Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - Hydraulic Accumulators . . .

Two Hydraulic Accumulators

Orders were placed for two hydraulic accumulators by the Taff Vale Railway Company for installation at Penarth Dock during 1913.

The first contract was placed with Tannett Walker & Co. of Hunslet, Leeds in March and the second contract was placed with Fielding & Platt Limited of Gloucester in June of the same year, both, having four months delivery time stipulated.

The locations of the new accumulators are not fully defined but the TVR state in their specification that they will be installed on the south side of the dock - see image of accumulator adjacent to tip no. 13 left. [203]

The tender documents are to be found within the National Archives [142] and are basically identical in their content, having been adapted through crossings out and hand written amendments by the TVR from the tender documents for three coal tips of 1912.

The need for two hydraulic accumulators caused me considerable consternation since I was unable to recall two of the units on the south side of the dock which fit the description and specification. A review of all images available has not revealed two accumulators which date from 1913. The mystery was eventually solved here in Yorkshire by an account within the Yorkshire Evening Post in July of the same year - read on!

The need for one hydraulic accumulator on the south side of the dock was presumably due to the number of new high capacity tips and upgrades that were installed since the turn of the century and the fact that the original prime mover hydraulic installations would most probably be incapable of supplying all the dock equipment effectively given the increased service factor caused by the increasing tonnages of coal being shipped at the dock and basin. Remember 1913 was the peak tonnage shipped at over 4.5m tons.