Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[Marly51]

18 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Probably quite a bit bigger, but yes, that is roughly what I imagined.

 

In the process, I've learned that the things at the roadside, where churns were collected from farms, are called "churn stands", whereas I could swear they were called "churn banks".

 

Where in Arcadia is that station?

 

PS: "Tell him to go to the WC&P." This 'station' certainly has the look of a back-garden convenience https://picclick.co.uk/Walton-Park-Railway-Station-Photo-Weston-Clevedon-264255783931.html#&gid=1&pid=1

 

At the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore, they created a small railway halt from a refurbished signal cabin, and I am sure they had a ‘churn stand’ or ‘churn bank’ by the railway line. The Folk Museum acquire buildings from all over the North, so would be interesting to find out the history of this one, if it is based on an actual location. Will check through my photos and see if I took one of the ‘churn stand’. 

[Metropolitan H]

23 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Something like this only without the attached station.



Weren't there similar desolate places on the WC&PR?

There may have been - but can I claim the prize for the correct identification of "Hannington" station on the GWR Highworth Branch just NE from Swindon?

 

It is the building that gives the game away, being one of those designed by Arthur Chadlick Pain - as used on Hemyock Branch (Culm Valley) / Southwold Railway / etc.

 

A fascinating image and very Betjeman-esque.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Martin S-C]

Yes, Chris, you get the prize of correctly identifying Hannington, one of my favourite stations anywhere. It really typified the rural English railway - a wooden waiting room, one platform, a loop, a siding, no goods shed, not even any coal merchants bins, three points, no signal cabin, a delightful wooden bridge carrying the road over the line - from which this photograph was taken, a little station garden and chickens wandering around the milk churns. It was also a couple of miles away from Hannington village... of course.

The site is still there and the platform edge can be identified among the undergrowth, I have a blue diamond pattern cut brick from the platform, you can see where they are laid in contrast to the hard-packed ash surface elsewhere.

 

My photo is taken from the first title White Swan published, probably back in the early 80s. According to an anecdote related therein, crews of goods trains would stop at Hannington, one member would hop over the fence into the field and pick a capful of mushrooms while the other would take a water can the couple of hundred yards up the lane to the Freke Arms, returning with a gallon of cellar cold beer. The mushrooms would go on the shovel to cook and that was lunch for the train crews of the Highworth branch.

I have paid homage to Hannington on my own layout with a small passing halt on my branch with a similar track layout and facilities.

[Nearholmer]

Swindon and Highworth Light Railway, eh?

 

One of the very few railways actually authorised and built under the provisions of the Regulation of Railways Act that allowed for Light Railways, many years before the 1896 Light Railways Act. The trouble with the pre-1896 provisions was that they still required an Act to be obtained for each individual railway, which kept too many lawyers well-fed.

[GRASinBothell]

Going back to your mention of Friar Waddon Milk Platform, are there any pictures of it? I couldn't find any on-line, and one website noted that its location was unclear (rather implying a lack of photographic evidence...).

There was a Wild Swan book on the Abbotsbury branch that is probably the most likely place to find such a picture, but the asking price on Amazon is $153+ (delivery extra), so I'm not going to be buying a copy anytime soon!

Alternatively, are there any other pictures of GW milk platforms?

Regarding the Lionel milk van, I've pondered the thought of acquiring one (they can frequently be found fairly cheaply in a dilapidated state at train shows over here) and reshaping the body to put overlays of something rather like a GW siphon. Maybe one day...

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

No, this milk platform only exists in my mind's eye, I'm afraid.

 

I too wasted some time looking for photos and found none, but did find out exactly where it isn't any more.

 

Why not start a new topic, seeking views of milk platforms? Or, milk maids?

[Northroader]

Kevin, Just for you, then,..

[wessy]

12 hours ago, GRASinBothell said:

Going back to your mention of Friar Waddon Milk Platform, are there any pictures of it? I couldn't find any on-line, and one website noted that its location was unclear (rather implying a lack of photographic evidence...).

There was a Wild Swan book on the Abbotsbury branch that is probably the most likely place to find such a picture, but the asking price on Amazon is $153+ (delivery extra), so I'm not going to be buying a copy anytime soon!

Alternatively, are there any other pictures of GW milk platforms?

Regarding the Lionel milk van, I've pondered the thought of acquiring one (they can frequently be found fairly cheaply in a dilapidated state at train shows over here) and reshaping the body to put overlays of something rather like a GW siphon. Maybe one day...

Gordon

An alternative to Amazon is ABE books which links to independent book sellers. There is a copy on there at the moment for £35.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk. Just put 'Abbotsbury' into the key word search.

[Nearholmer]

Re milk maids: somehow, I wish I'd never mentioned them.

[Metropolitan H]

Chaps,

 

It seems - according to Wikipedia - that "Friar Waddon Milk Platform" was quite a late addition by the GWR in the early 1930s. Which might explain why I can't find it on the 25" to 1 mile OS maps on the National Library of Scotland website - most of the maps pre-date the opening of the Milk Platform!

 

What is fascinating is the number of small, local "Dairies" or "Dairy Houses" in the area - each less than a mile from its neighbours. And there was a Sunday afternoon Milk train introduced - when there were no other Sunday services. Presumably the churn traffic off the Abbotsbury branch fed a bigger dairy? -

          - Does anyone know where and which cities / big towns were supplied?

          - Was there rail tanker transport onwards from the big dairy?

