Pre-Grouping Wagon Loading

[Fat Controller]

Limestone is used as a flux when iron ore is smelted; for steel-making, burnt lime is used, added to the molten iron.  Covered wooden wagons to transport burnt lime were in service into the 1960s; I have seen photos of some, from the quarry at Llandybie, at Pontardulais.

ICI, one of the larger producers of processed lime, had a fleet of opens with a fixed wooden tilt-bar, rather than a roof. These, again, lasted into the 1960s.

Apart from steel-making, building mortar, and top-dressing fields, burnt lime was (indeed, still is) used in treating drinking water.

[Martin S-C]

3 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Covered wooden wagons to transport burnt lime were in service into the 1960s; I have seen photos of some, from the quarry at Llandybie, at Pontardulais.

ICI, one of the larger producers of processed lime, had a fleet of opens with a fixed wooden tilt-bar, rather than a roof. These, again, lasted into the 1960s.

The Steetley wagon I showed a photo of was a company taken over by the Llandybie in the early 1920s. As for open wagons with a sheet bar, this one fits that description.



Thanks to everyone who has contributed regarding the lime industry. I had no idea the product had that many different uses. I was aware of its agricultural use but the fact its a component in the iron and steel industry is new to me.

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

The Steetley wagon I showed a photo of was a company taken over by the Llandybie in the early 1920s. As for open wagons with a sheet bar, this one fits that description.



Thanks to everyone who has contributed regarding the lime industry. I had no idea the product had that many different uses. I was aware of its agricultural use but the fact its a component in the iron and steel industry is new to me.

I forgot to mention glass-making...

Surely it would have been Steetley taking over Llandybie, as Steetley are still in business; indeed, they supply Tata's works at Port Talbot even today.

The ICI wagons to which I referred looked like ordinary 5-plank wagons, with a bit of 4" x 4" running from the centre-top of one end to the other. Crude but effective, and sufficient to avoid them being 'Pooled' in WW2.

[Marly51]

On 02/09/2019 at 22:03, Caley Jim said:

The CR had some 40 8T lime wagons (Dia 25) which were basically Dia 22 open wagons with peaked roofs.  They were for carrying quicklime in sacks, this being the basis of the disinfectant used in cattle wagons.  The limestone used as a flux in the iron and steel industry was carried in ordinary mineral wagons.

(Caledonian Railway Wagons and NPCS by Mike Williams; p161)

 

Jim

 

Jim, do you know of similar lime wagons used by the Highland Railway? Lime was quarried at Shinness north of Lairg, where the landowners also built limekilns in the early 19th century. This lime was intended  for both agricultural and building use, including land reclamation - it was transported by boat, down Loch Shin to Lairg, then taken onwards by road to the station. ‘Lime works’ (lime burner) existed by the station in the early station  days, later a shed was built there to store lime for the brickworks. One of the older local men thought that lime may have also been transported by rail in the 1930s - 1940s?

 

Marlyn

[Tricky]

Having just found this wonderful thread I'm going to take the time to read it from the start. The whole subject of pre-group wagon loads fascinates me too. It's especially relevant as my long-term aim is to expand both my knowledge and product range. Somewhere I have a photo of GW open wagons with a fishy load; I'll see if I can dig it out - unless  you've all moved on from the subject...?!

[Andy Hayter]

Nothing wrong with revisiting something.  New information is always welcome.

[laurenceb]

There is a photo in Narrow gauge Railways of Mid-Wales JIC Boyd (Oakwood 2nd revised ed 1970) of aSG waggon being loaded at Chirk in 1925. Not much to see but it looks like the slatesbeing loaded edge on lengthways. Stephen will be less than suprised that it was a D299!

[Compound2632]

31 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

Stephen will be less than surprised that it was a D299!

 

Post Great War, so in the pool - at that date they would still be making up may be a bit under 10%* of LMS wagon stock, so maybe 3% - 4% of all opens in the pool. 

