Some classic heavy haulage

Pretty sure we had a thread along these lines going once

A ship the size of the Titanic needed some serious stopping gear!
The anchor commissioned for the vessel weighed a whopping 16 tonnes, and was forged at Noah Hingley & Sons ironworks in Netherton, in England’s Midlands. In order to get the anchor to the Titanic, it needed to be transported from the Netherton ironworks to Dudley Railway Station, where it was taken by train to Lancashire before being loaded on a cargo steamer for the voyage to the Titanic‘s shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. All well and good for the train and the boat; but how could the anchor reach the train in the first place?
The answer came in the form of twenty Shire horses, each capable of pulling about two tonnes. On the 30th of April, 1911, the town trams were stopped and the townsfolk lined the roads to watch the horses haul the anchor 3.2km to the goods yard at Dudley Railway Station.





Paul

All that effort and it never would of been used

The second photo shows it going down hill. I trust they had good "anchors" on that wagon or it would have overrun the horses.

Brilliant photos. No one ever thought to take a photo of our old farm house being transported by bullock train from farm to this block. This all happened many many years ago.

Morris my thoughts exactly.. How would they stop it???????

If you look at the top photo on the back of the wagon there’s a beam that looks like it’s got brake blocks on the ends and two handles further in looks like they are on rods maybe threaded??

Bluey

I'm with Bluey... I reckon the Bloke at the Back RHS is the Brakeman........!

On the old bullock drays they used to throw a log into one of the wheels to lock it up when confronted by a steep hill. This was preferable to having the team dragged backwards down the hill - losing both team and load. Likewise the log was used going down also, to prevent the team being over-run by the dray.

Poor old bullocks, would have made the hills hard work for them, up or down! :oops:

Fair old effort, for the motive power available.
But what about the forging of the anchor itself?
Dont know much about the forging process, but am thinking that maybe used some sort of drop-hammer arrangement on a billet of steel, kept working it until they get the shape they want?
Although a huge ship for it's day, makes you wonder at the size of some of the wartime naval vessels anchors, although often see where they used two at rthe front as well as two at the back
Dave_64

I know it's getting away from the topic, but I am led to believe that now days, its not the size or shape of the anchor that stops a ship from drifting, it's the weight of the chain laying on the sea floor. That's why they lay out so many more metres of chain than the depth of the water they are moored in.