Aire Valley Coal
James Skoyles continues his story of the Aire Valley coal workings and how the industry changed leading up to and just after the Millennium.
The decade from 1987 to 1997 was one of big change for both British Rail and the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). The Railway had been split into discrete business sectors in 1982: Intercity, Provincial, London and the South East, Mail and Parcels, and Railfreight. In 1987 the sectors were divided again into subsectors and Railfreight was split into Coal, Construction, Petroleum, Metals and Distribution. The Knottingley area came under Railfreight Coal’s portfolio. Each business sector was responsible for its own destiny. It had its own management, planning and operations team and its own allocation of locos, wagons, maintenance facilities and train crew depots. Each sector was also under pressure from the Railways board and HM Treasury to eliminate wastage, find efficiencies and deliver an 8% profit on all trains that ran. It was expected that the sub-sectors would have a cash surplus by 1993.
Longer trains
The first project undertaken by Railfreight Coal was to increase the length of the Aire Valley Merry-Go-Round (MGR) trains. Since the Class 56 had been introduced in 1980, the length of the trains had slowly increased, starting in 1982 when they expanded to 32 wagons, then 33 in 1983 and 34 wagons in 1986. In 1988 each trainload increased further to 36 wagons. The increase was in response to a request from the customer for more tonnage to be carried. The last increase of wagon numbers, in 1986, caused a few problems, however, as some places were already close to the maximum length they could handle. These further increases caused a lot of minor track and signalling changes such as at Drax and Ferrybridge Power Stations. This also happened at Pontefract in the up siding next to the station, at Milford down sidings and Knottingley sidings. The works were completed by the March and the number of MGR sets started to rise.
By the start of May 1988 1,500 HAA wagons had been allocated to Knottingley to service the Aire Valley power stations, which worked out at 39 sets of 36 wagons, with 1,404 required for daily traffic. The remainder of the fleet would have planned works carried out, general overhauls or would be awaiting repairs. With each sector seeking even greater efficiency, the TOPS computer system that revolutionised loco and wagon utilisation in the 1970s again came to the fore when each sector’s loco pools were created, along with the new pool code system. This gave the management a better view of how the loco fleet was performing, along with its utilisation. The Aire Valley fleet or Railfreight Coal’s FEDN Class 56 (Yorkshire Coal) pool contained 45 locos. All were out-based at Knottingley, with the home depot being Toton TMD. The pool had 36 daily diagrams, with four locos as spare to carry out changes when others required fuelling and exams; the remainder of the pool were on exam or classified repairs.
CEGB privatisation
In 1989 the Conservative Government began privatising the national utilities. After the telecommunications industry passed into the private sector in 1986 it was followed by British Gas and, in 1989, water services went the same way. Along with the Water Board, legislation was debated and eventually passed for the privatisation of the Central Electric Generating Board. This gained Royal assent on July 27, 1989 and on April 1, 1990 the CEGB was split into private generating companies National Power and Power Gen, and these supplied the newly formed National Grid Company.
In the Aire Valley, National Power was in charge of Drax, Eggborough and Thorpe Marsh Power Stations and Power Gen controlled Ferrybridge ‘B’ & ’C’. In the winter months, before the new generators officially took over the running of the power generating industry, the shape of things to come arrived at Hull Docks when a ship laden with Russian coal docked. It generated a trial movement for Power Gen of 50 trainloads of coal from the port to Ferrybridge and Cottam Power stations, with each power station taking 25 trains. The trial was deemed a success by Associated British Ports and Power Gen, and this paved the way for future imports.
The new power generators had the freedom to buy coal from wherever they wanted, however they did sign contracts with British Coal to take 70m tonnes per year collectively to fuel their power stations. From day one they were under pressure from environmental lobbying groups to cut greenhouse gas emissions from their power stations. The companies started looking to other areas of UK Coal production away from the coal mined on their doorsteps. They carried out test burns with coal sourced from the Scottish central belt and Lothian and Fife areas. They found that coal to be significantly lower in sulphur content than the Yorkshire coal, but it burnt well and created the same heat required to turn the turbines in the power stations.