 

*Withdrawals of the earliest builds from the 1880s had probably begun as the Midland built over 10,000 10 ton 5-plank opens in the decade before grouping, so maybe 50,000 D299s still in traffic.

[MarcD]

On 03/09/2019 at 11:20, Martin S-C said:

The Steetley wagon I showed a photo of was a company taken over by the Llandybie in the early 1920s. As for open wagons with a sheet bar, this one fits that description.



Thanks to everyone who has contributed regarding the lime industry. I had no idea the product had that many different uses. I was aware of its agricultural use but the fact its a component in the iron and steel industry is new to me.

When I was designing out 7mm kit for that wagon I was told that the wagon was originally built for the Cambrian Railways. Some were later converted to sprung buffers but others were sold out of service.

Marc

[Caley Jim]

On 04/09/2019 at 16:34, Marly51 said:

 

Jim, do you know of similar lime wagons used by the Highland Railway?

An email to Alisdair Campbell brought the following response:

 

As far as I am aware (which is based upon Peter Tatlow's book), the Highland did not have any specialised lime wagons. I expect it was put in sheeted opens, whether bagged or in bulk.

From the size of the quarries at Shinness, I suspect that the quantities of lime from there were pretty small. From the NLS map site, the 6 inch map series 1843-1882 clearly show the quarry, probably in operation. The actual date of the map is not shown on the NLS website, but the Sutherland Railway has been built. It was opened in 1868. The later 6 inch series (1888-1913) map shows the quarries as disused by that time, so clearly the trade was dead by then. There was a lime works beside Lairg station, function in the earlier series and disused in the later. Interestingly, limekilns were present, but disused, at Shinness in the later series, but do not appear at all in the earlier series. It would be a fairly laborious walk these days to get to them, as the raising of Loch Shin for the hydro scheme has cut off the access track meaning a bog trot round the head of an inlet where once there was a wee lochan. 

There are no other outcroppings of limestone in the area round Lairg, although there was a kiln near Lairg station. Again, it was disused by the date of the later series.

Perhaps the 1930s-1940s traffic was inbound, although another possibility is that it was being trucked from the Assynt or Durness areas by that time for export.

 

HTH,

 

Jim

 

[Marly51]

11 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

An email to Alisdair Campbell brought the following response:

 

As far as I am aware (which is based upon Peter Tatlow's book), the Highland did not have any specialised lime wagons. I expect it was put in sheeted opens, whether bagged or in bulk.

From the size of the quarries at Shinness, I suspect that the quantities of lime from there were pretty small. From the NLS map site, the 6 inch map series 1843-1882 clearly show the quarry, probably in operation. The actual date of the map is not shown on the NLS website, but the Sutherland Railway has been built. It was opened in 1868. The later 6 inch series (1888-1913) map shows the quarries as disused by that time, so clearly the trade was dead by then. There was a lime works beside Lairg station, function in the earlier series and disused in the later. Interestingly, limekilns were present, but disused, at Shinness in the later series, but do not appear at all in the earlier series. It would be a fairly laborious walk these days to get to them, as the raising of Loch Shin for the hydro scheme has cut off the access track meaning a bog trot round the head of an inlet where once there was a wee lochan. 

There are no other outcroppings of limestone in the area round Lairg, although there was a kiln near Lairg station. Again, it was disused by the date of the later series.

Perhaps the 1930s-1940s traffic was inbound, although another possibility is that it was being trucked from the Assynt or Durness areas by that time for export.

 

HTH,

 

Jim

 

 

Thanks Jim (& Alisdair)!

 

If local supply was limited, it is possible the lime was inbound for the Lairg Brickworks, which were built in in 1937. The 19th century limekilns at The Airde, Loch Shin, are still intact. The Lairg brick was made with sand and lime and the Brickworks also sold, sand lime and cement locally. https://www.scottishbrickhistory.co.uk/lairg-quarry-and-brick-company-ltd-lairg-sutherland/ Now I need to find out whether the bricks were transported by road or rail, but  that would be during the days of LMS not pre-grouping!

