The justification of any kind of machinery must rest on its relative efficiency and economy. As compared with some other materials the mechanical handling of hot coke does not realize such a striking economy; a hot coke conveyor is expensive to build--on account of the great wear and tear it must be very solidly constructed--and it is costly in upkeep. Still in large gas works the use of machinery for treating glowing coke is economically advisable. Exact calculations are not very easy to make, because while the cost of hand labour in this department of a gas works is accurately known, the efficiency of different hot coke conveyors varies. G. E. Stephenson, of the Gathorn gas works, estimated that a saving of 4¾d. per ton had been realized on each ton of coke conveyed to the yard from the retort house, as against the same material wheeled in barrows. This saving represented the difference between the cost of twelve men, who formerly handled the hot coke with shovels and barrows, and the cost of one conveyor with the wages of one man to look after it. In an ordinary way one man would rake out the coke from the retort mouthpiece into a barrow placed underneath, while a second man quenched the glowing coke with buckets of water, or better still with a hose. Then the barrow would be wheeled out into the yard. Obviously this is a slow and relatively expensive method, apart from the deleterious fumes arising from the quenching of the coke. Some improvement was effected by the substitution for the old hand-barrows of cage-like tipping trucks; these are run on narrow gauge rails out of the retort house and the red-hot coke they contain is quenched by a copious spray, the truck being placed the while over a grating through which the surplus water is drained away, under an inverted funnel with an uptake to carry away the fumes and vapours. These trucks have been hauled, in lieu of human arms, by endless ropes or even small locomotives.
The earlier hot coke conveyors were of the _pushplate_ type. The trough, some 27 in. wide, consisted of cast iron sections, while the pushplates, formed of malleable castings, were attached at a pitch of 24 in. to a central chain and were pulled along on a wrought iron bar, which could be renewed when necessary. These conveyors with a speed of 48 ft. per minute, had a capacity of some 20 tons per hour. A conveyor constructed on these lines was installed at the Gathorn works in 1903. The wear and tear was very great; moreover the chain, being central, suffered severely from the hot coke, to the action of which it was directly exposed.