This new traffic was great news for rail, but to enable it to run a few hurdles had to be overcome. No Scottish train crews knew Class 56s, so 56086 was sent north of the border to enable train crew and maintenance staff to become familiar with the type. Meanwhile, new paths had to be found for trains from Millerhill to Thornton Yard via the Forth Bridge as they were confined to 27 wagons owing to weight restrictions over the structure.
Changes in motive power
The May 1991 timetable change saw the introduction of four daily services between Millerhill and York Yard North. The coal carried in these trains was destined for Drax, Ironbridge, Ratcliffe and Fiddlers Ferry. The volume to the power stations varied, depending on the weekly negotiations between the power generators and Trainload Coal.
Moving coal to Fiddlers Ferry near Widnes via the ECML may seem a strange move, but for Trainload Coal it made sense. There were already several daily working timetable paths from Milford West Sidings and Healey Mills to Fiddlers Ferry. So, once the train was at York one of the Milford or Healey Mills trains would start out and the corresponding empty set of wagons would end at York ready to form an empty Anglo Scottish set back north.
Early movements saw complaints from the power generators about discrepancies in the weighbridge tickets – some trains were arriving at the destination power station with up to ten or 12 tonnes of coal missing. During transit the coal was being blown off the wagons by air turbulence. To solve the issue a modification was carried out to the HAA wagons allocated to the East Coast Anglo Scottish Coal pool in the form of aerodynamic covers. These were a success, with all parties satisfied.
The Class 56s used on these services were not drawn from a special pool of locos but from the FEDN Yorkshire Coal and FEEN North East Coal pools. At times this depended upon the weekly negotiations between the power generators, and this often placed the Yorkshire and North East loco fleet under great pressure. From the May 1992 timetable change the Class 56s were ousted from these workings as by then
Trainload Coal had sufficient train crew trained on the new Class 60s. In addition, Trainload Coal had received its quota of Class 60s which became the booked motive power for these services.
A changing market
On the local front, the coal was being sourced away from the traditional Yorkshire coalfields, with even Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coal starting to be burnt by the Aire Valley power stations in large tonnages. In reaction to the changing market, Trainload Coal also re-evaluated and studied the work its train crew depots did. The results were quite stark as it discovered that invisible ‘buffer stops’ could be found at York, Doncaster and Barrow Hill,. with some of the depots having extremely unproductive diagrams. Its train crew managers and planning departments worked out that with some minor tweaks and reallocation of work it would be possible to get rid of these invisible ‘buffer stops’. Trainload Coal saw that in the North Notts and Derbyshire coalfields there was not enough work to support the three depots at Barrow Hill, Worksop and Shirebrook. With Worksop having a MGR wagon maintenance facility and a large group of sidings it was decided that this would be the place to amalgamate three depots into one. On February 12, 1992 the new train crew signing-on and loco stabling sidings opened at Worksop, along with new drivers’ rosters and links that saw Worksop men work through to York and Healey Mills.
Since the depot had opened in 1967, Knottingley drivers only went as far north as York Yard North and south as far as Doncaster up and down Decoy and Hexthorpe Sidings. The train crew now learned the road to Toton, Worksop and the South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire pits at Rossington, Maltby, Harworth and Oxcroft. They also learned the road to Hull via Goole and Selby and to Immingham for the increasing volume of imported coal. A small number of men learned the road to Tyne Yard for the Anglo
Scottish MGR trains. Other depots, such as Tyne Yard, also had their diagrams altered to allow them go that little bit further in a ten-hour shift. The depot would sign through to Knottingley and work Tyne Yard to Knottingley with a physical needs break before working back to Tyne Yard with the same set of wagons. Healey Mills crews found themselves working the crossPennine coal traffic from Healey Mills to Fiddlers Ferry and back in a shift, instead of being relieved at Warrington Bank Quay or Arpley Yard.
