page_title: Barry Docks
section_title: Machinery and labour
hierarchical_section_title: Barry Docks / Facilities / Machinery and labour
caption_attribution_description: English: Barry Docks, Wales. Coal tip in the No.1 dock. What appears to be a solid level surface in the right foreground of this scene in is fact water — thick with coal dust!
context_page_description: The Barry Docks are a port facility in the town of Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, a few miles southwest of Cardiff on the north shore of the Bristol Channel.
  They were opened in 1889 by David Davies and John Cory as an alternative to the congested and expensive Cardiff Docks to ship coal carried by rail from the South Wales Coalfield. The principal engineer was John Wolfe Barry, assisted by Thomas Forster Brown and Henry Marc Brunel, son of the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
  The docks occupy the former sound between Barry Island and the mainland. The contractors built dams to connect each end of the island to the mainland, drained or pumped the water from the site and excavated it. They used the material to level the area round the docks and for the core of breakwaters to protect the entrance. The works included a basin with gates at each end which served as a lock between the sea entrance and the docks, the dock walls and quays, coal loading equipment and railways to deliver coal from the mines to the docks. A second dock and second entrance lock were added in 1898. Barry Dock Offices were built in 1897–1900 by the architect Arthur E. Bell.
context_section_description: The initial plans allowed for loading coal onto vessels from eleven high-level coal tips and four cranes on the north side of the dock, from five low-level tips on the Mole and from one tip at the west end of the dock. There was space for additional tips on the Mole, the south side of the dock and the basin. Hydraulic pressure was used to operate all the machinery, supplied by engine houses of which there were three [Barry, at the south-west side of No.1 dock, Battery Hill, (Barry Island) and Bendricks].  An engineers' report of 1901 contained the following extract: The tips have lifts of 37, 42, and 45 feet, and are each capable of lifting 20 tons. All tips are provided with two weigh-bridges, one on the full and the other on the empty roads. The machinery at the docks is worked by hydraulic power obtained at three engine-houses, which contain nine pairs of compound, horizontal, surface-condensing engines, with cylinders of 16 inches and 28 inches diameter and 24 inches stroke, indicating 250 H.P. per pair. Steam is supplied at 80 lbs. per square inch by twenty-five Lancashire boilers, 28 feet long by 7 feet diameter. The pressure-pumps are of the differential-ram principle, and maintain a pressure in the mains of 750 lbs. per square inch. The whole of the docks, coal-tips, sidings, etc., are lighted by electricity. Battery Hill pumphouse at Barry Island was demolished after 1945 but the main part of the Bendricks building (referred to as 'Sully hydraulic engine house' in R.A.COOKE'S section 44b GWR track diagrams) lived on until just after the Millennium and ironically, with the nationalisation of the former 'big four' railway groups to become British Railways (BR) in 1947, the Barry Railway initials survive on one of the gables at Barry Island railway station and the initials BR 
  appeared in white bricks on the north-west facet of the taper-square chimney of the Bendricks pumphouse, until its demolition.  As at 1947, two hydraulic accumulators were located adjacent to the No.1 Dock hydraulic & electricity generating house and former Barry Rly Co's loco works, south-west of the dock, one at the junction of Subway Rd and the low-level docks through road and level crossing near what was the General HQ of the Barry Railway Co and what is now the Vale of Glamorgan Council Civil Office building, one north of the now removed 'New cut' swingbridge and south of the former Graving Dock Junction & level crossing, one at the cross link road from Cadoxton to the Bendricks, north of No.2 dock and one at the foot of the steps of the former shortened and later removed Clive Rd, Barry Island footbridge to No.1 dock. Their function was to back up and stabilise fluctuating hydraulic pressure as the coal hoists and other users were working. Most of these were detectable from aerial photographs taken between 1921 and 1929 and can be seen on other websites.
  One pair of fixed coal hoists on the north side was 174 feet (53 m) apart, and two pairs were 200 feet (61 m) apart. This spacing was chosen since it was the same as that in the Cardiff docks, and ships had been built to match the spacing so they could be loaded at two positions simultaneously.
  The coal tipping cranes, (referred to as coal-tips, hoists or 'staiths' by the Barry Railway Co) were elevated well above water level. 
  After being weighed, a loaded wagon, which would hold about 10 long tons (10 t) of coal, was pulled from the weighbridge, onto a raisable or lowerable cradle at the hoist to suit the coal chute and a vessel's open hold.
  The cradle was held within a tower, and usually had a downhill gradient railtrack of 1 in 233 towards the weighbridge but a 1 in 70 downhill incline out.
  The cradle could also be raised or lowered as the dock water level varied.
  Using hydraulic power, the cradle was tilted to an angle, so the coal ran out of the wagon and down a coal chute into the hold of the vessel below.
  At the start of loading, the coal would run into a suspended anti-breakage box, which was hydraulically lowered into the hold and emptied through a hinged flap at the bottom.
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caption: Coal tip at the No. 1 Dock in 1913
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