‘Fuel For Thought’ The once extensive network of fuel oil deliveries is now reduced to a few as required workings, these services having peaked in the early 1970s. Fuel oil, one of the heavier and less volatile of the petroleum fractions obtained during the cracking of crude oil, was primarily used for heating and power generation – and, in the early 1970s, it was a major source of rail traffic, with British Rail handling almost 10 million tons per year. This source of traffic would decline in the years following the 1973 oil crisis, as companies switched to cheaper sources of fuel, but it remained a significant part of the railfreight business until almost the end of the century.
In the 1970s, workings from the Shell refineries at Stanlow, Shell Haven, Heysham and Teesport, together with those from the British Petroleum refineries at Grain, Grangemouth and Llandarcy, accounted for over half this traffic. Other railborne flows of fuel oil originated at Mobil’s Coryton Refinery and from Lindsey Refinery at Immingham, which was then jointly owned by Petrofina and Total. From their opening in 1968, fuel oil was also an important rail traffic from Amoco’s Robeston and Gulf’s Waterston refineries, both situated near Milford Haven, while regular trainload traffic also ran from Cardiff Docks on behalf of Texaco to a terminal at Soho Pool. In addition, there were fuel oil workings from Esso’s coastal terminals at Bowling, Percy Main and Liverpool Brunswick Dock, as well from the Esso refineries at Fawley and Herbrandston – although these would fall sharply with the closure of Herbrandston in 1983. Indeed the only one of Britain’s rail connected refineries not to despatch fuel oil was Conoco’s Humber Refinery at Immingham which, when it
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opened in 1969, was designed to convert the heavier oil fractions into petroleum coke.
Rail-served destinations comprised both dedicated oil terminals and industrial customers’ own private sidings with, in the majority of instances, the oil company-owned terminals being supplied from their own refineries. In contrast, independently-operated terminals were often supplied by several companies. The Lancashire Tar Distillers-owned oil depot at Weaste received trainloads of fuel oil from Lindsey, Stanlow and Waterston, while the British Tar Products’ depot at Glazebrook was supplied with fuel oil from Coryton, Lindsey and Waterston. Given the price volatility of fuel oil, it was also quite common for some of the larger industrial customers to alternate their suppliers – with the ICI chemical works at Northwich and Runcorn, for example, not only being served from the nearby Stanlow refinery but also from Lindsey.
Other chemical companies to regularly receive fuel oil by rail included British Cellophane at Bridgwater, Courtaulds at Holywell Junction, and BNFL’s Salwick Works outside Preston. Fuel oil traffic to the paper mills at Aylesford, Darwen, Sudbrook and Thatcham also used rail, albeit at often no more than one or two trainloads a month well into the 1980s. Other occasional or seasonal customers included
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Ribble Pilot