A coal drop is an elevated

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

track designed to allow material to fall freely between the rails onto the ground beneath. It is used to rapidly unload hoppers containing

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

and other

bulk cargo Bulk cargo is Product (business), product cargo that is transported packaging, unpackaged in large quantities. Description Bulk cargo refers to material in either liquid or granular, particulate (as a mass of relatively small solids) form, ...

. It is also referred to, in North East England, as a staith. Coal drops were particularly associated on British railways with the North Eastern Railway, which built them at many stations. It used a standard fleet of wagons with bottom doors.

References

{{Reflist Railway freight terminals Coal in the United Kingdom

See also

References