Coaling tower

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Facility used to load coal into steam locomotives

title: "Coaling tower" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["railway-buildings-and-structures", "rail-transport", "coal-infrastructure"] description: "Facility used to load coal into steam locomotives" topic_path: "sports" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaling_tower" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Facility used to load coal into steam locomotives ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Repton_on_the_coaling_stage,Grosmont.-geograph.org.uk-_1198262.jpg" caption="A steel coal tower at Grosmont Motive Power Depot, United Kingdom, 2007"] ::

A coaling tower, coal stage, coaling plant or coaling station is a facility used to load coal as fuel into railway steam locomotives. Coaling towers were often sited at motive power depots or locomotive maintenance shops.

In the early years of railways, coal was shovelled by hand into locomotive tenders. The first attempt in Britain to replace manual labour by gravity in the refuelling process was at Shildon, County Durham, where coal drops were built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1847.

In time, railway companies constructed more elaborate coaling towers, made from wood, steel, or reinforced concrete (ferroconcrete). In almost all cases, coaling stations used a gravity-fed method, with one or more large storage bunkers for the coal elevated on columns above the railway tracks, from which the coal could be released to slide down a chute into the waiting locomotive's coal storage area.

The method of lifting the bulk coal into the storage bin varied. The coal was sometimes dropped from a hopper car into a pit below tracks adjacent to the tower. From the pit a conveyor-type system used a chain of motor-driven buckets to raise the coal to the top of the tower where it would be dumped into the storage bin. A skip-hoist system sometimes lifted a single large bin for the same purpose. Some facilities lifted entire railway coal trucks or wagons and tipped their contents into the hopper. Sanding pipes were often mounted on coaling towers to allow simultaneous replenishment of the sand box on a locomotive.

During the 1950s and 1960s, as railways in many countries replaced steam with diesel and electric traction, the need for coaling towers declined, and eventually vanished completely. Of the more than 100 ferroconcrete examples built in Britain, those at Immingham and Carnforth were the final two left standing, the former being demolished in 2018. The Carnforth coaling tower, built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1939, is a Grade II* listed building. In the United States, many reinforced concrete towers remain in place if they do not interfere with operations, due to the high cost of demolition incurred with such massive structures.

Gallery

File:La carbonera.JPG|Temuco, Chile, 2012 File:Tarnowskie Góry - elewator węglowy.jpg|Tarnowskie Góry, Poland, 2016 File:SAR Class 25NC 3437 (4-8-4).JPG|SAR Class 25NC 3437 (4-8-4) at the coal stage at Beaconsfield, South Africa, 2009 File:Coaling Tower (disused) - geograph.org.uk - 653373.jpg|Carnforth, United Kingdom, 1999 File:Former locomotive coaling stage, Immingham depot (geograph 3717022).jpg|Immingham, United Kingdom, 2013 File:Coaling tower in Cedar Hill Yard, August 2022.JPG|Cedar Hill Yard, Connecticut, 2022 File:Coaling tower that once served Chesapeake & Ohio steam locomotives moving through Bluefield, West Virginia LCCN2015634388.tif|Bluefield, West Virginia File:C&NW coaling station 1942.jpg|Locomotive 2576 over the ash pit at the roundhouse and coaling station, now demolished, at the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad yards, Chicago, Illinois, December 1942 File:COALING TOWER, WEST ELEVATION - Collinwood Railroad Yard Coal Tipple, Between East 146th Street and East 152nd Street, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, OH HAER OHIO,18-CLEV,40A-1.tif|Collinwood Yard, Cleveland, Ohio, now demolished, c.1968 File:GTW Standard Coaling Tower PA200155.jpg|Grand Trunk Western Railroad Grand Haven Coal Tipple (coaling tower), Grand Haven, Michigan, 2006 File:Penrith, NSW - Coal stage & D57 locomotive, 1930s (AHRS Collection, ARHSBox046 1355).jpg|Penrith, New South Wales, Australia, now demolished, 1939

References

References

  1. "Coal facility".
  2. Longhorn, Danny. (22 December 2022). "Historic England Research Discovers Locomotive Coal-refuelling Stage Is First of Its Kind in Britain". Business Daily Group.
  3. Meadows, David Stanley. (1908). "Locomotive Coaling Stations". [[University of Illinois Chicago.
  4. Schofield, R. B.. (1997). "The Oxford Companion to British Railway History from 1603 to the 1990s". Oxford University Press.
  5. Dixon, Thomas W. Jr.. (2002). "Steam Locomotive Coaling Stations and Diesel Locomotive Fueling Facilities". TLC Publishing, Inc..
  6. (1935). "Locomotive Coaling Stations: Yard Storage Systems, Cinder Conveyers, Sand Plants; Bulletin No. 73001". Fairbanks, Morse & Co..
  7. Hewitt, Sam. (3 April 2019). "The Coaling Plant story: Towers of Strength – Part 1". Mortons Media Group.
  8. . (2015). ["Carnforth: The Coaling Plant"](https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1078213?section=official-list-entry).
  9. (22 July 1922). "Unusual Ash Pits Feature New Engine Terminal". Simmons-Boardman Pub. Co..

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