Freight Train Composition

[MDP78]

I have a copy of a Working Time Table for the Oswestry District for 15 June to 13 September 1959 which I downloaded from the Michael Clemens Railways website some time ago.  My interest is in traffic between Whichurch and Welshpool.  

 

Excluding Wrexham to Oswestry freights, which reverse at Ellesmere, in Down direction there were two daily Class H freights.  An AM Whitchurch to Oswestry, which shunted at Ellesmere for nearly 2 hours, and an early PM Whitchurch to Ellesmere.  In the Up direction (again excluding Wrexham bound traffic)  there are two Class H, a very early morning and another AM freight, both Oswestry to Whitchurch.    I am reasonably confident that the Class H trains would have been an assortment of wagons and vans, based on photographs I have seen.

 

There are two other Up freights that I am less sure about.  There was a 6.55pm WO Oswestry to Whitchurch Class D listed in the timetable as 'Livestock'.  There was also a 7.45pm WX Class F listed as 'To LMR Empties'.  Taking the latter first:

 

1.  Does anyone have any insight as to what 'Empties' means in this context.  Was it 'Empty' as in a working that effectively balances the AM Whitchurch to Oswestry class H and was simply returning empty wagons to the LMR?  Or was this likely to be a train primarily consisting of a number of a particular type of empty wagon?

 

2.  For the WO Class D, I am able to make a reasonably well educated guess that this train included a number of livestock wagons.  Being from Oswestry (although being born sometime after this line closed), I know that Wednesdays is market day in Oswestry, so I assume the train conveyed live animals from Oswestry to somewhere beyond Whitchurch.  What I am less sure about is whether this train would have been made up entirely of livestock wagons or whether this train would have also been made up of livestock wagons plus the the stock that would otherwise have made up the 7.45pm 'Empties' on the other days of the week?

 

Apologies in advance for my lack of knowledge in respect of WTT terminology.  

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by MDP78

[spikey]

Try posting this in the "UK Prototype Questions" forum.