Distilleries - steam era features?

[justin1985]

I've been mulling over various options for scenic-ing a basic inglenook shunting plank, which I'm building to test out a variation of track-building techniques. Ian Peaty's "Iron Rails and Whisky Trails" has really inspired me to do something a bit different to my usual Great Eastern themed projects. 

 

One particular distillery has jumped out at me as good inspiration for a model: Dailuaine. Not a well known distillery at all, and from Google maps it looks like most of the "picturesque" buildings have now been demolished as the business evolved. But the setting, crowded in around a burn, with wooded hills all around, seems absolutely ideal. One of the other attractive features of this distillery is the fact it had its own shunter, complete with a very attractive little engine shed (details at this blog). 

 

There is a great album of pictures from 1967 on flickr: 

 

https://flic.kr/p/WpKpio

 

I'd like to know more about the traffic at a distillery before things like malting were centralised, and the kinds of loading/unloading facilities that would look plausible?

 

It is striking how in the linked album on Flickr, almost all of the rail traffic seems to be barrels in open wagons - the only exception seem to be an internal user tank wagon. Peaty's book, and plenty of other photos, show grain wagons as the other key traffic. I imagine this was quite seasonal - the gorse flowering in those pictures suggests early summer? So unlikely to be much grain being carried. So would an accurate model have only really one type of traffic at any one time?

 

I'm guessing the sidings disappearing into the pagoda kiln and neighbouring building would have been used for the arriving grain/malt? I can't see any evidence of dedicated loading docks, so perhaps the open wagons were also loaded indoors? Did other distilleries have outdoor loading docks?

 

I gather that Dailuaine used only peat, but presumably some distilleries received significant amounts of coal by rail? (EDIT - as soon as I posted this, I noticed the second image I linked to actually has two BR coal hoppers in view! Presumably this means there were coal drops/ other facilities for hopper bottom unloading?)

 

I'd like to portray a slightly earlier period (Edwardian or inter-war), but the earliest pictures I've really found of the railways inside distilleries seem to be from the 60s. It would be great to see some earlier photos of working distilleries and their railways, if anyone has any pointers?

 

Justin

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by justin1985

[dunwurken]

There is an 0-4-0ST and wagon with barrels at Aberfeldy distillery.  I may be wrong but I think the loco may be on loan from the SRPS and may be 'Dailuaine' which came from the distillery you are thinking of modelling.

[Irishswissernie]

At Balmenach distillery further up the Speyside branch it appears they moved barrels internally by rail to a barrel store , see this interesting facility!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/34942743773/in/album-72157685827366556/

 

In the album there are several views of the distinctive blue grain wagons in June 1967 at Knockando (Balmenach) . It is possible that as these mainly came north in block trains, John Boyes the photographer wasn't around when grain was being delivered to Dailuaine or the Company's other distillery at Carron station.

 

I will have a dig in the files and see if the other scans I have show anything new!

 

Ernie

 

[Irishswissernie]

I've checked the files and added 3 more views covering coal at the distillery and also one view at the exchange siding with a blue liveried grain wagon.

The link below is the first view of the exchange siding and if you click on the rest of the distillery views are next.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/35712015706/in/album-72157685827366556/

 

 

Ernie

 

[dunwurken]

There is a photograph in the Gifford and Garvald Light Railway book of an open wagon with large whisky casks in it which had come from or were going to Glenkinchie distillery, (Saltoun station)in East Lothian.

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by dunwurken
Terminology - changed barrels to casks. Should have known better!

[Fat Controller]

17 minutes ago, dunwurken said:

There is a photograph in the Gifford and Garvald Light Railway book of an open wagon with large whisky barrels in it which had come from or were going to Glenkinchie distillery, (Saltoun station)in East Lothian.

 

Barrels in open wagons would either be new, or second-hand, empties; full barrels would need to be in vans with a Crown seal on them, allowing them to travel from distillery to blender or bottling plant under bond. The empties might be returning from the bottler or , more likely, coming from a sherry or port merchant. 

[RLBH]

22 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

The empties might be returning from the bottler or , more likely, coming from a sherry or port merchant. 

More likely the other way around - a cask (not a barrel!) is good for three or four reuses once the whisky industry have gotten their hands on it. Fresh casks coming in from the Continent might well arrive broken down for reassembly by the distillery's cooperage, as you don't have to pack lots of empty space then. I don't know if that was historical practice, but it's certainly modern practice; if this was done, they might well arrive in vans. In any case, it would seem sensible to bring the empties in by the same vans that the loads leave by wherever possible.

