Miscellaneous

Harbury Cement Works: misc_hcw174

Rotary tipper in the process of discharging limestone from a Great Western Railway twenty ton wagon (diagram N24) at the Harbury Cement Works of Greaves, Bull and Lakin. Although the works had been purchased in 1927 by the Allied Cement Manufacturers (ACM) known as the ‘Red Triangle Group’, they were still referenced as the Greaves, Bull and Lakin Cement Works in Great Western Railway documentation. According to the Great Western Railway magazine this automatic rotary tipper was installed and converted to discharge twenty ton wagons by Fraser & Chalmers Ltd of Erith, Kent (a subsidiary of the General Electric Company). Each wagon's contents was discharged through the wagon's two side doors into a bin (or chute) alongside the appliance. This was achieved by tipping each wagon approximately 50 degrees, so that unlike normal rotary tippers (see 'misc_abps172') this design required no clamping or binding devices to hold the wagons to the rails. This feature and the increased wagon size resulted in a tipping capacity of 300 tons per hour. Behind the rotary tipper is a continuous bucket conveyor which is taking the discharged limestone up to a high level enclosed belt conveyor for transportation across the site to the kilns. At this time the Harbury Works was operating three rotary kilns with a combined output of approximately 400 tons of Portland cement per day.

The Great Western Railway saw advantages in the use of these larger twenty ton wagons as they greatly reduced both a mineral train's tare weight and its length. The company offered discounted rates of 5% for fully loaded twenty ton wagon deliveries and in 1924 spent £285,000 constructing 950 twenty ton wagons, which they hired to private companies (mainly involved in South Wales coal traffic). All the wagons had tipping doors at both ends, but while 760 with single side doors (diagram N23) were built mostly by wagon contractors (including 250 by the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Co - see 'misc/brc&wc_works'), a further 190 were built at the Great Western Railway's Swindon Works with two side doors on each side (diagram N24). This latter group had running numbers 109811 to 110000 and it is likely that the twenty ton wagon in the photograph is one of these.

Robert Ferris

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