Tom Pudding

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Tom Pudding was the name given to the tub boats on the Aire and Calder Navigation, introduced in 1863 and used until 1985, which were a very efficient means of transferring and transporting coal from the open cast collieries of the South Yorkshire coalfield near Stanley Ferry to the port of Goole, competing with rail. The name derives from their resemblance to a string of black puddings^[1] or perhaps Yorkshire Puddings and the first name of original constructor.

They were developed by the chief engineer of the Aire and Calder Navigation Company, William H. Bartholomew as a response to the opening of the broad canal from Knottingley to Goole which was designed to circumvent the difficult lower reaches of the River Aire. In 1863 he introduced a system of square compartment boats which could each carry around 40 tons of coal[2] from the colliery at Stanley Ferry to Goole, a distance of some 30 miles. Originally using push tugs of up to 6 boats, they extended to trains of up to 21 or sometimes 38 boats. By this means, 4 men could control 800 tons of coal, compared with 12 men by other barge techniques.

The use of trains of such tub boats was not new - they had been used on the Bridgewater Canal since 1760 but the largest up to this point had carried 5 tons on what has become the Shropshire Union Canal^[2]. The key was the mechanization of the transshipments.

In the docks Goole Bartholomew introduced large boat hoists which could lift the Puddings and discharge directly into sea going ships which exported the coal to all parts of the world. One of these has been preserved.

At the colliery the containers were mounted on waggons so that they could be taken into the heart of the colliery and the coal loaded directly from the pit head. In 1891, an inclined plane was installed at Stanley Ferry to connect the colliery directly to the canal. Because of the success of the system, by 1913 there were over 1,000 Tom Puddings in use and they were transporting 1.5 million tons of coal per year.

The system was developed further when the Kellingley Colliery opened at Knottingley by the Hargreave barge system which was used to transport coal to the power station at Ferrybridge. These boats carried 150 tons of coal in trains of 3 coal pans.