LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Tamworth
LMS Route: Nuneaton to Birmingham New Street
Washwood Heath Sidings: mrwhg348d
In this close up of image 'mrwhg348' we can see the
reception sidings at Washwood Heath for the coal traffic. Whilst most appear to
be the ubiquitous 5 plank wagon there are some interesting exceptions. The most
prominent being the six or seven taller wagons which the sides angled so that
the top is wide, a characteristic very familiar to enthusiasts today with
hopper wagons. The reason for having sorting sidings, a practice adopted by
every railway, was because of a combination of factors.
Road transport prior to mechanisation was very much limited
to a tight locality so goods from outside the locality needed to be brought
into the area, in this case by rail and previously by canal. The speed of
transportation by rail enable goods to be moved further and cheaper thereby
opening up new markets which were themselves drivers to increased
industrialisation. Railways could not offer the total flexibility we see today
where one load could depart from the producer and be delivered direct to the
customer they needed to be organised so that similar loads would be formed into
trains to cross from one part of the country to another.
Coal in particular is a good example of this type of
traffic. From the coal mines they would be moved to the nearest set of sorting
sidings where they would be formed into trips, either for local delivery or to
another sorting siding across the country, where they would then be formed into
trains for local delivery. Some coal merchants would base their operations at
the sorting sidings (see image 'mrwhg345d'), acting
as wholesalers as well as retailers to their local area.
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