Spent ballast/spoil tips in the 1960/70s - where were they and what did they do?

[dp123]

East Peckham and Godstone tip come to mind on the Southern region, too. East Peckham is still in use but as a commercial sand depot receiving commercial traffic, and Godstone is still there with rails (and a dodgy ground frame) and a small aggregate concern, but no longer used by the railway or receives any rail traffic.

 

Nowadays the giant Local Distribution Centres take care of spoil and materials handling. Southern area stuff usually ends up in Whitemoor, Eastleigh or Westbury depending on what needs dealing with. Not all LDCs can deal with every type of waste material so you could potentially end up tripping wagons far away to be dealt with (hazardous contaminated waste, for example - I think Crewe/Kingmoor are set up to routinely handle this. Quite a lot of ex-industrial areas turn up spoil contaminated with arsenic, or heavy metals. Asbestos is very common, especially from station or built up areas). Most places can deal with the main stuff like scrap, spent ballast or spoil though. Hoo Junction no longer processes any materials - it's a marshalling yard for NSC traffic and pre-assembly and loading depot for renewals/Thameslink.

[Downendian]

I remember the Stoke Gifford tip well. There was always a class 08 there shunting grampus (and probably) tunny spoil wagons so pleased to see Rivercider's photo of it. It was a very difficult location to photograph by the general public as was locked on all sides by the South Wales and South West routes. Bath road class 25s very often delivered the spoil in the mid 1970s, but would like to see more photos if there are any out there.

I've set aside a small section of my layout for a spoil tip to recreate these operations, so following this thread with interest.

Neil

[Downendian]

Class 50 on ballast spoil? Certainly looks that way and a long rake of Grampus wagons.

This is how I recall it arriving, into a siding and then wagons either reversed to the spoil tip or collected by the resident 08 (was once 09024 and one of Bath roads class 03s on at least one occasion.

50009 at Stoke Gifford (East of Bristol Parkway) on Sunday 17th July 1978, I was there, but not my photo, it was a copyright slide bought from eBay.

 

 

Neil

[Rivercider]

Class 50 on ballast spoil? Certainly looks that way and a long rake of Grampus wagons.

This is how I recall it arriving, into a siding and then wagons either reversed to the spoil tip or collected by the resident 08 (was once 09024 and one of Bath roads class 03s on at least one occasion.

50009 at Stoke Gifford (East of Bristol Parkway) on Sunday 17th July 1978, I was there, but not my photo, it was a copyright slide bought from eBay.

 

 

Neilimage.jpeg

It is quite possibly a spoil train. Although not unkown it was not usual for an engineering train to terminate at Stoke Gifford. 

Back in the late 1970s weekend engineering trains in the Bristol area generally started and finished at Bristol East Depot

a typical weekend programme might see 12 - 14 trains formed up on a saturday morning ready to go to site over the weekend.

The power requirements for the trains merely specified 'type 2' or 'type 3' or 'type 4',  so various loco classes were used, and at weekend there were spare class 50s available.

 

At the date of the above photo the Bristol Area Trip Notice dated 5th December 1977 may still have been in force.

That being the case most spoil for Stoke Trip would be worked up from East Depot by Trip No.2 the weekday engineers tripper nominally a Laira class 46.

The trip notice included the following workings for Trip No.2

East Depot                10.30 8B04

Stoke Gifford 10.36 - 11.10 DBV

Stoke Tip       11.20 - 12.25  8B08

East Depot     13.17 - 14.10 8B06

Stoke Tip        14.52 - 15.45 8B10

East Depot      16.23

 

Trip No.32 was the tip pilot, nominally a Bath Road class 08. and included the following weekday workings

East Depot                       09.00 DBV or trip

Stoke Gifford tip    09.45

Shunt as required until:-

Stoke Gifford tip                14//50 ld

East Depot            15//30

 

Of course the above workings were subject to change on a weekly and even daily basis and may not reflect what actually happened

but it was often the case that on a monday morning especially trip no.2 would take a lot of spoil from East Depot to the tip,

 

cheers 

[bescotbeast]

Newhaven on the SR: the tip was on the "East Beach Tramway", and was simply a large area of shingle, where all sorts of stuff, bits of old track, dead wagons etc, as well as spent ballast, was dumped. It was one of those fascinatingly deserted bits of railway, and it straggled on along the foreshore for a couple of miles, nearly to Bishopstone.