"The first project undertaken by Railfreight Coal was to increase
the length of the Aire Valley Merry-Go-Round (MGR) trains."
Mine closures
Just when the new working arrangements were in place after the hard work and upheaval, they were set to be derailed by the announcement on October 13, 1992 from the Rt Hon Michael Heseltine MP, President of the Board of Trade, that 31,000 miners were to lose their jobs with the closure of 31 out of the remaining 50 deep coal mines in the UK. The North East, Yorkshire and East Midlands coalfields would be decimated by this announcement. The NUM again locked horns with the ruling Conservative Government and launched a legal challenge over the decision. Within days the government changed tack and conducted a full review of which pits were economically viable. This came after it had lost not only public support but the support of its own back bench MPs, whose constituents were in mining communities. After the full review had been carried out only ten deep mines won a reprieve, and 21 closures took place from early 1993. This slimmed-down industry was sold off in 1994, with most of British Coal’s assets going to Richard John Budge Mining (RJB Mining) for £815m. Budge, christened ‘King Coal’ by the media, was the man who breathed fire into an industry in its death throws.
For the railway it was very much business as usual until after the pits had closed, as it took several months, if not years, to clear the stocks from the sites. From 1993 the collieries served quickly started dropping off the railway map. Those that remained were still mining, with production slightly increased in some areas. However, the volume of coal imports was steadily on the rise with Redcar Docks joining Hull and Immingham as an importing site. Throughout 1993 this secured regular flows to Ferrybridge, Eggborough and West Burton, and in Immingham’s case regular flows to Didcot.
Rail privatisation
Change for the railway was around the corner too, with the 1993 Railways Act gaining Royal assent on November 5, 1993. On April 1, 1994 British Rail was broken up, with the freight business split into three shadow operating companies – Trainload Freight (North, South and West) as well as Rail Express Systems (RES) and Railfreight Distribution. The three Trainload companies became Load Haul, Transrail, and Mainline Freight and each had its own business managers and directors, along with its own train crew and loco and wagon fleet.
Each company was encouraged to go out and win as much business as it could and tender for work out of its own geographical areas. Knottingley was deeply rooted in Load Haul territory and from day one it was pretty much business as usual at the depot, although some changes took place with its
"The three Trainload companies became Load Haul, Transrail, and
Mainline Freight and each had its own business managers and
directors, along with its own train crew and loco and wagon fleet"
loco planning and diagramming. This saw three Class 60s out-based at the depot – not for coal but to be used for the new gypsum traffic from Drax Power Station to Kirkby Thore. One loco was used on the Rylstone to Hull Dairycoates and Leeds Hunslet Tilcon flow. Following on from the 1992 pit closure programme, Load Haul was busy clearing stocks from a number of closed collieries, mainly Silverwood, Frickley, Goldthorpe, Wintersett, Grimethorpe, Bentley and Markham Main (Doncaster). The coal from some of these sites was not destined for the Aire Valley but for Blyth and Lynemouth Power Stations when the power generators were free to source from wherever was appropriate.
However, increasing amounts of coal were sourced from Butterwell, Widdrington and Wardley for the Aire Valley power stations. At places such as Milford West Sidings and Tyne Yard this brought the strange sight of loaded trains passing each other in opposite directions. More revenue for Load Haul came from the clearing of coal stocks from National Power’s Thorpe Marsh Power Station. Thorpe Marsh, having begun life in 1963, had a 1GW generating capacity and was used as the prototype power station for the rest of the Aire Valley. By 1993, though, the installation required significant investment and major repairs to its boilers and turbines. National Power took the decision to close the site and in March 1994 it generated its last electricity for the National Grid. From June 1994, Load Haul was moving four daily trains for National Power to Drax Power Station. It decided that, with more coal coming from outside the area and the company being contracted to take coal into the Trent Valley power stations, it would embark on a route-learning programme for its Knottingley train crews. It created two links at the depot – a North Link and a South
Link. The South Link learned the routes to West Burton, Cottam, High Marnham and Ratcliffe power stations and the North Links routes to Calverton, Thoresby, Welbeck and Oxcroft collieries. This saved Load Haul the hire charges from rival shadow freight operator Mainline Freight.
