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Livestock stock

5&9Models

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A short entry to illustrate two different approaches to cattle wagon design, and how much cosier horses had it!

 

The first constructed by Charles Cave Williams c.1851-52 for the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway who numbered them 1751-1790. They were well made vehicles and in some cases saw a good twenty years of service, but when William Stroudley took office he introduced his own design and by the 1880s they were being broken up and replaced. All had apparently gone by 1884. The copious use of lime wash was to disinfect the wagons and prevent the spread of disease between cattle.

 

The second is the South Eastern Railway's version dating from c.1854. Probably built by Brown Marshall initially without a roof but later received some cover for the livestock. The BM wagons were numbered 1826-37 and lasted for a similar period to the Brighton versions. This one could do with a good lime washing.

 

The third is the dinky little horse box of the LB&SCR and in fact the SER too, since their early horse boxes were almost identical. Some had extra diagonal bracing on the outer two panels of the lower half of one end, possibly to prevent distressed horses shoving their hooves through the boards, such incidents do not really bear thinking about! The boxes were for three horses and are quite similar to the GNR and LCDR versions except for the fact they do not have dog boxes either end. I will post a picture of the GNR version for comparison when I finished painting it.

 

The first two are my own kits, the third a lovely old Woodham Wagon Works kit. 

C.C.Williams cattle copy.jpg

SER open cattle copy.jpg

LBSC horsebox copy.jpg

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Compound2632
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Splendid vehicles. Cattle wagons seem to be amongst the earliest vehicles to achieve what one might call their normative form - the bodywork, or at least its key constructional features, would not look out of place on vehicles built half a century later.

 

It took a bit longer for horesboxes to grow to a sensible length - a long enough wheelbase for steady riding at express speeds - by sprouting grooms' and provender / tack compartments.

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MikeOxon

A very nice selection of models.  I'm impressed by the lime wash on your first cattle wagon.  I've still working out how to apply the effect to mine.

 

Regarding short wheelbase - there were horse boxes with 6 foot wheelbase running on the 7 foot broad gauge!  Some early 2nd class passenger carriages also had the same wheelbase but these were very quickly 'ordered off the line', according to Gibbs diary, in GWR records.

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