Warwickshire's Industrial Railways

Bromford Tube Company

Stewarts & Lloyds was a steel tube manufacturer with its headquarters based at Corby, Northamptonshire, England. The company was created in 1903 by the amalgamation of two of the largest iron and steel makers in Britain, A. & J. Stewart & Menzies Ltd, Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland and Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd, Birmingham, England. In 1930, Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd entered into an agreement with Tube Investments Ltd, of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, which controlled a large number of tube making firms in the Midlands. Although this was to 'facilitate exchange of information and technology' it resulted in Stewarts & Lloyds gaining a half interest in the Bromford Tube Co of Erdington, Birmingham. At the end of the Second World War, however, Stewarts and Lloyds surrendered their 50 per cent interest in both Jarrow Tube and Tube Rolling Mills to TI in return for its 50 per cent share of the Bromford Tube Company. This acquisition added considerably to Stewarts and Lloyds’ seamless-tube capacity.

Bromford Tube Works by Keith Turton

Heavy Industry on the site dates back to 1790, when the Bromford Ironworks was formed by John William Davies and Sons. The partnership of William and John Davies, apparently the sons of the founder, was dissolved in 1850, with William Davies continuing. He in turn died in 1878, leaving the estate to his widow Elizabeth. In 1887 she was declared bankrupt and the company collapsed, to be revived and traded until 1920, when Tubes Ltd. took an interest.

Tubes Ltd. floated from the remains of Bromford Ironworks a separate company to manufacture metal tubes which became known as Bromford Tubes Ltd. In 1930 Stewarts and Lloyds took a 50% interest in Bromford Tubes Ltd, and in 1945 assumed full control.

Stewarts and Lloyds were a vast Anglo-Scottish iron and steel giant formed by a 1903 merger between the two companies that formed its ultimate corporate title and which introduced the Scottish company of A.J. Stewart and Menzies to England where its eventually main manufacturing centre was the Coombs Mill tube works of Lloyds and Lloyds at Halesowen. In 1920 it acquired the Spring Vale Iron and Steel works of Sir Alfred Hickman at Bilston. In 1935 the decision was made to build the iron and steel manufacturing colossus at Corby , where a substantial private railway network connected the blast furnaces and ovens with several ironstone mines, conveniently located nearby and one influencing factor in the decision to build the vast works. The other was the proximity of the LMS railway from Manton Junction to Kettering which gave access to the coalfields of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire and the limestone quarries of all three counties. which literally changed the face of Northamptonshire for decades to come.

The company also owned coal mines. My 'Private Owner Wagons, a Seventh Collection,' (Lightmoor Press 2008) gave a substantial coverage to its English activities, and for good measure also included the Kilnhurst and Tinsley Park collieries, which Stewarts and Lloyds were associated with either by ownership or as the end destination of much of their output.

This narration is intended to concentrate on its coal mining activities, its vast fleet of Private Owner wagons and its few surviving records of coal consumption and coal traffic. The record of coal traffic to the Bromford Tube Works is very skimpy, although considerable details of coal contracts relating to other works can be found in the Northamptonshire Archives.

Collieries

The first venture into colliery ownership was in 1908, when the collieries of the Scottish iron and steel makers Robert Addie & Son were acquired. There is little information of the progress of these three pits during Stewarts and Lloyds ownership, except that they were once producing 700,000 ton of coal a year and that they were all shown in the Colliery Year Book as producing no coal in 1923. under the ownership of Robert Addie & Sons,, which in that year had just re-acquired them. to continue production until nationalisation. The 1920 acquisition of the Spring Vale Furnaces brought with it the collieries at Haunchwood (near Nuneaton) and Holly Bank (near Wolverhampton) and also a share in the ownership of Tarmac Limited.

In 1923 the Kilnhurst Colliery near Rotherham was acquired from J. & J. Charlesworth Ltd and was the primary source of coking coal . It was sold in 1936 to the Tinsley Park Colliery Company. with the proviso that Stewarts and Lloyds has first call of its coking coal output and usually took all of it.

WAGONS With all of its acquisitions, Stewarts and Lloyds must have accumulated a varied collection of wagons of different types and designs with one common denominator, they all ran of tracks of 4' 8-1/2" gauge. These would include those of the previously described Haunchwood Colliery.