 

Kevin

This area is now grassed over but the odd brick or piece of concrete juts out to show it was a tip. The siding is still visible in places as well

[bescotbeast]

It is quite possibly a spoil train. Although not unkown it was not usual for an engineering train to terminate at Stoke Gifford. 

Back in the late 1970s weekend engineering trains in the Bristol area generally started and finished at Bristol East Depot

a typical weekend programme might see 12 - 14 trains formed up on a saturday morning ready to go to site over the weekend.

The power requirements for the trains merely specified 'type 2' or 'type 3' or 'type 4',  so various loco classes were used, and at weekend there were spare class 50s available.

 

At the date of the above photo the Bristol Area Trip Notice dated 5th December 1977 may still have been in force.

That being the case most spoil for Stoke Trip would be worked up from East Depot by Trip No.2 the weekday engineers tripper nominally a Laira class 46.

The trip notice included the following workings for Trip No.2

East Depot                10.30 8B04

Stoke Gifford 10.36 - 11.10 DBV

Stoke Tip       11.20 - 12.25  8B08

East Depot     13.17 - 14.10 8B06

Stoke Tip        14.52 - 15.45 8B10

East Depot      16.23

 

Trip No.32 was the tip pilot, nominally a Bath Road class 08. and included the following weekday workings

East Depot                       09.00 DBV or trip

Stoke Gifford tip    09.45

Shunt as required until:-

Stoke Gifford tip                14//50 ld

East Depot            15//30

 

Of course the above workings were subject to change on a weekly and even daily basis and may not reflect what actually happened

but it was often the case that on a monday morning especially trip no.2 would take a lot of spoil from East Depot to the tip,

 

cheers 

Informative as ever Kevin, you're knowledge on the Bristol area is unsurpassed.

[Oldddudders]

This area is now grassed over but the odd brick or piece of concrete juts out to show it was a tip. The siding is still visible in places as well

Fairly certain this was where the LB&SCR originally got its ballast, too, so having a spoil tip there is kinda replacing what had been extracted in the C19.

[Norton961]

Fascinating topic Tony. Not quite in period but the LNWR Working Timetable mentions ballast trains between Stafford and Coalport to run as often as required and waste ballast was taken to the Wombridge Ballast Tip sidings. In this case the siding into the tip was lengthened over time as the site of the tip was originally a pond, and the spent ballast filled the pond in. Shameless plug but this info is in my book The Railways of Telford published by Crowwod Press. Ordinance survey maps can sometimes show these ballast tip sidings. I suspect that Ballast tip sidings were quite common as it was expensive to move waste ballast long distances so each area would have its own. As Tony says would make interesting operation on a model layout, as would permanent way trains in general.

 

David

[Norton961]

A follow up to my post ,for those modelling pre grouping please remember that many railway companies used ash or slag ballast until 1900 when granite clippings came into use. That would mean that waste ballast trains would have ash and slag as the load. Does anyone know when the use of ash/slag ballast was banned and how long did it continue to be use Do?

[The Stationmaster]

A follow up to my post ,for those modelling pre grouping please remember that many railway companies used ash or slag ballast until 1900 when granite clippings came into use. That would mean that waste ballast trains would have ash and slag as the load. Does anyone know when the use of ash/slag ballast was banned and how long did it continue to be use Do?

 

Was it ever banned?  Ash/clinker ballast continued to be found in sidings in some parts of the country up until the day they were removed in the 1960s/'70s and teh only reason it went out of use for sidings and paths was because the supply vanished with the end of steam.

 

Ash ballast on running lines would be rather different as there it would all depend on what sort of axleloads were allowed.

[Trog]

Ash was sometimes used on running lines over weak embankments with the idea of keeping the weight down. I remember being told by a trackman in the 1980's that he could remember when they were still using ash on a Bletchley - Bedford embankment that the engineer did not like the look of. The accident report for a derailment north of Bletchley in I think the late 1930's also mentions that the fast lines were still ash ballasted. Again that may have been due to ground conditions.

[whoppit]

WR also had a tip at Honeybourne

 

Phil

Remember taking a pair of class 31s up there on a train, never got a picture of the toad brake van that was parked there before it was burnt out in the early 90s tho!

[tomparryharry]

Spent slag ballast is a bit of a no-no. The high metal content plays havoc with track circuits, etc.