Open-cast Coal Site Chaos
Page 48
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By H. Scott Hall, M.I.Mech.E., M.I.R.T.E.
FOR many years Mr. A. Waite, of A. Waite (Coal), Ltd., Dewsbury, has been engaged in the road transport of coal. His experience goes back to pre-motor days, when all the coal he sold was conveyed in horse-drawn lorries. Now, he has a fleet of 10 vehicles, eight of which are 5-ton Austins. It is his intention to standardize on Austins and before he puts them into service he equips them with 36 in. by 8 in. tyres and special strengthened springs.
Asked why that was done, Mr. Waite replied that it was necessary to cope with inevitable overloading.
Chute-loaded Vehicles
Most of my traffic," he said, "is coal for industrial use. That means that the vehicles, whether they go to a colliery or an open-cast coal distributing depot, are loaded by chute.
" Now," he continued, "any, vehicle so loaded must be prepared to carry an overload of at least half a ton. It is quite impossible to judge a load more accurately than that. A vehicle may go under the chute and be loaded to what may appear to be its capacity. Only when it is on the weighbridge can it be checked.
" So to keep out of trouble, especially with tyres, I have these alterations made before I take delivery."
Of the 10 vehicles, eight are longwheelbase tippers and two are plain platform lorries, also on long-wheelbase chassis. The tippers are mainly used for industrial coal, the lorries for delivering bagged coal to householders. Occasionally, however, the tippers are pressed into the service of the householder. Mr. Waite says that the use of tippers for delivering bagged coal presents no difficulty. On household deliveries the problem of overloading does not actually arise because 100 bags is a load.
Milshaw tipping gear is used. Mr. Waite prefers it because it has the advantage that the top of the pillar of the telescopic screw gear is below the top of the cab. The driver, therefore, need not be concerned about the risk of damaging the gear when the vehicle is passing under a low bridge, of which there are several in the locality.
A considerable proportion of the industrial coal which Mr. Waite carries is of the open-cast variety He collects it at British Oak, Wakefield. This, I understand, is a receiving and distributing depot for the Ministry of Fuel and Power.
The coal is brought to this depot from the mines, some 16 to 20 miles away. It comes by road and is tipped into a large funnel-shaped opening at ground level. There is accommodation for two vehicles to tip simultaneously. It drops on to a conveyor belt and is carried up to a sorting machine which separates it into two sizes, rough and fine or slack.
Lorries collecting the coal from the depot, for delivery to industrial plants and the like, run under this sorting plant and receive their loads by chute. The tare weight of the vehicles is taken and marked up on the side. Each vehicle is weighed as it leaves and a weigh-bill issued for the amount of the load.
Wasted Mileage So far as I could see, the lorries bringing coal to the depot went away empty. Presumably they returned to the mine for further loads, and it occurred to me that there was a wastage of transport here, and that if there had been efficient organization these vehicles could have picked up loads under the chute and delivered them on the way back, or at least could have operated in a way that would cut down the considerable total of empty mileage. It may be, of course, that there are practical difficulties ighich would not be apparent to me, aa. casual onlooker.
That the trouble was faulty organization and not otherwise was, however, more than confirmed by my observation of what was going on in connection with the vehicles coming empty to the depot and taking away loads of coal.
Hauliers who had experience of loading sugar beet about 20 years ago, and remember the queues that were common in those days, would be appalled to see what goes on at this coal depot.
Not only was there a prodigious queue but, apart from sporadic visits by a sort of yard foreman or overseer, there was no attempt at organization.
A Malorganized Queue The queue was in two parts. One part was in the yard of the depot, the other in a field nearby, The two parts were separated by a main road, which had to be crossed if a vehicle in the hind part of the queue wished to join the front end. The main road was narrow and there was a bend just at the queue, so that parking on the road was out of the question.
Another point was that those in the rear of the queue, even the driver of the first lorry, could not see what was happening in the yard. Here it was that the organization showed itself to be particularly bad. Lorries coming down the road (and so out of sight of those in the rear half of the queue), jumped the rear queue.
I was in and about the depot nearly an hour, awaiting the arrival of Mr.. Waite's lorry so that I could photograph it. It did not arrive, however, and only once did I see the yard foreman, or whatever he was, take any steps to prevent this queue-jumping. All he did on that occasion was to step into the road and call up two vehicles from those waiting.
How serious is this neglect for the vehicle operators can be shown by a simple calculation. At one time I counted 38 vehicles in the queue, If I allow each driver five minutes—which is by no means generous—to take the load from the chute, pass on to he weighbridge, get his weigh-bill and depart, that means that 3 hours 10 minutes must elapse before the last vehicle reaches the loading point,