 

Empties from the bottling plant would still need to get broken down for the casks to be refreshed, but unless there was a cooperage on hand at the bottling plant this might well be done at the distillery with the empties arriving intact.

[Signaller69]

Excellent topic, some of John Boyes photos in "First Generation Scottish Diesels in Colour" show the BRT blue grain hoppers in trains servicing the Speyside line - including at the Dailuaine exchange siding - with a good variety of advertising hoardings for various brands on them (1966), along with opens with casks in, plus vans. Another photo in a different book shows the Barclay "Dailuaine" sandwiched between a van and an open filled with a variety of sizes of casks.

 

Am I right in thinking Dailuaine is the Gaelic form of "Dalwhinnie" which is possibly a better known name?

 

It would appear from the photo in the OP post that casks were rolled to the store (light blue doors) on guide rails from the siding near where the loco is standing?

Edited March 4, 2019 by Signaller69
Edit to add comment on OP post & correction.

[RLBH]

2 minutes ago, Signaller69 said:

 

Am I right in thinking Dailuaine is the Gaelic form of "Dalwhinnie" which is possibly a better known name?

The Gaelic form of Dalwhinnnie is Dail Chuinnidh, apparently meaning 'meeting place' or 'field of champions', while Dail Uaine means 'green valley'. Both distilleries are still running  - Dailuaine near Aberlour, Dalwhinnie adjacent to the station of the same name on the Highland Main Line.

[Signaller69]

Just now, RLBH said:

The Gaelic form of Dalwhinnnie is Dail Chuinnidh, apparently meaning 'meeting place' or 'field of champions', while Dail Uaine means 'green valley'. Both distilleries are still running  - Dailuaine near Aberlour, Dalwhinnie adjacent to the station of the same name on the Highland Main Line.

Thankyou for the information, very informative!

[justin1985]

9 hours ago, Irishswissernie said:

I've checked the files and added 3 more views covering coal at the distillery and also one view at the exchange siding with a blue liveried grain wagon.

The link below is the first view of the exchange siding and if you click on the rest of the distillery views are next.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/35712015706/in/album-72157685827366556/

 

 

Ernie

 

 

Thank you so much for posting these Ernie! Your Flickr pages are an absolute goldmine for modellers - much appreciated!

 

Many thanks for all of the other comments - lots of useful details. Empties in opens, full casks in vans, makes sense - and presumably also arriving and leaving at different times, to suit batch production. So the lack of a "back haul" was presumably less of an issue.

 

I imagine very few distilleries had their own bottling plants? Probably most done in the larger cities? 

 

I'm not planning to build an accurate model of Dailuaine - the project is as largely about  re-using an existing board  and using a track plan that will allow for fun shunting. But I certainly hope to capture something of the spirit of the place! 

 

The Barclay shunters look incredibly attractive, but I think they'd be a long way beyond my skills to scratch build in 2mmFS! A J94 might have to stand in its place for now.

 

Justin

[sulzer27jd]

13 hours ago, justin1985 said:

 

Many thanks for all of the other comments - lots of useful details. Empties in opens, full casks in vans, makes sense - and presumably also arriving and leaving at different times, to suit batch production. So the lack of a "back haul" was presumably less of an issue.

 

I imagine very few distilleries had their own bottling plants? Probably most done in the larger cities? 

 

1

 

Sorry Justin, but that is not the case. Whisky moved from Speyside in open wagons, in later years those with metal bodies were preferred, but what was available was used. Empty barrels were returned intact for re-use but there was no direct relationship to production. Most distilleries would have sizeable stores of barrels as production was seasonal. Hogsheads were 54 gallons and Butts were 108. 

 

Draff was moved away in clean open wagons.

 

The main bonding, bottling and blending facilities were in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee.

 

John

[dunwurken]

The distilleries must have been very trusting to move casks filled with whisky in open wagons, pilfering must have been rife!   I presume, unlike some of the brewery companies, none of the distilleries used special empty cask wagons - basically high sided, slatted sides and ends, roofless with long wheelbase.  I think Ratio do or did a kit of an NBR cask wagon.

[TheQ]

I've read of the casks being drilled into from below the wagon on Highland railways, i guess because being on the wagon would be too easy to be seen.

 

Back in the 1970's working in a Naafi, I was called to witness a box of Bells whisky being opened.. They'd had several cases with incorrect number of bottles inside. So we all stood round the card board case, as the manager removed the tape while being photographed... there were 3 bottles missing... it can only have happened back in the Bells factory,...

