The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Heh. I'm astounded they could get a cameraman, sound recordist and what
looked like five blokes actually needed to run the train on the
footplate. I noticed that Clarkson only did a tiny bit of shovelling, I
doubt that he actually shovelled 6 tonnes of coal.

I was under the impression that back in the days of steam the standard
footplate crew was driver and fireman.

Impossible to shovel 6 tonnes of coal unless you do it daily.

It is a very long time since I shovelled any quantity of coal. (I spent
a weekend shifting 20 tons up to a mountaineering club hut in my
Landrover with very little assistance circa 1970). However ISTR that it
is harder to shovel than ballast particularly when you don't have a
smooth surface to shovel it off. Clarkson of course would have had a
tender floor to shovel off but he doesn't look the type to relish
physical exercise.

I belive te record is 30 tonnes of ballast by an Irish Navvy.

My experience with ballast is rather more recent. I have just spread 66
tonnes of crushed limestone over my access track and yard, nominally 2"
deep but in places rather deeper where the underlying surface was
uneven. It took me the best part of 3 days to deal with each 20 tonne
load. Depends what you do with it but I think even Clarkson could manage
6 tonnes of ballast a day if he didn't have to move it very far.

--
Roger Chapman