of modelling a rail-served gasworks
https://www.rweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/102002-small-town-gasworks/

 

[DelW]

(2) This was a boiler with a floor with holes in it, covered in sand. They blew air through the sand 'fluidising' it. They then blew in coal dust into the hot chamber which ignited. The resulting 'fly ash' was used to make breeze blocks. Remember the fly ash trains to Fletton, near Peterborough?

Getting a bit O/T here, but AIUI fly ash is still a source of PFA (pulverised fuel ash) used as a partial cement replacement in concrete production. Although with the reduction in coal-fired power generation, GGBFS (ground granulated blast-furnace slag) is more commonly used these days. Both have benefits for the concrete as well as utilising what might otherwise be waste materials.

 

[30907]

The official returns from the Accrington gas and water board between 1938 and 1947 show no coal at all was bought by the company - so it wasn't making any traditional coal gas at this time. It does state that coke & oil was being bought for the CWG plant there.

The 1947 return shows 3,009 tons of coke & 181,301 gallons of oil was bought for use with the CWG plant.

Fascinating for an ex-'Arroder - especially considering there were still pits in the area back then. Overturns my picture of gas production, and I'd better rethink goods loadings on my model railway (nowt to do with North Lancs!)

 

[furnessvale]

The first pipeline infrastructure for transporting liquid fuel was built during the early phases of the Second World War, as a means of supplying aviation fuel to airbases. It was mothballed at the end of the war, but then brought back into use from the '50s onward, mainly for commercial use by refineries and storage depots.

On that basis, any commercial transportation of oil or petrol pre-1951 would have been by rail (or by road).

Don't forget water, inland or coastal.

In my youth, the tank farms at Preston Dock were supplied by coastal tanker from Stanlow and other locations. Oil tankers still ply the River Trent today.

 

[Andy873]

@furnessvale Yes that's a very good point you make - and we shouldn't forget the waterways.

I think what started out as a general question has really blown into a bigger question / realisation.

It's really a question of supply & demand in the changing world of the 1950s & 60s.

Up to really the end of WWII, if you wanted something delivered in a reasonable time, at a reasonable price with reasonable reliability then the railways were the way to go. In short, most companies / people needed the railways.

I thought (until I got official figures) that the gas works opposite the station would have been a major customer of the railway - but it wasn't using / ordering any coal after 1937, and as such my theory that it could have help to save the line were wrong.

 

[Andy873]

@eastdyke Just to let you know, the link you posted early on in this thread was written by Dr Thomas Russell - one of my sources I contacted directly - so that's a great find by you!

 

[randyrippley]

Don't forget water, inland or coastal.

In my youth, the tank farms at Preston Dock were supplied by coastal tanker from Stanlow and other locations. Oil tankers still ply the River Trent today.

Its important not to forget how much fuel was shipped by coastal tanker.
This pdf file http://www.heyshamheritage.org.uk/OilJettyArticlePryceLR.pdf
gives an interesting overview of shipping activities at the Heysham/Middleton refinery during and after WWII. Most appears to have been shipped out by sea, even if only to the Mersey
This other page gives more background http://www.heyshamheritage.org.uk/trimpell_oil_refinery.html
Interestingly it used gas oil and coke for formulating 100 octane aviation fuel - I hadn't realised the UK had that kind of reformation technology at that time. I presume the coke came in by rail.

The site was set up in 1939 by the Air Ministry as the Heysham Aviation Fuel Works to supplement the North American supplies of aviation fuel for the RAF. Using coke brought in from the Durham coal field together with imported gas oil, which came by sea in tankers to a new deep water mooring to the north of Heysham Narbour.The mooring was connected to the north harbour wall by a long wooden jetty. and the oil brought on shore by a submerged pipeline and transmitted on to the new refinery.Information from a detailed paper on this Oil Jetty indicate that the first oil supplies were delivered in the late summer of 1941. ICI produced the base petrol and ammonia while Shell produced iso-octane to boost the base petrol from 87 octane to 100 octane standard. Shell had found that the use of tetraethyl lead and hydrogen as fuel additives made it possible to suppress engine knock and to boost aircraft engine performance. This process is well written up elsewhere; see in particular paragraph 1.1.6 of this link.

 

[Moodster020]

There's an 1930s/40s oil tanker at Embsay. Its a 2000 gallon capacity. Another of the same at KWVR too if i recall.

 

[AndrewE]

The sidings outside Orgreaves (and other Yorkshire) coking plants were full of steaming coke wagons in the 1970s - an amazing sight on a cold winter morning. The coke was off to Scunthorpe steel works so nothing to do with gas works but giving a clue to the traditional carriage of coke.

but don't forget that nothing was wasted! The (coal) gas from making metallurgical coke would have been used for fuel in the plant itself and I am sure a surplus would have been sold outside - to industrial users when mains gas turned over to natural gas - if it wasn't all consumed within the plant.
The other by-products were important income earners too and when the last UK coking plants closed (long after the last gas-works) we used to import creosote from Poland where they still had a big iron/steel industry using coal.
Nowadays there is apparently coke made from oil, but I'm pleased to see that the Cumbrian metallurgical coal mine is going ahead to replace imports.

 

[eastdyke]

... The other by-products were important income earners too and when the last UK coking plants closed (long after the last gas-works) we used to import creosote from Poland where they still had a big iron/steel industry using coal.
...

British Steel (the re-named Tata incarnation) make the coke used at Scunthorpe in their local Appleby Coke Ovens. They built a new Benzol (removal) plant there as recently as 2016.

 

[Andy873]

Okay, some facts and assumptions:

I know gas works liked to keep at least 2 weeks supply of coal, coke and oil (if that's what they were using), so lets start with that.
Secondly, with the Great Harwood gas works was only using coke and oil up to and including 1947.
Thirdly, this was needed only for 4 or 5 months of the year over the winter.

So if we assume the following:
1. The gas works took delivery ever 2 weeks over 4 months of coke and oil and...
2. A coal / coke wagon had a capacity of 10 tons and...
3. An oil tank wagon had 2,000 gallon capacity then we can calculate the traffic as so...

1947 - coke - 3,000 tons used.

3,000 / 10 ton wagons = 300 wagons.
300 wagons every 2 weeks (for 4 moths) = 75 wagons per month = 37.5 wagons (every 2 weeks).

For the oil - 180,000 gallons used.
180,000 / 2,000 = 90 (for 4 months) = 22.5 wagons per month = 11.25 wagons (every 2 weeks).

So there would have been 97.5 (lets call it 98) wagons a month for 4 months.
These are just guesses, and it was probably done weekly due to capacity of storage of the sidings and the gas works.

But I could easily be a long way off of course - just an educated guess and just playing with variables here.