[RLBH]

7 minutes ago, dunwurken said:

The distilleries must have been very trusting to move casks filled with whisky in open wagons, pilfering must have been rife!

And indeed it was, at all stages of the evolution - even once bottled. Entire cases of bottled whisky used to go missing during shipping. One of the less obvious benefits of containerised shipping is that it reduces pilferage almost to insignificance - not only is it harder to get at the cargo, but there are fewer people around to try.

 

dunwurken - I knew there was a whisky-related traffic I hadn't thought of, draff was it!

[Edwardian]

On 03/03/2019 at 14:53, justin1985 said:

I've been mulling over various options for scenic-ing a basic inglenook shunting plank, which I'm building to test out a variation of track-building techniques. Ian Peaty's "Iron Rails and Whisky Trails" has really inspired me to do something a bit different to my usual Great Eastern themed projects. 

 

One particular distillery has jumped out at me as good inspiration for a model: Dailuaine. Not a well known distillery at all, and from Google maps it looks like most of the "picturesque" buildings have now been demolished as the business evolved. But the setting, crowded in around a burn, with wooded hills all around, seems absolutely ideal. One of the other attractive features of this distillery is the fact it had its own shunter, complete with a very attractive little engine shed (details at this blog). 

 

There is a great album of pictures from 1967 on flickr: 

 

https://flic.kr/p/WpKpio

 

I'd like to know more about the traffic at a distillery before things like malting were centralised, and the kinds of loading/unloading facilities that would look plausible?

 

It is striking how in the linked album on Flickr, almost all of the rail traffic seems to be barrels in open wagons - the only exception seem to be an internal user tank wagon. Peaty's book, and plenty of other photos, show grain wagons as the other key traffic. I imagine this was quite seasonal - the gorse flowering in those pictures suggests early summer? So unlikely to be much grain being carried. So would an accurate model have only really one type of traffic at any one time?

 

I'm guessing the sidings disappearing into the pagoda kiln and neighbouring building would have been used for the arriving grain/malt? I can't see any evidence of dedicated loading docks, so perhaps the open wagons were also loaded indoors? Did other distilleries have outdoor loading docks?

 

I gather that Dailuaine used only peat, but presumably some distilleries received significant amounts of coal by rail? (EDIT - as soon as I posted this, I noticed the second image I linked to actually has two BR coal hoppers in view! Presumably this means there were coal drops/ other facilities for hopper bottom unloading?)

 

I'd like to portray a slightly earlier period (Edwardian or inter-war), but the earliest pictures I've really found of the railways inside distilleries seem to be from the 60s. It would be great to see some earlier photos of working distilleries and their railways, if anyone has any pointers?

 

Justin

 

 

A wonderful subject, Justin, and I hope you tackle it. 

 

An Edwardian setting would be a way to refresh the subject nicely.

[justin1985]

8 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

A wonderful subject, Justin, and I hope you tackle it. 

 

An Edwardian setting would be a way to refresh the subject nicely.

 

Many thanks James!

 

I have enough stock that could serve for a 1930s-ish era, and some that could be pressed in for the earlier BR diesel period from another project (class 25, BR and "blue" grain hoppers). For now, I'd have to operate with a J94 serving as works shunter, and a J39 as the mainline loco, and .plenty of LNER and LMS opens and vans. But I've always had a soft spot for the GNoSR and the NBR, so I'd love to eventually build some more suitable stock for an earlier era.  An NBR J83 tank or a GNSR 4-4-0 would be very tempting! A Barclay might be a bit tricky in 2mm, but N Brass Locos make a kit for a Peckett that might make a suitable stand-in.

 

The NBR cask wagon would make a really interesting model - I'd be tempted to try printing one, although it might be a bit weak in 2mm scale, so possibly better suited to etching.

 

I'm currently playing around with a few variations of an inglenook plus loco shed spur track plan to see what would fit best around an approximation of the distillery buildings. I already have some turnouts built (to try out different chairplate systems) and I'm reusing a baseboard - so I think this should actually get built - I'll post a layout thread if I do go ahead.

 

Justin

 

[Edwardian]

Justin, if you avoid modern features, I don't see why you cannot run all periods.  Moving through time is a great way to gain variety when modelling a location with limited stock variety at any given period. 

[dunwurken]

Steam World January and February 2002 two part article by Dr Ann Glen entitled 'Whisky Trains in the Highlands'.  Sorry but I do not have copies.

[justin1985]

1 hour ago, dunwurken said:

Steam World January and February 2002 two part article by Dr Ann Glen entitled 'Whisky Trains in the Highlands'.  Sorry but I do not have copies.