 

Marlyn

[Miss Prism]

Fish market, St Ives

[Turin 60]

On 01/09/2019 at 15:31, Nearholmer said:

Watercress:

 

All the info on the web is obscured by stuff about the “watercress line”, but This is a very good photo http://www.alresfordheritage.co.uk/alresford-photo-collection/watercress/d-031.html

 

It’s a bit foggy, but it seems to show somewhat larger baskets than for strawberries, with no handles, otherwise the rail forwarding is “as for strawberries”.

 

This one shows the baskets more clearly https://www.croxleygreenhistory.co.uk/watercress-growers.html#PhotoSwipe1567348359901

 

And, this operation seems to have used lidded baskets, small hampers, and allows me to sneak in another, truly wonderful, narrow gauge railway, which I believe is still used now - I saw it in action about 35 years ago. https://www.thewatercresscompany.com/history-of-watercress

 

 

Thanks for the information with regard the watercress which was my main focus as where my Light Railway is set there was quite a traffic seasonally in cress.

 

Thanks again John Bruce.

[Nearholmer]

The thing about rapidly-perishables, things like soft fruit, lettuces, broccoli, cauliflowers, and watercress, is that, although they were "goods", they often went in passenger-rated vans, attached to passenger trains, or where the traffic was huge as whole trains, either all passenger-rated vans at passenger speeds, or fitted goods. Milk in churns was a very similar traffic, ditto fish.

 

Meat and butter open up another set of questions: I know that there were fitted goods vans for both, but were there also passenger-rated meat or butter vans?

 

This is making me hungry!

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The thing about rapidly-perishables, things like soft fruit, lettuces, broccoli, cauliflowers, and watercress, is that, although they were "goods", they often went in passenger-rated vans, attached to passenger trains, or where the traffic was huge as whole trains, either all passenger-rated vans at passenger speeds, or fitted goods. Milk in churns was a very similar traffic, ditto fish.

 

Meat and butter open up another set of questions: I know that there were fitted goods vans for both, but were there also passenger-rated meat or butter vans?

 

This is making me hungry!

 

On the LNWR and Midland, fish and milk seems nearly always to have travelled by passenger train in NPCS vehicles (or guard's vans) or by dedicated train. The L&Y only started building fish vans from 1906, with the development of Fleetwood as a fishing port, rapidly building up a fleet of several hundred vehicles - rather more than the LNWR or Midland. All vehicles were fully fitted, either dual braked or with AVB and Westinghouse through pipe.

 

Meat almost always in goods vehicles. The Midland built a small number of meat vans finished in passenger livery in 1881 but subsequent batches were treated as goods vehicles despite the passenger-style coachwork - not all batches were fitted. The Midland was also building refrigerated meat vans from 1879, though the major quantities were built in the late 1890s. Some were fitted and some through-piped; about two-thirds were rated to work in passenger trains. The LNWR had both meat vans and refrigerated meat vans, in very large numbers - well over twice the number the Midland had, reflecting the LNWR's dominance of both fresh meat traffic from Scotland and refrigerated meat traffic from the Americas through the port of Liverpool. It seems to have been the LNWR that started the practice of painting refrigerator meat vans white - widely copied by other lines, including the L&Y, but not the Midland. In all these examples, refrigeration was passive, relying on ice-filled tanks and double-lining for insulation.

 

The Midland had no vehicles dedicated to butter traffic. The LNWR had a fleet of 75 built in 1899, with ventilation similar to meat vans. The principal traffic seems to have been from Ireland via Holyhead. These vehicles were unfitted. The L&Y also had some butter vans, built in 1905 for Danish butter via Goole. These were fitted with vacuum brake and also Westinghouse through pipes. Coates describes their working. The butter was contained in half-barrels. The entire fleet of 75 wagons would have been needed to take the load of one of the L&Y's cargo ships. Block trains of butter vans would be worked to major destinations such as Manchester; from these places single vans were forwarded to smaller towns by passenger train. I think the North British had some too, presumably for Scottish butter bound for England. All these were goods vehicles.