Here I served my "apprenticeship" at a very tender age which diverted my future ambitions from astronomy to coal, smoke pouring out of chimneys, clanking buffers and railway wagons emblazoned with what could be described as an introduction to the industrial might and geography of England. After many years absence, in 1972 I revisited the former mining village, the old family fish and chip shop and the miners watering hole, the "Forest Folk" The lane which led from the village centre was never known by anything else than 'Pit Lane' but by then all it led to was an industrial estate but in was still, in the minds of those who had lived there for many decades 'Pit Lane'.

For in the memories of those who had worked at the pit for most of their working lives and could still recall the owners of the 200 wagons which were filled with coal every day, familiar names such as Stephenson Clarke, Cory, Charringtons and Foster in the retail trade and Newstead, Sheepbridge , Stanton and Staveley were the most familiar but no mention was made of Stewarts and LLoyds, who drew up to 120 wagon loads a week.

In the late 1920s Stewarts and Lloyds had issued a decree to all contractors and suppliers that only wagons owned by the company be used to transport its raw materials This was surprising when I discovered that the principal source of coal for the Corby works was the Blidworth colliery in Nottinghamshire.

For in the memories of those who had worked at the pit for most of their working lives and could still recall the owners of the 200 wagons which were filled with coal every day, familiar names such as Stephenson Clarke, Cory, Charringtons and Foster in the retail trade and Newstead, Sheepbridge , Stanton and Staveley were the most familiar but no mention was made of Stewarts and LLoyds, who drew up to 120 wagon loads a week.

Wagon Fleet

A wholesale clear out of non-standard and obsolete wagons made way for a total of 2,100 new wagons of three distinct types, 12-ton wooden bodied, 14-ton all steel and 20-ton all steel as detailed below:

12 Ton Wooden Bodied, Side, End and Bottom Doors
Builder	Year	Quantity	Paint Number
Charles Roberts, Wakefield	1937	325	6151-6475
Hurst Nelson Motherwell	1937	75	6576-6650
Metropolitan, Birmingham	1937	75	6501-6575
Derbyshire RC&WCo, Chesterfield	1937	25	6476-6500
S.J Claye, Long Eaton	1936	500	2501-3000
14 Ton All Steel (Slope Sided)
Builder	Year	Quantity	Paint Number
Charles Roberts, Wakefield	1939	700	9301-10000
20 Ton All Steel
Builder	Year	Quantity	Paint Number
Charles Roberts, Wakefield	1939	25	5726-5750
Hurst Nelson, Motherwell	1939	25	5701-5725
	1940	25	5751-5775
Metropolitan, Birmingham	1936	100	1901-2000
Birmingham RC&WCo, Smethwick	1939	100	5601-5700
	1940	75	5776-5850
Cambrian Wagon Co. Cardiff	1936	50	1851-1900

Total 2,100 wagons, all of which were registered by the LMS Railway. Of the above, only the 12-ton wagons were taken into the 1939 wartime wagon pool. From what evidence can be found the others were initially classified as "Special Purpose" non-pool. Additionally Metropolitan built 95 15-ton iron ore wagons of an unknown design in 1940 which were apparently not registered with a main line railway company and were probably for internal use to ironstone mines served by the company's internal railway system at Corby.

Although all of the above were theoretically based at Corby, the company policy of not using contractor or colliery owned wagons strongly suggests that they were used throughout the company's works.

Additionally 150 20-ton coke wagons with removable coke rails were built by the Midland Railway Carriage and Wagon Co, that had been ordered by Sir Alfred Hickman and not delivered until after the Stewarts and Lloyds takeover. There were lettered "Stewarts and Lloyds" on the diagonal and numbered 3501-3650 They were based at Bilston and worked to both Yorkshire and South Wales coking plants, and later to Corby when coke was produced there. It is possible that there were other wagons not listed here , there are known to be further 12-ton wagons built by Charles Roberts between 1934 and 1939 and numbered in the 1600 series for which no builders or registration records can be found but photographic evidence exists.