In 1996 the shadow operators passed into the private sector when Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation bought the former BR companies for £225m. The new owners of BR’s former freight companies were keen to increase its business. The newly formed English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS) sales team was very aggressive in attracting and increasing new business and one growth area offering great potential was Anglo Scottish coal. Load Haul had started building this traffic in 1995 with movements to Blyth Power Station from Killoch. Now the Aire Valley generators were looking into using this coal, which was low in sulphur content but gave the same heat as the locally mined product. After some short-term flows in 1996 the growth of this traffic was phenomenal – and it kept on growing.
More flexibility
EWS, while gaining more business, knew it had to change the company employees’ terms and conditions for every grade – and the most affected were train crews. EWS drivers and ground staff received a substantial pay rise in return for adopting new terms and conditions. Some of these included the abolition of historic agreements and the introduction of lodging turns, driver-only run rounds, fuelling, sanding and oiling of locos and also more flexible rostering and longer turns of duty. The new terms were known as the Driver Restructuring Initiative (DRI). As part of this initiative more route learning was going to have to be undertaken. For the Aire Valley and managers, diagrams and rosters were drawn up that would see Knottingley-based train crews work trains through to Carlisle and Ayr. They would then lodge in Ayr to learn the depot and also the return route to Tyne Yard. The Knottingley Depot Aire Valley Agreement that had been in place since 1968 stated that only Knottingley-based train crew would work trains in and out of the three Aire Valley Power Stations. This was abolished and drivers from Healey Mills, Immingham, Thornaby and Tyne Yard all learned the power stations’ routes. Thornaby train crews learned Eggborough and Ferrybridge. Tyne Yard crews only learned Drax and Ferrybridge as that depot only had flows into those power stations.
Massive loco investment
EWS had made it clear from the outset that it would be investing in new locos and rolling stock, and this rapidly came to pass with the acquisition of 250 Class 66 locos from the US and more than 2,000 wagons in a £750m investment programme. One area that EWS thought needed investment was in its coal wagon fleet. In 1999 it placed an order with its wagon builder Thrall Europa for 845 new bogie coal hopper wagons. The company looked at how much tonnage the former National Power Rail was moving in a train the same length as 36 HAA wagons and the facts spoke for themselves. Each trainload of 17 bogie hoppers delivered 30% more coal than did 36 HAA wagons. The order for the 845 wagons was soon increased and eventually totalled 1,145 wagons. December 2000 saw the first 104-ton TA GLW wagon roll off the production line at York and this was shortly followed by another 16. The works at York was managing to build 13 wagons per week. The one unusual thing regarding the wagons was that they were all fitted with US-style buckeye couplers, so in normal use they could only be hauled by Class 66s. The Aire Valley was the first area to use the wagons’ three sets of 17 HTA hoppers,
which were put to work on the coal flow from Redcar Bulk Terminal to Eggborough Power Station. At the same time two sets of 17 HTA hoppers took on the Gascoigne Wood/Prince of Wales to Drax traffic. Once enough numbers of wagons were in traffic flows from Hull, Immingham and Tyne Dock, they started switching to HTA hoppers and by 2003 most of the Anglo Scottish flows had gone over to HTAs. The HAA hopper fleet was not withdrawn completely from EWS power station coal services until April 2009, the last flows being from Mossend to Drax and West Burton Power Stations. One set of HAAs carried on in traffic until 2010, being used on the coal flow from New Cumnock to Earls Sidings carrying industrial grade coal for the cement making process. EWS started to push the length of its coal trains, increasing them to 19 then 20, 21 and, finally, 23 wagons for Aire and Trent Valley coal services. For its Anglo Scottish trains EWS could only run 21 wagon trains, this being the maximum a Class 66 could haul over the gradients of the Settle to Carlisle and Glasgow South Western Routes.
