Jump to content
 

Were cattle wagons used only for cattle, or also pigs and sheep?


t.s.meese
 Share

Recommended Posts

It's all in the title - but I might add the following:

1. I have decided to put some animals in my growing fleets of big-4 cattle wagons. But most model cows are Friesians - I recall these did not appear in the uk until well after the war (please correct me if I'm wrong). So pigs - easily sourced - seemed like a good alternative, plus one or two loads of Jerseys...

2. I note that Hornby produce a pack of Hereford's but half of them are in a black and white livery of spots. I think this is like trying to pass off a King as an A4 by paining it garter blue...

3. I did a search for 'pig' on RMWeb. I found a lot of 'pig's ears', several 'pigs to fit', flying pigs', and the odd 'pig iron', but not much on the live pink thingies. Actually, somebody did mention seeing (and smelling) pigs loaded into 3 BR GUVs in the 70s, which was interesting, but not quite what I was after. 

Anyway, any help much appreciated... 

Tim.

Edited by t.s.meese
Typo - and sign with first name
Link to post
Share on other sites

Everything that couldn't escape. There is a photo in one of the books of a train of cattle wagons moving an entire farm* with a mixture of livestock waiting to be loaded. They wouldn't be mixed though, so no different species in the same wagon.

 

Also horses. Only race horses and cavalry horses travelled in horse boxes.

 

 

*Possibly The Country Railway by David St John Thomas

 

 

 

Jason

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Livestock of all sorts, including circus animals - though extra was charged if the vehicle had to be adapted or strengthened*, e.g. hatch in roof and ducking mechanism for giraffes:

 

image.png.e855ab75bb192567c75ef8650ff88bd7.png

 

Also, in troop trains, troopers', but not officers', horses. The latter would be conveyed in passenger-rated horseboxes.

 

*I'm away from my reprint of the Midland Railway 1903 timetable book but this has several column inches covering rates for various domestic and exotic animals in different types of container and vehicle. There's no specific mention of giraffes, though the scale of charges for elephants is given. For the latter, see also: http://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk/documents/RFB05395.pdf

 

Back in the very early days, there do seem to have been different types of wagon for cattle, sheep, and pigs, as the Ackermann print of a Liverpool & Manchester livestock train illustrates:

 

image.png.58c7528cc1f6338fe564b115244971e0.png

 

Note the double-decker sheep wagons. I believe the Highland Railway was using a more modern version of these right into the 20th century - and, indded, they're the usual sort of livestock vehicle one sees on the roads nowadays - though usually triple or quadruple decker, with the unfortunate sheep or pigs looking out at you as you overtake them coming south on the M6.

Edited by Compound2632
  • Like 5
Link to post
Share on other sites

As said all sorts of larger animals were carried in cattle wagons. Including bulls which had to be tethered by their nose ring - and not many in a wagon.

Horses had to be covered during the winter months (the legislation actually gives different start and end dates for different types of the horse family. But the tarpulin had to be lifted in the center line so they could breath!

 

The animals were quite closely packed so they wouldn't fall - and also if the partition could be put in place the price of transport came down.

 

Photos of livestock trains in action are quite rare, but there is a full BTF film of the farm move mentioned earlier.

 

There should be plenty on livestock trains in the archives of RMWeb, often discussed

Paul

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
2 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

As said all sorts of larger animals were carried in cattle wagons. Including bulls which had to be tethered by their nose ring - and not many in a wagon.

 

Paul

The GWR (and others?) had special wagons for Prize Bulls (and other valuable livestock) = "Beetles" so that an attendant could accompany the beasts on the journey.

They could carry up to 6 animals in two compartments of three animals, one either side of the handlers accommodation.

Edited by melmerby
spelling mistakes
  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Ben Alder said:

Sheep were a major part of livestock traffic in parts of the country and were shipped in cattle vans.

 

Our village, on the old Elham Valley line, used to have an annual sheep sale, when sheep from the higher parts of the Downs would be brought to over-winter on lower ground (such as Romney Marsh) . There would sometimes be 100+ wagons awaiting loading.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, melmerby said:

The GWR (and others?) had special wagons for Prize Bulls (and other valuable livestock) = "Beetles" so that an attendant could accompany the beasts on the journey.

They could carry up to 6 animals in two compartments of three animals, one either side of the handlers accommodation.

Examples remained in service into the very late 1960s. They would mainly transport breeding stock from the MMB centres around the UK, and would be supplanted by vacuum flasks.....

  • Like 2
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
34 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Examples remained in service into the very late 1960s. They would mainly transport breeding stock from the MMB centres around the UK, and would be supplanted by vacuum flasks.....

Took all the joy out of being a bull!:(

  • Like 1
  • Funny 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
18 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Livestock of all sorts, including circus animals - though extra was charged if the vehicle had to be adapted or strengthened*, e.g. hatch in roof and ducking mechanism for giraffes:

 

image.png.e855ab75bb192567c75ef8650ff88bd7.png

 

Also, in troop trains, troopers', but not officers', horses. The latter would be conveyed in passenger-rated horseboxes.

