- Tom Pudding
Tom Pudding was the name given to the
tub boat s on theAire and Calder Navigation , introduced in 1863 and used until 1985, which were a very efficient means of transferring and transporting coal from the open cast collieries of the South Yorkshire coalfield nearStanley Ferry to the port ofGoole , competing with rail. The name derives from their resemblance to a string ofblack pudding s [ [http://www.goole-on-the-web.org.uk/main.php?key=189 History with photos] ] or perhapsYorkshire Pudding s and the first name of original constructor.They were developed by the chief engineer of the Aire and Calder Navigation Company, William H. Bartholomew as a response to the opening of the broad canal from
Knottingley to Goole which was designed to circumvent the difficult lower reaches of theRiver Aire . In 1863 he introduced a system of square compartment boats which could each carry around 40 tons of coal [2] from the colliery at Stanley Ferry to Goole, a distance of some 30 miles. Originally using push tugs of up to 6 boats, they extended to trains of up to 21 or sometimes 38 boats. By this means, 4 men could control 800 tons of coal, compared with 12 men by other barge techniques.The use of trains of such tub boats was not new - they had been used on the
Bridgewater Canal since 1760 but the largest up to this point had carried 5 tons on what has become theShropshire Union Canal [ [http://www.canaljunction.com/craft/yorkshire.htm Tom Puddings with pictures] ] . The key was the mechanization of thetransshipment s.In the docks Goole Bartholomew introduced large boat hoists which could lift the Puddings and discharge directly into sea going ships which exported the coal to all parts of the world. One of these has been preserved.
At the colliery the containers were mounted on waggons so that they could be taken into the heart of the colliery and the coal loaded directly from the pithead. In 1891, an
inclined plane was installed at Stanley Ferry [ [http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/rail/incline/tp.htm Inclined plane] ] to connect the colliery directly to the canal. Because of the success of the system, by 1913 there were over 1,000 Tom Puddings in use and they were transporting 1.5 million tons of coal per year.The system was developed further when the
Kellingley Colliery opened atKnottingley by the Hargreave barge system which was used to transport coal to the power station atFerrybridge . These boats carried 150 tons of coal in trains of 3 coal pans.External links
* [http://www.waterwaysmuseum.org.uk/educational_resources.htm videos of them in action]
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.