Boom time
As the new millennium dawned the Aire Valley was booming, with EWS moving locally mined product. It was still clearing stocks from some of the region’s closed collieries, along with moving imported coal from the East Coast ports and open cast coal from Scotland. The East Coast’s Port of Immingham was keen to capture as much of the import traffic as it could possibly handle. Until then coal for the power stations had been loaded in the bulk terminal. Associated British Ports (ABP) had a commercial agreement with British Steel to use one of its coal loading pads when it was not using it. This saw trains loaded at night when no steel traffic was present. Coal traffic was also booked to run on Sundays.
However, by 1999 the agreement was no longer fit for purpose and ABP decided that it would invest in bringing the former National Coal Board export terminal back into use, not for the discharging of export coal but for the loading of imported coal. The NCB Terminal, when it was used as a coal discharge facility, could process 26 trains in a 24-hour period. Once fully opened, the terminal was soon close to capacity and so ABP reopened the NCB2 Terminal. This allowed for a further eight trains to be loaded per day. ABP quickly realising this terminal would be soon be fully subscribed too, and so one of the sidings in the former ‘B’ storage area, B4, was given over to the loading of coal.
ABP then looked at unused land around the dock estate at the western end, near to British Steel’s bulk terminal and close to the coal jetties. It identified a strip of land that it wanted to develop into a dedicated terminal for the loading of the still rising levels of imported coal. The new terminal opened to traffic in 2001, equipped with modern loading pads, a single loading line and a run-round loop. Loading was carried out with JCB mechanical shovels, which enabled trains to be loaded in as little as 30 minutes, the terminal therefore having the capacity to load 125 trains per week.
While the Port of Immingham was expanding, the Yorkshire coalfield was contracting, with the 2001 announcement that the Prince of Wales Colliery, the oldest working colliery in Yorkshire, was to close. It was producing 1.5m tonnes of coal a year, but a geological study deemed the cost of extracting the remaining eight million tonnes too expensive and the colliery closed in January 2002 with the loss of 500 jobs. This news was shortly followed by the announcement that the Selby Super Pit was to close by 2004. The mine’s operator, UK Coal, stated the reason for the closure as the falling price of coal in the UK caused by cheaper imports. The five mines that made up the Selby Super Pit were wound down in stages, with the shafts at Whitemoor and North Selby closing more or less straight after the announcement. Wistow ceased mining in May 2004, closely followed by Stillingfleet in July and Riccall in October. Trains still ran from the Gascoigne Wood rail head, clearing stocks until November 2004 when the last train departed for Drax. At its height, Gascoigne Wood loaded more than 12m tonnes of product onto rail a year to feed the Aire Valley Power Stations, mainly Drax and Eggborough, and during its 20-year lifespan it produced 121m tonnes of coal and filled more than 100,000 trainloads.
It is worth noting that in 2006 the Port of Immingham imported 14m tonnes of coal into the UK. The previous year had seen Rossington Colliery, famed for providing the coal that powered LNER’s fleet of A4 Pacifics, cease production after again hitting geological faults that made the costs to extract the remaining coal stocks too prohibitive. In 2006 Harworth followed suit. At Immingham in 2004 ABP had put a successful business case to its board to seek funding for Phase 2 of the Humber International Terminal (HIT). This saw the site developed by the installation of overhead rapid loading bunkers that would allow two trains to be loaded at the same time. ABP also paid for upgraded signalling works to its infrastructure. This permitted bidirectional signalling to be installed from Humber Road Jn to Immingham West Jn. The work was carried out to alleviate congestion, as delays to ore and coal services were being encountered because coal trains were waiting for acceptance into the Terminal. With the work completed, the HIT was officially opened in August 2006 by HRH The Princess Royal. It now had the capacity to process 160 trains per week. With this improved volume, tonnages still rising and more companies using the dock to import coal, ABP decided to remove the former A&B Storage sidings. This left only two roads for the loading of trains. In the reception sidings No 1 and No 7 roads were given over to the loading of coal trains; these became known as the LL1 and LL7 lines. All these changes allowed around 120 trains per week to load, along with the former NCB Export terminal. In 2014 the yearly tonnage of imported coal for power generation broke all records when 18.5m tonnes was unloaded at Immingham Docks.
