Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - Working the Ely Tidal Harbour . . .

As we pass along we skirt the populous suburb of Canton, then the Grange, with its brickyards and rapidly-increasing population, and finally come to a spot where a number of rails diverge. This is point of connection between the main line and each tipping staith. There are ten staiths for tipping coal, and one for discharging ballast.

The former are nearly all completed. Each tipping staith is furnished with two lines of rails. The engine having been detached from our train we descend and proceed to watch the operation of tipping. The rails leading to the tip are laid at an incline of 1 in 132, and therefore need but little to impel them forward to their destination. When near the tip they pass over a weighing machine, where the process of weighing each truck is gone through. The machine is Pooley's patent, and appears to be the most perfect instrument of the kind. Having passed over the weighing machine the truck is landed upon a cradle, by means of which the tipping is effected. Having been fastened upon the cradle a lever is set in motion, and the cradle, which is suspended by four flat wire ropes, worked by balance weights, descends to the mouth of a large iron shute, the end of the truck nearest the vessel is opened, the other end is tipped by means of two chains hooked to the buffers, and the coal is poured as from a spout into the hold of the ship.

By a simple contrivance the mouth of the shute can be contracted so as to prevent the coal going too fast into the ship and thereby keep it whole - a great point to be gained being the preservation of steam-coal as whole as possible. By the aid of "crabs" the shute and the cradle can be raised or lowered to suit the state of the tide. So facile is the mode of tipping, that with a good supply of coal a vessel may be loaded in one tide. When the empty truck has been raised up to the level of the railway, it is pushed on to another line of rails, the incline of which is the reverse way of the receiving rails, and from that departure line the engine will collect the empty trucks and so return to the collieries. Before leaving the tipping process, we will look for a moment at the sheds, which are of wood and covered with corrugated iron. The shelter afforded to the machinery and those who are employed about it is very complete; and everything that is done wears the aspect of a thorough knowledge of the most recent inventions to make the labour of shipping easy and quick.

The tipping staiths themselves, however, require our observation. They are constructed of Memel timber, and a large number of very long plies are employed in their formation.