Explosives

Model and prototype rolling stock, locos, multiple units etc.
allanferguson
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Explosives

Postby allanferguson » Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:52 pm

It has come to mind in a different context that I know virtually nothing about the distribution and use of explosives, particularly in the pre-grouping period. I know that they were often manufactured in remote locations, but, apart from the military, who used them? Mines and quarries spring to mind. But I understand that in coal mines the Firemen (who set and fired the explosives) had to buy the gelignite / dynamite / gunpowder themselves. So what was the distribution chain? I have a photograph of a shop window in Kelty (in the Fife Coalfield) advertising explosives for sale. Would a fireman keep it in the kitchen cupboard? Like many modellers I have several models of gunpowder wagons. Presumably they collected from the manufacturers. But where did they deliver?

It might be gathered that I know virtually nothing about this.......... But I haven't found anyone who can enlighten me, so I wondered whether anyone on this august forum might be able to help

Allan Ferguson

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Re: Explosives

Postby Armchair Modeller » Fri Jul 14, 2017 9:44 pm

Some large scale OS maps show explosives stores or magazines at collieries and quarries - usually in a fairly isolated position for some reason.

Here's an example from Notts c1880.

MGC.jpg

allanferguson
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Re: Explosives

Postby allanferguson » Fri Jul 14, 2017 11:04 pm

Thank you Armchair Modeller. My initial stimulus for this question was a visit to a magazine building at a local quarry!

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Knuckles
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Re: Explosives

Postby Knuckles » Fri Jul 14, 2017 11:28 pm

Thinking small wouldn't the railway purchase a few wee bombs for the guard to place on the rails? The detonators etc.

Other than that no idea.
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John Palmer
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Re: Explosives

Postby John Palmer » Sat Jul 15, 2017 1:33 am

The Explosives Act of 1875 appears to be an early attempt to codify the law relating to manufacture and storage of explosives. It introduced licensing requirements for both manufacture and storage, whilst exempting from such licensing privately held stocks of explosives up to 30lb. If you exceeded this limit, all explosives you held were liable to forfeiture and in addition you might incur a fine charged at the rate of a florin for each pound of explosive held! The Act as originally enacted may repay study and can be found at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1875/17/pdfs/ukpga_18750017_en.pdf. Carriers (this expression no doubt included the railways) enjoyed an exemption from the obligation to hold explosives in premises licensed for the purpose provided the explosives in question were being conveyed in accordance with the Act's requirements for their transportation.

By 1960 railway instructions for the conveyance of explosives had found their way into two pamphlets: a Green Pamphlet covering carriage of explosives for HMG and Visiting Forces, and Red Pamphlet dealing with carriage of dangerous goods (including explosives) for the civilian sector. Full understanding of the pamphlets requires access also to the List of Dangerous Goods and Conditions of Acceptance extant at the time, because these apparently contain detailed classification of the different types of explosives, to which the pamphlets make copious cross-references.

Gunpowder vans were treated by the Red Pamphlet as permitted to carry all explosives authorised for conveyance by rail, but ordinary vans and opens might also be employed for carriage of a much more restricted range of explosives if they were not packed in metallic cases. Vehicles fitted with end or floor doors, or defective ventilators, were not to be used for carriage of explosives, and the use of railway containers for this purpose was also prohibited.

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Guy Rixon
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Re: Explosives

Postby Guy Rixon » Sat Jul 15, 2017 7:47 am

Were there any restrictions on routing of gunpowder vans? I vaguely remember a ban on them passing through the Severn tunnel. Would they, for example, be allowed on the City Widened Lines in London?

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Re: Explosives

Postby John Palmer » Sat Jul 15, 2017 8:42 am

According to the Red Pamphlet, carriage of explosives and dangerous goods over any railway forming part of the passenger network of London Transport, or over City Widened Lines, was prohibited subject to four exceptions:
1. Northern Line between Park Junction - High Barnet - Mill Hill East
2. Open sections of Central Line at Leyton and east thereof
3. Between Harrow South Junction and Aylesbury South Junction (including Watford and Chesham Branches)
4. Between East Putney and Wimbledon.

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Winander
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Re: Explosives

Postby Winander » Sat Jul 15, 2017 10:10 am

According to Wikipeda, there was "an important export market" as early as the 18th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Wood_Gunpowder_Works
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Re: Explosives

Postby JFS » Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:21 pm

allanferguson wrote:... the Firemen (who set and fired the explosives) ...


The only Firemen where I come from worked either for the Railway or the Fire Brigade! People who made the roadways down the pits were Shotfirers or Deputies and those who looked after the boilers in the mills were Firebeaters. On the ships they employed Stokers for such work...

I expect every district had different terms...

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charles davidson

Re: Explosives

Postby charles davidson » Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:23 pm

Certainly in Scotland a fireman in coal mining terms was the man who inspected his district. There would be several districts and if all the firemen pronounced it safe the men would then go underground. Their lives depended on the firemen. The men who fired the shots were shotfirers, hence the S at the end of NACODS.

The reason the magazines were located some distance from the colliery was that they could, and did, go bang!

Working titles would vary from coalfield to coalfield though and as modernisation set in, additional job descriptions would be introduced. The man who operated mechanised plant from some sort of keyboard was, again in Scotland anyway, referred to, with startling accuracy, as "The button man"!

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kelly
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Re: Explosives

Postby kelly » Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:36 pm

Military explosives/ordanance would be sent to military depots, who would have sidings with mounds to deflect any potential blasts to prevent a cascade of all stock going up if something went bang.

