Karhedron

Mainly yes. There were a few odd exceptions to that rule in areas where supply could fluctuate seasonally. A good example of this was Marshfields between Cardiff and Newport (already mentioned earlier as a place where tanks were loaded by lorry on a siding as the dairy was up the road from the station). Marshfields was a bottling plant for the local area with excess production being dispatched to London. However it was not unknown for Marshfields to "run dry" in which case it would receive milk inwards from further west for local consumption. That is a pretty decent summary. Churns on the railways were phased out well before churn collection ended from farms. Most churn traffic ended in the early 60s. The last example I have been able to find was cream being dispatched in churns from CWS Stewarts Lane to the resort towns on the Isle of Thanet in about 1966. These were carried in the guard's compartment of the EMUs.

Brilliant, thanks so much for confirming that.

Hello, please can anyone help to identify the location in this photograph? I believe the CWS milk tank is an LNER-built example from the 1930s. The LNER had only a handful of sites that handled this sort demountable milk tank but the tanks were known to work off LNER metals so it could be somewhere else. Here are the places where I know CWS rotanks were handled. Stratford Stowmarket John O'Gaunt East Croydon Manor Park It looks too busy for Stowmarket or John O'Gaunt. Similarly I can't see any 3rd rails so I assume this is not East Croydon. I am am guessing it is Stratford but I am not familiar with the goods sidings there although I know they were once extensive. If anyone can confirm the location for me please, I would be very grateful.

You are right about that. There were a couple of other locations where the creamery was located away from the lines and the tanks were filled at a siding. Dolcoath near Camborne and Marshfields between Cardiff and Newport also spring to mind. Perhaps the most amusing case was actually the other Daws Creamery at Totnes which occupied Brunel's old atmospheric pumping station. This was on the station site but not adjacent to the rails. This led to milk lorries being driven 100 yards or so across the station forecourt to fill the tanks in the siding.

Fully laden milk tanks weighed 28 tons. The extra axel was for stability as early 4-wheeled milk tanks road very roughly at speed.

What a fascinating picture. The use of Autotrains (and later DMU bubble cars) to trip milk tanks between Plymouth and Saltash is well known but actual photos are not that common. Seeing one west of Saltash is definitely surprising and I think you must be right about this being some sort of shunting move. The next creamery west of Saltash was Lostwithiel and I am pretty sure the Plymouth locals never went that far. You are right that milk was loaded at the siding in the goods yard. It was driven up by lorry from Daws Dairy at the foot of the hill. You can see the operation in the photo below. Coombe viaduct is just out of site round the bend to the left. The whole goods yard has now been redeveloped but the retaining wall on the right still stands.

Class 122 bubble cars could be seen hauling milk tanks from Saltash to Plymouth and occasionally from Torrington. I think they were limited to a maximum of 2 loaded tanks.

Neither of the current milk tanks models are entirely accurate as both seem to contain a mix of features. Hopefully something better will be on the way soon. Hopefully my milk train book will hit the shelves this summer. 🤞 Yes, churn traffic was still around in the 1950s although it went into quite a sharp decline after the 1955 ASLEF strike. The last churn traffic I have been able to find was actually 1966/7 which was cream for the holiday resorts on the Isle of Thanet. I believe by this time they were carried in the brake compartment of the EMUs.

The refurbished tanks were used for about 6 weeks in 1981 to transport cream to Stowmarket to make up for local shortfall. There were various problems with the operations such as driving the loco crew down from Westbury, resistance from the Chard road drivers who did not want to lose traffic and the lack of washout facilities at Stowmarket which meant the tanks were returned with the insides coated in gone-off residue which then had to be cleaned out. 🤢 I thought it lasted a few more years. The sidings were eventually lifted in 1973 but I suppose that does not mean the creamery continued dispatching until that time.

Very nice. Definitely reminiscent of Moreton-in-Marsh. Any idea if they might branch out into N Gauge.

Yes, the Diagram O61 tanks were built for CWS and numbered 3196-3205. The Diagram O63 tanks were built for Nestle (3154-58) and Cow & Gate (3159-65) They were very similar and both diagrams were built exclusively for United Dairies. I think the O57s had traditional GWR-style split axle boxes whereas the O60s had roller bearings but I am not 100% certain if that is all.

Do you know where to get Pledge Revive It. I have been searching online and it seems to be almost as hard to find as Klear. :(

You could justify almost anything as it was not uncommon for the train loco to shunt the milk sidings as many dairies did not have their own dedicated shunter. Hemyock saw everything from class 03 shunters to class 25s and 35s. Express Dairies at Morden was sometimes shunted by Q1s, BR Standard 4 4-6-0s and class 33s even though it had its own shunters. St Erth was often shunted by big engines including Westerns and Class 50s in its later years. Can you refresh my memory on where your layout is set? Given that it is a pretty compact layout, a smallish shunter seems like a good idea to me. Here is a class 03 shunting the milk at Hemyock in 1967.