 

Many thanks, I’ll see if the Model Railway Club library has a copy when I’m next in.

 

Justin

[Marly51]

Just found your topic, Justin. Thank you for sharing your research - my family have Strathspey distillery connections and in fact my great grandfather was registered as staying with his grandmother at the Dailuaine Distillery cottages    in an early census. I shall be meeting family, who have worked for the distilleries, in June. Will see if I can find out any more sources of information. 

 

All the best with with this project.

 

Marlyn

[justin1985]

Thanks Marlyn, that's really interesting! 

 

It certainly won't be an accurate model of Dailuaine, but I'm borrowing the style of all the buildings - just rearranging them!

 

I've been working on a mock up of the buildings to help finalise my "inglenook plus loco shed spur" track plan. It's sat on a board I'm reusing from an old project.

 

Justin

[justin1985]

I worked up a design for a malt kiln roof with a Doig style "pagoda" roof last night. I didn't fancy the prospect of making such a complex shape from card, so I've designed it in Fusion 360 to 3D print.

 

I'd very interested to hear any views on how well I've captured the shape? I've been looking at lots of photos - and of course each distillery was subtly different - and feel like I've lost the ability to distinguish what looks in proportion, and what doesn't! I wonder if my design is too squat, or the ventilator is too big in proportion, but when I tried making it smaller, or the roof more tapered and slender, that looked kind of wrong. 

 

 

This is in 2mm scale (1:152), the bottom edges of the roof are 75mm long (to sit on a building 70mm square with 2.5mm overhang each side) and the whole thing is about 80mm high, to the sphere on the top. 

 

I'm planning to fit slates as paper strips, rather than include them in the design, to try and make it more consistent with other buildings on the layout which will be made more conventionally. 

[AJCT]

Way back in the 1960s my late father built a model distillery for his 00 layout, and it was featured in the Railway Modeller for December 1966. It was originally conceived as a corner-filler for the outside of a curve, and the inspiration for it came from the Revd Peter Denny's gasworks as featured in the June 1961 RM.  Like the gasworks, the distillery wasn't just a piece of scenery but a focus for goods traffic: however, my dad decided that a distillery would be more appropriate for his North Highland branch-line than a gasworks !  That layout is long gone, but for sentimental reasons I still have the model distillery - and in fact the day I write this it's 40 years since he died.

 

If I recall correctly, the Dec 1966 RM article may have a drawing of the kiln pagoda roof/vent with dimensions.  Copyright reasons would probably prevent scanning the published article, but if it would be of interest I'll have a look and see if I have dad's original plans and notes which might be scan-able. 

 

In his article my dad referred to his “selected prototype”.  Unfortunately my siblings and I can’t recall him ever divulging which one it was based on, but a few years ago my wife and I were driving eastwards out of Aberfeldy and I spotted the close resemblance of the distillery there to the drawing which accompanied my dad’s article… mystery solved, perhaps, but I believe the Dalwhinnie distillery had some inspiration too.

 

Then in October 2002 I was helping to exhibit a friend's layout at the Manchester MRS show and whilst having a look round the other exhibits I found a group showing an under-construction layout featuring a model distillery which looked familiar.  It turned out they were using my dad’s RM article as inspiration, so I introduced myself and said I was pleased that his model had inspired them, and wished them well.  If I recall correctly that layout was being built in 3mm finescale by the North Cheshire Group of the 3mm Society, and I was wondering if any RMWebbers know how that layout progressed? 

 

Alasdair

[justin1985]

2 hours ago, AJCT said:

Thatlayout is long gone, but for sentimental reasons I still have the model distillery - and in fact the day I write this it's 40 years since he died.

 

If I recall correctly, the Dec 1966 RM article may have a drawing of the kiln pagoda roof/vent with dimensions.  Copyright reasons would probably prevent scanning the published article, but if it would be of interest I'll have a look and see if I have dad's original plans and notes which might be scan-able. 

 

In his article my dad referred to his “selected prototype”.  Unfortunately my siblings and I can’t recall him ever divulging which one it was based on, but a few years ago my wife and I were driving eastwards out of Aberfeldy and I spotted the close resemblance of the distillery there to the drawing which accompanied my dad’s article… mystery solved, perhaps, but I believe the Dalwhinnie distillery had some inspiration too.

 

This sounds fascinating Alasdair! I'd certainly love to see a picture of your father's model, even if the original article or notes wouldn't be possible.

 

Justin