COAL

By far the largest of the trainload sectors was Coal, carrying 75 million tonnes of the black stuff in 1988-90 (58% of Railfreight’s total tonnage). In the same year, the sector was responsible for more than 200 locomotives and 11,000 wagons. Unlike today, where most coal is imported and transported by rail from port to power station, the vast majority was hauled on continuous ‘merry-go-round’ circuits from collieries. The backbone of the fleet consisted of Class 56s and 50 Class 58s. From 1990 onwards, new Class 60s replaced the remaining pairs of Class 20s and allowed other Type 5s to be cascaded to replace Class 26s on short MGR circuits in Scotland. The allocation of Class 31s to the sector is misleading. These locomotives were actually allocated to nuclear flask duties. Class 37s in the fleet were largely concentrated in South Wales, with ‘heavyweight’ Class 37/7s allocated to MGR coal trains from collieries in the Valleys to Aberthaw power station and a small fleet of ‘37/0s’ dedicated to the few remaining household coal flows across the country. 08995 Kidwelly, one of the reduced height ‘08s’ modified for use on the Burry Port & Gwendraeth Railway, was also one of the few Class 08s to carry full sector livery.