China clay, sign me up. :)

Good question. It is not the best shot but I can make a few educated guesses. It looks like a Collett vehicle based on the roof shape, probably a K40, K41 or K42. Sadly it is partly obscured by the vehicles in the siding but if I had to guess, I would say it is probably a K42. The K42s were built to a slightly narrower loading gauge than the K40s or K41s. This made them popular on inter-regional workings where the more generous GWR loading gauge could not be guaarnteed.

I have seen photos of UD(W) branded tanks from the 1930s. The W in brackets referred to "wholesale". Most of the ones I have seen look like they were painted silver with black lettering but that may have been a photographic livery. The example you quoted above is definitely light lettering on a darker background. It may well have been white on orange but without colour photos we may never know for certain. I have seen photos of another variant of United Dairies livery with a darker background from the 1930s as shown below. Again, I believe this was probably UD orange/red but proof remains elusive.

Thank you very much. I have just placed an order. :)

Interestingly, that looks like an ex-GWR brake vehicle at the rear. This working seemed to produce a variety of brake vehicles including ex-LMS Stove-Rs and BR standard fitted brake vans. I wonder if the brake vehicles indicates these empties are destined for dairies on WR metals?

No sign of it in my local Smiths (Basingstoke). They blamed Royal Mail strikes.

There isn't really a hard and fast rule for this. It is common practice to compress features on layouts, particularly platform lengths so there is nothing wrong with compressing other elements to avoid them dominating the scene (unless that is the intention). There are a couple of ways to do this, you could simply reduce the linear dimensions but this runs into the problem that doors and windows can quickly become too small. You can leave off parts of the building such as reducing the number of floors (for height) or number of windows (for length). The last option is to model the building up against the backscene in some way to give the impression that it continues "off-stage". The most appropriate approach will probably depend on the type of building and where it sits in the layout. Generally speaking I agree with the above comment that many buildings would actually be quite overpowering if modelled to scale so creating something that gives the right impression rather than being strictly to scale is often good enough. The dairy on my N Gauge layout was modelled in low relief and forms part of the backscene to solve this exact problem. Even so the linear dimensions are probably a bit on the small side compared to the real thing.

In 1935 the engine shed was bought by Express Dairy and converted for dispatching milk tanks. Prior to that date the milk went out in churns. By the 1950s, there was also a large timber yard and sawmill on the west side of the line, by the station throat. I don't know if the timber was dispatched by rail though.

I see no obvious reason to doubt the recollections on the Nine Elms website. For what it is worth, I did manage to find this photo of a Light Pacific at Wimbledon Park on its way to South Mordon. While earlier than your period, it does at least show that mainline locos did sometimes haul the milk trains directly to the depot. Not everything was trip workings from Clapham Junction. Not conclusive proof but at least evidence in favour of the possibility. https://twitter.com/JanesTrains/status/1404176704575246341/photo/1

London did indeed receive the lion's share of milk traffic but smaller flows to other areas did exist. For example, we normally think of Wales dispatching milk to London but the dairies at Trecynon and Marshfields both sometimes received milk from further west for local consumption when supplies in the valleys areas were insufficient.

Milk transport today has been largely decentralised. Milk is generally consumed closer to where it is produced with a larger number of smaller milk processing facilities distributed around the country. This means that milk is generally fresher and has travelled less far before reaching the consumer. Supermarkets are major players in the dairy industry and are responsible for a lot of processing and transportation. Even in the good old days of milk trains, a lot of milk came into London by lorry from the home counties. Improvements in road haulage as well as increased output from these farms are part of the reason for the decline in milk trains. By the end of the 70s, London simply didn't need bulk milk shipping in from the far west.

@David J Hayes Thanks for putting up the timetables from 1968 as well, these are really informative. I do have one quesion though, quite a few workings show up between Kenny O and Willesden. I am guessing that these are for the Unigate Scrubbs Lane bottling plant at Mitre Bridge Junction. The map at the end of the article mentions several destinations and hubs around London but only lists Willesden as a hub and makes no mention of the bottling plant. Do you know if it had closed by 1968? I am guessing it was still in operation as I can't see a need for trip workings to Willesden otherwise. The LMR had largely cease milk train operations by this time as far as I am aware apart from the Shrewsbury service that you noted. But there seem to be more trip workings to Willesden than that one train would account for.