LMS Route: Nuneaton to Leamington

Kenilworth Junction: lnwrkj203

An unidentified ex-LNWR 0-8-0 'Super D' accelerates from Kenilworth Junction whilst at the head of a train of empty mineral wagons circa 1935. Unlike open wagons for general merchandise, the railway companies were not obliged to provide wagons to carry coal, and therefore many owners of mines, dealers and local coal merchants bought or hired their own fleets of wagons, and paid fees to the railway companies to haul them. The wagons gradually increased in capacity, from 6 tons at the dawn of railways, to 16 tons by the late 1940s, and then larger 21 and 24 ton capacity wagons as well. Some railways promoted the use of hopper wagons, but most favoured a simple wooden or steel wagon with doors at the sides, and sometimes at one end or in the floor. Collieries tended to use wagons with all three types of door, so the coal could be tipped out of the end into ships holds for export, or shoveled out of the side, or dropped through the floor into chutes between the rails. Coal merchants tended to use wagons with side doors only, and often their fleets were much smaller and older than those of the collieries. There was very strict regulation of the designs and specifications of wagon that could be built and operated, governed by a collective body of the railway companies called the Railway Clearing House (RCH).

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