page_title: Coastal coal-carrying trade of New South Wales
section_title: The Ball's Head Coal Loader
hierarchical_section_title: Coastal coal-carrying trade of New South Wales / Sydney / Steamship coal bunkering and export operations / The Ball's Head Coal Loader
caption_attribution_description: English: This photograph depicts a partially submerged hull in Balls Head Bay attended at the stern by a salvage vessel. To the left is the Coal Loader in Waverton. This photo is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Samuel J. Hood Studio collection. Sam Hood (1872-1953) was a Sydney photographer with a passion for ships. His 60-year career spanned the romantic age of sail and two world wars. The photos in the collection were taken mainly in Sydney and Newcastle during the first half of the 20th century. The ANMM undertakes research and accepts public comments that enhance the information we hold about images in our collection. This record has been updated accordingly. Photographer: Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection Object no. 00024188
context_page_description: The Coastal coal-carrying trade of New South Wales involved the shipping of coal—mainly for local consumption but also for export or coal bunkering—by sea to Sydney from the northern and southern coal fields of New South Wales. It took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. It should not be confused with the export coal trade, which still exists today. There was also an interstate trade, carrying coal and coke to other Australian states that did not have local sources of black coal.
  Coal was found to the north and south of Sydney in the last years of the 18th century by colonial settlers. Coal seams run under Sydney but at great depth and mining these seams proved impractical. As Sydney grew in size as a city and as a major port, coal was needed for steamships, town gas production and other industrial uses.
  Small ships—colloquially called 'sixty-milers'—carried coal to Sydney from coal ports that were established on the northern and southern coalfields of New South Wales. The coastal trade was well established by the time Sydney was first linked to the coalfields by railways.
context_section_description: The Ball's Head Coal Loader, at Waverton on the Lower North Shore, opened in 1920. It was owned and operated by the Sydney Coal Bunkering Co., a subsidiary of the Union Steamship Co.. It was mainly used for bunkering steamships using the port of Sydney but also supplied some coal to local hospitals and other customers needing heating coal.
  Coal was unloaded, from the holds of 'sixty-milers' moored parallel to the shoreline by two gantry cranes fitted with grabs—later reduced to one crane, after the other suffered irreparable storm damage (causing the death of a crane driver) in 1940—and was deposited into a stockpile located on a raised platform constructed of sandstone and concrete.
  The loading operation was highly automated for its time; it used a loading system supplied by an American company, the Mead Morrison Company. Coal fell via chutes in the base of the stockpile, into skips—of four tons capacity each—that were drawn by a continuous cable through tunnels below the stockpile and onto the loading wharf, a timber structure perpendicular to the shoreline. Thirty-three skips, running on a rail track of 20-inch gauge, were spaced along 3,200 feet (980 metres) of steel cable that moved at 3 miles/hour. The system was capable of loading ships at 700 tonnes per hour.
  The loader was operated by the Wallarah Coal Co.—the company that also operated the Catherine Hill Bay ocean jetty and two mechanised coal hulks on Sydney Harbour—from 1934 to 1964, when it closed for the first time. It was taken over by Coal & Allied Industries and reopened as a coal export terminal in 1967. In 1976, the cable loading system was replaced by a system of conveyor belts capable of loading at 1,000 tonnes per hour.
caption: Balls Head Bay with Coal Loading Wharf on the left. (Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection of the Australian National Maritme Museum. Unknown date between 1920 and 1953)[127] Some coal skips are visible on the metal superstructure mounted atop the timber wharf.
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