 

Fruit seems to have been half-and-half, with plenty of NPCS vehicles designated "fruit or milk". The Midland had ventilated vans described as "covered goods wagon and fruit van", some fully fitted and rated to run in passenger trains, some piped only, and some unfitted. The LNWR had a similar variety, some of which were steam-heated, doubling up as banana vans. Both companies built dedicated banana vans in the first decade of the 20th century, as importation of the fruit took off, running block trains from Liverpool and, in the Midland's case, from Avonmouth - though that route may have started a little later. Again, there were batches of unfitted vans and of fitted vans capable of running in passenger trains or at passenger train speed. 

 

That covers three of the four major English railways - I don't have enough on North Eastern wagons, unfortunately. 

 

References:

 

P. Ellis et al., LNWR Wagons Vol. 2 (Wild Swan, 2011)

N. Coates, Lancashire & Yorkshire Wagons, Vol. 2 (Wild Swan, 2006)

R. Essery, Midland Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1980)

[kevinlms]

On 29/08/2019 at 07:40, Nearholmer said:

Fish were definitely transported in bags/sacks at some stage - I've read an old court case about a goods porter who was caught deliberately splitting the bags and nicking fish at one of the Leman Street Goods Depots that were used to serve the old Billingsgate Market. One thing that sticks in my mind is that all the weights in the case are given in stones, which was apparently the normal unit for wet fish.

Stone fish? Perhaps not, since their barbs are highly poisonous!

[Nearholmer]

The GE had butter vans, which I think were goods vehicles.

 

Quite bit of butter for London seems to have come from the North Bucks and North Oxon ‘pasture belt’, and there was a nightly goods train serving mainly that traffic from, IIRC, Bletchley, which must have gathered traffic from the Oxford Line as well as more locally. I’m fairly sure the Met served the same traffic once it got out into the District, and i’d bet the GWR and GC too.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Guy Rixon]

Bananas carried by the LNWR were initially landed at Manchester docks. The move to Liverpool happened later, c.1910 IIRC.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I've certainly not come across any mention of them being grown in quantity in North Buckinghamshire.

[Caley Jim]

The CR had several diagrams of meat vans, including some refrigerated, all of which were passenger rated.

 

they also had a number of 6-wheeled fish fruit and milk vans which were of similar construction to luggage vans and also fully fitted for running in passenger trains.

 

Jim

[Fat Controller]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The GE had butter vans, which I think were goods vehicles.

 

Quite bit of butter for London seems to have come from the North Bucks and North Oxon ‘pasture belt’, and there was a nightly goods train serving mainly that traffic from, IIRC, Bletchley, which must have gathered traffic from the Oxford Line as well as more locally. I’m fairly sure the Met served the same traffic once it got out into the District, and i’d bet the GWR and GC too.

Butter would have been carried in small wooden barrels; I remember the 'Five Roads' stall at Llanelli market was still using these in the early 1970s

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Butter would have been carried in small wooden barrels; I remember the 'Five Roads' stall at Llanelli market was still using these in the early 1970s

 

Danish butter (on the L&Y via Goole) in half-barrels. How does that work? Which half?

[jcm@gwr]

28 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I've certainly not come across any mention of them being grown in quantity in North Buckinghamshire.

 

Your probably right, but does anyone know which EU country is the biggest exporter of bananas?

[Trog]

48 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I've certainly not come across any mention of them being grown in quantity in North Buckinghamshire.

 

Quite right it is the Peak District that is the home of the worlds banana industry.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Trog
Missing words.

[Compound2632]

Portugal? - Maderia is a banana-growing island.