Port’s new coal facilities to be working next week

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 4

Port’s new coal facilities to be working next week

By YVONNE MULDER The Lyttelton Harbour Boaard’s $710,000 new coal handling facilities should be working next week—seven months later than planned. “Luckily for the Harbour Board, the Railways Corporation had problems with its new coal waggons, so the improved facilities were not needed before now,” said the Harbour Board’s deputy chief engineer, Mr Mike Stokes. Harbour Board staff had almost completed the work last September when trial runs by the new bottom-dumping waggons showed that the receival pit was too small. Some of the 50-tonne load from each waggon

spilled over the tracks and stopped the waggon doors closing again. Another problem was that the railway tracks at the top of the pit were too low to allow the front-end loader to tip its bucket to achieve the maximum load. The pit could not be dug any deeper because it is only 150 mm above the water table. The problem was solved by raising the track. Railways staff have spent the last week raising the track half a metre and putting in the remaining rail required to complete the loop at the site. “The bridge over the pit had some diagonal stiffening removed to allow

the coal to fall more freely,” Mr Stokes said. The costs of the modifications to the facilities would be met by both the board and the Railways Corporation and negotiations were continuing, he said. The bottom-dumping coal waggons, now modified so a longer piston pushes the doors open further than before, will be tested next week. The waggons were specifically designed for the Strongman mine coal, said the regional rolling stock engineer, Mr Gerard van Kuppevelt. “It is a funny type of coal; it’s much more adhesive than North Island coal,” he said. The main objective of

the new facilities was to increase the turn around time of the coal waggons, said the Harbour Board’s traffic manager, Mr Dave Jones. “A train load of 13 waggons could be discharged in about two hours with the new facilities,” he said. The old method of scooping the coal out of waggons took about 4>/£ hours to empty the same tonnage. Coal represents 10 to 15 per cent of the Harbour Board’s revenue and the board has plans for a further $6 million investment in automated facilities if it can get guarantees of significantly increased future trade.