Wagons of the Kilnhurst Colliery, while under the ownership of Stewarts and Lloyds were lettered accordingly. From very skimpy available evidence, they were repaints of earlier wagons and may have been further repainted when the colliery was revitalised by the Tinsley Park company.

Coal Supplies

Surviving records are incomplete and sometimes vague, but the Corby, Spring Vale and Coombs Wood works were usually shown individually. It is clear that not all contracts were reported, and it appears that neither were the supplies drawn from the company's own collieries. Only one reference to Bromford could be found, relating to 1932, showing a total of 8,400 tons delivered by rail from the Mid-Cannock, Holly Bank, Birch Coppice, Aldridge and Kingsbury collieries and 2,000 tons by canal from the Hamstead Colliery It is inconceivable that a works this size would only use 500 tons a week.

The Midland Railway Distance Diagrams of 1916 show not a single siding between Washwood Heath and Water Orton. This was obviously issued before the Fort Dunlop works were connected in that year and the Bromford group of sidings were laid. This shows the extent of subsequent industrial development on the outskirts of Birmingham beside the tracks of the Midland Railway.

SHUNTING AND TRIP WORKING Once again the 1955-6 records of the Saltley motive power depot are invaluable They distinguish between the Bromford Sidings, the Bromford Tubeworks, and include the Bromford Cripple Sidings. Included are all rosters that include Bromford in all of its forms. No indication is given of what traffic is offering, or if there are any further siding holders.

Saltley Motive Power Depot Shunting Turns:

Target 15a (4F locomotive). Off shed 12.45pm shunt Bromford, Bromford Cripple Sidings, finish 8pm.
Target 21 (4F locomotive) Off shed 12.01am shunt Bromford Bridge then Kingsbury Colliery branch finish Kings Norton 4.03am then as required until 10am.
Target 29 (3F locomotive) Off shed 9.50pm Duddington Sidings, Lawley Street, Water Orton, Metropolitan Sidings, Bromford Bridge, Kingsbury Branch, Lawley Street 12.10pm to 6am.
Target 34 (3F locomotive) Off shed 6.40am Bromford Bridge, Bromford Tube works, Castle Bromwich Water Orton Dunlop Sidings, finish 2.50am.
Target 37 (2F locomotive) Off shed 8.40am Bromford Bridge, Water Orton, Lawley Street, finish 4.33am.
Target 56 (3F locomotive) Off shed 6.05am Bromford Bridge, Water Orton, Hams Hall, Kingsbury Branch, Whitacre, Coleshill, Water Orton, Washwood Heath Up Sidings, Dunlop, Castle Bromwich, finish 1 10am.
Target 59 (3F locomotive) Off shed 9.45am Bromford Bridge, Kingsbury Colliery, Hall End (Birch Coppice) Colliery, finish 4.25pm.
Target 63 (4F locomotive) Off shed 8.15am Bromford Bridge, Dunlop, Aldridge, Washwood Heath finish 3.15pm.

These rota suggest that at the time the various industries and sidings above received their coal supplies from the Kingsbury and Birch Coppice collieries on the Kingsbury Colliery branch Trains of finished goods would have been assembled by locomotives owned by the various siding holders and cleared by main line power.

Ref: mrbb667 W Wright Looking to Bromford Bridge Signal Box across the private sidings of the former Bromford Tube Company

Ref: mrbb667a W Wright Close up showing the signal box on the up line and the entrance to the Bromford Tube's five road siding

Ref: misc_bt1714 A Brookes Looking towards Water Orton with Bromford Tube Company's exchange sidings on the left in 1962

Ref: misc_bt1713 A Brookes A lorry is seen to be unloaded at the Bromford Lane end of the exchange sidings during the Winter of 1962

Ref: misc_bt1707 A Pratt First of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's exchange sidings in the early 1960s

Ref: misc_bt1708 A Pratt Second of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's sidings in the early 1960s

Ref: misc_bt1709 A Pratt Third of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's sidings in the early 1960s

Ref: misc_bt1710 A Pratt Fourth of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's sidings in the early 1960s

Ref: misc_bt1711 A Pratt Fifth of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's sidings in the early 1960s

