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Use Flyash facilities

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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 14:18 #134073
bugsy
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In the Peterborough 1985 sim that I am playing several trains use the Fletton and Peterborough Flyash lines.
I was wondering why this is the case. I know why steam trains used the Flyash facilities but it seems strange that diesel locomotives do.
Is it to clean the exhaust pipes from the diesel engines?

Everything that you make will be useful - providing it's made of chocolate.
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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 14:34 #134074
VInce
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The purpose of the flyash line was to enable empty flyash trains leaving Fletton to get C&W examination of the presflos before departure to their point of origin.

In my 1977 timetable, trains leaving the circle remain on the flyash line for around 40 minutes for just that purpose. It was also a convenient point for crippled wagons to be shunted out of the train and placed in Crescent sidings for attention.

As far as I'm aware it was not regularly used as an additional running line from south to north although there doesn't appear to be any reason why it shouldn't be used like that.

Compressed flyash was sometimes used to strengthen concrete in the construction industry and is a by-product of power generation at coal powered power stations. In the case of Fletton it was usually from either Ratcliffe PS (sometimes via Toton with the empty train) or High Marnham (via Gainsborough, Lincoln and Spalding) and occasionally Drakelow near Burton-on-Trent. Don't get confused between the ash dumped from steam engines and flyash produced in power stations. They have no connection at all.

At Fletton though the majority of the flyash was used as landfill for the pits left behind after clay extraction had taken place but I am aware of flyash trains from power stations in the north which went to Earles Cement at Hope on the Hope Valley for mixing with cement produced there.

See here for a picture of a train in the 70s on the flyash line awaiting C&W exam.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rivercider/10577764983

Vince

I walk around inside the questions of my day, I navigate the inner reaches of my disarray, I pass the altars where fools and thieves hold sway, I wait for night to come and lift this dread away : Jackson Browne - The Night Inside Me
Last edited: 23/11/2020 at 15:36 by VInce
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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 15:02 #134079
bugsy
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Vince.
That's a first rate explanation. Thanks very much.

Everything that you make will be useful - providing it's made of chocolate.
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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 15:09 #134081
VInce
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There's an interesting conversation about it here...

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/drax-power-station-and-rail-deliveries-of-coal-and-biomass.87688/

Vince

I walk around inside the questions of my day, I navigate the inner reaches of my disarray, I pass the altars where fools and thieves hold sway, I wait for night to come and lift this dread away : Jackson Browne - The Night Inside Me
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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 15:40 #134085
Dick
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The track looped around the pear shaped lake in the centre of the picture. The hoppers were unloaded at a plant in the area circled in red and the flyash was mixed with the water from the lake (man made) and pumped to the worked out brick pits. The ash formed a sediment and the excess water returned to the lake. The new townships of the various Hamptons are built on the flyash!!!


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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 16:13 #134086
jc92
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VInce in post 134074 said:


At Fletton though the majority of the flyash was used as landfill for the pits left behind after clay extraction had taken place but I am aware of flyash trains from power stations in the north which went to Earles Cement at Hope on the Hope Valley for mixing with cement produced there.

Vince
For some time, Drax also sent Flyash from its FGD plant by Rail to Kirkby Thore to be used in Gypsum products, although these appear to run to Earles Sdgs again nowadays.

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Use Flyash facilities 23/11/2020 at 20:24 #134106
VInce
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jc92 in post 134086 said:
VInce in post 134074 said:


At Fletton though the majority of the flyash was used as landfill for the pits left behind after clay extraction had taken place but I am aware of flyash trains from power stations in the north which went to Earles Cement at Hope on the Hope Valley for mixing with cement produced there.

Vince
For some time, Drax also sent Flyash from its FGD plant by Rail to Kirkby Thore to be used in Gypsum products, although these appear to run to Earles Sdgs again nowadays.
Yes, I remember them well. In my time as Control Manager (East) at EWS they were the bane of our lives. The performance penalties were quite onerous and Railtrack (as it was then) were quite unable to give us a decent path into the terminal. They would simply book possessions on the S&C without any reference to freight services (only passenger services mattered, of course) and we would find our trains standing for hours on end.

Later when I was the EWS out-based Shift Ops/Project Manager at Appleby for the Settle & Carlisle renewals in 1999, I attended a number of incidents. One of them was at Kirkby Thore when we had, by necessity, stabled a ballast train after a mishap. By only the light from a bardic, I pushed through some vegetation down the side of a wagon to try and locate an air leak and found myself almost waist deep in wet gypsum. Not pleasant at 0300 on a cold winter's morning!

Vince

I walk around inside the questions of my day, I navigate the inner reaches of my disarray, I pass the altars where fools and thieves hold sway, I wait for night to come and lift this dread away : Jackson Browne - The Night Inside Me
Last edited: 23/11/2020 at 21:00 by VInce
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Use Flyash facilities 27/11/2020 at 03:10 #134170
VInce
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Just found this...

Lots of footage of the flyash trains and in the flyash plant in 1984...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qk455saB7A&ab_channel=RoyHarrison


Vince

I walk around inside the questions of my day, I navigate the inner reaches of my disarray, I pass the altars where fools and thieves hold sway, I wait for night to come and lift this dread away : Jackson Browne - The Night Inside Me
Last edited: 27/11/2020 at 03:12 by VInce
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Use Flyash facilities 27/11/2020 at 08:55 #134173
Dick
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More pictures and info here http://ukrailways1970tilltoday.me.uk/PeterboroughBR_Fletton_flyash-line.html
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