A coaling tower, coal stage, coaling plant or coaling station is a facility used to load

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

as fuel into railway

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s. Coaling towers were often sited at

motive power depot The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine shed ...

s or locomotive maintenance shops. In the early years of railways, coal was shovelled by hand into locomotive tenders, the first attempt in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

to replace manual labour by

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

in the refuelling process being found at

Shildon Shildon is a town and civil parish in County Durham (district), County Durham, in England. The population taken at the 2011 Census was 9,976. The town has the Locomotion Museum, due to it having the first , built in 1825, and locomotive works on ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, where coal drops were built by the

Stockton and Darlington Railway The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darl ...

in 1847. In time, railway companies constructed more elaborate coaling towers, made from wood, steel, or

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

(ferroconcrete). In almost all cases coaling stations used a gravity fed method, with one or more large storage bunkers for the coal elevated on columns above the railway tracks, from which the coal could be released to slide down a chute into the waiting locomotive's coal storage area. The method of lifting the bulk coal into the storage bin varied. The coal usually was dropped from a hopper car into a pit below tracks adjacent to the tower. From the pit a conveyor-type system used a chain of motor-driven buckets to raise the coal to the top of the tower where it would be dumped into the storage bin; a skip-hoist system lifted a single large bin for the same purpose. Some facilities lifted entire railway coal trucks or wagons. Sanding pipes were often mounted on coaling towers to allow simultaneous replenishment of a locomotive's sand box. As railways in many countries replaced steam by

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...

and

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

traction during the 1950s and 1960s, the need for coaling towers declined, and eventually vanished completely. Of the more than 100 ferroconcrete examples built in Britain, those at Immingham and

Carnforth Carnforth is a market town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England, situated at the north-east end of Morecambe Bay. The parish of Carnforth had a population of 5,560 in the 2011 census, an increase from the 5,350 reco ...

were the final two left standing, the former being

demolished Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...

in 2018. The Carnforth coaling tower, built by the

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...

in 1939, is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, many reinforced concrete towers remain in place if they do not interfere with operations due to the high cost of demolition incurred with these massive structures.

Gallery

File:La carbonera.JPG, Temuco, Chile File:Tarnowskie Góry - elewator węglowy.jpg, Tarnowskie Góry, Poland File:SAR Class 25NC 3437 (4-8-4).JPG, SAR Class 25NC 3437 (4-8-4) at the coal stage at Beaconsfield, South Africa File:Coaling Tower (disused) - geograph.org.uk - 653373.jpg, Carnforth, United Kingdom File:Former locomotive coaling stage, Immingham depot (geograph 3717022).jpg, Immingham, United Kingdom File:Coaling tower in Cedar Hill Yard, August 2022.JPG,

Cedar Hill Yard Cedar Hill Yard is a classification yard located in New Haven, North Haven and Hamden, Connecticut, United States. It was built by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (often known simply as The New Haven) in the early 1890s in a ...

, Connecticut File:An old coaling tower that once served Chesapeake & Ohio steam locomotives moving through Bluefield, West Virginia LCCN2015634388.tif, Bluefield, West Virginia File:C&NW coaling station 1942.jpg, Locomotive 2576 over ash pit at the roundhouse and coaling station at the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad yards, Chicago, Illinois (demolished) File:COALING TOWER, WEST ELEVATION - Collinwood Railroad Yard Coal Tipple, Between East 146th Street and East 152nd Street, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, OH HAER OHIO,18-CLEV,40A-1.tif, Collinwood Yard, Cleveland, Ohio (demolished) File:GTW Standard Coaling Tower PA200155.jpg, Grand Trunk Western coaling tower, Grand Haven, Michigan File:Penrith, NSW - Coal stage & D57 locomotive, 1930s (AHRS Collection, ARHSBox046 1355).jpg,

Penrith, New South Wales Penrith is a city in New South Wales, Australia, located in Greater Western Sydney, 55 kilometres (31 mi) west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Nepean River, on the outskirts of the Cumberland Plain. Its elevati ...

, Australia, in 1930s (demolished)

References

{{reflist Railway buildings and structures Rail transport Coal industry

Gallery

See also

References