Branch Line Creameries

[The Stationmaster]

It does, doesn't it! Can someone shed light on this? I'm pretty sure the tanks weren't through-piped for steam heat!

 

 

 

Some definitely did have steam pipes and they can be seen on some photos although of course they wouldn't be there on photos taken during the summer.

[Karhedron]

Here is a shot of the western end of the Pont Llanio creamery (the end near the junction with the line). This does not feature in any of the historical views and shows the current dilapidated state of the building.

 

[Karhedron]

And a recent aerial shot shows most of the site still intact.

 

[John_Hughes]

And a recent aerial shot shows most of the site still intact.

 

 

Yes, there were proposals a few years back to turn it into some kind of museum but they seem to have come to nothing.

 

Now I'm starting to wonder what it was that I saw regularly at Pont Llanio in the spring and summer of '62 - a single tank lifted out of the creamery siding by the train engine and popped on the front of the train, with something like a 10-minute stand at the platform to handle it.

 

A few years back I talked with a former relief signalman who spent some time in the box at Pont Llanio, but sadly this topic never came up; however, the son of the former Tregaron stationmaster, a man I used to know very well but who is now sadly no longer with us, agreed with me that at least some tanks from Pont Llanio were worked north! He also confirmed the winter working of the entire 3-coach train into the creamery siding to couple up the tank at the rear of the train.

 

Make what you will of it! I only know what I saw and what a gentleman who knew the line intimately stated used to happen! Certainly Felin Fach / Green Grove milk went south, which of course suits the layout at Aberayron (sic!) Junction.

[Karhedron]

Don't worry, I don't think anyone is doubting your recollection. Eyewitness accounts provide the sort of detail and flavour that WTTs and CWPs can never really convey.

 

If you say you saw tankers being taken north to Aber then I am happy to accept your word for it. The questions then become where they went and what they were for. You mention is was spring and summer when the cows would be in "full flood". Possibly this was excess production being taken somewhere to be processed into cream or cheese? If it did go north, that might explain why it doesn't show up in the Swansea WTT.

[chrisf]

It sounds like the sort of ad hoc or seasonal working that would have been set out in the weekly notices or other operational circular.  The chances of finding such documents are slimmer than a supermodel.

 

Chris

[Karhedron]

I have just come across this site that has a nice selection of photos of Hemyock. Not many shots of the railway side but plenty of details, both inside and out. Also some great photos showing farmers getting the milk through during the big freeze of the winter of 1963.

 

http://blackdownarchives.org.uk/category/trades/milk-factory/

['CHARD]

Chard also produced large quantities of powdered milk 

 

 

It's not what you think.

[Oldddudders]

It's not what you think.

 

Dandruff?

['CHARD]

Dandruff?

 

We'll let that lie on file.

[corneliuslundie]

A little late, but could the northbound milk have gone from Aberystwyth to a processing site which used to exist somewhere in the road between Shrewsbury and Stafford? My geography of the area is not very good, but one of our club members used to work there so it tends to be pointed out when we pass on the way to the Stafford show.

Jonathan

[Northmoor]

The Johnstown creamery, just outside Carmarthen, specialised in dried milk- as Karhedron mentioned, milk was sometimes brought in by rail to supplement local supplies. There were a couple of sites in the North-West which likewise produced either dried or condensed & evaporated milk.

[Just found this thread referenced from another].

 

Didn't know that about Johnstown; pretty sure it had closed by the time I worked at Whitland "Creamery" in the summer of '91.  My job was shrink-wrapping and hand-balling bagged milk powder - I think the ISO container loads were going to Sri Lanka - so perhaps the production had been transferred from Johnstown.  Sad to see the Whitland site a couple of years ago; apart from the stores at the top of the old site, it's been completely cleared.

 

Here's the site seen from Whitland footbridge, in August '86 - sorry for the iffy quality, it was on a 110-format camera.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Northmoor

[dibber25]

December 2012 (a good vintage IMHO) 

 

People have already listed many of the good candidates for creameries on Branchlines so suffice it to say you have plenty of options to choose from.

 

 

Sadly there is little published material about dairies and their traffic (one of the things that prompted me to write the article). I have never even managed to find a comprehensive list of rail-served dairies although the MMB archives must have this information somewhere. You are more likely to stumble across the information in books and articles relating to the lines on which they were situated.

 

 

In general creameries tended to be located on the more rural branchlines. Hemyock for example dispatched 5-6 tankers at a time and justified a Sunday service to collect them (a courtesy not extended to passengers ). Wallingford (as mentioned above) usually dispatched just one tank a day so there is scope to make your creamery any size you wish as there was no standard size.

 

In terms of buildings, style varied as much as size. There was a big expansion in milk-traffic during the 1930s so many rail-served creameries were built in the then-popular "art deco" style such as Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Wood Lane, Rossmore Road and Green Grove. Many were simpler industrial buildings like the diminutive Wallingford creamery to the massive facility at Hemyock.

 

The creamery on my own layout was kitbashed from a mix of Walthers, Peco and Ratio parts and is based (very loosely) on the medium-sized example at Moreton-in-the-Marsh.