Any steam locos used on such traffic, certainly within confines of a military depot, would have likely have had spark arresting gear fitted or banned and Diesel used instead. Barrier wagons would have been a requirement too I'd expect.
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Guy Rixon
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Re: Explosives

Postby Guy Rixon » Sun Jul 16, 2017 9:28 am

kelly wrote:Barrier wagons would have been a requirement too I'd expect.


Which suggests a regulation that gunpowder wagons be placed at least a certain number of wagons back from the engine.

I also remember reading a rule that the men loading and unloading the wagons had to wear special shoes: either sewn slippers without nails, or boots made specially with brass nails. The idea was that brass nails would not strike sparks.

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Noel
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Re: Explosives

Postby Noel » Sun Jul 16, 2017 11:36 am

BR20425 British Railways – 2 Instructions for Handling and Loading Specified Traffics http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/Booklet_BR20425_Issue.pdf on the Barrowmore site include, at Section 13, instructions for dealing with hazardous goods, and which includes references to the use of 'ammunition boots'. They also include a single line stating, without further comment "Open wagons carrying explosives must be sheeted" [the, admittedly wartime, explosion at Soham involved a fire in an open wagon carrying bombs]. I seem to remember reading somewhere that military ammunition [which would be in cases] normally travelled [and still does] in ordinary continuously-braked vans suitably labelled.
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David B
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Re: Explosives

Postby David B » Sun Jul 16, 2017 11:52 am

Guy Rixon wrote:I also remember reading a rule that the men loading and unloading the wagons had to wear special shoes: either sewn slippers without nails, or boots made specially with brass nails. The idea was that brass nails would not strike sparks.


Quite right, Guy, and about both boots and the restriction through the Severn Tunnel.

This image comes from the GWR Goods Wagons book by Atkins, Beard & Tourrett. The chapter for Diagram Z which was that for Gunpowder vans contains quite a bit of information.

Gunpowder_0079.jpg
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Last edited by David B on Sun Jul 16, 2017 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

John Palmer
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Re: Explosives

Postby John Palmer » Sun Jul 16, 2017 3:14 pm

I downloaded a copy of the Soham accident report to confirm my recollection that no barrier wagons had been incorporated into its consist. Perhaps any peacetime stricture on the use of barrier wagons had been relaxed to meet wartime exigencies, but it's clear from the report that the wagon load that exploded (forty-four 500 lb bombs carried in a Southern 8-plank open goods) were marshalled immediately adjacent to the locomotive.

The Red Pamphlet instructions required that explosives-carrying vehicles were to be separated from both locomotive and brake van by at least two wagons which had either to be empty or carrying non-dangerous goods - effectively barrier wagons. The vehicles carrying explosives were to be marshalled as near to the middle of the train as possible, and there were to be no more than 5 such vehicles in the train. The barrier wagon requirement did not apply to transfers of up to 5 miles between depots/private sidings and marshalling yards.

With government traffic covered by the Green Pamphlet it gets a good deal more complicated, provision being made for various combinations of explosive-carrying vehicles bearing labels marked 'W', 'J' and 'Y', of which 'Y'-labelled vehicles were subject to the greatest restrictions. The barrier wagon requirements were as for civilian traffic, but there was a dramatic increase in the permitted number of explosives vehicles in the train: up to 60 for various combinations of the 3 label classes mentioned, and for trains that only included either 'W' or 'J'-labelled wagons, but a maximum of only 30 wagons in the case of 'Y'-labelled wagons alone or any combination of 'J'-labelled and 6+ 'Y' labelled wagons. 'Y' wagons (clearly the most hazardous) were to be coupled in groups no greater than 5 in number, and such groups were to be separated from one another by pairs of barrier wagons. Simple, really :P .

A point covered in the Soham report is that the load which exploded had been sheeted, but the sheet in question had been wholly within the wagon and wrapped around the load of 500 pounders, rather than covering the top edges of the wagon sides and ends, so as to make it more difficult for an errant fragment of burning char to lodge within the interior.

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Re: Explosives

Postby DaveHarris » Mon Jul 17, 2017 7:15 pm

Having had some experience with munitions I would suggest, that despite the various regulations issued over the years, we must remember the dateline for the Soham incident. At that time the priority was to move munitions as quickly as possible from point A to point B. Whilst, if time and resources permitted the then current regulations would have been followed, in all probability the time pressures/wagon availability at the time may have precluded full observance of the then current regulations.
Regarding the siting of explosive stores; in commercial quarries they would be housed in buildings with roofs weaker than the walls of the building, to direct the blast upwards, not outwards, and also the buildings in 19th and early 20th century would have been located as far away as possible from the current working area, which may not have been that far at times!
Military sites do have 'blast bunds' around surface storage buildings to direct the blast upwards, rather than outwards.

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Re: Explosives

Postby Phil O » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:49 pm

DaveHarris wrote:Having had some experience with munitions I would suggest, that despite the various regulations issued over the years, we must remember the dateline for the Soham incident. At that time the priority was to move munitions as quickly as possible from point A to point B. Whilst, if time and resources permitted the then current regulations would have been followed, in all probability the time pressures/wagon availability at the time may have precluded full observance of the then current regulations.
Regarding the siting of explosive stores; in commercial quarries they would be housed in buildings with roofs weaker than the walls of the building, to direct the blast upwards, not outwards, and also the buildings in 19th and early 20th century would have been located as far away as possible from the current working area, which may not have been that far at times!
Military sites do have 'blast bunds' around surface storage buildings to direct the blast upwards, rather than outwards.


As do the sidings where wagons may be left, loaded or unloaded. At least those at the RNADs in Plymouth have.

Phil.


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