Ref: misc_bt1712 A Pratt Sixth of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's sidings in the early 1960s

Ref: misc_bt1690 A Brookes Seventh of seven views of Peckett 0-4-0ST No 2119 shunting in Bromford Tube's sidings in the early 1960s

Ordnance Survey Maps and Accident Report

Ref: mrbb1693 National Library of Scotland A 1902 OS Map of Bromford Bridge station in relation to the start of Washwood Heath sidings which lay to the West

Ref: mrbb1016 Ordance Survey Map showing the location of the station in relation to Washwood Heath sidings which lay to the West

Paul Smith wrote, I came across your site today as I was looking for any Bromford Tubes information and spotted the pictures of Bromford Lane station and the captions beneath. In 1966 I was an apprentice at Fort Dunlop just down the road from Bromford Lane, and spent many a happy evening at the tube factory. The attached article was written by me a few years ago for the society magazine to which I belong, the West Lancashire Light Railway, as a matter of general railway interest. You also may find it of interest.

This is a Standard Gauge story, but so what! Back in the heady days of September 1966, just after the last time England's footie team had won anything, I found myself in lodgings in the Erdington district of Birmingham. I had recently left school, and had just started a four year sandwich degree course in Mechanical Engineering. I was employed by Dunlop UK Tyres Ltd, and my first session was to be five months in the Engineering Apprentice training school at Fort Dunlop, which still exists, and can be seen from the M6 on the left hand side about a mile south of spaghetti junction. At that time, Dunlop's had an internal standard gauge railway system, and had at least one Peckett 0-4-0ST and a similar loco of unknown origin operating the system. One of the first things I spotted when wandering round the works, was a short siding containing two derelict locomotives, another Peckett, and a Barclay, both 0-4-0STs. A quiet word with the Plant Engineer and I was the proud owner of the works plates off these two, which I still have, (Peckett 2046 of 1943 and Barclay 1604 of 1918), for the scrap price of brass. Yes, I obtained them legally! The Peckett also had a smaller cast iron plate, the type that I had never seen before, denoting that it was registered to run on the GWR, No. 260. I was lucky, as these two were reduced to small chunks within a couple of months, and carted off to be made into razor blades or some such.

My other railway interest at Dunlop's was the building of a crude two cylinder Walschaerts valve gear mechanism (forward gear only) as a joint project with two other apprentices. The drawings were scaled off a drawing in an old driver’s handbook which my dad had, but it seemed to work. We ran it on air and calculated the brake horsepower by using a brake band and a spring balance on the flywheel; it came to just under 1HP, if I remember right. I tried to build a gas fired boiler for it out of a piece of four inch diameter copper tube, but this failed miserably. The mechanism, however, lived on, and I saw it several years later inside a Perspex cover (to avoid trapped fingers), and an on/off air control valve. (If any readers of this article work at Fort Dunlop, I would be interested to hear if the model survives).

Another railway job at Dunlop was making some small parts for Tony Hills’ ex-Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry Hunslet ‘Sybil’, towards the end of the session when supervision slackened off. Yes, I was doing ‘foreigners’ in my first year of employment! I had met Tony in October 1966, at his then home at Woodbine Cottage on the Coventry road, near to where the NEC is now. All he had then was Sybil and the De Winton. Anyway, back to the story.

I had brought my bike down to Birmingham to get to work on, and so after tea on fine evenings I used to cycle round the area to see what was what in the way of gricing opportunities, although we didn't call it that then. I ended up one day at Bromford Bridge, where Bromford Lane (the A4040 ring road) goes over the Birmingham-Derby main line. I was still ‘spotting’ at this time, but interest was waning as steam declined. Several evenings were spent at Bromford Bridge, where there was a derelict station platform, and after locking up my bike, I would wander along the main line track side towards Birmingham, and climb over the fence into Metro-Cammell's Washwood Heath works and have a look round. I was not stopped once. Imagine trying to do that today.

