A photograph showing a Radial Coke Conveyor and what appears to be the Gas Works in the background, Stockton.
Photograph courtesy of Lyn Perks.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A photograph showing a Radial Coke Conveyor and what appears to be the Gas Works in the background, Stockton.
Photograph courtesy of Lyn Perks.
Does anyone know anything about this type of conveyor, which may now be obsolete.
It seems to consist of a series of small hoppers which hold the coke. On the overhead section these run on a short track. But the gantry also supports a chain of hoppers which are suspended vertically. These seem to disappear into a hole in the ground
There are a few questions. What was it used for? Which way does the chain of buckets run, up from below ground level, and over into the building, or vice versa?
And how reliable was this arrangement. The connections between the hoppers must have been under a lot of strain, requiring constant lubrication. And if the coke or coal was lifted up from below ground level, how was this arrangement powered? If it ran from the building to the ground , its own weight may have been sufficient.
Having seen many types of tipplers lifters and other methods of moving coal or coke this one has me guessing although variations are still made.
The top is obviously a conveyor which can run both ways in or out of the building so the vertical bucket lift could be lifting material to the top for transport into the building.
The horizontal arm is movable running on a track at the end and will be used to transport material from the building where it is piled in heaps as required, by expanding the picture some of those heaps come into view. The bucket lift could also lift material onto that movable arm conveyor through the large hopper on the steel work support, it must be assumed there is an under loft where the bucket lift is filled from say another conveyor.
The whole machine could be used to filled the burners with coal then remove the coke.
ICI filled the coke ovens from wagon tipplers then the coke was pushed out into the quenching truck before being pushed to the quencher. My question would be where did they quench the coke in that building and how large were the coke ovens?
Best guess here Fred sorry.
Thank you Frank. But this does seem to be an industrial oddity which was used for a short time before rubber belts came in for transporting ground coal and coke.
The real puzzle about the picture is that the vertical section starts below ground level.
Now from the pictures on the Stockton website it is clear that vertical retorts were in use at Stockton gasworks. These are very tall buildings and unmistakeable. They are fed with coal at the top. When full, the retorts are heated from the sides with burning producer gas. After the coal has been converted into coke it is discharged from the bottom.
The producer gas is made by partly burning waste coke and coal in a special furnace called a gas producer… So I wonder if what we are seeing is a method by which the waste coke is being transported from close to the exit of the vertical retort (which might be below ground level) up and along to the entrance of the gas producer.
What don’t like about this idea is that the furnaces are inside buildings and producer gas is very, very poisonous as it contains a lot of carbon monoxide.