• 1894 - Transactions of the Institute of Marine Engineers - Volume VI. No. L1 [1335] [499] :-

MR. COUNCILLOR T. HAURRY RICHES (Engineer of the Taff Vale Railway and Penarth Docks) said Mr. Allen appeared to have overlooked the fact that the tips at Penarth had recently undergone some material improvements as to facility for working wagons on and off, and further that the three new high hydraulic tips which had recently been placed there, were capable of tipping coal forty-seven feet above the water, and are being furnished with second cranes to deal with the screenings.

The water used for all work below the platform level that is the ordinary platform level simply flows from a tank at the top of the tip and is used for brake power only, the empty wagons being raised by a small ram, which is kept under constant pressure by the accumulator. By this means the loaded wagon acts as a pump and forces the high pressure water back against the accumulator and the low-pressure water out of the large ram up into the tank at the top of the tip.

When the wagon is emptied the low-pressure water from the tank named flows back into the large ram, and the high-pressure water, flowing back into the small ram, counterbalances the empty wagon, and brings it back to the platform level.

The tipping arrangement is by means of an upper ram fixed on the end of the two first named, which are both inverted rams, the tipping ram being used under ordinary conditions, when the table is simply rising or falling to the tipping or platform level, as a support for the sheaves which run the back cradle chains round the rams, but when the table is required to be tipped the ram is shoved out, and as the sheaves upon it are within the loop of the tail chains of the cradle, this tips the cradle without any supplementary attachments, and will, of course, as you will see, tip the cradle at any point that may be required without having any separate attachments to make for this purpose.

'As to the speed, I may tell you that at Penarth we have frequently tipped as much as 500 tons an hour on one tip, and it is a very common occurrence to tip 250 or 300 tons an hour. The arrangements for anti-breakage are as complete, I believe, as any tips in the country. It is not for me to criticise the appliances of other companies, but only to claim that we can at least do as rapid work, and as good work, in the shape of preventing breakage, and rapid loading, at Penarth as as can be done at any other dock in the Channel.

The method of working these hydraulic tips is by chains, which run through the platform table, and therefore can be handled by the tippers at any point at any level, wherever the cradle may happen to be, and I am justified in thinking that these tips are as far in advance as anything that exists.'