Anyway, one evening I was stood on the platform back at the bridge, and suddenly heard a commotion behind me. I had seen the interchange sidings behind the platform fence, with bolster wagons sitting there full of steel tubes, but thought nothing more of it. But now was evident the motive power that shunted the sidings, in the shape of another ubiquitous Peckett 0-4-0ST, which had crept out from under the road bridge and promptly derailed itself on a set of points. A quick reversal with full regulator and much graunching and dust flying saw it back on the rails. The crew noticed my interest, and it wasn't long before we were chatting, and then the inevitable invitation to the footplate. For the next two or three months, you can guess what I was doing after tea, in all weathers! The works was owned by Stewarts and Lloyds, known locally as ‘Bromford Tubes’ and was their main tube manufacturing plant in the midlands, producing, amongst other things, lampposts of all shapes and sizes. The interchange sidings consisted of four or five loops, fully floodlit for night working, as the steelworks was a 24-hour operation. They and the works were shunted by the above mentioned Peckett, and an elderly Avonside, both of which, sadly, I made no note of the identification. The night shift crew of three made me most welcome, inviting me into the weighbridge hut for the strongest mugs of tea I have ever had, and lengthy discussions between shunts on the chances of Aston Villa beating ManchesterSaturday's United. or Liverpool in next Saturday's match, while we waited for the phone to ring advising us of the next shunt. The only name I recall was one Bill Picket, an elderly Brummie with a grizzled face, not far off retirement, and I used to gently take the Mickey about ‘Picket’s Peckett’.

It wasn't long, however, before I was driving, firing, coaling up from an ancient wooden wagon, learning to use the injectors, (Bill called them ‘jiggers’), and keeping out of sight of Authority in the shape of the night foreman. To be in control (sort of) of a few hundred tons of bogie wagons with a small 0-4-0 and only a steam brake, is something else, I can tell you. I would whistle cheekily at the main line locomotives thundering past next to the sidings, getting waves (and other hand signals!) back from the ‘real’ drivers. We went into the various mills and heat treatment departments, sorting the wagons as required, and then propelling them over the weighbridge (controlled by colour light signals to enable each wagon to be stopped and weighed), and out onto the interchange yard. They taught me how to use a shunter's pole, for coupling and uncoupling three link couplings, but the pear shaped centre link variety were the worst.

I was also introduced to Pole shunting. For the uninitiated, this is a dodge to try and save time when the stock you want to shunt is on an adjacent track, and you can't be bothered setting back and coming up the right road, especially if it's a long way to the points. A stout pole, more usually a straight log, (but definitely not a shunter's pole!), is wedged between the corners of the buffer beams of the loco and wagon to be shunted, at an angle dependant on the length of the pole, and the distance between the tracks. The wagon is propelled forward in this fashion, but you have to make sure the pole is always in compression, otherwise it will fall down. I always stayed well clear when these antics were attempted, and it inevitably ended in a pile of splinters, as the planks they used were totally unsuitable for the job. Anyway, we had a few laughs.

The regular night shift loco was the Peckett, with the Avonside day engine bedded down for the night in an adjacent siding. As it was early evening whenever I went down to the works, there were always a few pounds ‘on the clock’ on the Avonside, as it were. One evening, the crew decided that a particular shunt would be performed more quickly with a second loco on the job. “You take the Avonside, Paul, and follow us down, buffer up when we are clear, etc..etc..” I can't remember the rest of the instruction, but any way it was quite dark when I got the whistle, and yours truly followed down with the Avonside with maybe 40-50 pounds on the clock, to buffer up to the required wagon. About thirty feet away from the wagons, on went the steam brake – nothing! With such low pressure, the brake was virtually useless, if it was any good in the first place, and not having any time to grab the hand brake, we hit those wagons with a bang that must have been heard a mile away. They shot off down the siding, further than they should have, but fortunately came to no harm. I hadn't realised the reason behind the lack of brake power at the time, and I don't think the crew did either. They must have thought I was pretty useless after all they had taught me! The Avonside was quickly and quietly put back to bed and we heard no more about it.

All good things sadly come to an end, and when my course at Dunlop's finished, I said my good-byes to Bill and his mates, promising to look them up if I was ever in the area again. I did, four years later, but steam had been replaced by a Rolls Royce Sentinel diesel by then, and a crew I didn't recognize. The whole works has gone now, another casualty of the decline of British manufacturing. Happy days.