 

 

 

What was the building on the right? Looks like a standard GWR stables. Its walls are alternate courses of red and blue bricks. I photographed it still relatively complete in 1996 but now all that's left is one wall, almost completely hidden by undergrowth. (CJL)

[Joseph_Pestell]

What was the building on the right? Looks like a standard GWR stables. Its walls are alternate courses of red and blue bricks. I photographed it still relatively complete in 1996 but now all that's left is one wall, almost completely hidden by undergrowth. (CJL)

 

It would seem odd to have a stable door going out on to a track.

 

According to RH Clark (1884 plan), there was a water tower there. That building is clearly not a water tower but perhaps a conversion using the lower part.

[Karhedron]

It would seem odd to have a stable door going out on to a track.

 

According to RH Clark (1884 plan), there was a water tower there. That building is clearly not a water tower but perhaps a conversion using the lower part.

By the 20th century, the water was on the up platform, near the footbridge.

 

[Karhedron]

It would seem odd to have a stable door going out on to a track.

The siding arrangement at the north end of the station was different in the 19th century. There was a way to access the building from the north without crossing the tracks. The 1884 OS map appears to show 2 structures in the vicinity, only the smaller of which is marked as a water tower. Possibly the building is something else.

 

[Norton961]

Just to spread the geography of creameries, there was one at Minsterley (Shropshire) built on the site of a Wood yard. Minsterley was the terminus of a short branch of the Shrewsbury to Welshpool line and was jointly owned by the GWR and LNWR. I have never seen any rail milk tankers though.

Also in Shropshire there was the Dorrington (south of Shrewsbury on the Hereford line) express milk train to Marylebone usually with a Hall or County as motive power. The Creamery at Dorrington had a fleet of 6 wheeled tankers

 

David

Edited March 19, 2018 by Norton961

[Joseph_Pestell]

The siding arrangement at the north end of the station was different in the 19th century. There was a way to access the building from the north without crossing the tracks. The 1884 OS map appears to show 2 structures in the vicinity, only the smaller of which is marked as a water tower. Possibly the building is something else.

 

 

And between the up and the "loop", rather than on the other side of the loop. So OS map disagrees with RH Clark. Who to believe?

 

Edit: There is a range of small buildings at the south end of the goods yard that look like a more probable location for stables.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell

[bgman]

Another possible one for consideration is the Ambrosia Creamery at Lapford on the North Devon line.

 

 

For the most part the building footprint is still there and now used by a large removals company.

 

 

[Karhedron]

Also in Shropshire there was the Dorrington (south of Shrewsbury on the Hereford line) express milk train to Marylebone usually with a Hall or County as motive power. The Creamery at Dorrington had a fleet of 6 wheeled tankers

Here is the Dorrington milk passing through Birmingham in earlier years.

 

[Karhedron]

And here is a shot of the IMS milk bottling plant at Marylebone standing behind the Rossmore road bridge.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by Karhedron

[Rugd1022]

Here is the Dorrington milk passing through Birmingham in earlier years.

 

 

Looks like Southam Road & Harbury   

 

(Still searching out those photos you asked for by the way!)

[brossard]

Some marvellous pictures in this thread.  However, I have never seen any sort of discussion about the piping layout for dairies/creameries to get the milk into the tanks.  There are tantalizing hints here and there but not enough info for me to work out how it looked.

 

I built the Scalescenes creamery kit in 0 gauge:

 

 

John

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, brossard said:

Some marvellous pictures in this thread.  However, I have never seen any sort of discussion about the piping layout for dairies/creameries to get the milk into the tanks.  There are tantalizing hints here and there but not enough info for me to work out how it looked.

 

Most of the creameries I have seen had relatively little exposed pipework visible on the outside. I have photos showing the filling operation at both Wooton Bassett (United Diaries) and Rowsely (Express Dairies). Both these creameries were enclosed so the tanks were shunted inside for filling.

 

Milk tanks were filled from the top, not from the large manhole (which was used for cleaning and access) but from the small valved opening located partway along the tank. Both Wootton Bassett and Rowsely had lightweight pipework suspended from the ceiling. Flexible pipes were connected from this to the milk tanks for filling. I am not certain how this was handled at creameries that were not enclosed. Some places such as Seaton and Torrington had pipework arrangements over the filling sidings. Possibly these served the same purpose although I am not completely sure as it is not clear that these were plumbed into the creamery or served some other purpose.

 

 

 

The photos below show a peep inside Moreton-in-Marsh creamery but do not show any particularly obvious pipework. Possibly the filling was done using flexible hoses that were only run out at filling time. Possibly the pipework is built into the canopy over the siding. I have to admit the only pipework I can make out in the pictures looks like guttering.

 

 

This shows what might be a white pipe coming out of the dairy to the further milk tank. I can't see this in any other shots so possibly it was retractable and used for filling but the image is not clear enough for me to be confident of that.

 

 

This last photo does show the top-filling valve well, just in front of the manhole cover.

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Karhedron

[Karhedron]

The only location that springs to mind with prominent pipework was Vauxhall but that was used for emptying milk tanks. The milk was piped across the road to the Unigate bottling plant opposite the station.

 

 

From a modelling point of view, you could make the case that if the pipework is not particularly obvious in any of the photos of the real thing, it does not need to be on the model either....

Edited September 21, 2020 by Karhedron