New operators
National Power (NP) took the opportunity to enter the newly privatised marketplace and
dipped its toe into the industry when it placed an order with General Motors in 1993 for a single Class 59. The company also placed an order with wagon builder Powell Duffryn for 21 JHA 90-ton stone hopper wagons. These assets would be used to move two daily trainloads of limestone from Tunstead Quarry to Drax Power Station’s new £750m flue gas de-sulpherisation plant. The company also built a small depot on the site of Ferrybridge ‘A’ Power Station. A two-road loco servicing facility and three-road wagon repair shop were created at Ferrybridge, which was equipped with a wheel drop facility and multi-level working platforms. National Power had looked at how well the Mendip Rail system worked in the West Country in moving stone from the Mendips to central London for distribution. It copied this way of working with its trains manned by BR drivers based at Doncaster and Knottingley.
Its first loco, 59201, arrived at Hull Docks on February 16, 1994, and after a short period of acceptance tests and crew training the loco entered service in late April 1994, replacing a BR Class 60 diagram. Drax Power Station at that time was producing 20% of National Power’s output. There had been a spell of industrial action brought by both the RMT and ASLEF unions that led to a number of one-day rail strikes, so NP did its sums and worked out that if it transferred eight million tonnes per annum to its own operation it would save £30m over a two-year period. The company went ahead and placed an order for five more Class 59/2s and a fleet of 85 JMA 102-ton bogie coal wagons. It also decided it would use its own staff to run them.
The company gained an operating licence and poached a small number of BR drivers. NP’s own train crew, known as Rail Equipment Operators (REOs), went through the same rigorous training as other drivers on the national network and held the same high standards. National Power wanted a one-sizefits-all remit for its train crew and this was implied in the new term REO – these men were multi-skilled. Not only did they carry out driving duties, they also did train preparation and ground staff duties of fuelling and sanding locos. All National Power’s coal trains ran enhanced brake tests to facilitate driver-only run rounds. Enhanced brake tests had only previously been used by Trainload Coal on the Welbeck and Thoresby to Didcot flow as the loco had to run round at least four times on these trains. However, NP rolled this out as standard and once the 24-hour brake test period had elapsed, two REOs could carry out the task between them.
Over the weekend of August 5, 1995, 59202 to 59205 were unloaded at King George Dock, Hull and were hauled by 37713 on the Saturday and 59201 on the Sunday to Ferrybridge Depot. Within a matter of weeks the class had been put to work between Gascoigne Wood, Prince of Wales, Kellingley, Maltby and Harworth Collieries to Drax and Eggborough Power Stations. National Power was impressed with its new locos and wagons to the point that it wanted to transport all its own coal to its power stations. This would have meant a further order for 15 Class 59/2s and 415 JMA wagons. However, despite NP drivers learning routes to West Burton and Immingham, the company was constantly dogged by Railtrack’s Safety & Standards Directorate and struggled at times to obtain third party insurance. It did manage to run its own trains from Wardley Opencast to Drax and Eggborough for a while, but this was shortly before the company announced in 1997 that it had agreed terms with EWS to sell its rail business for an undisclosed fee. From 0001 on April 1, 1998 all National Power’s rail operations staff and assets passed to EWS.
To be continued…
"EWS looked at how much tonnage the former National Power Rail was moving in a train the same length as 36 HAA wagons and the facts spoke for themselves."