          - Or, did the milk have a very local market in Weymouth and the RN base on Portland?

It would be interesting to know more.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Davey]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Re milk maids: somehow, I wish I'd never mentioned them.

OK, you can stop milking it now. 

 

Davey

 

[Nearholmer]

Chris

 

In another thread, RMWeb resident milk train expert, Karhedron, cites milk depots served by The GWR as follows:

 

Express Dairies: South Acton, Frome, St Helier 

Milk Marketing Board: Felin Fach, Pont Llanio

United Dairies: Lostwithiel, Yetminster, Ealing Bwy, Mitre Bridge, Wootton Bassett, Shepherds Bush, Carmarthen, Whitland, Buckingham, Hemyock, St Earth

Nestle: Lostwithiel, Martock, Holt Junc

CWS Dairies: Melksham, Wallingford, Llangadog

Dried Milk Products: Lostwithiel, Wincanton

London Co-operative: West Ealing

 

None of which look good for the Abbotsbury branch to me,  so it is possible that, even in the 1930s, traffic was going all the way to destination (wherever that was) in churns, or was worked to a dairy in Dorset, but which was served by SR in respect of onward tanker traffic.

 

My interest in 1930s milk traffic in East Sussex has identified some significant churn traffic up to at least WW2, going all the way into London ......... OK, much shorter distances, but I was surprised that it hadn't all been "tankerised" by then.

 

Kevin

[Metropolitan H]

Kevin,

 

But Yetminster is only 22 miles north of Upwey on the GWR line from Yeovil to Weymouth - which then joins the Main line from Taunton at Castle Cary. So Frome is only about 55 miles from Upwey. So there are possibilities.

 

We might have to talk to Bruce P at the next Harringworth meeting.

 

Regards

Chris H

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Davey said:

OK, you can stop milking it now. 

 

Davey

 

That's the cream of today's posts.

[Edwardian]

In relation to the dairy/creamery end of the journey, a set of aerial photographs were evidently commissioned in the 1930s as photographs of many such installations are to be found on the Britain from Above website. 

[Hroth]

On 30/07/2019 at 07:53, Northroader said:

Kevin, Just for you, then,..

 

Good lord!  Haven't had one of her for ages!

[RedGemAlchemist]

26 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Good lord!  Haven't had one of her for ages!

Phrasing. 

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Phrasing. 

Eats, shoots and leaves?

 

Behave!

[Northroader]

I must ration her appearances, lest I’m accused of one of the many evil “isms” that have proliferated these days. So on to that list of milk depots served by the GWR, as I’m worried it’s a bit North exclusive in its gender balance. I can certainly quote Dorrington, just south of Shrewsbury, whence a train of milk tanks headed out every evening too Banbury, where the LNER took it over and on through High Wycombe to reach the Milk depot at Marylebone.

[Donw]

Some time in the sixties travelling byway down South West I came through a small village to find a large Dairy seemingly oversize for the village it was the St Ivel dairy at Hemyock I did not know it was still rail served then or I would have had a look. Now I think by then much of the milk came in by tanks on the railway. So this begs the question where did the milk get transferred to rail tanks from either churns or fom road tank lorries.

Don

 

[Nearholmer]

Milk was taken to country dairies/creameries, like Hemyock, and it was there that it was loaded to tank-wagons and sent to bottling-plants in London. Even until c1975, some milk went by churn, twice daily, from farm to country dairy, but the move to cooling at the farm, storing, and forwarding to the country dairy by road-tanker, which collected two or three times each week, began as early as the 1930s.

 

The school where my father taught in the 1960s had a dairy herd, plus pigs and other animals, and we often used to look after the farm during the summer holidays when the stockman went away for a couple of weeks. The milking, cooling, and storage machines were exactly the same as the set-up illustrated in the contemporary Ladybird book of farming!

 

”Our” milk went to the Woodgate dairy at Sheffield Park, right by the Bluebell Railway.

 

PS: I’ve edited this, because I initially typed that the milk was pasteurised at the farm, and on reflection I think it was actually only cooled, with pasteurising taking place at the dairy.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

I thought that at Hemyock St Ivel were making cheese so the Milk would just be incoming not outgoing. 

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

If so, the same would apply as above, except read “sent to cheese-making plant”, instead of “sent to bottling plant”. Although, I thought Hemyock sent milk to London, and that the main rail-served cheese plant was at Bailey Gate.

 

EDIT: long after posting this, I discovered that Hemyock had a dried-milk plant, so sent out both tankers to London and tinned powder.

 

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

You may well be right I am no expert

 

Don

[Martin S-C]

Up until the early- to mid-1920s there was a good deal of milk traffic on the Highworth Branch in Wiltshire (discussed here recently). Up to three milk siphons were brought by the early morning passenger train and one each left at the intermediate stations of Stratton, Hannington and at Highworth. Farmers brought their milk in churns by horse and cart during the day and station staff loaded the vans. The evening passenger train collected them all, took them to Swindon where they were attached to the London bound milk train.

During the general strike of 1926 no milk was collected for ten days and it all went sour in the churns as they stood on the platforms in the sun. The local farmers found alternative means of transport by road lorry which arrangement they stuck to when the strike ended and because of this, after the mid 20s, milk traffic on the branch virtually ceased.

I suspect the railways lost a lot of traffic to road competition during the strike, never to get it back.

Edited August 15, 2019 by Martin S-C