 

*I'm away from my reprint of the Midland Railway 1903 timetable book but this has several column inches covering rates for various domestic and exotic animals in different types of container and vehicle. There's no specific mention of giraffes, though the scale of charges for elephants is given. For the latter, see also: http://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk/documents/RFB05395.pdf

 

Back in the very early days, there do seem to have been different types of wagon for cattle, sheep, and pigs, as the Ackermann print of a Liverpool & Manchester livestock train illustrates:

 

image.png.58c7528cc1f6338fe564b115244971e0.png

 

Note the double-decker sheep wagons. I believe the Highland Railway was using a more modern version of these right into the 20th century - and, indded, they're the usual sort of livestock vehicle one sees on the roads nowadays - though usually triple or quadruple decker, with the unfortunate sheep or pigs looking out at you as you overtake them coming south on the M6.

18 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Livestock of all sorts, including circus animals - though extra was charged if the vehicle had to be adapted or strengthened*, e.g. hatch in roof and ducking mechanism for giraffes:

 

image.png.e855ab75bb192567c75ef8650ff88bd7.png

 

Also, in troop trains, troopers', but not officers', horses. The latter would be conveyed in passenger-rated horseboxes.

 

*I'm away from my reprint of the Midland Railway 1903 timetable book but this has several column inches covering rates for various domestic and exotic animals in different types of container and vehicle. There's no specific mention of giraffes, though the scale of charges for elephants is given. For the latter, see also: http://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk/documents/RFB05395.pdf

 

Back in the very early days, there do seem to have been different types of wagon for cattle, sheep, and pigs, as the Ackermann print of a Liverpool & Manchester livestock train illustrates:

 

image.png.58c7528cc1f6338fe564b115244971e0.png

 

Note the double-decker sheep wagons. I believe the Highland Railway was using a more modern version of these right into the 20th century - and, indded, they're the usual sort of livestock vehicle one sees on the roads nowadays - though usually triple or quadruple decker, with the unfortunate sheep or pigs looking out at you as you overtake them coming south on the M6.

In Railway Modeller for April 1990, there is a plan for a LSWR Dragon wagon!

Link to post
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

The animals were quite closely packed so they wouldn't fall -

Years ago SWMBO came with me one day in my truck. It was the first time she saw into a loaded livestock trailer as we passed it, & she saw how closely packed the animals were. She thought I was just as callous as the livestock driver when I pointed out the screamingly obvious; that it was so the animals didn't fall over on corners or braking!!!

Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Our village, on the old Elham Valley line, used to have an annual sheep sale, when sheep from the higher parts of the Downs would be brought to over-winter on lower ground (such as Romney Marsh) . There would sometimes be 100+ wagons awaiting loading.

There are photos of the other end of this operation, with the otherwise unused second platform at New Romney (SER) station being used load and unload these trains. 

 

As for circus animals, the Southern Region had some of their bogie scenery vans fitted with strengthened floors and tie down rings to allow them to transport elephants, as part of circus trains. 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
On 24/12/2019 at 15:37, t.s.meese said:

 Actually, somebody did mention seeing (and smelling) pigs loaded into 3 BR GUVs in the 70s, which was interesting, but not quite what I was after. 

Anyway, any help much appreciated... 

That was probably me, Tim.  I was on my way home to Cardiff from one of my volunteering holidays on the Ffestiniog, so it was '69 or '70, and the GUVs were in the island platform bay at Shrewsbury.  The load identified itself by olfactory means and by squealing like little piggies, boy...  It was a hot August day and best to be upwind of the spot.  The GUVs were quite freshly painted in rail blue livery.  It was unusual and I never saw this anywhere else on any other occasion.

 

I have been avoiding buying a cattle wagon as I've convinced myself that one would never have appeared at Cwmdimbath, but now I'm not so sure...  Maybe a slaughterhouse back down the valley somewhere, shunted on the way up by the pick up so the cattle wagon always appears and disappears empty, the grim point perhaps being reinforced with a meat van.  This is worth doing almost just to wind SWMBO up...

Edited by The Johnster
  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
23 hours ago, kevinlms said:

In Railway Modeller for April 1990, there is a plan for a LSWR Dragon wagon!

 

There is a small Cambrian layout, Llawryglyn, that was at ExpoEM in May, that featured a Cambrian dragon wagon - a Cambrian cattle wagon suitably painted red, loaded with a small Welsh heraldic dragon, breathing smoke.

 

As Dai Station says, "livestock must be conveyed in the proper container".

  • Like 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

There is a small Cambrian layout, Llawryglyn, that was at ExpoEM in May, that featured a Cambrian dragon wagon - a Cambrian cattle wagon suitably painted red, loaded with a small Welsh heraldic dragon, breathing smoke.

 

As Dai Station says, "livestock must be conveyed in the proper container".

There was an occasion, I think the very first ExpoEM, when the rear of a goods train on a certain layout was graced with a toad on a flat wagon, front legs dutifully grasping a vertical brake column.

 

More seriously, cattle wagons got used for other traffic, Cornish broccoli being a well known example.

 

Jim

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...